“I refuse to believe that there does not exist, or has ever existed, a person that has not made use of his [Jesus Christ’s] example to lessen his trespasses, even though he may have done so without realizing it. The lives of all have, in some greater or lesser degree, been changed by His presence, His actions and the words spoken by His divine voice …. I believe that Jesus Christ belongs not solely to Christianity, but to the entire world, to all races and people. It matters little under what flag, name or doctrine they may work, profess a faith, or worship a God inherited from their ancestors.” — Mahatma K. Gandhi
At the heart of this research — your angles of vision are most welcome — lies the thesis that Jesus Christ’s 12 disciples were not simply carbon copies of one another. Rather, they were not only different, but dramatically, indeed universally so. That is, the Son of Man/God chose 12 distinctly different individualities, who, as such, represented and represent 12 distinct streams of not only Christianity, but Humanity, itself — which, like the zodiac in its 12 signs “revolve” around the Sun/Son.
The revelation of Jesus Christ as a truly Universal Spirit will, we propose, occur as:
1) We come to experience the remarkable and, as noted, distinct richness of each of the 12 disciples and the 12 streams they inaugurated, gaining, thereby, a vision of that encompassing Whole which is greater than the sum of its individual parts.
2) We follow the lives of each disciple and stream — above all as they were borne anew by Christ’s resurrection — and how they took His testament out into the world:
“A new commandment I give unto you, that ye LOVE one another, even as I have loved you, that ye also LOVE one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have LOVE one to another.” [emphasis added] — John (13:34-35)
The Love of which Jesus Christ speaks is, we suggest, a Love that extends and sacrifices itself, as He, Himself, did, to embrace above all our very enemies. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr.
“Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies.’ It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals.”
As the 12 disciples took this message of not merely redemptive, sacrificial Love, but a resurrected and Eternal Love — “I am the alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the Ending” — out into the world of its day, including to the great civilizations of Persia, Egypt, India, China and beyond, so, we suggest, there is to be found within each of the world’s religions — via those individuals, past or present, who embody such an Eternal Love — a “christened” current within the greater religious stream.
Such a current is one whose depths appear seldom to have been fathomed. In the words of the “Sage of Concord”:
“In an altered age we worship the dead forms of our forefathers. The world holds onto a formal Christianity, and nobody dares to talk about the heart of Christianity for fear of shocking.”
Further testaments to the Universal Spirit of Him who we know as Jesus Christ, the Son of Man/Son of God, follow:
“As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene… No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.” — Albert Einstein
“I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creation of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love.” — Napoleon Bonaparte
“I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history.” — H.G. Wells
For more on this theme, please see “The Circle of the 12 Apostles” by Cordelia Böttcher, priest of the Christian Community. The manuscript will be available in a more straightforward format.
See writings on each day of the Holy Week here.
“Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
— Luke 23:34
“When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said”,
‘It is accomplished/fulfilled; and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.’ “
— John 19:30
“And the Word was made flesh and came to dwell within us.” (ev hemin, dative)
— John 1:14
“I AM… with you always, even unto the end of the world.”
— Matthew 28:20
* A Sacrificial, Redemptive, Resurrected, Eternal LOVE. *
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We welcome, as noted, colleagues in this aspiring labor: Stuart Weeks
.
For more information, contact: Bernice Atchison at info@concord-ium.us