A pivotal point in human history?

Contemplation of the meaning of Holy Week in the 21st century.

Sunday

As Palm Sunday comes to an end we enter Holy Week - probably THE pivotal week in human history.?According to Christian tradition Jesus has entered Jerusalem on a donkey - reminiscent of his humble stable birthplace which he shared with other animals.

The poem ‘The Donkey’ by J. K. Chesterton declares:

‘Fools! For I also had my hour;

One far fierce hour and sweet:

There was a shout about my ears,

And palms before my feet.’

Jesus’ ‘triumphant’ entry into Jerusalem is apparently a misplaced public expectation - political liberation. One week later, according to tradition, his true triumph will be revealed, his resurrection as spiritual liberation.

Monday?

Monday, according to Western Christian tradition, Jesus provokes the fury of the religious establishment by driving the money-changers out of the temple in Jerusalem.?The Pharisees, he declares, whilst they teach the legitimate law of Moses, do not practice what they preach. Religious practice has become focused on ritual, form and the career opportunities that come with religious institution. It’s also an opportunity to make money. He’s going to tear into the fabric of their obfuscation of the true spiritual journey.

Tuesday

Tuesday sees Jesus teaching in the temple, where he is also confronted by the temple leadership on his authority for the action against the money-changers. Later talks privately with the disciples at the Mount of Olives where he foretells his own death and prophecies the destruction of Jerusalem. Metaphorically the practice of blood sacrifice is to be ended by him becoming the sacrificial lamb.

The Great Creative Process does not need appeasement; it invites atonement through involvement, collaboration and unification. What might rather need to be 'sacrificed' is the notion of a 'separate self'.

Wednesday

Wednesday in Holy Week is when Judas goes to the Pharisees with the promise to betray Jesus.?In the Western Christian churches the Tenebrae is a service commemorating that decision by blowing out candles to let darkness enfold.

In the 17th century Gregorio Allegri, composed the magnificent and touching ‘Miserere’ that is traditionally sung into the encompassing darkness in the Sistine Chapel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3v9unphfi0

Symbolically the lesson concerns the almost universal betrayal of our own Christ-selves.

When Jesus says: ‘Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?’ and declares “I and the Father are one” it is both a reminder and invitation to return into a unified relationship with the Divine. That is what the story of the Prodigal Son is about - a return from separation to unity.

So now we can contemplate Jesus’ betrayal by Judas, not historically, but rather metaphorically - our own personal betrayal of the Christ-being of which we are invited to be a living expression.

Thursday

Thursday in Holy Week introduces the most beautiful of Christian ceremonies, the Eucharist - at the Last Supper. Jesus symbolically breaks the body of Christ as represented by the bread and distributes it - including to Judas who is about to betray him. As with the disciples, each of us receives a part of that divine Christ potential, our unique gift to bring into the world. Through our individual parts in bringing our gift to the world ultimately the ‘Word’ becomes ‘Flesh’ - as John would describe it. Some call that ‘self-actualisation’ - others call that ‘individuation’. The diversity is critical to the realisation of the greater potential. But then, symbolically, we all drink from the same cup. We are nurtured and nourished and grow in the same divine milieu. That’s why Paul says to the Corinthians: “To all are given gifts ... but of the same spirit.” So when we take the Mass, when we eat the bread, we recognise our personal responsibility to the metaphoric ‘Second Coming’ through our full personal incarnation. And when we drink the wine we accept our responsibility to the community, not only of our fellow humans, but all the living creatures enabling and sustaining our life-giving milieu.

Gethsemane?

Having commemorated the Passover, Jesus and some disciples retire to the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus goes further with Peter, James and John and asks them to keep watch. He then prays for strength - in deep anguish of what is to come.

So too we are sometimes faced with moments of deep anguish - the most stressing being doubt. Will we endure? Are we correct in our assumptions? We dread the ‘unknown’ - we crave certainty. In the age of modernism it is evidence-based science that is supposed to remove doubt, to offer certainty. But whilst it has indeed addressed many of the human physical conditions, it has also compromised the living eco-system that sustains us.

Trouble is that it has not really addressed the condition of the human soul. Notwithstanding improved material prosperity, suicides for example are at an unprecedented high. Science now seeks to interfere is the subtle tissues of the human brain to experiment whether these psychological (soul) conditions can be addressed and remedied by a physical intervention - like a brain microchip implant. Or whether decision-making on critical issues will be better undertaken by artificial intelligence.

