My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
2 Corinthians 12:9b
Perhaps that is not just about us. That’s certainly the context. But maybe that is about God too. Maybe God is more powerful in weakness.
At Christmas we celebrate God incarnate as a fragile baby. Needy and totally dependent on others. Only able to communicate needs through cries. A totally vulnerable, but heartrendingly beautiful creation that would save the world. The infinite made finite. The Almighty choosing to be something that can experience pain, heartache, loss, and death.
It stretches forwards and backwards into time as well. There is the cross: God incarnate laying down his life for the sake of others. That a human being would willingly submit himself to something like that is almost inconceivable. That God would do such a thing boggles the mind.
But go back further and there is perhaps an even more vulnerable choice: God chooses to enter into relationship with us. By opening that door, God allows God’s self to be hurt by humanity: to be rejected, to be hurt. God chooses the vulnerability of being in relationship with humanity.
These events do not mean that God is somehow less. It seems that God is actually something much greater in these moments: relationship, incarnation, and the cross. God does wondrous and mighty things, but it seems the most powerful acts are those that are done in weakness and vulnerability. Likely because love is at the center of those actions. And I doubt there is anything more risky or powerful than love. Thank God.