Week 39—Sunday 1 John 4:19-21
“THE OFFENSE OF PARTICULARITY”
A doubt begins in some minds. It is this: Can the Universal God be revealed in a particular happening, in a particular period of history, in a particular country, in a particular Person? Can you pack the Universal in the Particular? Does not the Universal need the Infinite Mold? Does not philosophy then with its universal concepts become a better medium to express the Universal than the Word became flesh? This question expresses what Dr. J. S. Whale calls the “Offense of Particularity.” But it is through the knothole of the fence of particularity that we see the vast vistas, the universal. You can only see the Universal in the Particular.
You cannot tell whether a thing is true by considering it abstractly. You can only tell whether a thing is true when you see it operative. Put it under life and see what life does to it, and then you can tell whether it is true or false. Jesus gave that test: “You will know them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:16)—the outcome is the criterion. “So live,” said Kent, “that every act of yours could be a universal norm. “Jesus did that—he so lived that every act and attitude of his could be, and is, a universal norm. The highest adjective descriptive of character, in any language, is the adjective Christlike. We can apply it to God or persons and nothing higher could be said of either. This universal had to be seen in the particular—in Jesus. He is the Universal Concrete.
When India wanted to pay her highest compliment to her highest son, Mahatma Gandhi, they called him “the Christlike man.” Why not the Buddha-like, the Krishna-like, the Mohammed-like man? Because in them, the particular-in-particular was seen. In Jesus the Universal-in-Particular was seen. The Word became flesh and then the flesh became word—and what it said was: “Universal.” The Everywhere came into the Here, and the Here was Everywhere!
O Jesus, you are the Universal become the Here. And through you I see the Universal. And what I see sets my heart afire to see more. To whom else shall we go for you have the words of eternal life? Eternal life speaks in your life and we ask no more. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: If the Christian movement is a lay movement then I will be at home there.