Week 37—Monday Matthew 11:2-6
Matthew 11:2-6
“MY DEEDS . . . ARE MY CREDENTIALS”
We said yesterday that the real break of Christianity with Christ was that Christianity has been, and is, organized around the Word become word, verbalism, while Christ is the Word become flesh, vitalism. The creeds are verbal, and if you can repeat them you are correct. But the fact is that the only creed you believe in is the one you believe in enough to practice. Your creed is what you act upon daily.
The Communists taught that this unity of creed and practice is something which they invented. But the New Testament is filled from start to finish with this—it is its theme. In a hotel in Moscow, I asked a waiter why the dining room was so empty. He replied, “These officials eat in their rooms so they can have their vodka and their women without anyone seeing them.” Only Jesus could say, “Nothing have I done in secret.” His life was an open book. From the simple deeds he did day by day people saw universal meanings. His attitudes and words and deeds suddenly became luminous with meaning—universal meaning. We know nothing about the universal except as we see it in the particular. We see the character of the universal God in the character of this particular—Jesus. Jesus could say, “My deeds done in my Father’s name are my credentials” (John 10:26, NEB). “My deeds . . . are my credentials”—the Word become flesh.
A professor wrote in the Bibles of the students graduating from a theological seminary: “And the Word became flesh.” It was a flourish at the end of a course in which for four years the Word had become word. It was a flourish but not the working force. It was a postscript and not the body and soul of the course.
When someone asked Mahatma Gandhi for a message to Gandhigram he replied: “My life is my message.” But he finally gave in and gave a message, “Success attends where truth prevails.” The message and the man were one.
O Jesus in you, the Message and the Man were one, speaking the same thing, for they were the same. Truth prevailed in you for you were so truthful that you were Truth. Teach me your secret—your secret of the Word and the flesh—one. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “My life is my message”—if so what does it say?