Grace trumps justice

Elly sent me this video today of a woman tumbling 300 metres down a snowy mountain and (spoiler alert) ending up with no more damage than a sprained finger. By comparison, I fell an innocuous metre and broke my neck. Not that I’m wishing an injury on this woman, but …

It goes to show, if you didn’t know it already, that life isn’t fair.

It’s the injustice of life that, at least for me, makes the concept of grace so compelling. Justice is an ancient concept, a virtue that says that one should give to a person what is her or his due. It’s one of the four cardinal (or linchpin) virtues that is meant to colour the decisions and actions of a good person. This explains why many ancient religions applied the notion of justice to God, assuming that if God was good, then people must get what they deserve; the righteous prosperity and the unrighteous damnation.

The problem, as the psalmists and the author of the book of Job noted, was that the logic didn’t seem to work. Evil people prospered and good people suffered.

Some theologians conclude from this that people do get what they deserve. And what everyone deserves is divine wrath, because we are all depraved and utterly corrupted by sin. That anyone at all is “saved” is grace, which is undeserved favour. The problem with this way of thinking is that it makes grace as unfathomable as injustice.

A larger view of grace, however, recognises it as a gift of God’s love that is evident in the goodness, beauty, and wondrous fragility of creation. Grace is said to be both natural and supernatural, the former because the orientation to the good is in all of us, and the latter because the orientation to evil is also in all of us, so we need God’s help. Grace is God’s favour toward us, most potently experienced by his presence in the darkness that is an inevitable part of life.

That this woman survived her fall is testimony to grace. That I am able to flourish with a disability is thanks to grace. That we discover hope in grief is possible because of grace. That we are loved and accepted as sinners is amazing grace. That we find joy in the love of family and friends, who accept us warts and all, is the power of grace.

Life isn’t fair, but if you didn’t know it already, grace can make it beautiful.