Who is Christ?

I have written and spoken many times about the vision of Christ that sees him as "Logos" of God. The Greek word "Logos" is literally translated as "word" , but means more in the Greek. It can mean, Avatar, speaker, prophet, teacher and other interpretations. The writer John sees Jesus as "Logos" when he says "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God."

Logos then can be interpreted as meaning the manifestation of god IN HUMAN FORM bringing God's words to all of humankind.  I will use it that way when I use the word "Logos".

Let me first state that to see Jesus as the ONLY bringer of God's word may be the way a conservative Christian might see Him, but I do not share that view.  Here's why. The Buddha brought many great truths in his search for universal compassion.  So does Krishna, or Lao Tze. To avow only Christians have the truth is to say God cannot manifest Himself to others in different ways.  Even if we deny the essential Christian arrogance of that position, simple geographics and demogaphics would tend to deny it. When God appears to a far away culture he would do so in response to that culture, not to some westernized version, don't you think? Otherwise he might be incomprehensible to the listener. Not exactly what "Logos" is all about.

Even Shakespeare, not a clergyman at all, speaks a universal truth when he attests, "this above all to thine own self be true and it must follow as the night the day, though canst not be false to any man."

So God appears to humans primarily through scriptures, through nature, and through the community of diverse believers in many different oral and written traditions. That diversity works in God's favor.  He can make himself known to the greatest number through diversity.

Where then does that place Jesus?  Are we saying Jesus is no different than Krishna? Not at all,  They are very different yet very similar. Even Islamics see Moses as the Law bringer, Jesus as the Love bringer and Muhammed as the Truth bringer. Three manifestations of God in their opinion.

I want to focus on the love aspect of Jesus.  As Love bringer, he brings, in my mind the highest order of awareness and instruction to us. There is no other prophet or Avatar who loves more. It was his single greatest commandment that regardless of what the "Law" said we are to LOVE God and one another and that "ON THESE TWO COMMANDMENTS HANGS ALL THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. Clearly He is the Love bringer.

When someone brings us Laws or a set of tenets one claims to be true, one abandons love for dogma. That is the exact reason Jesus taught the greatest commandments listed above. Law and dogma can never replace what is in your heart.

I believe God is love.  And so the expression of love made known by Jesus is no doubt God's word in my mind, the "logos".  What other tenet would God propose?  Certainly not Law or a belief structure!

Am I saying one must be a Christian to be saved?  Absolutely not. Christianity is a religion, human made, human driven and human flawed with wars and hatred and dominance in full measure. I am saying one must be spiritual and manifest Love regardless of one's religion I am saying that Jesus TRANSCENDS religion, and is UNIVERSAL as is God.  The Islamic jihadist or the Hindu caste of the untouchable would be unacceptable to the love ethic of the Love Being, or God. But that does not mean one cannot find God through Hinduism or Buddhism, one certainly can, but only through the love ethic of those faiths, not through the war ethic that exists in all religions.

To suggest that Buddha or Gandhi or many others of those eastern faiths were not spiritual and in tune with the Love ethic would be patently wrong. They found spirituality and closeness through God by means of the Love ethic through other faiths.

I am a Christian because I am a westerner. But also because first Century Christianity was about Love, called "The Way" by those people. There is no higher aspiration to my mind than love.  Exactly what Christ taught, and Buddha, I might add.

So who is Christ? The most perfect provider of the Love ethic, the Love bringer, and, as such, a means of salvation. In fact, as Love bringer, the ONLY means of salvation.

What about Christ as something more than Love Bringer or teacher? Isn't He the savior and redeemer, didn't His blood, shed for us, provide us with the means of "salvation"?  I might argue that His incarnation and resurrection were supremely more important than His death, but I have no problem with his bloodshed on our behalf. 

Buddha was the only one who made it through life unscathed. Krishna, Christ and many others were sacrificed at some level. But, lest we begin to worship dogma, let us be careful what we mean when we say Christ "died for us". I believe it was to restore the path to God broken by the Jews continual turning away from God and disinterest in the message of the eighth century prophets. What He restored was the Love relationship with God. The turning of the heart regardless of what was written in the Law. That is what His baptism of the heart is all about, not whether you were dunked or sprinkled, but your personal Damascus road experience, that moment in time when you said, "I get it!  Thank you God!"

Does that mean we never sin again? Surely not!I can personally attest to many days spent "over the line". But spirituality is about relationships as Jesus told us.  Relationships with God and Humans.  We cannot be spiritual when we say "you cannot come to my church or receive communion because........"!

We cannot claim spirituality when we swoon in an aroma therapy class. It is too personal and has no relationship value.  It is all about ME!  How I feel. What's good for me...not spiritual.

Similarly when the Islamic jihadist says, "I feel spiritual when I kill Jews", we need no scripture to tell us that is wrong because it is not about positive loving relationships.

We cannot violate the love ethic and call ourselves spiritual people, the two must go together.

We Christians have bought into a Christian belief structure which clearly violates God's love command on any number of levels. We practice all sorts of unloving tactics. Some allegedly Christian churches say, No women in the pulpit, no gays allowed, or perhaps silently, no Blacks allowed. None of which would please Jesus I would surmise. What possible benefit is it to exclude someone from practicing worship?  What possible benefit to exclude a whole sex from preaching their faith to us?

So we need to think further about this love bringer, this savior who restored a broken relationship with God.  When we claim he is God's son or the second person of the Trinity but only applying to we Christians, we have set up a dichotomy between a single, universal God and a Christian limited Jesus. If God is universal so must be Jesus or he is not LOGOS.

I would argue he is universal through the love ethic. That is his teaching, purpose, prime reason for being, our means of salvation. How we then worship Him becomes a entirely different procedure perhaps than what we are familiar with.

We need to stop thinking of Christ the PERSON and start seeing Him as Christ the Logos.  Love bringer as the means of "saviorness".

His death on the cross is symbolic of the death of the old Law and the birth of the new Love. That is the thing for which He should be worshipped.