I’m reading A Surprising God: Advent Devotions for an Uncertain Time by Thomas G. Long. I came to this book hoping to find an Advent devotional we could share in together next year. So far I have not been disappointed. I was inspired by this paragraph:
“As a priest friend said to essayist Anne Lamott, ‘You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.’ We do not get to create Jesus in our image; thankfully Jesus Christ comes to restore God’s image in us. The Jesus who comes to us is wider in mercy, deeper in grace, more tender in compassion, more powerful in justice than our small imaginations could ever expect.” [1]
Wider in mercy, deeper in grace, more tender in compassion, more powerful injustice. I have a hard time reconciling Jesus’ mercy, grace, and compassion with his justice. I want all four, I just don’t see how it’s possible to have all four. I think Long is onto something that hints at the answer: my imagination is too small.
[1] Thomas G. Long and Donyelle C. McCray, A Surprising God: Advent Devotions for an Uncertain Time (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2021), 37-38.