Jesus The Christ
Sermon
I watched a wildlife documentary on television recently, on monkeys. It was fascinating to see different types of monkeys acting in almost human ways. One group were using stones to crack open shellfish. The same group used certain leaves which have been found to have antiseptic effects, as an ointment. They rubbed the leaves all over themselves and each other to guard against skin infections and mosquito bites, and had been observed using the leaves much more during the mosquito season.
All the monkeys had a complex social system and some species had very complex and dogmatic systems indeed. No social transgressions were tolerated, and a very harsh class system was in place, in which monkeys of low birth were often rejected and were very much on the edge of monkey society.
Most of the species were using primitive language, in which they used a large variety of different sounds to warn each other of various predators or to tell each other about different types of food. And there was a huge variety of species, some just a few inches big who lived in the rain forest canopy, and some huge monkeys who grazed the plains.
It seemed perfectly feasible that any of these species might one day evolve to become as sophisticated as human beings. Perhaps such a process has already started, since many monkeys are now using tools and rudimentary language.
Watching the programme, it seemed almost as though monkeys are made in the image of human beings. They don't necessary look much like human beings physically, but their behaviour seems to have quite a lot in common with the behaviour of human beings.
Human beings are made in the image of God, although we may not look much like God physically. So how do we resemble God? That's a much easier question to answer now than it was in ancient times, for now we have the advantage of being able to look at Jesus.
We don't know what Jesus looked like physically, although we can make a few assumptions since we know he was a middle-Eastern Jew. But it doesn't matter what he looked like, for we know what sort of a person he was, and that's what matters.
In today's reading from Colossians we're told that Jesus is the image of the invisible God, just as we are, but that he is also the firstborn over all creation. St Paul sees that by Christ all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
St Paul had no access to the gospels, which were written later than his epistles, but this passage from Colossians finds an echo in the prologue to John's gospel where John describes Jesus as the "Word" who was with God from the beginning and who was therefore divine. This may be because the passage is based on an early Christian hymn in which Christ is seen as present with God at Creation. This in turn picks up the hymn to Wisdom in today's Old Testament reading from Proverbs.
In early Israel, Wisdom was thought of as a person, in much the way that the Holy Spirit may be thought of as a person today. Both John, in the prologue to the gospel, and Paul, in this letter to the Colossians, identify Christ with Wisdom, as that part of the Godhead which was present at Creation. Both the letter and the gospel were written before the doctrine of the Holy Spirit had really begun to develop, but Christ is already recognised not only as divine, but as so important that he was somehow "with" God from the beginnings of the world.
But Paul goes further than this. He sees Christ as the the mediator of both Creation and Redemption. Christ creates with God the creator, then somehow holds the unity of creation in his hands, and then was the first to rise from the dead.
But there is some difficulty in all of this, for Jesus of Nazareth was a human being and no human being was present with God at the beginning of Creation. The man, Jesus, was on earth for around thirty three years, was crucified and died, but was seen again alive by many of his friends. He was seen again alive in a very different way, for his body which was so damaged that he died from his wounds, was fit enough after death to walk the seven miles to Emmaus. And at the same time, he was seen in Jerusalem by those gathered in the Upper Room. And almost everybody who saw him after his death, failed to recognise him until he gave them some sort of sign.
Clearly, Jesus the man had changed through his death. He was certainly alive again, but he was alive in a very different way and it seems obvious that he was living in some different dimension which we call Heaven, or the Kingdom of God. Although there had been very strong hints throughout his life that he was the Messiah - through his incredible healing powers and his immense love for all human beings and the miracles he was able to perform - it was after his death and resurrection that people began to realise that he was indeed the promised Christ, the saviour, the one who had been chosen by God to rescue the world from evil.
It was this new Christ in a different dimension who was with God at the beginning of time, not Jesus the man. Christ the divine was Jesus the man while he was on earth for thirty three years, but before and after those thirty three years his essence was entirely divine. He was fully human on earth and showed us how the God within human beings can grow and develop to entirely fill human beings if only human beings listen to and follow the guidance of that God within.
We know and love him as Jesus the Christ, but it was his essence, the real "him", which was with God both before his birth and after his death.
And maybe it's the same for us. Maybe we too came from God and are going back to God after we die. Certainly it's our essence, the real "us" which goes on to a new kind of life after death in which we are no longer troubled by damaged bodies or damaged minds. Meanwhile, we are the Church, the body and arms and legs of Christ on earth.
