christology101

[christology101]

"We may put on Jesus Christ in imagination, placing ourselves not at the foot of the Cross, not before it, but upon it, with head bowed beneath the inscription, wearing the crown of thorns, pierced by the nails, feeling the cold, rough wood between our shoulders. In short, we can make our own the sphere of vision and the emotions that were His, seeing with His eyes and feeling with His heart, remembering, judging, and foreseeing with Him so that, still in this same sense of imagining that we have changed places with Him, it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us."

A. G. Sertillanges, 1930. This, and this alone, is how we should approach Him and His teachings. Humble, forsaken, forgiving, and through the deepest suffering feeling only love. Yes, easier said than done, but if more people today would even step into this role for a few seconds, to see through His eyes, then crime would disappear, anger would fade into the ether, hatred and bigotry would seep into the ground and out to sea, and all manner of judging others would flow softly into the blood draining into the ground and dissipating into the earth never to be felt or spoken again. We can do better. We must. We truly must love each other, for only affinity and connection has allowed us to survive and thrive, and fear, anger, and hatred destroy all affinity and connection because they thrive on divisiveness and death.

#jesus christ #christianity #god #love #god's word #christian ideals #A. G. Sertillanges #The cross of Christ #bearing the Cross

[christology101]

Nowadays we no loner recognize to what degree the doctrine of Jesus was subversive. Imbued as we are with Christian principles, which governed human thought for centuries, we have no idea how strangely new they were in the eyes of a Jew in the age of Tiberias."

A. D, Sertillanges, 1932, Today we want to sugar coat the Word of Christ, to warp and shape it for political means, to use Him as a weapon against others, and we forget the Love and Peace He taught and promoted, most specially towards people and groups perceived as enemies.

#A. D. Sertillanges #jesus christ #christianity #christology #god

[christology101]

From the poor man we learn that all who suffer curses and injustice among us will stand before us in that other life.

St. John Chrysostom, written before the year 400... We see people every day, we pass them by, and we ignore or curse them. Poor, different races, creeds... they will stand before us when we depart this earth. Also I believe so will the animals, the simplest and purest souls, stand before us in the next life. We would do well to remember that.

#christianity #jesus christ #st. john chrysostom #christology

[christology101]

Path of ease...

It’s so much easier to tell people what to do rather than actually do it and live it yourself, to hold others up to standards and rules/laws you cannot measure up, and to try to legislate and put rules, laws, and punishments in place than it is to actually walk the walk.  How many of us, in all deepest soul-searching, can throw those stones?  Live up to those same rules...  It’s easier to speak ill of other, to judge them, when you haven’t even tried to walk a few feet in their shoes, let alone a mile.  We wear WWJD messages, yet it’s easier to show it rather than do it and live it.  Sooo much more is expected of us than a cursory or judgmental glance at our fellows in this life leading to the wonder of the next.  Let’s walk in His shoes, and let’s not sit at the foot of the cross but instead throw ourselves up there in His place to truly feel and know the magnitude, value, and pain of that sacrifice.  Let’s be better with each step, each breath, each meeting...  May God’s light shine on you and then through you onto others.    

[christology101]

Love, Trust, or Faith...

We use these terms and throw them out with reckless abandon when we speak of Christian beliefs, of the life we’re supposed to lead, but I wonder how often we deeply consider these three words.  How often do we look closely at what Christ says, how He walks in these three, and what is demanded of us in both the Old and New Testaments?  Do we spend the quality prayer and meditative time exploring our relationship and acceptance of the deeper meanings, demands, and truths of these terms?  Which one, if possible, is more important, the glue for the others?

Over the last few weeks and months, I have reviewed these carefully in the Light of the Word.  Yes, we are called to Love the Lord with all our hearts...  Do we?  I thought about my relationship, and realized that although I profess that Love, that I try in my worldly boots and days, to show it, my love is not Love.  It falls drastically short.  Why?  Is it a lack of Faith or Trust? 

