Jesus the Man and the Christus

Jesus the Man and the Christus;

I can think of no other debate that is so confused in any of the Religions. 

That Jesus the Man existed is without question. We have Jewish, non-Jewish, Roman and secular writings to that effect. We know he was born about 5 or 6 BC because Herod died in 4 BC and we all know the story of Herod ordering the firstborn sons of the Jews to be murdered.

Jesus the “Christus” is a different matter entirely and the battle wages on with extreme rancor and violence and a nastiness without precedent.

Even the writers of the Christian Gospels were confused.

Mark, The Jewish Disciple of the Apostle Peter, writing about 60 AD begins his Gospel with Jesus submitting to John The Baptist’s baptism for remission of sin. Very human.

Matthew, the Jewish Tax collector and follower of Jesus writing about 70 AD and the most “Jewish” of the authors begins his gospel with the human lineage of Jesus back to Abraham, to give credence to Jesus’ Jewish credentials to fulfill Jewish prophecy

Luke the Greek disciple of Paul, most probably a physician, writing around 80-90 AD, begins with the appearances of an angel foretelling the birth of both John the Baptist and Jesus, as messengers of God. Decidedly more “Christus” than the earlier two.

But in John, an actual disciple of Christ’s most probably, and writing about 100AD The die becomes cast.

John 1:1-15 RSV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God; 3 all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.

9 The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. 11 He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. 

As a young student I hated this gospel and this beginning because it was so esoteric and confrontational.  Now that I understand it I love it.

Several theologians have sought to make a difference between the pre-Easter and post-Easter Jesus, the one perhaps human and the other divine. The distinction escapes me.  Whether Jesus is a human prophet of God or the divine son of God we could never know or prove. But I don’t think it matters to his ministry or prophet-hood or status. They would not change regardless of his emanation.

It seems to me now that John was correct in pegging Jesus as eternal ‘Logos” of God. (Logos is the Greek word for “Word” but means more than just word.) When Jesus gives his two greatest commandments, “Love God with your whole soul and whole mind and being and love your neighbor as yourself” he then claims;

  ……Matt 22:34-40 RSV

34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sad'ducees, they came together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, to test him. 36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" 37 And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets."

As an older man I began to understand this perspective and saw how apropos it was, that we as humans require God to interact with us in human terms….that justice can only be satisfied with an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; that Law must be stated, written down, canonized, and published; that infinite love, mercy, the attributes of God must be humanized to be understood.

I remember Job again, at the end when God finally shows up and says to Job, “who the hell do you think you are you little piss ant.  You require me to adhere to your sense of equity and fair play? Go screw yourself!”

From this perspective it was easy for me to divorce Jesus from claims of being “The Son of God” in the sense that Christians usually think about salvation. I began to realize the blood sacrifice of death on the cross to appease God and reconcile God with Man was a great narrowing of God. It was, however, in the Jewish tradition of that time which saw ritual sacrifice as one means, perhaps THE means of atonement.

Once again, humans imposed on God the requirement that He adhere to our version of atonement/reconciliation, and our version of justice.

The Jews bring us the concept of Monotheism.  Perhaps their greatest contribution; one God and only one God for all, everywhere at everytime. What colossal arrogance to then claim that God speaks only to me through Jesus, or Abraham, or Buddha or Krishna, or Mohammed or the Bab. The “logos” of God as John defines Jesus, is a universal concept by definition. 

My task then became to find the universal “Logos’ presented by any Avatar of God. And there it was…..with Rabbi Hillel challenged to stand on one leg to give a summary of Torah, and saying “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  The rest is just commentary.”

I found it in many ways from many people;

Simply put, their philosophies  each reflect the words of Christ when he said -“Love God with your whole heart, and Love your neighbor as yourself, and upon these commandments hangs all the law and the prophets”, unlimited compassion in, perhaps, its finest expression yet echoed or preceded by many others, such as;

                RABBI Hillel- ---What is hateful to yourself do not do to your fellow man

                Mohammed----One cannot be a believer until he wishes for others what he wishes for                 himself.

Confucious and Mozi his disciple---Others must be regarded like the self and this love must be all embracing and exclude nobody.

How are the religions of the world doing with that?  

Which religion today reflects that goal? Certainly not Christianity, with its inherent denominationalism, and intolerance of homosexuals and others. It is astonishing when one realizes that most religions in the 21st century still favor the subjugation of women.  It is even more astonishing when one realizes Genesis 1-26 offered and earlier version of creation with no Adam nor Eve, no temptation, no subjugation of women as defined in Genesis  chapter 2, with humankind being created “male and female alike”, and the earth given as a reward to husband rather than the realm of Satan to be abandoned.

