Jesus and the Christ, Part 4

Jesus and the Christ, Part 4

Christ is God, and Jesus is the Christ’s historical manifestation in time. Richard Rohr [1]

I got married at 33. I was 37 when our first child was born and just shy of 40 for our second. Each of these events, individually and collectively, expanded my conscious awareness exponentially. My life no longer centered around me; my life merged into a larger life. My I became a we, and I learned to weigh my behaviors in light of their impact on a broader life. Becoming an integral part of a life greater than our individual existence requires varying measures of personal vulnerability and self-sacrifice. It changes our self-identity. It is not that the I of my earlier days ceased to exist, but that that I entered a new context, interwoven and interdependent with others. My I did not shrink, but the world in which it exists grew. My conscious attention and the source of my identity expanded from the particular (me) to the communal (family) as I learned my life-interests are inextricably linked to others. I became One with a reality greater than my own.

I share my experience to illustrate the distinction between Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus the Christ. As far as we know, Jesus lived his pre-ministry days in and around Nazareth with his family of origin. His interests, activities, and work were almost certainly intermingled with theirs. Jesus’ awakening, symbolized by his baptism, revealed his membership in a much larger, more inclusive family. He awoke to his status as a child of God and willingly devoted his little I to an exponentially larger we focused on helping others awaken to the family of God, also called the kingdom of heaven. Jesus’ conscious awareness and source of identity shifted from the particular (he and his family) to the communal (the Jewish people) and ultimately to the universal (all of God’s creation).

The universal awareness attained by Jesus has a name: Christ consciousness, which occurs when the apparent boundaries separating physical and spiritual realities fall away and their interconnected unity is revealed. This revelation is the awakening to Oneness with God. It is what some spiritual traditions call enlightenment. To awaken to Christ consciousness is to perceive both what is seen and unseen in our world as well as to understand the interrelatedness of life beyond the time and space boundaries we consider hard limits on reality. Although the title of the Christ is inclusive of time and space, its reach extends beyond both and into eternity. And although the title of the Christ has been co-opted by the Christian religion, the reach of Christ consciousness includes but transcends all religious belief systems. Everyone who awakens to this level of consciousness becomes One with the Divine (God) regardless of religious affiliation or lack thereof. This is where Jesus the Christ consciously abides, and he invites us to join him – in the intimate awareness of our eternal Oneness with and in God, while still physically embodied on earth.

Greg the bachelor, Greg the husband, and Greg the father are different expressions of the same being – me – but in progressively larger expansions of conscious awareness and self-identity. Spiritual growth requires expanding who and what we consider the foci of our life. We finally understand that the only true good is that which is good for all. As our identity expands to include more beings from the greater life around us, our actions tend toward supporting what serves the interests of that larger community. Complete maturity, or consummation, is identifying ourselves with everyone and everything in creation, consciously living out our Oneness. Jesus was there, which is why he preached love for enemies, care for the outcasts and downtrodden, and loving our neighbors. It also explains why he commanded that the good news of God’s reign be carried to all corners of the earth. No one was other to him. After attaining his universally-focused awareness, Jesus Christ focused his attention on maturing the life-experience of all of humankind – Jews, gentiles, Romans, men, women, orphans, migrants – with no exclusions. His awakening had nothing to do with starting a new religion and everything to do with establishing the kingdom of God on earth in ways that transcended national, socio-economic, cultural, and religious boundaries.

We are not called to follow Jesus, the son of a tradesman in Nazareth, any more than to emulate Greg the bachelor. We are to follow Jesus the Christ to Oneness in the family of God. Remembering that Jesus the Christ was once only Jesus of Nazareth makes our transformative journey personal and believable.

This is the 6^thin a series titled Crucifying Christianity, Resurrecting the Way. The opinions expressed here are mine. To engage with me or to explore contemplative spiritual direction, my email is ghildenbrand@outlook.com.

The New/Old Social Pandemic:

Homelessness, Marginalization, and Immigration

By Greg Hildenbrand

The New/Old Social Pandemic is an in-depth exploration of the social issues of homelessness, marginalization, and immigration as the predictable products of outdated, underfunded, and unjust social systems maintained by the privileged of society.

Now available from Greg or any major bookseller.

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[1] Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ, Convergent Books, 2019, p. 19.