The idea that Christ will re-appear is not about religion. It is about history and cosmology.
This site is dedicated to my Vision of Christ, written from the point of view of the twenty first century and our increasingly multicultural One World society. I am proud of my Anglo Celtic background and heritage, but I also know and accept that I am part of our One World, for all the incredible challenges and difficulties this idea implies, and in fact see myself primarily as a member of a vast human race that has evolved over millions of years on this tiny and now endangered planet. We are all in it together, however different we may be.
It is a very difficult time in which we live; an extremely difficult time that seems to be getting worse. For many hope is running out.
It is now twenty centuries since Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth. No other human being in all of human history has been believed by so many to have returned from the dead. The form this return took we can only imagine; but he was seen and heard and touched. Witness to this extraordinary event has remained ever since, believed and disbelieved in equal measure. For reasons at the very heart of my story, I believe Jesus did return from the dead. I believe also that he will re-appear as he promised. I have no idea what form this will take but it will be decisive.
No life has been reflected on more that Christ's life. Why did he allow himself to be killed under legitimate authority when it would seem his mission had barely begun? What was the source of his ability to heal? Why did the poor and oppressed love him so much, and flock to him, while those in authority and power were so deeply threatened by him? These and so many more questions? But no question is more central to Christ's life than whether or not there is a deeper meaning to his death than that he had upset the authorities. No question about Christ has been reflected upon more. Some have thought his death was to outwit and overcome evil and the devil. Some have thought it was to model perfect obedience to the will of God. Some have thought it was to take our sins upon himself and to pay the price of our disobedience.
Some have thought it was to bear the wrath God felt toward us.
I believe there is another understanding of the deeper meaning of Christ's death. But we can only see this from the perspective of our twenty first century. Our understanding of ourselves and the world and Universe we live in is very different from even a hundred years ago. I accept that I live in this very different world. I accept that the Universe, which may also be part of a Multiverse, began 13.8 billion years ago; that our solar system as part of the Milky Way galaxy formed some 4 billion years ago; that we are living on a tiny speck at the centre of a truly vast Universe; that life evolved over millions of years and that we are all related to the progenitors of the Homo Sapiens species who came originally out of Africa. We are wondrously evolved creatures. I accept also that however our inner life, or sense of selfhood, or psyche or soul, our consciousness in effect, is connected to our bodies, it is a vast evolutionary structure in its own right, equal in complexity to our amazing bodies. We can think of this structure as brain and central nervous system if we wish, or as the inner structure of psyche, mind and consciousness. I accept also that the Universe is full of energies and forces, some of which can be thought and theorised about by cosmologists and other scientists, and some that are experienced only by us personally, forces that science cannot easily grasp such as motive and intentionality. We are creatures who can generate spirit and life force, marked by spontaneity and unpredictability. And if the ancient priestly writer who penned the opening verses of one of the great texts of antiquity, the Book of Genesis, is right, the Universe is full of motive and intentionality, of Spirit.
Now to put all the pieces together. Apart from a series of talks I gave to a group of Uniting Church clergy on retreat, entitled Four Books and a Video, which is here now in full on this site, I will be posting regular blogs which will be excerpts and thought bubbles around a book on this site's theme, entitled The One Who Is To Come: Christ for the Twenty First Century.
I sincerely want to work in my own little way for a world that can receive Christ in his re-appearing.
This site is dedicated to my Vision of Christ, written from the point of view of the twenty first century and our increasingly multicultural One World society. I am proud of my Anglo Celtic background and heritage, but I also know and accept that I am part of our One World, for all the incredible challenges and difficulties this idea implies, and in fact see myself primarily as a member of a vast human race that has evolved over millions of years on this tiny and now endangered planet. We are all in it together, however different we may be.
It is a very difficult time in which we live; an extremely difficult time that seems to be getting worse. For many hope is running out.
It is now twenty centuries since Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth. No other human being in all of human history has been believed by so many to have returned from the dead. The form this return took we can only imagine; but he was seen and heard and touched. Witness to this extraordinary event has remained ever since, believed and disbelieved in equal measure. For reasons at the very heart of my story, I believe Jesus did return from the dead. I believe also that he will re-appear as he promised. I have no idea what form this will take but it will be decisive.
No life has been reflected on more that Christ's life. Why did he allow himself to be killed under legitimate authority when it would seem his mission had barely begun? What was the source of his ability to heal? Why did the poor and oppressed love him so much, and flock to him, while those in authority and power were so deeply threatened by him? These and so many more questions? But no question is more central to Christ's life than whether or not there is a deeper meaning to his death than that he had upset the authorities. No question about Christ has been reflected upon more. Some have thought his death was to outwit and overcome evil and the devil. Some have thought it was to model perfect obedience to the will of God. Some have thought it was to take our sins upon himself and to pay the price of our disobedience.
Some have thought it was to bear the wrath God felt toward us.
I believe there is another understanding of the deeper meaning of Christ's death. But we can only see this from the perspective of our twenty first century. Our understanding of ourselves and the world and Universe we live in is very different from even a hundred years ago. I accept that I live in this very different world. I accept that the Universe, which may also be part of a Multiverse, began 13.8 billion years ago; that our solar system as part of the Milky Way galaxy formed some 4 billion years ago; that we are living on a tiny speck at the centre of a truly vast Universe; that life evolved over millions of years and that we are all related to the progenitors of the Homo Sapiens species who came originally out of Africa. We are wondrously evolved creatures. I accept also that however our inner life, or sense of selfhood, or psyche or soul, our consciousness in effect, is connected to our bodies, it is a vast evolutionary structure in its own right, equal in complexity to our amazing bodies. We can think of this structure as brain and central nervous system if we wish, or as the inner structure of psyche, mind and consciousness. I accept also that the Universe is full of energies and forces, some of which can be thought and theorised about by cosmologists and other scientists, and some that are experienced only by us personally, forces that science cannot easily grasp such as motive and intentionality. We are creatures who can generate spirit and life force, marked by spontaneity and unpredictability. And if the ancient priestly writer who penned the opening verses of one of the great texts of antiquity, the Book of Genesis, is right, the Universe is full of motive and intentionality, of Spirit.
Now to put all the pieces together. Apart from a series of talks I gave to a group of Uniting Church clergy on retreat, entitled Four Books and a Video, which is here now in full on this site, I will be posting regular blogs which will be excerpts and thought bubbles around a book on this site's theme, entitled The One Who Is To Come: Christ for the Twenty First Century.
I sincerely want to work in my own little way for a world that can receive Christ in his re-appearing.