Posts in Jesus
The Birth of Christ Consciousness in Us

In this series, we have been considering how we might participate in adventing—which is to say, actively engaging in the arrival of Christ Consciousness in this season. As Christmas is upon us, the time for birth may be drawing near.

Do you feel them? The contractions of a world in the early pangs of labor?

We all have our personal journey in the ways we bear and bring forth the divine in our lives. Individually, we might be more than ready for the birth to come. Or, we could still be in a place of early gestation. Perhaps we continue to wait for the gift of a new inner conception. The calendar says it’s time, yet we may be living in barrenness or miscarriage.

Sometimes, in the passage toward birth and new life, it will feel like death.

Wherever you are in this rite unfolding, we are all, at the same time—in this time, participating in a collective natal arrival. Christ Consciousness is not a possession to be attained by some but a flow of divine being we open up to and move with. And the current is growing. The tide is rising in a global awakening. A cosmic imperative for the advent of a new divine initiation.  

Do you see them? The angels among the expanse of stars in the sky twinkling with the celestial light of proclamation?

For unto us is born a savior, in the cities and stables of every part of the earth. In the fields and in the forests. There is no need to journey to Bethlehem, for Christ comes in ubiquity. She is all around us and before us. They are beside us and beyond.

Do you hear them? The voices of spirit declaring across the land: we are making all things new.

I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be for all people. The divine life is born among you. Lo, behold, it is within you!

Come, taste and see.

Come, come with haste.

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God Giving Birth to You

Growing Up into Our Christ-Being this Christmas

“In my soul, God not only gives birth to me as a son or daughter, God gives birth to me as Godself, and Godself as me . . . our truest I is God.”
—Meister Eckhart
 

Throughout advent, we have been exploring how we are all mothers of God. This week, we might now come to see how we are also the children. You are the birther, and you are the born. Even, in many ways, what we are birthing is us! So, what does it mean that we too are the begotten of God?

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Why Jesus Did Not Die for Our Sins

Jesus left physically, so we know him spirituality

Why was Jesus crucified?

Except for progressive and integral Christians, along with the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the dominant theory among Christians today of why Jesus died on the cross goes something like this: All people are separated from God because of both original sin and our own sin. Because of this, we are destined for eternal punishment. However, Jesus came to provide a way out of this destiny by taking our place and dying on the cross to satisfy God’s wrath for our sins. Jesus was punished in the place of us so God could forgive our sins. Those who accept Jesus as their Savior are no longer separated from God and are destined for heaven.

This is a serious and devastating misunderstanding of Jesus, God, and our relationship to God. It is based on four interpretations which reflect previous stages of spiritual evolutionary understanding.

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A New Christmas Story – God in 3D

Christianity’s familiar and beautiful Christmas story depicts a heavenly father sending his son to be born into the world to save people from their despair, and then later sends the Holy Spirit to comfort and guide them. This is a warm image of God as a loving father, a self-giving son, and an ever-present, encouraging Spirit.

However, this traditional story only portrays a one-dimensional God – where the metaphors of personal relationship are limited to the male images of father and son and a gender-neutral “spirit” (although feminine in both Hebrew and Greek). It is true that God is revealed in these images. It is also partial. Today’s cosmically informed world longs for a God who is bigger than “the man upstairs,” closer and more real to us personally than just an ancient story, and more like us than only a heroic figure from the past.

Integral Christianity gives us a God, not only beside us in the personal dimension, but also a God who is at the same time in the transpersonal dimension—beyond us. And at the same time a dimension of God who is within us—being us. This is a God in 3D!

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Embodying Incarnation

Spiritual Knowing Part Three: Feet and Legs

Jesus — God being us with a human body

Did Mary realize the baby she held to her breast was one that John would later write about as “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14)? Notice John does not say the Word came to live “in the flesh.” Rather, this profound prologue to John’s Gospel makes the astounding claim that the Word, God, actually became flesh!

The Christmas season is an excellent time to talk about bodies, flesh, and earthiness as we celebrate God with us in the body and person of Jesus. . .

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