The spiritual economy is one of incessant growth, whose capital is the essence of souls. It requires the investment of souls to bring health to any nation, but the souls are not consumed by this yet rather they flourish and they prosper. The wealth of a nation is determined by the relative size of its souls, and the world in this sense is growing slightly larger every day. There are entities watching over us to ensure that this remains so, entities which delight in exercising their authority to improve the overall quality of our lives. It is a complicated equation, for there are apparent victims of fate no matter which way we turn, from the natural world itself to individuals and communities of people everywhere. But there is a plan to all this, bringing incessant joy to the angels, who know that out of God’s perfect justice the apparent victims of fate will revel in the glow of eternity just like anyone, when destiny is brought to its fruition.
The crucifixion of Jesus brought revolution to our spiritual foundation, though not necessarily for the reasons we might assume. We conceive of salvation as the portal to eternal life, and for this we are rightfully grateful. But our traditions have never really offered a mechanism by which to effect this salvation, except to assert that we are offered a place in heaven, and herein is our eternal reward. This is unspeakably wonderful as far as it goes, and many would assert that nothing more is needed, but the universe itself begs an explanation for its own existence. Is it merely a way station on a soul’s path to eternity? How can we reconcile the abstract notion of heaven with the physical reality of the universe? The answer to this can be traced to the crucifixion of Jesus.
It is difficult to deny that Jesus had some sort of an enhanced connection to the divine, for nothing else can explain the phenomenon of his public life. Ultimately, this enhanced connection, manifest in various ways, spawned the envy which finally murdered him in a naïve attempt to banish his influence, which steadily continued to grow even after he was killed. Crucifying Jesus was analogous to making God illegal, and only the blatantly foolish would attempt this. But in the context of his own culture, where there was already a dominant religion along with a proud political authority, Jesus became too much of a nuisance to be tolerated any longer. Ironically, the coconspirators of Jesus’ demise eventually themselves would suffer a kind of poetic justice: of course, the Roman Empire eventually disappeared, and the Jewish faith was reduced to a remnant of its former influence.
Jesus was exalted to a place of spiritual authority following his crucifixion, and so we shouldn’t grieve for him too severely, and there are secrets embedded in this transition which are capable of illuminating our way forward, if only we would take them to heart. There is a hint of this in the tearing in half of the temple curtain immediately upon his death, though this may have been manifest in a collective vision rather than in the actual tearing of cloth. What did it mean? The traditional explanation has been that the Holy Place was now accessible to anyone, and not just the High Priest, but there may have been more to it than this. Let us return, first, to the later days in Jesus’ life when he received word that his friend Lazarus had died in Bethany, and Jesus may have been tormented by a sense of obligation to go there. The Jews had previously made him feel unwelcome there, and his disciples were hesitant to go. But Lazarus and his sisters were friends of Jesus, and though he hesitated for a couple of days he must have felt compelled to go there, and so he finally went.
John’s is the only gospel which contains the story of Lazarus, and it is also the only gospel which refers to many of Jesus’ acts as “miraculous signs” rather than as miracles themselves. It is my belief that the raising of the dead, the bringing of sight to the blind, the various healings and wonders in the ministry of Jesus were actually staged in order to reveal the spiritual truths contained in them. Jesus was bringing life to the spiritually dead, sight to the spiritually blind, and health to the spiritually sick. In the context of his culture these acts must have seemed provocative to many, for he was claiming powers which seemingly no man could possess.
When Jesus finally arrived in Bethany, the Jews were already there in numbers, seemingly grieving for Lazarus. One of the sisters, Martha, after meeting with Jesus herself, compelled her sister Mary to go out to Jesus and meet him, saying that he had requested her to come, though in Jesus’ recorded dialogue he actually made no such request. Perhaps Martha assumed that Jesus wanted to see Mary, or that Mary needed to see Jesus, or there were aspects to their conversation which weren’t recorded, but when Mary found him she fell weeping at his feet. This was the critical moment, I believe, which may have triggered the direction of his remaining days. Many of the Jews who were present had followed Mary from the house, and when Jesus saw them weeping along with Mary he must have become overwhelmed, recognizing the intensity of the situation, and he began weeping himself. For not only had a great spectacle been assembled, I believe that in that moment Mary may have pierced the heart of Jesus, the genesis of a love was triggered, rendering Jesus perhaps rather helpless in the emotional aftermath.