Notice in Psalm 4:5, we are told to “Offer the sacrifices of righteousness AND Trust in the Lord.”  

This and every other reference to Trust strike deep into my soul, deep in my heart, and send shivers through the marrow.  I have no doubt I love the Lord, but sadly it has not reached the level of Love, of True Love.  Why?  Is it lack of Faith?  Maybe, if I connect Faith to Trust.  Do I trust the Lord?  Again, I might say I do, but when it comes down to it, do I?  

Sadly, the answer is No, and I suspect it is for almost all of us.  If we really trust Him, then we turn everything, and I mean everything over to Him.  We don’t just walk or talk our own path, we don’t pass by those in need, we don’t legislate belief and overbearing laws [legalism enforced], and we don’t spend just a few minutes with Him in the morning and evening.  Trust means that we believe He has our best interest always in the forefront, even if we cannot see it through death, pain, loneliness, suffering, loss, and any number of maladies.  Trust means that we do not consider the joyous things as rewards or gifts, but as natural consequences in His plan for us, equal to the sad things that occur.  

There’s a delicate balance here.  First we need to Trust God, PERIOD!  That Trust and our Love for Him, our Devotion to our relationship to Him and not the world around us, these demonstrate in each and every breath, each step, each utterance, and each touch or glance, that we have Faith in Him and walk in His Light.  

Just a little food for thought.  Trust in the Lord.  Fully Trust Him.  All things follow.  

[christology101]

From fanatics of faith we hear beneath their unquestioning affirmations of God the shrill sound of their repressed doubt. It is repressed, not annihilated.

Paul Tillich, “The Eternal Now”, 1963.   Listen closely, and you’ll hear it... 

#paul tillich #religious fanaticism #religion #doubt #repression

[christology101]

Burning within, flowing outward.

It’s been on the edge of my tongue, so-to-speak, for many months, perhaps years.  Tonight, in deep prayer and meditation, asking and opening myself up to what God wanted from me, which direction He wanted me to go, He steered me back to writing and to helping set His people free from the bondage of this world.  

Here is what flowed forth in the 12 minutes of rapid typing and opening up to His Will, not mine:

I need more from you. If you are to fulfill yourself in me, in this mere mortal life, I need more from you.

I call you not to pass laws to force people to bend to your will, to what you perceive as My Will. This is the vilest form of legalism and allows you an excuse, a dark path away from Me and deeper into the world and its ways. Wherein did My Son, My Emissary and Missionary among you, who called you to me with Love and a beacon of Light and Truth, wherein did He exalt the need for laws or call on you to pass laws and attach to the world’s legal systems or try to somehow sway them to Me?  

I call you not to judge and heap judgment upon others, even in passing glances or in placing yourself in any way above others.  Did I not say that he who is least or last shall be highest or first?  In this life, every judgment, even the simplest ones that mark someone in your world’s heart and spirit, sets you farther from Me and farther from the Truth and Path.  

I call on you not to attach yourself to political powers, even at the smallest or seemingly harmless levels.  Beyond the idolatry it demonstrates, beyond the ease with which you have used this excuse throughout time, from the moment you demanded a king, an earthly leader, it says you replace Me and My Will, My Divine Power with an earthly one, even one feigning to rule and control in My name.  When you do so, you attach yourself to Rome, or you attach yourself to the Sadducees and Pharisees, no different from the those who fulfilled My Will in murdering My Son.  

I need more from you.

I call you to live every breath of your life through Me.  I call you to be a beacon of light and truth, to let My Light shine through your every deed and word, that you would shine out as models of love, caring, kindness, and all the wonders that are Me as shown clearly to you in My Son, Jesus Christ and in My Word before and then through Him.  

I call on you to be brave and to trust Me.  Have the courage and wisdom to trust Me.  Be emissaries of and for Me, and do not persecute others in My name, for that is the most vile form of judgment and Satan’s lie [in which he brings you deeper, in his sly ways, into the world and its ways, into the shams and feints that purport to be Me but are farthest from Me].  

