Week 1—Tuesday John 1:14-15
Week 1—TUESDAY
DID GOD HAVE TO BECOME HUMAN?
We ended yesterday with the question: Did God have to become human to show himself? Wasn’t there some other way? A less expensive way? A less humiliating way?
Well, there are number of ways God might be revealed. God can be revealed through nature. But not perfectly. I look up to God through nature and come to the conclusion that God is Law. But the revelation is a very impersonal kind of law. The discovery of atomic energy has driven many thoughtful scientists to God. From whence this awe-ful energy, so awe-ful and so law-abiding? All this drives humans to a dependable Creator. But that energy tells you little about the character of God except God’s might. Said a chaplain, “That plane holds more power than was expended in the last war.” But the revelation of God’s character in an atom is questionable. That atom can burn millions to ashes, or it can lift the life of millions to a higher level if it is harnessed to the collective good. The character of God revealed in the atom is morally neutral. The song we sing, “How great Thou art,” tells of looking at the stars and hearing the rolling thunder and concluding that God is “is great,” but “great” in what? The stars look down on us, indifferent as to our moral character, and the rolling thunder and the flashing lightning may hit a brothel or a baby with no moral discrimination. So nature’s revelation of God is equivocal.
Then God is revealed through prophet and teacher and sage, but not perfectly, for the medium of revelation is imperfect and the message coming through that imperfect medium partakes of that imperfection. Besides, it is the Word become word—verbal.
Then there is the method of revelation through a book. We must be grateful for every inspired word which has come down to us through a book—grateful, but not satisfied. For two reasons: first, a book is impersonal, and God is the infinitely Personal; second, a book is the Word become word, not the Word become flesh.
O Father, we search through various ways and various media to find you. For we are homesick for you. For you are our Home, and apart from you we wander from thing to thing and from place to place seeking, seeking. Our hearts are restless till they rest in you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I shall be an imperfect medium, but nevertheless a medium, through which people can see God today.