There is a line I’ve used more than once in sermons, pastoral visits, and the occasional hospital corridor ramble: “Sometimes the grace of God needs skin on it.”
What I mean, of course, is that God’s mercy, love, and tenderness often arrive not in thunderclaps or angelic choruses (though I wouldn’t object to a cherub or two), but through ordinary humans doing extraordinarily kind things — sometimes completely by accident.
I’ve been thinking a great deal about this during my latest chapter of “Don in the Hospital: The Miniseries.” When one is lying flat on a bed that seems to have been engineered by a committee who never actually tested it, there is ample time to ponder the ways God slips into our day disguised as people who are, frankly, no more qualified to be angels than the rest of us.
The Grace of the Unintentional Saint
Take, for example, the nurse who came in one evening to take my vitals. She was cheerful, energetic, and utterly convinced that I had the blood pressure of “a man ten years younger.”
Now, this was all highly encouraging — until she added, “Of course, the machine is acting up again, so who really knows?”
Still, I’ll take the compliment. Grace with skin on sometimes comes wrapped in a faulty blood pressure cuff and a well-meaning grin.
The Ministry of the Man Who Brought the Wrong Tray
Then there was the young fellow delivering meals who regularly brought me the tray meant for another patient entirely. I would stare down at something described optimistically as “beef stroganoff,” while my actual gluten-free order was no doubt being enjoyed by a bewildered gentleman down the hall.
But here’s the grace: the young man would always clap his hands, laugh at himself, and say, “Well, sir, someone is eating better than usual today, even if I haven’t the faintest clue who.” Then he’d run off down the hall to rescue my gluten-free meal before it was gone
There is no theological term for this kind of compassion — the compassion that simply shows up, smiling, apologizing, and bringing with it the faint whiff of institutional gravy — but it is grace all the same.
The Compassion of the Cleaner with the Gift of Prophecy
One of the housekeeping staff, upon seeing me trying to reposition myself without disturbing the increasingly complicated system of hospital wires, tubes, and medieval torture devices attached to me, simply patted my shoulder and said, “It gets better, love. It always gets better.”
I am almost certain she was quoting the Book of Common Sense, chapter 12, verse 7 — one of the lost texts of Scripture we clergy wish we had. But whether she knew it or not, she was proclaiming gospel truth: God sends comforters who know nothing of theology but everything of kindness.
The Theology of Human Tangibility
There is something profoundly Anglican — and profoundly Incarnational — about discovering grace through the very ordinary humans around us.
God did not choose to love us from a distance.
God took on flesh.
Moved into the neighbourhood.
Ate with us.
Cried with us.
Healed us.
And, very possibly, chuckled at us.
So it should surprise no one when grace comes walking in wearing scrubs, or delivering the wrong supper, or whispering words of comfort entirely unsanctioned by any formal liturgical text.
We often pray for signs, miracles, or radiant epiphanies. But most often, the Holy Spirit nudges someone nearby — someone tired, someone worried, someone late for their break — and says, “Go. Be kind. And don’t worry, I’ll handle the rest.”
A Final Story (Because Grace Is Contagious)
Just yesterday, a volunteer — one of those indefatigable souls who looks like she’s been fueled exclusively by goodwill and lukewarm church-basement coffee — paused in my room. She didn’t have to. She wasn’t delivering anything, collecting anything, or checking anything.
She just stepped in, smiled, and said, “You look like you could use a little cheer.”
Then she handed me a tiny handmade card with a cheerful sun drawn on it by a local primary school class. The sun had seven rays, one eyebrow, and what I think was meant to be a smile but looked suspiciously like it needed dental intervention.
It was perfect.
Grace with skin on — and with a box of crayons.
Nothing Fancy, Just Love
These small, human gestures — unpolished, unplanned, and sometimes unintentionally hilarious — are where I’ve seen God most clearly this week.
Grace doesn’t always come robed in splendour.
More often it comes wearing sensible shoes.
It comes carrying a mop, or a food tray, or a half-functioning blood pressure machine.
It comes through people who don’t even know they’ve been deputized into divine service.
And it always comes at just the right moment.
Thanks be to God for compassion found in unlikely places — and for the beautiful, stumbling, hilarious ways we become grace for one another
Grace With Skin On
Let us pray.
Gracious and ever-present God, we thank you that Your love does not stay distant, hovering somewhere beyond our reach, but comes close — close enough to wear human hands, human humour, and human imperfection.
Thank You for the quiet angels who show up disguised as nurses, cleaners, volunteers, and all who carry kindness without even knowing it.
Bless those who bring comfort unintentionally, who share compassion without training, and who reveal Your grace in smiles, apologies, mismatched meal trays, and words of encouragement whispered in passing.
Teach us, O Lord, to recognize You in these ordinary saints, to welcome Your presence in the gentle interruptions of mercy, and to become, ourselves, grace with skin on — for those who are weary, frightened, lonely, or in pain.
Make our laughter holy, our clumsiness redeemable, and our small acts of tenderness a window into Your great love.
And as we continue our own journeys of healing, grant us patience, wonder, and the ability to see Your light shining in all the unlikely places You delight to inhabit.
In the name of Jesus, who became flesh so that we might know Your heart,
Amen.