In fact none of the current religions measure up because they are the product of Men, beholding to all that that implies.

So today, and every Sunday, and when I preach, I seek the Logos and find it rooted only in Love. Not in belief structures, not in Dogma, not in labeling, or branding or requirements. It matters not to me who brings the Logos or the manner of bringing. All that matters is the universality of God and the knowledge that I cannot discern His Mercy, His Love, His purposes ,or Him. One can only define God through the Logos of Love. There is no other measuring stick available to the human mind.

This explains Jesus passion for political dissidence, and why he spoke most often about the “Kingdom of God” , an earthly paradise where the umbrella of love was cast over all politics, religion, temples, economics, education, commerce and ethics. The kingdom of God brought to earth. Ultimately this is what killed him, not some divine mandate but the simple fact that the Romans and Sanhedrin couldn’t stomach a political reformer who was claiming we were all equal and rooted in love, non-violence and were, in fact, our brother’s keeper whether in the temple or without. A paradigm you exhibited when you offered the Rabbi some tips on passing his interview. You have offered me, a non-Jew, the same help over the years.  You are a good man Charlie Brown

Sorry for the length of this.  I hope you do not find it specious or pedantic.

Blessings, my friend.

John (aka Rabbi ben Middleton)

Heaven Hell and How to get there

Heaven, Hell and How to Get There

So there I am lying on my back on the operating table waiting for them to put in a new pacemaker, when I hear one attendant say to the other…… “do you have the turkey baster”?.............and although my tongue doesn’t work, I’m thinking, “O my God, they’ve got the wrong patient!”

Then I hear one guy say “OK, turn off the old pacemaker”…….I really don’t feel anything until I realize this old damaged heart of mine has gotten a little slower. 60 beats a minute…..then 50….then 40….30……and I begin to wonder if that is how it will end? Not so much with a bang or a whimper, but rather winding down like an old clock whose mainspring is gone.

Then I wake up with a new pacemaker beating 60 times a minute and my smiling wife saying “See that wasn’t so bad.  Think of all those folks going through heart transplants “.  I have too many tubes and cords wrapped around me to be able reach her throat and strangle her so I say, “aren’t we blessed.”

But I start to think a little more about life……...and death. Not ever a question of If….. but when. 

I remember as a young boy being told St. Peter would meet me at the gate to heaven.  There I would be at the end of that long line and Pete would come up and say “What’s your name BOY!!”  I always thought of Peter as some big bellied Arkansas sheriff carrying that big Ticket Book of Life around with him.  

Pete says :    I asked what is your name boy”

I answer:       John P. Middleton

Pete looks down at the book searching and then says,  “ HO, HO, Ho, Ho, you’re  one of them BARGAIN people aren’t you.

I say,  Bargain people?

Pete says:  Yeah you made a bargain with God……..you said “I can’t keep ALL your commandments so I’ll just keep SOME of them….

I say,  uh Peter I’ve lived a good life…..

Pete says, The book records that you said I’m not gonna murder anyone ……………and after age 13 or so I’ll keep the thievery down to a minimum……….  And the coveting and lust……………well son, this coveting and lust business……..

I say, “Now wait a minute Pete”

Pete says: Oh son I’m only on page two………your livin’ in that house and we got people living under a bridge…..we got people starvin’ and look at you boy….you ever hear of gluttony?.......Are you sure you are in the right line??

Are you sure you are in the right line? …………………. The right line.

As if, as the church taught me, my personal behavior resulted in a ticket to heaven…… or hell. As if my motivation for being good and loving was some sort of unknown prize in the afterlife…………. Even if I make it to heaven, It is gonna take me about twenty years to learn to play that damned harp……..then what will I do?

Is that harp the belief Christians held in the First Century before Christianity, the religion, …….. almost exclusively developed by men…..decided we needed a Canon, a Bible,  a hierarchy, an earthly boss, like a Pope………a church building and some land……. some words like….. heretic…or non-believer…….maybe a silver chalice or two and gold trimming….….lots of gold trimming……and great… big… buildings.

In the first century, heaven and hell were not the object or the “deal” in the way we think about them today. The Romans said about first century Christians. “what is the matter with these people, they really Love each other”. The Romans could never understand the first century Christians.  They were A THREAT…… due to their non-violence and their demonstrative love for one another.

That is what First Century Christianity was all about.  Loving one another regardless of our beliefs or faiths or nationalities, or color, or religions…….. recognizing that we all had the same goals and needs regardless of who we were or where we came from or what we believed. The first 100 years or so of Christianity had no New Testament, no specific hierarchy, no canon except the Old Testament, and no heaven or hell as we understand it. Because heaven or hell wasn’t IN the Old Testament………..Belief-----Faith----Truth----- was all about loving one another.

