In the Name of the Christ
At the start of our events we often light a candle to signify the Divine presence and the light that has come into the world in Christ and in the Spirit. As a way of bringing our attention to that light and presence, I wrote a few words to draw us to an awareness of being embraced fully by the Spirit.
We light a flame
In the name of God, the Creator, who breathes life into every thing.
In the name of the Christ who embodies God's love and embraces life, death, and life again
In the name of the Spirit who helps us remember who we are.
I am creating a few blog posts to say a bit about each line of this “invocation”. Today we will be considering this line:
“In the name of the Christ who embodies God's love and embraces life, death, and life again.”
If the word “God” is complex, the word “Christ” is equally mysterious. “Christ” is the Greek word for the older Hebrew word meaning “Messiah”. The Hebrew (Jewish) tradition looks toward a redeemer, leader, and manifestation of God called Messiah. Obviously, we learn of this long and complex tradition through the Hebrew Scriptures (which are sacred texts of the Christian and Islamic faiths as well). As the text of what Christians call “The New Testament” were developed, the person of Jesus was seen as this Messianic representation of God. Over the first few centuries of our current era (C.E.), Christian theologians (some under political influence) came to understand the person of Jesus as the unique manifestation of God known as the Christ. Over time Christians began referring to Jesus with the addition of the Messianic title and thus called him Jesus Christ. By seeing Jesus in this way, Christians declare that the restorative, loving, and powerful presence of God is uniquely manifest in the life of Jesus.
That is complicated enough, but from there Christian theological history gets exceptionally complex concerning the meaning of Christ, what significance the life of Jesus plays in our relationship with God, and how one “follows” Jesus. From these questions, many theories have developed about the meaning of Jesus’ life. The most commonly heard modern theory is that God “sent” Jesus into the world to “pay for” the sins of humanity so that we could have a relationship with God. This theory was mostly developed a thousand years after the life of Jesus, and that fact alone should give us reason to doubt it as a significant way of understanding God’s presence as the Christ in the world.
Ancient Celtic thinkers didn’t hold to the idea that we are inherently sinful (“original sin”) and needing rescue through a penalty paid for our sin. Although there are a variety of Celtic understandings of the work of Christ, the tradition tends to declare that we are dignified bearers of God’s image and Spirit and that God has always, for all time, been inviting us into life-giving union with God’s-self. The Divine presence in Jesus is a magnificent story of expression of the powerful and loving nature of God’s Being through Christ-presence in the world.
Christ did not begin with Jesus. God’s saving, restorative, and all embracing presence has been in and through Creation since the moment that the material world began. Jesus’ manifested this presence uniquely. God moved fully into human experience, lived a life of caring work particularly on behalf of the oppressed and suffering, spoke of love as the greatest redemptive possibility, was harmed and murdered through false blame and accusation, and was drawn back into eternal life and perfect union with the Great Spirit.
Jesus invited us to “follow” him in this way of fully embracing life, loving others especially those in greatest need, not fighting oppression and wrongdoing with violence or revenge, suffering when needed, and joining him in eternal life within God’s Spirit. Christ announces the truth of God residing nearer to our human experience than we even know ourselves, joining us in the celebration of life and the sufferings that inevitably comes, and embracing the hope-filled awareness that death is only a “crossing over” into the eternal life of God’s very Being. We should note that the call is not to “believe” in this way in a modern sense. It is to “follow” in this way as the Way of Christ. It is to join Jesus in the fullness of the way of Love. In the joining, the Christ that was manifest in Jesus, is also available to us in the present.
As before, there are a dizzying variety of ways to approach an understanding of the life of Jesus and the presence and work of the Christ, but let us always and in every way build our hope upon the loving and merciful story of God’s presence, the loving restoration of all that seems lost, and God’s beautiful and every present invitation to join Christ in our every moment both now and eternally.
-Kirk Webb
Director of the Celtic Center