Practicing Grace: Devotion for December 8

Eugène Delacroix painted more than 9,000 works in his lifetime, but one of his earliest pieces—Orphan Girl at the Cemetery—continues to tug at hearts. Delacroix himself understood the ache of loss. Believed to be the illegitimate son of diplomat Talleyrand, he was orphaned at 16 and lived much of his life supported by others. When I look at this painting, I think not only of sorrow, but of the vulnerable places in all of us… and of the grace we need from one another.

That grace is captured beautifully in a true story from 19th-century London.

Two pastors served near each other, and one of them ran an orphanage. The other, seeing the difficult state of the children who arrived there, made a comment that was later twisted into something hurtful—that the orphanage itself was in terrible condition. The pastor of the orphanage took this as a personal insult, and on Sunday he responded from the pulpit, criticizing the other pastor. Word spread. Newspapers picked it up. And the following Sunday, the curious crowds packed into the accused pastor’s church, eager to hear his fiery rebuttal.

But that rebuttal never came. Instead, he skipped the sermon completely.

He simply took an offering—for the orphanage that had publicly shamed him. The plates had to be emptied three times because of the overwhelming generosity. A few days later, the orphanage pastor knocked on his colleague’s door.

With humility he said, “You practiced grace on me. You gave me not what I deserved, but what I needed.”

What a line. And what a challenge.

Can we practice grace on each other like that? Can we choose kindness over vindication? Restoration over retaliation?

What we are invited to remember is that Christ practiced grace on us first. As Paul writes, we were reconciled to God through Christ “while we were still enemies” (Romans 5:10).

Gandhi once said, “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” Jesus invites us to stop blinding one another. He asks us to believe that it is better to be kind than to be right. And he reminds us that we, too, do not receive what we deserve. We receive what we need—Christ himself.

May we practice grace with that same generosity.

Pr. Laurie Neill 

Featured art: Eugene Delacroix, Orphan Girl at the Cemetery, 1823-24, Musee du Louvre, Paris.