Of course, what that first century did have were all sorts of letters and gospels floating around, all sorts of people telling you how to be spiritual, all sorts of rumors of what God wants of us, no consensus, except the remembered message of Jesus to “love  one another”.  And that “upon this commandment hangs all the Law and the prophets.”………….. The church was confused………………. And so it did exactly as men do when confused, they created a structure. They created a structure that told you not what to do, as Jesus had, but what to BELIEVE. How to toe the line, join the crowd, embrace the creed, and call yourself a this or a that.

Fellows like Tertulian and Origen, names you probably have never heard of, said there is too much suspected misinformation floating around out there.  We need to decide what it is that Christians BELIEVE.  What belief is acceptable and what is not. We don’t care if you act in Love, we only care what it is that you……. Believe!!!!!

In 312 AD Constantine, the so-called Divine Emperor of Rome, made Christianity the official state religion…..largely for political purposes…….He said, under his breath, “let’s gerrymander the voting areas to include that bloc of Christian voters who can help me control the empire.”

By 325 AD, at the Council of Nicea, the die was cast…..only unmarried men in the pulpit….an initial list  of the official books of the bible….deacons, bishops, elders, all the structure of beliefs and hierarchies of what was to become Christianity for the next 1,700 years.

The religion of Christianity changed Christ’s message of love to a human message about what we need to BELIEVE  ……in order to be saved. 

And so, our contemporary Christian gospel is primarily INFORMATION ON HOW TO GO TO HEAVEN AFTER YOU DIE through belief structures.

with a very large footnote about increasing your personal happiness and success through God.

with a smaller footnote about character development

with an even smaller footnote about spiritual experience

and a miniscule footnote about social/global transformation through love.

How did the Christian church get it so wrong?........so…….. backwards?

C. S. Lewis said “The doctrine of Hell is the worst thing that ever happened to Christianity”.

There is a long list of people, happenings and events, that contributed to the confusion. Augustine, who formulated the doctrines of the fall from grace, hell’s structure, in the fourth century.  Dante and Milton in the 13^th and 17^th centuries, who created a view of punishment and hell that was structured and terrifying.  The third, Abrahamic religion, Islam, boasts a view of Hell that is beyond frightening and ghoulishly terrifying.  Chiefly for non-believers.  It is all about belief, the acceptance of Allah and the presence of an active SATAN omnipresent in our lives actively tempting us toward the dark side with an ultimate cost of either heaven or hell.

Heaven and Hell simply wasn’t Christ’s message.  His message was about what we do NOW!

His message was about living, not dying. We were told to pick up the man lying bleeding by the side of the road as The Good Samaritan did, not because of any reward, but because it was the right thing to do. The priest passed him by. The good citizen passed him by. All of humanity might pass him by unless you stop to help him.  And what reward do you get? It’s going to cost you a couple night’s lodging for him and the doctor’s bill’s, and the time…….let’s not forget the time you have to invest. And you may never see him again.  He might not even say thanks……………..and he’s smelly and dirty and no value to you……..You may even be a little afraid of him………better walk on by…………you have better things to do.

At its root core Christ’s message was about The Kingdom of God, the thing he most talked about. The thing he most emphasized. He even talked about it resulting in a “new” earth.

But humankind heard two different Gospels.    

      

The Gospel the churches heard …….The Gospel of saving individual souls from hell, and abandoning earth to Satan and destruction.

Or the Gospel of Jesus ……about saving earth Including individuals and creatures from the results of human sin and greed through the action of Love.

The church…………….. and some of our current politicians. I might add……God save us all….……….. bought the former Gospel……………. The one where in the end Christ returns……………….. with a flaming Chariot preceeded by a host of divine warriors, and he brandishes the flaming sword of justice on all of us and exacts his full ……and final….. divine …..retribution!!!

Not my God.  Not my Jesus.

My God is a God of mercy ……not justice.  Because, If we all get what we deserve we are in serious trouble.

Mercy, not Law……Mercy, not wealth……Mercy, not anger…..Mercy, not position or power or fame or influence or riches……Mercy………Love.

I don’t even have to be a Christian to understand what Jesus was teaching…..what do the Humanists think about a real world where no one goes hungry…..no one is in despair because there is always new hope.…..a world where children are protected, not abandoned. Where there is no murder, no war, no suffering, no division, no hatred……..no need…….just love.

Pie in the sky….Pollyanna alive and well…….pipe dreams……Some churches would have us believe that.

