Normally I don’t resonate with the Catholic tradition I was raised in (schooled 6-12 in a Marianist order), but once in a while there is something deeply profound that rekindles that mystery I occasionally came across in Christian literature. This is an excerpt from a blog on the Integral Life Forum by Greg Mayers, a Catholic Priest and Zen teacher:
From Christianity, Gnostics, and Rosicrutians:
All the Christian texts are witnessed, told, written and transmitted from the perpsective of the Resurrection of Jesus. No Resurrection, no Christianity, no texts, that simple. What is the Resurrection? Surprise, everybody, God is not about death. God does not demand death as a tax for peace or for living. God has never been about death. This is just the reverse of how you have seen it and do see it. In fact, you’ve never had to win God over by death, for God is and always has been for you. Not for you and against your enemies, but for you without any against anything. You live in a world of opposites, God has no opposites. Jesus is Yahweh enfleshed overcoming our otherness without dissolving it. Now stop the rivalry between yourself and everyone else. Stop imitating one another and imitate Yahweh, Jesus, who is non-intrusive love for you. Then you will know eternal life. Oh, and by the way, this will likely inflame hatred in others toward you because it will expose the lie, as Jesus exposed the lie, that we live. But don’t worry about it. Jesus has overcome the world (the lie) and even the most horrible death (crucifixion) cannot dent or defeat God-being-for-you. The End.
Thanks for this clear articulation, Greg.
Last Easter, I attended Mass for the first time in a very long time with my family. The homily was surprisingly good. To paraphrase the Father, “Christ died to show us a new Life is now possible.” This clicked immediately with my recent reading of Sri Aurobindo’s central work, The Life Divine. In many ways, the scripture of Christianity can be interpreted, and understood through this mystical lens that wishes to reveal the divine is, “being-for-you.” Not even death can be amiss from this.
So, in many ways, the Resurrection is a Revelation; that what appears to be only flesh is also divine, what is bound in time is in its heart fulfilled by eternity. God has no opposite, as Greg says, so a mystical interpretation of Christ’s Resurrection is just that; a world that is fully flesh is also fully divine.
On a side note, and probably in my ignorance of these studies, I would probably lean more on the Catholic or Orthodox tradition than I would the more gnostic traditions. Though I love those texts, it is important in my own spiritual path to recognize the hidden divinity behind flesh and blood, the rock and salt of the world. The world can be overcome, but it is not cast off.
That is the truly beautiful thing about this Christian understanding; the world, the lie, is overcome by revealing the God’s unity with it. Fully flesh, fully divine. The Life Divine.
PS: Earlier in the text, Greg mentions letting a Tradition, letting the story “interpret you.” In doing so, you can share your insights. It’s a participatory experience with the Tradition that yields the fruits of spiritual growth. Something I’ve been thinking of lately and hope to include more of in future blogs on a “story” which has enraptured me and “interpreted me.” Thanks for reading, folks!