I don't think it can.

Now there seems to be two approaches to addressing our human and ecological challenges. One is stoical acceptance of what is happening. This is the existentialist approach - and it has great merit. Many of the Eastern traditions also subscribe to this view. The other is embracing the belief that there is a greater outworking in the universe, some called that a 'holistic nisus', in which collective humanity has a specific purposive role in the cosmos in which the individual, you and I, can consciously choose to participate.

In his moment of greatest anguish it must be hard for Jesus to hold on to that vision of his own purpose. However his surrender to the greater outcome is expressed in the declaration: “Not my will, but Thy will be done...” In that instant, his recognition that he is an agent of a much greater outworking order transforms his identity into a cosmic one. The need for physical safety has been transcended to a soul-driven vision of universal Selfhood. Notwithstanding our view on the Judeo-Christian narrative, history is to be fundamentally changed as the sacredness and freedom of the individual becomes central to a new humanistic ethos.

Good Friday

Friday morning in Holy Week is about judgement. The Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, will make two profound statements. First is a question to Jesus: "Qui est veritas?". "What is truth?" This is a question that has profound implications for those following traditional Christianity today. In the literalist tradition truth is exactly the words in the Bible as interpreted by whatever church authority. Until Martin Luther's 'Reformation' the Bible was generally not accessible to the common folks - only to the church priests following official interpretation from Rome. In studying the Bible, which he translated into German, Luther became engaged with its vitality and wanted believers to have their own experience of its narrative and teachings.

A significant element of 'individuation' is when we make our own meaning of our lives and of existence. From our knowledge of the world in the 21st century, and with our deepened knowledge of emergent human consciousness, the depth and richness of the Biblical narrative can be reclaimed: as Albert Einstein and Jan Smuts indicated.

Pilate's second statement, after Jesus has been mercilessly scourged, has been the subject of numerous works of art. He says: "Ecce homo!". "Behold, the man." In a way he is saying: Look what he has been reduced to? This Holy Week we 'behold the man' again - and in humility invite the Universal Christ-being, of whom Jesus the Man was a living exemplar, to reveal to us deeper truths of the human condition and our generative personal and collective role in its future.

Good Friday afternoon in Holy Week is about Christ’s suffering. By now, his mother, Mary, is watching him languish, nailed to the cross.?There are those who take comfort in the notion that believing that Jesus took on the sins of humankind and that simple belief in his act of self-sacrifice provides universal forgiveness. There might however be an even deeper meaning.

When we observe the suffering of the Christ, as Pontius Pilot invoked, we ‘behold the man’, we also observe the suffering of collective humankind as a function of separation from the universal creative process. As such the Christ potential in all humanity suffers.?Jesus on the cross experiences that too when he cries out: “My God, why have you forsaken me?” Then in an act of faith he says “Nevertheless, into Your hands I comment my spirit.” His earthly soul has been in service of the eternal Christ-being.

Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son who ‘goes to a faraway place’ and then languishes in suffering until the realisation comes that he can go back in service of his Father, is a metaphor for the condition of entire humanity. Sometimes, when we are engaged in our ego-satisfying endeavours, or simply in frivolity, we are striving to mask that suffering - but it remains present in a sense of incipient longing.?A new quality of liberation, of deep soul satisfaction, is experienced when we take the fullness of our authentic being into service of the greater order - no matter how insignificant that greater order might appear.

Saturday?

Whilst on Holy Saturday, according to the Easter narrative, his body lies in the tomb, Jesus descends to the realm of the dead (see that as non-being) to ‘save righteous souls’.

If we regard Jesus’ the man’s willing self-sacrifice to bring a fundamentally new message to the world, to act on behalf of the liberation of the Christ-being in humanity, then that act has not only implications on the future, but also on past ‘righteous souls’.

But let’s dive deeper - the name of that Christ-being, as Moses discovered at the ‘burning bush’, is ‘I Am’. Jesus’ entire message is about ‘I Am’. He declares: ‘I Am’ (is) the Way to Truth and Life and no-one comes to Father (source) other than through ‘I Am’. We might now contemplate that from two perspectives. One, following Rene Descartes’ declaration “Cogito ergo suum” (‘I think’, therefore ‘I am’), is about self-aware existence.

Our capacity to share these thoughts, to re-evaluate the Holy Week narrative, is the result of God’s whole creative evolutionary process from the beginning of space/time. It is the inclusive complexifying relationality, from the inorganic, through the organic and biological, to the mental and personal levels, that develops and exponentially amplifies universal self-awareness.