Just leave the bleeding man there.  Don’t get involved.  I got mine now you can go get yours……get a job…………….don’t dwell in the kingdom of God, choose an abundant life for yourself instead.

The Humanists heard Jesus message. The dignity and worth of each individual…and, of course, each and every humanist practices love all the time, on a daily basis……..in spades………………....….don’t they?

No one can know about heaven or hell.  Is it there?  What does it look like? Tell me!!….I need to know…………………………….….But I can’t know….can I……..what is the fate of good or wicked people?

With the rise of the cult of Osiris during the Middle Kingdom of Egypt followers of the pharaohs were given the prospect of eternal life, with moral fitness becoming the dominant factor in determining a person's suitability. At death a person faced judgment by a tribunal of forty-two divine judges. If they had led a life in conformance with the precepts of the Goddess Maat, who represented truth and right living, the person was welcomed into the Two Fields. If found guilty, the person was thrown to a "devourer" and was condemned to a lake of fire.

Zoroastrianism has historically suggested several possible fates for the wicked, including annihilation, purgation in molten metal, and eternal punishment, all of which have standing in third century Christian writings.

In classic Greek mythology, below Heaven, Earth, and Pontus is Tartarus, (Greek “deep place)” . It is a gloomy place, a pit or abyss used as a dungeon of torment and suffering that resides within Hades (the entire underworld) with Tartarus being the hellish component. 

So Christianity had a rich pre-tradition of Hell bound bad guys

What did Christ mean when he said to the good thief, “this day thou shalt be with me in paradise.” Where and what is this paradise? Did the writers of the gospel conjure up the idea of Hell from the old Jewish concept of Sheol a holding place? …….Or the Greeks….or the Zoroastrians?

Perhaps my favorite definition is from the modern existentialist author Jean Paul Sarte who postulated "Hell is other people".

Hell is also spoken of in the Bible, but its nature is even more sketchy.  When Jesus described the destiny of sinners who refused to change their ways, he compared it to Gehenna, which was a rubbish dump outside Jerusalem.  People in wretched poverty picked their way through it to find scraps, and fires burned 24 hours a day raising a horrific stench. 

Church leaders of medieval times took Jesus’ picture of wretchedness literally.  Dante, then Milton, foresaw a judgment after death in which the wicked were thrown by devils into flames or some misery, while obedient churchgoers were lifted by angels into bliss.  Pictures of this divide can still be seen on the walls of ancient churches.

Today, those who seek to understand what the Bible means when it describes Hell are –hopefully, more likely to consider the complete misery of being separated from God…….That would be a spiritual desolation equivalent to the woe that Jesus could see in Gehenna. What it seems……. to modern progressive theologians…….. is that Jesus meant being cast into the outer darkness….alone, end of existence, no future, no hope….that is hell in modern theology. Take a look at the book “The Fire that Consumes” by Edward Fudge if you really want to understand biblical Hell.

But heaven????  THE IDEAS ARE BOUNDLESS. Which is right….who knows?........  Is it a place? Who knows.  Does it even exist?.....who knows…….we have no control over it or our fate after death. Wherever, whatever it is……. the faculty of reason can’t comprehend it.  We are then left with Awe….Mystery…..Reverence……Wonder  and all those other words that so poorly describe…….. FAITH.

Is it true that good little boys and girls go to heaven and bad little boys and girls go to hell?....... I don’t know, but I choose through faith to believe in Heaven, in Peace, in Bliss… and in Shantih…the peace which passeth understanding.

“GOD KNOWS what the public will think,” wrote Charles Darwin to fellow naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace in November 1859. Darwin’s celebrated work On the Origin of Species had just been published, and he was resigned to the fact that his case for biological evolution would be controversial, and his world of only the strong surviving while the weak are………….. dinner…a bit ……..dismaying.

I can’t tell you about heaven.  I can tell you a little about My Faith or why I believe what I believe.  I’m not sure whether it will be as good as what you believe or why.  But I can tell you what kind of a world we would have if everyone were to practice compassion and mercy, ecology and love.  OH!...what a place that would be ……..Like heaven on earth. Like Jesus Kingdom of God on earth……like “thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” 

Our earthly goal ought not be some amorphous reward in heaven…..but what can I do today to improve the lives of others. To create a heaven on earth.

You have the right to decide.

You can wish for a better world….. a heaven on earth….or not.

You can learn more about compassion…….or not

You can learn TO HAVE COMPASSION FOR YOURSELF, AND EMPATHY FOR OTHERS AND MINDFULNESS ……….or not.

You can begin to have concern for everyone………or not. You can find a way to not just love your enemies, but see that they are not enemies at all. That  they are just like you…………or not………or not.

John P. Middleton
Feb 2013