Week 13—Monday Hebrews 2:8-9
Hebrews 2:8-9
“HUMANITY SEEKS THE IDEAL . . . IN A PERSON”
We saw yesterday that persons, words, concepts, and principles have to be constantly reclaimed and regenerated by contact with a Higher Illustration, by the Highest Illustration, by the Word become flesh. “As literature can never rise higher than life,” so words and principles can never rise higher than the life that surrounds the literature. For persons, words, concepts, and principles sink to the level of surrounding life and get their content from that surrounding life, unless renewed by contact with and surrender to Higher Life.
As Ernest Renan says: “Humanity seeks the ideal, but it seeks it in a Person, and not in an abstraction. A Man, the incarnation of the ideal, whose biography might serve as a frame for the aspirations of the time, is what the religious mind sought.” The only one who fits that is Jesus Christ, the Word become flesh. He turns the abstract into the concrete, the ideal into the real, the Word into flesh.
The word “love” is an illustration. Jesus redeemed the word, put the content of his own love into that word. So much so that the early Christians had to reject the ordinary word for love, “eros,” for it meant sex love, and chose “agape,” into which was poured the love that Jesus illustrated and taught. Here in Japan, where I write, my interpreter in speaking before non-Christian audiences hesitated to use the Japanese word for love, for it meant only sex love. The word had not been in contact with Jesus and hence was unredeemed.
We in the West have to go back to the Greek word “agape” to get the meaning of the word “love” redeemed by Jesus. Jesus redeemed the word “agape” by putting into it his own illustration of its meaning—agape love is Christlike love. For he puts universal meanings in it. Dr. F. R. Barry has said: “Jesus did not do everything good that can be done. He revealed the nature of goodness.” Jesus did not do every loving thing possible, but in his acts and attitudes and words reveals the very nature of love. Look at him, listen to him, live with him, and you know what love is.
O Jesus Lord and Example, we look at you and now we see a universe in a word, the whole meaning of life in a sentence. We look at your life and we see Life! We listen to your truths and we see Truth! We watch your ways and see the Way! We are prostrate at your feet. We thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Close to him today all my eros will be converted into agape.