Authors writing about the mystery of God speak about "the scandal of particularity". By this they mean the frequent difficulty that people experience when they try to accept the fact that God should either be concerned with the tiny details of our human lives or share in those details. The Jews were scandalized at the notion that God or heaven could be present in a special way in Jesus. He was a particular man of no particular importance, from a town of no special significance.

This difficulty takes many forms. God became a Jew - and some are scandalized. Jesus was male and lacked all the experiences which are special to women - and some are scandalized. "Take this and eat it, for this is my body" - and some are scandalized to think that God could become mere food and drink, and that our relationship with the infinite and eternal could be reduced to the sometimes embarrassingly too animal function of eating and drinking! Yet part of the liberating truth of God's revelation is that nothing human, no matter how insignificant, is alien to God.