Honoring Jesus The Christ

by Raymond Wolf

As we turn our attention to the holidays, people are celebrating their faith, their relationship to God, to man, to friends and family. Christmas is celebrated around the world by many, and the story of Jesus is being interpreted according to religious training, faith, and belief. I ask myself, what are the universal messages of Jesus, known as the Christ?

For me; God is God Transcendent and God Immanent. God Transcendent is the Mystery, all Powerful, Loving and Intelligent; beyond all forms of life, and the creator of all forms and the animating life within. God Immanent is God existing in all. This is of course a mystery too, how God manages do this, and yet sages, mystics all testify to this truth. From the Bhagavad Gita, "Having pervaded this whole Universe with a fragment of Myself, I remain."

Each avatar brings forth an aspect of God in the manner which humanity can receive him/her at the time. Christ brought forth the message of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. The message is a message of Love. Love's messages are messages of unity, of brotherhood, and of goodwill. Love is a message of God's love for all His people and all His creation, and it's message is that within each of us dwells a spark of that divine consciousness, whether you call it Christ Consciousness, the Divine I Am Presence, or Atma.

Christ's message was of an open heart which could embrace his brothers and sisters. In his life he embraced people from all walks of life, rich and poor, from every religion and from every nation that he encountered. He saw everyone as he saw himself, a son or daughter of God, and he told each that the Kingdom of God lived within them.

From Alice Bailey:

"The evolutionary force to which we give the name "the Christ consciousness" focused itself in the person of the Christ in a manner hitherto unknown. This is the potency, latent in every human heart which was described by St. Paul as "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. I.27), and is that which, under evolutionary law, brings a man eventually into the Kingdom of God and "unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." (Eph. IV.13.) Of this potency and glory, Christ has ever been the symbol."

There is no single presentation of God or Christ that conveys the full true story. I suspect that is an impossible task, to convey to humanity in a single revelation all that can be known about God, avatars, and the evolution of man. Rather we learn and expand our knowledge as humanity grows in its capacity to receive divinity, and implement what we have been given. The following are some excepts from writers who shed some light on Jesus The Christ, and his relationship to God and man.

From Cosmic Revelation channeled by Ann Valentin and Virginia Essene:

"The Bible says that God issued the Word. Another meaning of the Word would be beams of energy or winds of cosmic power, emanating creative intention. The Gold and Silver Rays are God in expression outside of Itself. Into the womb of life (space) that God had prepared, which we shall call Cosmic energy, that immense force also sent forth part of itself as two great energy rays for creative purposes. We, the Gold and Silver Rays, were that Word made manifest - "the morning and the night." It is we who have continued to create in God's name since that immaculate conception long ago.

"The great teachers of all major world religions have been fueled by the force and power of the Gold Ray. Your term "Christ Consciousness" or "Christ Light" means there is a universal understanding and respect for God and the laws which uphold creation. My energy is the Christ Consciousness or Christ Light in this 12th Universe. This is often just called light or love. "The Christ" usually means a world teacher of light and inspiration - a particular soul using the Gold Ray to improve the spiritual quality of souls."

The Gold Ray delivered by Sananda, Lord of the Ominverse.

From Alice Bailey:

"At the time of this Wesak Festival, I would call your attention to the fact that the annual return of the Buddha to bless His people everywhere and to convey the message of wisdom, light and love to humanity-coming as He does from the very Heart of Deity Itself-is the outer evidence and guarantee of inner divine guidance and revelation in this present world cycle of 2500 years. Year by year He returns. For a brief minute He reminds us that God exists and ever loves; that He is not unmindful of His people; that the heart of the universe is unalterable compassion, and that man is not alone. To bring this recognition about and to make this appearance possible, a living Triangle of Energy is created and focused through three great spiritual Individuals, Who evoke recognition both in the East and in the West. They are known to believers of every faith and all nationalities. These Three are:

1. The Lord of the World, the Ancient of Days, Sanat Kumara, the planetary Logos, Melchizedek, He to Whom Christ referred when He said, "I and My Father are One."

2. The Buddha, the Illumined One, the Revealer of the light and the wisdom which come to us from sources far greater than our planetary Life, a Messenger of the Gods.

3. The Christ, the Son of the Father, the World Saviour, the Redeemer. He Who has remained with us and Who is gathering His sheep into His fold, the Lord of Love.

"In these Three, Whose nature is radiant love and light, humanity can grasp in some measure the nature of divinity. They are greater than is known or realised; human intelligence and aspiration can only sense Their essential nature.

"The Spirit of Peace will, when the right time comes, vitalise the responsiveness of humanity, via the influence of the Hierarchy, to the will of God which has for basic intent the bringing of peace on earth. What is peace? It is essentially the establishing of right human relations, of synthetic rapport with its resultant cooperation, of correct interplay between the three planetary centres and an illumined, loving understanding of the will of God as it affects humanity and works out divine intent. It is for this reason that the Christ, Who established for the first time in planetary history a contact between the Hierarchy, Humanity, Shamballa and the Spirit of Peace in His Own high place, in His first recorded utterance said that He must be about His Father's business and then at the end of His life, reiterated the same thought in the words: "Father, not my will but Thine be done," thus carrying the thought up to the highest plane for He addressed the Father, the first Aspect of Divinity. He then focused in Himself the two major divine attributes and aspects-will and love (atma-buddhi)-and because of this, His consciousness became extra-planetary as is the consciousness of the Lord of the World, and He could then touch certain heights of awareness and contact certain solar Agencies which had never before been contacted by man. This achievement enabled Him to put Humanity in touch with the Spirit of Peace. He thus Himself became the Light of the World and the Prince of Peace.