The opposite of ‘I Am’ is, of course ‘Non-being’. Carl Jung describes this cosmic self-awareness generating role for humankind succinctly (albeit archaically): “That is the divine service that man can render unto God; that man becomes aware of himself, and God of his creation”.

The second perspective on the ‘I Am’ is now amplified in quantum physics. Principles of non-locality and quantum entanglement indicate a domain beyond space/time in which all potentialities co-exist. Physicist David Bohm describes an ‘implicate order’, a creative evolutionary process, through which those potentialities are ‘explicated’ or actualised. Aristotle, even before Jesus’ time, spoke of the ‘entelechy’ as the ’set of conditions’ in which a potentiality can become an actuality.

On Palm Sunday we identified Holy Week as probably THE pivotal event in human history. Jesus’ role in this ‘entelechy’ is to unlock, through his sacrificial act based on trust of that cosmic process, a far deeper potential of humankind than has been realised until now. He thereby introduces a new epoch for humanity.

Now the fundamental act of faith is to trust that the potential not only exists for a fully self-aware universe and that humanity plays a key role in that process of becoming self-aware. Even more challenging is to trust that the fully aware Christ-being, the ‘I Am’ is an all-abiding cosmic potential. John, in the Biblical scriptures, calls that the Logos (the Word) that was ‘...with God, and was God, in the beginning’. That is why Jesus told the disciples that he needed to leave them - if they clung on to him they would not receive instructions and support from the Holy Spirit - the ‘I Am’ holistic consciousness generating agency of the Christ-being.

Like the caterpillar transforming into the butterfly in the chrysalis, in the tomb Jesus the man now metaphorically transforms into Jesus the Christ. Maybe the Covid-19 pandemic has provided us an opportunity now to enter the tomb of ‘non-being’, discarding the old societally-given identity, to emerge in a transformed state of consciousness and intention.

Resurrection Sunday?

Finally on Resurrection Sunday the universal celebratory greeting is: “Christ is Risen.”

The image depicts the risen Christ’s words, famously expressed in Latin: ‘Noli me tangere’. “Don’t touch me - I have not yet ascended to the Father.” According to the text Mary at first thinks she has seen the gardener - but then the figure speaks to her and the deeper recognition follows. This is similar to the wonderful story of the event on the road to Emmaus where the disciples get a full and profound explanation of what has happened in Holy Week from an apparent stranger - but do not recognise who they are talking to. Then they will later recognise the Christ at their shared meal.?I like to think that the newly awakened Christ-being is addressing them through their fellow humans - and they are now better able to comprehend that.

We can now introduce the notion of creative evolution into this Easter celebration.

In the original Greek the text of the risen Christ, conventionally interpreted as ‘don’t touch me’ is: μ? μoυ ?πτoυ ( mè mu haptu ). To some scholars this suggests an action that continues in time. So a possible translation is also "... don't hold me back". That is different. Remember Jesus said to his disciples that he would need to leave them physically so they would be able to receive the Holy Spirit.

So now we are looking at an evolutionary process.

Whilst for believers of the literal narrative the physical resurrection of Jesus is cardinal - holding the promise of human beings’ physical resurrection in some hereafter. But there might be an even deeper meaning.

In John 1 we read: “In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The text continues that through the Divine Word, or Logos, all things come into being. Then it continues:

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”

So the Divine Logos is now personified in the Christ-potential which undergoes a fundamental phase change in Holy Week. The remote God is now reintroduced into the on-going creative process and humanised. Then if we couple the deeper Greek translation “... don’t hold me back” as a continuous action, to the notion of the Word incarnating, we can now contextualise the rising Christ in creative evolution.

‘Christ is risen’ becomes ‘Christ is rising’.

?What it calls for is our recognition of the Divine Potential, as expressed in the notion of ‘Imago Dei’, created in the image of God, in our fellow humans, and indeed all of creation. Our recognition, and an accompanying transformed commitment to life, is therefore a function of, and contributor to 'Christ rising'. In the prayer that Jesus taught this commitment is implicit.

“They Kingdom come, Thy Will be done in earth as it is in heaven.”

We thus become the agents of Logos unfolding in creative evolution - the domain of potentialities actualising. Inspired by the Holy Spirit we become God’s hands.

This for me is the profound implication of Holy Week.

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