The Paradox of Grace

Devotional Reflection, Monday, April 1, 2024

Monday in Easter Week

The Rev. David W. Perkins, Th.D.

Key phrases for reflection from today’s reading:

10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

You will find the full text of today’s epistle reading at the end of this reflection.

Daily Office Lectionary Readings (BCP, 959)

AM Psalm 93, 98; PM Psalm 66

Exod. 12:14-27; 1 Cor. 15:1-11; Mark 16:1-8

David’s Reflections

Paul penned these lines fifteen to twenty years before Mark, the first of the four Gospels, was written.  Here we find the most nearly complete and the most historically suggestive list of appearances of the risen Christ (admittedly, not exhaustive, because he omits the appearances to the women).  Paul himself had subsequent visions of Jesus, and Christians through the centuries have reported such experiences.  However, Paul classed his initial encounter with the risen Christ as the last post-resurrection appearance, thus differentiating between that encounter and subsequent visionary experiences.  (See 2 Corinthians 12 for his report of a later visionary experience.)

This list seems strictly chronological.  “First . . . then . . . last of all.”  His account agrees with the Gospels that among the Twelve, Peter received perhaps the first post resurrection visit to an Apostle.  This does not, of course, take into account, appearances to Mary Magdalene and other women, reported in the Gospels. Evidently, those were the initial appearances of the risen Lord, the appearances to the women. Their prominence suggests a move toward a larger role for women in the earliest communities, compared to their less prominent role in the surrounding culture.

Paul testifies at the end of this reading to the power of the grace of the risen Christ in his life and ministry. “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

In his classic work, God Was in Christ, Donald M. Baille responded to this statement (and it’s analog in Galatians 2, “I have been crucified with Christ; nevertheless, I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me.”)  by articulating the concept of the paradox of grace. This paradox offers a window through which to view the relationship of the divine and the human in Jesus. I tend to resist reading long quotations in books and articles and, even more, citing them for others to read.  But, if you persist in digesting this one, the benefits will outweigh the inconvenience.  Baille wrote:

. . . while there is a human side to every good action, so that it is genuinely the free choice of a person with a will, yet somehow the Christian feels that the other side of it, the divine side, is logically prior.  That comes first, and in a sense that even covers the whole.  It is not that we could divide the honors between God and ourselves, God doing (God’s) His part, and we doing ours.  It cannot even be adequately expressed in terms of divine initiative and human co-operation. . . . We are not marionettes, but responsible person, and never more truly and fully personal in our actions than in those moments when we are most dependent on God and (God) He lives and acts in us.  And yet the divine side is somehow prior to the human. Whatever good there is in our lives and actions (and it is but fragmentary) is “all of God,” and it was (God’s) His before it was ours, was divine grace before it was human achievement, is indeed a matter of God taking up our poor human nature into union with (God’s) His own divine life, making us more truly personal, yet also more disposed to ascribe  it all to (God) Him. *

Two observations come to mind in the afterglow of Easter Day.  Embracing the resurrection in faith does not come easily.  Jesus’ contemporaries were not expecting the resurrection. They found the empty tomb and the embodied risen Christ challenging to believe.  In the biblical understanding, to conceive of resurrection as anything other than the transformation of Jesus’ dead body is to think in categories other than those of resurrection. That we struggle so with this and offer so many alternative theories evidences the profundity of the challenge.

Second, God’s grace that worked in Jesus works also in us in an analogous fashion.  We can no more delineate where God’s activity ends and ours begins any more than we can where the divine ends and the human begins in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.  Today’s lection ends with that haunting, mysterious note.  “I worked . . . yet  not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”  With Paul we can testify, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”  And we could add that by that same grace we will become what God would have us become.  So to affirm, and so to live expresses the hope of Easter that we have been and will keep on living as those risen with Christ  (See Colossians 3:1-3).

* D. M. Baille, God Was in Christ:  An Essay on Incarnation and Atonement (New York: Scribner’s, 1948), pp. 116-117.

Collect of the Day, Easter Day

O God, who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.  (BCP, 222.)

Monday in Easter Week

Grant, we pray, Almighty God, that we who celebrate with awe the Paschal feast may be found worthy to attain to everlasting joys; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.  (BCP, 232-33)

A Collect for the Renewal of Life

O God, the King eternal, whose light divides the day from the night and turns the shadow of death into the morning: Drive far from us all wrong desires, incline our hearts to keep your law, and guide our feet into the way of peace; that, having done your will with cheerfulness while it was day, we may, when night comes, rejoice to give you thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.  (BCP, 99)

For a Birthday

Watch over your child, O Lord, as her/his days increase; bless and guide her/him wherever she/he may be. Strengthen her/him when she/he stands; comfort her/him when discouraged or sorrowful; raise her/him up if she/he falls; and in her/his heart may your peace which passes understanding abide all the days of her/his life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen  (BCP, 830)

A Prayer for Light

Lighten our darkness, we beseech you, O Lord;  and by your great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night;  for the love of your only Son, Jesus Christ,  Amen.  (BCP, 111)

A Collect for Mission

O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh; and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 100, 257)

Daily Office Epistle, 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

15:1Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, 2through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain. 3For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.

Daily Offices in The Book of Common Prayer

Morning Prayer, Rite 2, page 75, The Book of Common Prayer

Noonday Prayer, page 103, Book of Common Prayer

Order of Worship for Evening (Vespers), p 109, Book of Common Prayer

Evening Prayer, Rite 2, page 115, Book of Common Prayer

Compline (Night Prayer), page 127, Book of Common Prayer

Daily Devotionals, page 136, Book of Common Prayer