Response to Lesson 3: Denise L. Graves
1. Lamb of God: Christian Traditional vs. Course in Miracles
In my tradition, God was portrayed as a father with one son. That son was Jesus. God loved Jesus and God loved the world. The world was so corrupt that something had to be done to make it better. Early in creation time line, God caused a flood to separate the good from the bad. Noah and his family were considered good and were saved from the 40 day rains that flooded the earth and killed everyone. However, after Noah’s family repopulated the world, the world became bad again, so God decided to send the purist person to earth, that person was Jesus. Jesus was everything God wanted all human beings to be. However, the world did not like Jesus and the power he possessed so leaders conspired to cause Jesus pain and kill him. God knew that if the body/life of Jesus was offered as atonement for sins, then humankind would be sorry, shamed and convinced that the life Jesus lived was the holy life God wanted from them. They, then would repent from sins and asked the essence of Jesus to live in them. When this occurred the person was considered saved and guaranteed eternal life. I was taught to imagine God as an earthly parent who surrendered his son for a cause that would bring salvation to a lost world. The process of this sacrifice was assaultive, complicated and bloody. The blood of Jesus became the symbol of sacredness for all who adored and surrendered their life to Jesus. My faith used my value of family as glue to honor God’s ultimate sacrifice/surrender of its own “DNA”/son/offspring. The idea of sacrifice of something so innocent as a son or feeble immature sheep held me hostage to the ritual of identifying with pain as a way to please and convince God and faith leaders that I truly surrendered and honored such a priceless gift. This kind of timidity disguised as humility brought a life quest I could never accomplish or complete. That quest was to be holy, pure and true enough in the eyes of an authoritative God, faith and inconsistent faith leadership. In that came the life practices of focusing on pain and suffering as the perfect expression of Christianity.
The Course in Miracles portrays the “Lamb of God” as a symbol of perfect innocence. It says that perfect innocence is absolutely indestructible. It can never be threatened, changed or destroyed in any way. It further says that sacrifice is a notion totally unknown to God (chapter 3:1 p4). Therefore, God could not sacrifice Jesus. To me this means that God lifted up the light of Jesus as an example of what is possible when all of the offspring of God live in the awareness of their innocence. To date the Course in Miracles does not address the logistics of the Christian – Jesus body treatment by the Jews. So in the absence of a countering of the assault process I am thinking the following:
1. Jesus did exist
2. God was the mother/father
3. Jesus’ death like human bodies do
4. We are all the sons and daughters of God who are charge with being truth and light
5. The value Jesus’ death to assist people in returning to innocence, forgiveness and truth
The major difference between traditional Christian Theology and Course in Miracles is that the old purpose of the death of Jesus was to change how God reacted to us. In the new interpretation, its purpose is to change us.
2. The name of Jesus is the name of one who was a man but saw the face of Christ in all his brothers and remembered God. (Christ means the anointed one)
This was a complicated conversation to have. Each person I met, confessed not having explored the role of Jesus in their life. They had not talked about the place and power of Jesus outside of their religious institutions. In “witnessing” conversations they used phrases and scriptures provided by congregation leadership. In these discussions we struggled with surface things such as the length of the statement, question regarding why I would want to tamper with Christian processes and the need to utilize traditional understandings of Jesus as part of the Godhead (trinity) to inform the entertainment of the statement. Each person wanted to ground who Jesus is in the Old Testament prophecies and New Testament recordings of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Few of the conversants were willing to acknowledge the New Testament recordings were written decades after the life of Jesus and totally ignored my reference to a Course in Miracles. I admit, I was hesitant in sharing the contextual source for this discussion. I felt theologically vulnerable.
Their acceptance of Jesus as a man was also a bit troublesome. The idea that a conversation could be had of the biological physical existence or the humanity of Jesus without regard of the divinity of Jesus was also a cause for question. What each person wanted to do was to search scripture and return to the conversation. As a spiritual leader in my family who taught my siblings about the Bible, it seemed that their tolerance for this exploration was very low. The very idea that the man Jesus could and did look in the face of beggars, leaders and merchants and still see forgiveness and their salvation was perplexing. Often, I was told, we have just accepted, believed and practiced rituals declaring Jesus the answer to every question and the question to every answer because this is part of the mystery of God.
The fact that God is, produced Jesus, and loves us, is appreciated and considered a mystery in light of our pain and evil in the world and in our lives. For me and others to accept that Jesus, the son of God is our wiser elder brother who loves us (his brothers) and wants nothing more than our respect and love in return, creates an opportunity to revisit the faith “value set” that has guided our lives. To consider that I am like Jesus, with the same ability to deliver God’s promises to myself and others, challenges the long standing assumption/proproganda that none are powerful and creative except God, and that our religious institutions have been promoting untruths, shake us at our very foundation. This moment of unsure footing places each of us in positions where questions abound and fear mounts. This uncertainty in some cases produces a paralysis – where the faith tenants and practices are performed rotelly while waiting for the crisis to pass.
When I stated that everything that Jesus is and has comes from God and He is completely immune to destruction and evil of any kind. People sent me back to the Trinity. The possibility that Jesus looked in the face of his brothers and saw the handy work of God ; humankind made in the likeness and image of God and found that good breached the self-defacing statements by Paul in the book of Romans, where he proclaims his wretchedness, caused each person to evaluate when they could call themselves valuable and loved. When could they see themselves the same way Jesus sees them. The Christ face is a great symbol of forgiveness and salvation. Jesus sees a reflection of himself in the faces of humankind.
Do we dare make ourselves equal with Jesus? Do I dare to say “there is nothing that I cannot attain? Yes, I can say through Jesus who sees the Christ of me, all obstacles are removed and I am a joint heir with Jesus to God. I am devoted to Jesus because he has more time in with God than I. He knows more and has a deeper relationship than I. If I accept that I too come from God and that my soul comes from eternity then perhaps I am a part of the Jesus collective. Either way, I accept Jesus as my helper who is in charge of helping me remember God, and return to my true self.
I am not sure that anyone moved from their original position about Jesus, who he is, or what he sees when he looks on us. After these conversations, I longed for the comfort of a replacement to “the ole rugged cross.”
3. In the name of Jesus
My faith tradition ends every prayer ‘in the name of Jesus” because we believed that no one can get to “the Father except through the Son.” It is considered unchristian, not to say “in the name of Jesus” at the end of a prayer.
The idea that Jesus’ name represents the promises of God fits into our basic understanding of relationships. There are some relationships the only begin when in the introduction a person references someone “well respected” as a supporter or co-partner who is in good standing, has the power to reward and/or punish or is someone a person wants to get to know to expand influence, attract wealth or provide entry into some closed circle. To say “in the name of Jesus” is credentialing a possibility or guarantee that if it is God’s will, then Jesus will usher in the manifestation.
What is different is the format of our prayers. They were often lengthy request built upon our smallness and inabilities. Rarely did we affirm the existence of what we wanted unless we prayed the scripture. (That means unless we read scriptures as prayers.) To pray as if Jesus does not forget, didn’t hear our prayer or thinks so little of us, speak to our understanding of our entitlement of good and doubt that good exist for all. The Self in our prayers is small, incapable, only worthy good if no sin was committed.
I prefer the Course’ approach and am willing to surrender all obstacles to my good.
Peace, Denise L. Graves
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