I need you to be more. It is not easy, which is why so many fall off and away, so many seeds planted, but so many landing on rock, flowing away to the sea, or falling upon hard and infertile ground.  The Life is in Me, as it was, as it is, and as it always and eternally will be.  Be the Light, and do not mock Me by dimming the Light I placed within you and try, with every trial and tribulation to bring forth and rekindle and build upon so that the world may know Me through you, and you may know Me better through opening up to Me and turning away from the enticements of the world.  

Satan teases you, and he gets you to join in the world’s ways to try to make things more like he wants you to think I want.  Be warned, yet again, that the devil himself can speak with a sweet tongue, but he is always a deceiver.  He gets you to think that laws, that judgments, that world leaders of all manner are the way, the path, and the truth, whereupon nothing could be farther from My Truth, from My Will.  

Call upon me as I call upon you.  As I call you to be more, to be greater than the mere legalistic world, the simple solutions, and the world’s ways, if you ask for help, it is yours, joyously granted. Be the Light, not the shaft of darkness trying to reflect a dimmed and perverse version of Me and My Will.  Be more like my Son, in whom I was always, from the Alpha to Omega, most pleased.  Follow in His footsteps and be not afraid.  Satan’s greatest fear is that you listen to Me, and that you cast away his seemingly reasonable and godly enticements, and that through the way you walk in this life, the way you show the Spirit is within and living Truth is within you and radiating freely and openly, and that you demand more of yourself and I need more from you and that you become the powerful lamp to light the path for those lost in the world and its ways.  To walk girded against the evils and enticements all around you, to stand aside and in the holy place when the abominations start to grab power and dominions, this is the Light and will sustain you to BE the Beacon to all the lost.

Know that I am God. Trust Me, and allow Me to work freely in you and your spirit that you may show the way to all those who see or hear about you,

In those glorious smidgens of Light, each ray can rekindle the downtrodden faith in others and bring them to Me for eternity.  

I need more from you.

[christology101]

Whatever we do, it is to Christ we do it.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 1933

Might make us behave a little better if we kept this in mind...  

#Jesus Christ #Christianity #pierre teilhard de chardin #integrity

[christology101]

I made myself limitlessly humble, as docile and tractable as a child, so as not to run counter in any way to the least desires of my heavenly guest but to make myself indistinguishable from him, and through my submission to him, to become one with the members of the physical organism which his soul so completely directed.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 1916.

I have not the courage, well I have not been brave enough to surrender, so thus the courage, to take this incredibly important step in my own evolution and cycle upwards, awakening and enlivening the divine particle within my being.  Many people who speak with me, who read my works, or share time with me believe I have and that I am on the right path.  For mine own part, I know my inmost soul and know I have not surrendered and become or allowed myself to be “as docile and tractable as a child.”  As such, like all-too-many who’ve attached themselves to some aspect, however dimly lit, of the world, I cannot “make myself indistinguishable from him,” but instead make myself all-too-often indistinguishable from the world.  Tonight as I ease myself to sleep, read scripture to set that in motion, to quiet the calls of the world and reawaken the Word within, my prayers will focus on manifesting this courage that He has already place within me.  May you find your way to limitless humility.  

[christology101]

Eternity...

A few questions for us to think about as we explore our faith and beliefs, as we test our mettle.

1. Is the soul eternal?  If it is, that means it is timeless, into the past as well as the future, all of which don’t really exist in a timeless environment. If not, well, we have other questions.

2. Before we even get to souls and eternity, another question is vital.  Why is their life?  Why does life exist at all?  Now, beyond creation or evolution or a hybrid of those, why would there be a God in existence?

3. This begs the most intriguing and perplexing question: Why is there anything?  Why is there existence of a particle?  Of any little thing or big thing, even a cosmos or a God?  

