On Advent and Christmas
Posted on | December 29, 2005 | 7 Comments
I was at church on the second Sunday of Advent this season and the pastor spoke about the child of light coming to the earth. I thought that discussion was very enlightened for any Christian church today. He used a story about some high-school kids on a retreat camping in the mountains and noticing how bright the stars looked. Their retreat leader changed their perspective by stating, “the stars aren’t so bright – it’s the world that’s very dark.” He went on to say that it is our role as Christians to reflect the light of Christ into the darkness of the world around us. This got me thinking.
I thought first about the whole idea of pinpoints of light in the darkness. Most of those points of light are actually VERY powerful, blazing stars in the vast darkness of space. I thought maybe the Pastor’s thought about our duty to reflect the light of Christ into the darkness of the world may have missed the mark a bit. Instead of reflecting the light of Jesus Christ, maybe our role is to BE a light in the darkness – like Christ. After all, isn’t the point Jesus was trying to make simply that there is a Christ in each of us waiting to be found and brought back to God’s light? Christ in you. Christ in me.
It’s easy to see why the reflection idea is important, after all, the brightest lights in our Earthly darkness are the moon and the planets in our solar system that actually DO simply reflect the light of the Sun. Some of the brightest people around us seem to reflect the light of the Son. But are the people who simply reflect the light of Jesus more powerful than those individual sources of light that happen to be farther away, but bring a light of their own to far larger volumes of darkness? I don’t know the answer, or if one answer exists. Maybe at times we are called to be sources of light in the vast darkness, and at sometimes we are called to reflect a relatively brighter light for the path of a relative few closest to us who are wandering in the darkness. Maybe we need to be doing both at all times.
The Christmas service was themed around the light of God becoming man. The original celebration was on the winter solstice, when light physically returns to warm the Earth in the form of longer days. The Christmas liturgy makes far more sense when examined in this context. This time our new Senior Pastor was giving the message, and correctly themed his message as one of Christmas being a time to remember that the light of divinity descended into human-kind. Predictably, but no less disappointingly, the orthodox Christian interpretation of this idea – that the divinity descended into that one baby – Jesus of Nazareth – and no other human was the substance of his message. I believe this misses the actual message of Jesus Christ, which is unsurprising, because most of his messages were misunderstood by even his closest companions. I believe that his message was that divinity descended into him, as it has into ALL humans – he was different from most in that he was able to tap and appreciate his divinity to help others, while most of us simply don’t recognize our personal spark of Christos.
What if Christmas was understood? What if Christmas was a reminder of the divinity in each human instead of a story of God’s divinity descending ONLY to one man who lived for around 33 years over 2,000 years ago and hasn’t been back since? How much better would our world be if each of us were accountable for the spark of divinity God gave us?
I think the world would be a far better place if each of us recognized this responsibility – it might even be a Heaven on Earth.
Here’s how I might order these ideas: ancient, pagan traditions celebrated the literal return of the sun, which gradually took on a divine persona. Christianity introduced the idea that humans can also be a source of divine light, but the darkness of the church has clouded this idea. Recently, as indigo children and other higher light forms have become more common on earth we are (again?) working to clear away the cloud and embrace our divinity.
That’s an interesting, very distilled (and I like distilled…) summation. I don’t know if I’d use the “indigo children” classification, but that’s probably my ignorance on the topic coming through. Rudolph Steiner (founder of the Waldorph Education system) had some great thoughts on this topic – basically putting this down as another evolutionary step of human kind. Of course he also said that step went to clarivoiance, so I’m not sure I can get all the way there with him. He had some very involved Christian metaphysics happening too. His ideas were based on an actual historical Jesus Christ who was actually crucified, but that this event was cosmic in scale and implication. I’m not sure I can get there personally (yet?).
Also, my core feeling on this topic, and what infuriates me the most about organized Christianity today is that it removes the personal accountability from the equation. Seemingly saying “Christ took care of everything – just do as the Church tells you and you’ll be OK…”
I read a great article (or series of articles) in The Edge several years ago that explored/explained the tragectory of human existance. I wish I had saved it, but the essence of what I remember is that there are seven stages and that humans are not only individually working toward becoming one with God (as mentioned in your June 12 post) but that all of humanity is trying to evolve toward higher light forms, i.e. divine states of being, and that right now the entire planet is again at a doorway to a higher level of existence. The indigo children (from the little I’ve read) and others have come in vibrating at a higher level and by doing so are raising the vibration of the planet. Those you can’t handle the higher level are leaving (dying) or staging rebellion (terrorism) while the rest of us are trying to shift our internal frequencies to keep up. I think the Cultural Creatives are leading the way in the external affairs of life, just as indigo children and enlightened healers/leaders are providing the example in the internal affairs of life. The article looked at the long arch of human history. We’re not the first to try to move forward, we’re just moving through the next door.
I can see Steiner’s idea in so far as the life of the historical Jesus has rippled through 2,000 years of human history. That’s cosmic. But you’re right, each person still has to be accountable for their own evolution.
I’m going to see if I can find those articles…
I’d love the link to the articles if you find it!
The “seven levels” could roughly correlate to the 7 lower Sephiroth of the Kabbalah Tree of Life.
http://www.crystalinks.com/kabala.html
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