The Scandal of Particularity

For such an inconspicuous event as the birth of a peasant child in a stable, the Apostle Paul certainly makes a lot of it. In the opening verses of his letter to the Ephesians, found in our second reading today, he unleashes a cascade of poetic praise to God, grasping at language to capture the magnitude of God’s goodness in Jesus:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ… to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed upon us in the Beloved…. [Blessed be God, who] has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on Earth.

We in the Pacific Northwest have reason to appreciate Paul’s outpouring of praise– it’s like a lush evergreen forest, bursting with life as a testament to God’s exuberant grace– although readers from around the world may find in their own surroundings similar cause for wonder and gratitude.

How can we put into words God’s immeasurable goodness? Paul gives it his best effort: despite our shortcomings, we are “holy and blameless” in God’s sight; despite our distance from God, we are “destined for adoption” as children; despite our losses, “we have redemption,” and despite our faults, “forgiveness.” And all this not on account of our deserving, but “according to the good pleasure of [God’s] will,” according to God’s “glorious grace… freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” These are striking turns of phrase to encapsulate the Christian confession: Jesus– God’s beloved and anointed one, and our teacher and friend– embodies God’s good purpose for the whole cosmos, “to gather up all things… things in heaven and… on Earth” into the unity of God’s love. Alleluia!

But, isn’t it a bit of a reach? Paul’s effusive praise may sound exaggerated as we sit quietly in church on the Second Sunday of Christmas. We are talking about the same poor carpenter’s kid from a backwater town in a remote corner of the Roman Empire, right? We’re talking about the same itinerant rabbi who convened a motley crew of nobodies around simple meal fellowship? We’re talking about the same political prisoner who died in shame, executed by a Roman prefect as a deterrent to other would-be dissidents?

Could it be that Paul is overstating the case for Christ?

It’s called the “scandal of particularity.” How can one person, born at a precise place and time in history– especially given the modesty of his origins and the tragedy of his demise– make known to us “the mystery of [God’s] will… [God’s] plan for the fullness of time”? If God is so great, then why is the story of Christmas, indeed the whole story of Jesus’ life and death, so small?

But if Paul has no qualms about the scandal of particularity, neither does the Gospel writer of John. His account of Christmas is as epic as it gets:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and [what God was the Word also was]…. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth….  From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

What a remarkable proposition, that Christmas bears witness not only to the flickering candlelight of that hushed stable in Bethlehem, but also to the broad daylight of Christmas morning, indeed the light of every morning everywhere. This is the light that illuminates every face and energizes every ecosystem, nourishing all of human and other-than-human life. Through the Word, God creates and recreates the whole world.

And through the same Word, God intends to gather all things to God again. Jesus is the Word of God in the flesh, the one who lives among us to show us God’s heart and to lavish us with “grace upon grace.” Not the least of those graces is the intimacy of our connection to the entire creation; the lush evergreen forest, yes, and the arid desert; the rushing river and the crashing sea; the majestic mountain and the sweeping plain; our connection to creatures of every genus, shape, and size– to Earth and all that is in it.[1]

As it turns out, friends, Christmas is bigger than we could have imagined. Despite the meekness of his manger, Emmanuel– God-with-us– not only reconciles “God and sinners,” as the old carol declares, but he joins God to the world God so loves.[2] “Light and life to all he brings,”[3] that is, to human and other-than-human beings alike. So “let the whole creation cry,” to borrow the lyrics of another hymn, “‘Glory to the Lord on high!’ Heav’n and earth, awake and sing, ‘Praise to our almighty king!’”[4]

[1] Psalm 24:1.

[2] John 3:16.

[3] Charles Wesley, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” Evangelical Lutheran Worship, Pew Edition, #270.

[4] Stopford A. Brooke, “Let the Whole Creation Cry,” Evangelical Lutheran Worship, Pew Edition, #876.