We have to think these through, explore what we believe, and then we can look at life’s purpose, how we treat others and so on.  

#Christianity #eternity #existence #creation #evolution

[christology101]

We want men to rule the nation who care more for and love better the nation's welfare than gold and silver, fame or popularity.

Brigham Young, 1925.  

An ever-expanding element of the present day GOP apparently feels the urge to attack and destroy this idea, or to cloud it in a faux idea of patriotic welfare riddled with nonsensical dogma, rooted in the special interest groups and paid pundits.  

It speaks volumes to why Mitt Romney so often looks like a stand alone voice against the icons of gold and silver, fame and popularity presently both haunting and taking over the GOP, replacing it with their own ideologies and worldly ways.  

#Brigham Young #fame #wealth #republicans #Mitt Romney

[christology101]

The gods can either take away evil from the world and will not, or, being willing to do so cannot; or they neither can nor will, or lastly, they are both able and willing.  If they have the will to remove evil and cannot, then they are not omnipotent.  If they can, but will not, then they are not benevolent.  If they are neither able nor willing, then they are neither omnipotent nor benevolent.  Lastly, if they are both able and willing to annihilate evil, how does it exist?

Epicurus, 300 B.C.  

Certainly a very powerful statement and question, and one anyone who believes in a deity or any sort must be willing to explore and probe to its depths and breadths.  Discussing this, looking at it from various angles, and dealing with this very important criticism requires we remove our fearful and defensive emotions and listen, think, and work our way through it. 

#Epicurus #evil #benevolence #omnipotence #beliefs

[christology101]

All empty souls tend to extreme opinions.

William Butler Yeats, 1936

In the US, and for that matter the world, we see all manner of empty souls, all claiming righteousness and piety, screeching conspiracy theories and extreme opinions, all in the names of their various and often variable truths and worldviews.  They are 100% indebted to the world and its ways for their extremes, and many of them are, sadly, lost souls who excuse all manner of evil, cruelty, injustice, and ungodly behavior in their pursuit of the vain justices of the world [sometimes barely clothed in some biblical tidbit where they fail to see and understand that the devil quotes scripture]. 

[christology101]

The conformism that threatened Jesus most effectively and brought him to death was the religious conformism of his time.  And the situation was and is not different in the church. For the Christian churches also belong to this eon, although they witness to the coming eon and represent the coming eon in time and space."

Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now, 1963.

[christology101]

Christianity was founded on the teachings of a prophet who was put to death as a blasphemer and social menace, hence any Christian ready to put someone else to death as a blasphemer and social menace is assuming that Pilate and Caiaphas were right in principle, and should merely have selected a different victim.

Northrop Frye. The Educated Imagination. 

We might do well to pause and think carefully before we critique others, judge them, call for heads or punishments, or screech some form of Christian pseudo-doctrine...  

#Christianity #Jesus Christ #northrop frye #pontius pilate #caiaphas

[christology101]

All things pale before Eternity...

Here’s something very few people ever grasp.  All things, your hates, your political ideologies, your opinions, your fears, and even your loves and cares pale before eternity.  People think or believe they grasp it, but when their lives and their actions and statements are held up to it, there is zero evidence of even the faintest understanding of this idea let alone a grasp of it. 

If you believe in a Christ-centered view of life, then you need only follow one primary doctrine - love, actually Love, and Love like Christ.  This matters.  It makes existence tolerable or perhaps even nice and pleasant for others, and likely for you.  Treat others better than you want to be treated, and all else flows caringly from that.  

If you don’t believe in that, that’s okay as well, but then ruminate on this for a little bit.  What will your little life matter, what will all your screeches, posts, and worries matter in the face of eternity, forward and back in time?  I mean seriously...  It’s the lack of a real imagination that can put this in its place, can imagine clearly the minuteness of your existence in the grand scheme and universe, that we are nothing but a speck of dust on a speck of dust on another speck of dust in the flicker of a millisecond in the history of the time of our own planet, let alone the vast and boundless universe.  