Christ is our head, the one who suggests, guides, leads. We are the body and if we have any sense, we learn to tune into that guidance and we follow it. If we do that, we too can become entirely filled with the God within. And if all Church members became entirely filled with the God within, how the Church would change!
All the monkeys had a complex social system and some species had very complex and dogmatic systems indeed. No social transgressions were tolerated, and a very harsh class system was in place, in which monkeys of low birth were often rejected and were very much on the edge of monkey society.
Most of the species were using primitive language, in which they used a large variety of different sounds to warn each other of various predators or to tell each other about different types of food. And there was a huge variety of species, some just a few inches big who lived in the rain forest canopy, and some huge monkeys who grazed the plains.
It seemed perfectly feasible that any of these species might one day evolve to become as sophisticated as human beings. Perhaps such a process has already started, since many monkeys are now using tools and rudimentary language.
Watching the programme, it seemed almost as though monkeys are made in the image of human beings. They don't necessary look much like human beings physically, but their behaviour seems to have quite a lot in common with the behaviour of human beings.
Human beings are made in the image of God, although we may not look much like God physically. So how do we resemble God? That's a much easier question to answer now than it was in ancient times, for now we have the advantage of being able to look at Jesus.
We don't know what Jesus looked like physically, although we can make a few assumptions since we know he was a middle-Eastern Jew. But it doesn't matter what he looked like, for we know what sort of a person he was, and that's what matters.
In today's reading from Colossians we're told that Jesus is the image of the invisible God, just as we are, but that he is also the firstborn over all creation. St Paul sees that by Christ all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
St Paul had no access to the gospels, which were written later than his epistles, but this passage from Colossians finds an echo in the prologue to John's gospel where John describes Jesus as the "Word" who was with God from the beginning and who was therefore divine. This may be because the passage is based on an early Christian hymn in which Christ is seen as present with God at Creation. This in turn picks up the hymn to Wisdom in today's Old Testament reading from Proverbs.
In early Israel, Wisdom was thought of as a person, in much the way that the Holy Spirit may be thought of as a person today. Both John, in the prologue to the gospel, and Paul, in this letter to the Colossians, identify Christ with Wisdom, as that part of the Godhead which was present at Creation. Both the letter and the gospel were written before the doctrine of the Holy Spirit had really begun to develop, but Christ is already recognised not only as divine, but as so important that he was somehow "with" God from the beginnings of the world.
But Paul goes further than this. He sees Christ as the the mediator of both Creation and Redemption. Christ creates with God the creator, then somehow holds the unity of creation in his hands, and then was the first to rise from the dead.
But there is some difficulty in all of this, for Jesus of Nazareth was a human being and no human being was present with God at the beginning of Creation. The man, Jesus, was on earth for around thirty three years, was crucified and died, but was seen again alive by many of his friends. He was seen again alive in a very different way, for his body which was so damaged that he died from his wounds, was fit enough after death to walk the seven miles to Emmaus. And at the same time, he was seen in Jerusalem by those gathered in the Upper Room. And almost everybody who saw him after his death, failed to recognise him until he gave them some sort of sign.
Clearly, Jesus the man had changed through his death. He was certainly alive again, but he was alive in a very different way and it seems obvious that he was living in some different dimension which we call Heaven, or the Kingdom of God. Although there had been very strong hints throughout his life that he was the Messiah - through his incredible healing powers and his immense love for all human beings and the miracles he was able to perform - it was after his death and resurrection that people began to realise that he was indeed the promised Christ, the saviour, the one who had been chosen by God to rescue the world from evil.
It was this new Christ in a different dimension who was with God at the beginning of time, not Jesus the man. Christ the divine was Jesus the man while he was on earth for thirty three years, but before and after those thirty three years his essence was entirely divine. He was fully human on earth and showed us how the God within human beings can grow and develop to entirely fill human beings if only human beings listen to and follow the guidance of that God within.
We know and love him as Jesus the Christ, but it was his essence, the real "him", which was with God both before his birth and after his death.
And maybe it's the same for us. Maybe we too came from God and are going back to God after we die. Certainly it's our essence, the real "us" which goes on to a new kind of life after death in which we are no longer troubled by damaged bodies or damaged minds. Meanwhile, we are the Church, the body and arms and legs of Christ on earth.
Christ is our head, the one who suggests, guides, leads. We are the body and if we have any sense, we learn to tune into that guidance and we follow it. If we do that, we too can become entirely filled with the God within. And if all Church members became entirely filled with the God within, how the Church would change!