It may be that Mary was betrothed to another, and that the piercing of Jesus’ heart was quite accidental, at least on the conscious level. (Remember, she was the one who had previously spread perfume on his feet.) Imagine Jesus now trying to follow up in the proceeding days on what had just been triggered, but being denied, maybe not by Mary herself but by those near to her, perhaps trying to protect her and preserve whatever plans had already been made. Imagine the frustration! This may have been the very fuel which helped to feed the march into Jerusalem, and to give expression to various other frustrations. Not many know that the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus was arrested, was very near to Bethany, and Jesus may have been tormented by an unspeakable yearning in his hours at Gethsemane, submitting finally to the course which would ultimately lead to his crucifixion.
Imagine the aftermath for Mary and Martha following the crucifixion. We indulge in the glory of Jesus’ spiritual triumph, but we fail to realize that there must have been many who were devastated as a result, unable to recognize the deeper substance of what had just happened. So, then, what was the deeper significance? We know that the crucifixion brought grace to mankind, and the salvation contained in that grace. But what is the mechanism through which this grace has been conveyed to us? We attribute it to the love of God the Father, who Jesus famously institutionalized through his ministry, but honestly that never seemed enough, for at the objective level it really doesn’t quite make sense. It never explains the essence of Jesus’ sacrifice, except to assert that we no longer needed to sacrifice animals to atone for our sins, Jesus being the ultimate sacrifice. Now, however, if we postulate the existence of a counterpart to God the Father, a romantic counterpart, who we might name as God the Mother, it all makes perfect sense. For, just as the heart of Jesus may have been pierced by Mary at Bethany, so was the heart of God the Mother pierced and thereby won for God the Father through the perfectly timed sacrifice, and earlier ministry, of Jesus. Therefore, the grace we know can be interpreted as an expression of their love for one another, traceable to the crucifixion of Jesus, offered to us out of the abundance of that love. Thank you, Jesus! Thank you for so very much.
The tearing of the curtain at the temple, therefore, can be partially interpreted as the presence of gametes, ova or sperm, each containing half the chromosomes of the one producing them, and of course these are involved in sexual reproduction. In fact, the Holy Place itself can be interpreted as a uterus. Immediately upon Jesus’ death, then, the genesis of the next phase in Earth’s spiritual destiny may have been revealed to us, for procreation is the logical outcome of the love now beginning in the hearts of God the Father and God the Mother. In fact, it may be that the ultimate expression of this love was the formation of the universe itself, their offspring. Perhaps from the moment of Jesus’ death onward we all became haploid Father, sperm cells spiritually speaking, yearning to become diploid in the formation of God the Child. The question is a valid one as to whether or not a pregnancy has already been established, though I believe it to be self-evident that one has.
In the Gospel of John, very late in his ministry Jesus promises the Holy Spirit to his disciples, urging them to surrender to this Spirit and then to be guided by it. This remains our challenge today, and anyone who may look to Jesus will be encouraged by him toward this independence of life in the Spirit. Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man, suggesting that he knew Joseph to be his real father. Claiming spiritual descendancy as the Son of God, however, seems a logical outcome of what may have been revealed to him throughout his spiritual life. But he does not claim this exclusively for himself, though in certain situations he would refer to God as “my Father.” When instructing believers, however, on how to pray, he began with the legendary “Our Father….” Jesus was fantastically true to the Spirit during his ministry, and we can be confident that he is impeccably true even now. He never claimed to be God, and I believe that we do him as well as ourselves a disservice when we attempt to make him thus. He even stated that “the Father is greater than I.” Because of his spiritual fidelity we might look to him for spiritual guidance, but I believe he would prefer that we develop intimacy with the Spirit ourselves, effectively bypassing him, and thereby developing spiritual independence. We can be certain that he oversees the mechanisms of this Earth, as well as perhaps other worlds, and has powers of intervention whenever needed. But in terms of the Lord of our lives, he would prefer that we look to the Holy Spirit rather than on himself.
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