So, put your ego aside.  Put your desire to get the last word, to spew anger, and to cast dispersions upon others aside, put your political angers, fears, and hates aside, and try to just get along, love each other, and try to help others see the value in a Christ-centered, or at least caring and civil, behavior and walk into eternity with a smile on your face, a clean and clear conscience, and with the faith that you knowingly did harm to none.  At least that.  

Remember always: All things pale before Eternity. 

#Jesus Christ #Christianity #eternity #love versus hate

[christology101]

Man’s justice versus God’s justice...

To provide some easy perspective, there is no time in the New Testament where Christ relies on man’s justice in His walk, that is until the end when He required it in order to fulfill His mission of salvation.  In the Old Testament, there are very few instances of man’s laws and systems being effective and actually just.  Throughout the Bible we see time and time again the injustice, the failures, and the hubris of man’s laws, almost all of which attempt to usurp God’s will and plan [whatever that may be, because these justice systems and people acting on their behalf all-too-often claim to know God’s plan and His justice and espouse that they are simply fulfilling His will - for which there is no evidence].  

Let us take a primary example.  According to man’s laws, both political and religious, Christ was charged, convicted, failed on appeals, and then executed all in accordance with man’s various systems of justice.  It is not one system, the King of the Jewish state, Herod’s system, that acted alone.  The Sadducees and the Pharisees, acting as the religious authorities and supposedly with God’s blessing and knowing His plan, also convicted Christ.  His last appeals, unto the Roman system and local customs, also fail to free Him and simply do their duty, do their part.  

So, Jesus Christ was justly charged, tried, convicted, and executed, all in accordance with four judicial and governmental systems of justice.  At every turn, Christ refuses to acknowledge their positions, saying, “It is as you say...” and He does not recognize their authority over Him.  He is, for lack of a better term, a radical and revolutionary, but not in the way the powers that be believe Him to be [He will not raise an army to destroy them on the battlefield, He will not assassinate leaders or attack cities, and He will not simply wave His hand and destroy all the evils and replace them with all the goods].  

What does all this tell us?  

1. It tells us that no matter what system of justice we have in place, it cannot knowingly or presumptively act according to God’s plan [for they cannot possible know His plan or timetable - it is, like God Himself, unknowable and unseeable, except that He should manifest Himself bodily]/

2. It tells us that we cannot make our justice systems in His image, and any attempts to do so is an abomination and usurpation of God’s will. 

3. It tells us that Christ does not recognize man’s laws and authorities, does not recognize man’s judicial systems no matter who is in charge or claiming authority.  

4. It show, quite aggressively, the purest and most pious failure of man’s judicial and governmental justice systems - that their flaws demonstrate the foolishness and folly of our ways. 

In all this, we see a Christ, a triune God, who simply ignores man’s justice systems and governmental entities.  God does not live in our laws and processes.  He lives by and with His own will and plan, not upon ours.  His ways are not our ways, and it must be almost laughable for Him to see us try to make our courts and systems somehow in His image, or to pass laws to force people to behave like some groups believe Christians and people should behave [given His aggressive and overt statements against any forms of legalism].  It would be laughable if our immortal souls were not on the line, not at risk by twisting and trusting man’s laws to work in whatever way we think God’s laws should be.

Not much has changed in 2000 years.  Religious justice systems abound, and our very own Supreme Court now moves in that direction, which is utterly contemptible in His eyes, but we do so many evil things in His eyes and ways that this is merely icing on the cake.  So-called justice systems do not meet out justice.  They meet our punishment and pain to alleviate other people’s pain and suffering, not the model of Christianity there.  

In order to maintain a civilized and safe society, we do need both a justice system and a governing body, and so we create these entities to allow for a more peaceful existence.  However, claiming these powers and positions, decisions and justice to be from God is a vile corruption of His Word, Deeds, and Sacrifice.