"In this manner, Shamballa and the Hierarchy were brought into a close relationship and two great streams of force were blended and a definite interplay set up between them. The Buddha, through His achievement of illumination, established the first major link with the Forces of Light. The Christ, through His ability to express the will of God in love and as world salvage, established the first major link with the Spirit of Peace."

Jesus as the Son of Man, and Jesus as the Son of God expresses a two-fold idea. One that Jesus was a man: he was born, lived, and died-ascended in a physical body. This idea of Jesus being mortal is often overlooked, or denied. But it gives credence and hope to the idea that man can achieve spiritual heights and know God. Jesus as the Christ expresses the idea Jesus was overshadowed, if you will, by the aspect of God as love. As an avatar Jesus came to earth with a purpose; as a man Jesus had to go through all the human trials to become the divine being that he was.

From the Urantia Book:

"Jesus' devotion to the Father's will and the service of man was even more than mortal decision and human determination; it was a wholehearted consecration of himself to such an unreserved bestowal of love. No matter how great the fact of the sovereignty of Michael, (Christ Michael) you must not take the human Jesus away from men. The Master has ascended on high as a man, as well as God; he belongs to men; men belong to him. How unfortunate that religion itself should be so misinterpreted as to take the human Jesus away from struggling mortals! Let not the discussions of the humanity or the divinity of the Christ obscure the saving truth that Jesus of Nazareth was a religious man who, by faith, achieved the knowing and the doing of the will of God; he was the most truly religious man who has ever lived on Urantia (Earth).

"Just as men must progress from the consciousness of the human to the realization of the divine, so did Jesus ascend from the nature of man to the consciousness of the nature of God. And the Master made this great ascent from the human to the divine by the conjoint achievement of the faith of his mortal intellect and the acts of his indwelling Adjuster (Spirit).

"Be not discouraged; human evolution is still in progress, and the revelation of God to the world, in and through Jesus, shall not fail.

"The great challenge to modern man is to achieve better communication with the divine Monitor (Spirit) that dwells within the human mind. Man's greatest adventure in the flesh consists in the well-balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic soul-consciousness in a wholehearted effort to reach the borderland of spirit-consciousness -- contact with the divine presence. Such an experience constitutes God-consciousness, an experience mightily confirmative of the pre-existent truth of the religious experience of knowing God. Such spirit-consciousness is the equivalent of the knowledge of the actuality of sonship with God. Otherwise, the assurance of sonship is the experience of faith.

"And God-consciousness is equivalent to the integration of the self with the universe, and on its highest levels of spiritual reality. Only the spirit content of any value is imperishable. Even that which is true, beautiful, and good may not perish in human experience. If man does not choose to survive, then does the surviving Adjuster (indwelling spirit) conserve those realities born of love and nurtured in service. And all these things are a part of the Universal Father. The Father is living love, and this life of the Father is in his Sons. And the spirit of the Father is in his Sons' sons -- mortal men."

The ideas are complex: What is man and what is our relationship to God? Who are these men and women who claim to know God and impact our humanity and history so? I have been drawing upon different sources to illuminate the questions, and perhaps stirring some thoughts of your own. Perhaps poetry best expresses that which our intellects and hearts strive to comprehend. May faith, hope, and a discerning mind lead us to experience and knowing.

From Messages from Maitreya the Christ through Benjamin Creme:

"My dear friends, I am with you once more.

My mission, as I have said, is twofold: to release you from the bondage of your self- imposed limitations, and to take you with Me back to God.

I shall show you that through the right

distribution of this earth's manifold resources all men may enjoy God's bounty.

I shall show you, too, that the Path to God is simple indeed, that your Divine Spark will become manifest through Me.

"Let Me do this work for you, My friends.

Let Me lead you into your Divine Heritage.

I shall show you wonders of which you cannot dream.

I shall release from your eyes the blindfold of ignorance.

I shall drive from this earth forever the curse of hatred, the sin of separation.

Let Me take you with Me, My friends, back to your Source, back to the cradle of your Being, and release in you your Godhead.

"My Masters will serve you, too, will teach you to live together in true brotherhood, in justice and harmony.

Forget not, My brothers, that you are One,

that the Father of All has created you in His Divine Image, that through you shines the same blessed Light of Love and Truth.

"The time is coming, My friends, when the Light of Truth shall shine all around you, when Man shall take his brother to his heart and know him as himself.

Let Me lead you, My friends, into that blessed state.

Say yes to My Advent.

Say yea to My Coming,

and be enfolded in the blessing of My Love.

"May the Divine Light and Love and Power of the One Most Holy God be now manifest within your hearts and minds.

May this manifestation lead you to see yourselves, together, as children of the One Father."