Week 16—Sunday Revelation 1:1-2, 5-6
Revelation 1:1-2, 5-6
THIS SETS THE CHRISTIAN FAITH APART
We saw last week Jesus was the Supernatural, but he was naturalized in the natural, for the natural was made by the Supernatural and for the Supernatural. This sets the Christian faith apart. In The Mystery Religions and Christianity, Samuel Angus says:
The Logos of the Stoics was a pure abstraction, the inspiration of which would touch only the enlightened, and of their ideal Wise Man Plutarch declared, “He is nowhere on earth, nor ever has been.” The Logos of Philo was merely a Hypostasis [something imposed on the situation] or, at best, never stepped beyond the limits of personification. But for Christians “the Logos became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory,” an advantage which Augustine declares he could not find in any of the competitors of Christianity.
Since the Word became flesh, now flesh has become Word. Nature speaks of him:
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but His voice; . . .
—JOSEPH M. PLUNKETT
We quoted an ancient papyrus on which was a supposed saying of Jesus: “raise the stone and thou shalt find me; cleave the wood and I am there.” And we may add: Raise the facts of nature and you will find him there; cleave your tissues and you will find his laws written there; consult your nerves, your organs, the laws of your relationships, and they will tell of him. The Lord of life is in all life as its life, when it departs from him it dies—it lives when it lives in him.
O Jesus Lord and Master, we see you in Galilee and by the Ganges; see you on the Mount of Transfiguration and on Mount Fuji; we find you wherever human need is found, and when we serve them we serve you. I reach out to touch you and reach too far—you are within. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Since I see you everywhere, I shall take you everywhere, to everything.