1 Christ: beginning where one should begin
Consider “How Jesus became the Christ,” and other such phrases or titles. They have been employed for years. One can call to mind, as I do, reading parts of Schillebeeckx’s books on Jesus and on the Christ, and the way he selected certain New Testament texts for one book, some for the other. It was frankly absurd, and from a man who had obviously done an enormous amount of specialized research, and knows more about these subjects than I will ever know in this life. And then one finds the recurring patterns of different ideologies read into Jesus: Jesus the revolutionary; the socialist; the utopian dreamer; the conservative; the spokesman for the proletariat; the progressive liberal; the typical Jew; the first Christian; the libertarian; and so on. There is apparently no end to the game of reading contemporarily favored ideologies back into Jesus—whoever he really was. Ideological Christs do indeed wear out.
The older I become, and the more I desire to distance myself from ideologies of all types, and from unreasonable assumptions, the more I see that approaches to Jesus or to the Christ are often just plain wrong, or at least misleading. In truth, very little indeed can be known of a so-called “historical Jesus,” or the “earthly Jesus,” which as I recall was Schillebeeckx’s bizarre phrase. Who knows what Jesus actually said and did? “But we have the Gospels!” and “We have church traditions, and church teachings, and so on, which clarify what Jesus did, what he said, who he was.” Indeed, thousands of pages abound. But in fact we know Jesus in and through the Risen Christ, not apart from that experience. I shall explain this claim.
If one wants to gain some genuine insight into Christ, it seems necessary, or at least beneficial, to begin at the proper place, and to keep all sorts of details, claims, stories, words, and so on, in proper perspective. If one were to begin to try to understand who Christ is by beginning with one of the conceptions common among Churches, cults, Christians, scholars, and so on, one may well in fact be prejudicing and cutting off the inquiry just as it begins. It seems more sensible to begin at the point in which his early disciples began—after all, they wrote the earliest documents about Jesus. They did not begin with stories about Jesus, not with fading memories or remembered words and deeds, but with an encounter, an experience. Or perhaps with a series of mystical experiences, some of which are recorded, probably more remain hidden in the silence of things unspeakable.
From reading the New Testament over the years, and with the help of philosophy to clear the ideological brush away to see things more as they are, I recognize the wisdom in seeking to understand Christ not primarily from parables and miracles, and so on, but from the experience of Christ in the souls of particular human beings. Although the narrative of each of the New Testament Gospels unfolds in a more or less chronological or at least sequential order, it is wrong to try to find out who Jesus is in such a way. These Gospels were written by men who clearly “had faith” in Jesus Christ, who experienced, in one degree or another, God as present and active in their psyches, and who named this experience “Christ,” or at times—especially in the Apostle Paul or in the evangelist Luke—“the Holy Spirit,” or “Spirit.” The texts are written from within the experience of faith-union, and not as mere intellectual or pious remembrances.
Moreover, and crucially, the historically decisive experience of Christ was not his preaching on the Mount or his agony in the garden, or even his murder at the hands of the Romans, but the experience of some particular men and women to whom Christ “appeared” as “risen from the dead,” as alive after he had been crucified, and so on. Whoever had this experience remains largely unknown, but the written Gospel accounts name Mary of Magdala, Simon called Peter, the beloved disciple, most of the Twelve, and so on, as having “seen the LORD.” (The Apostle Paul claims, in I Corinthians, that on one occasion, more than 500 brethren were granted the vision of the Resurrected Christ on one occasion.) The experiences are described in various phrases. But an important point to keep in mind is that the attentive reader does not know whether or not any of the Gospel writers had the experience directly, or whether they are relating the experiences of Mary Magdalene, Peter, and others. Or again, the reader cannot tell if the aforementioned men and women had the experience, spoke about it, and then others were lead to a similar or related experience through “the preaching of the word.” This last case is indeed possible: someone such as Simon named Peter (“Rocky”) experienced Christ, and then Peter shared his experience—“preached Christ”—others heard and believed, and then they, too, experienced the reality of Christ alive and active in them, in their own body-souls. This is a possibility I consider likely. The participatory experience—“the LORD has truly arisen and has appeared to Simon”—was vouchsafed to particular human beings, who then “shared the experience,” or “witnessed,” and other “disciples” “came to believe” through their words. It seems to me that this process, this experience of the Risen Christ as LORD, is the heart, the living core, of the “community of disciples,” and to some extent remains the experiential core of the enormous tree that grew up to become “Christianity.”
But what I have written is partly reasoned, partly likely conjecture. I do not know, nor have I read a scholar who does know, whether or not any of the four canonical evangelists actually encountered the risen Christ themselves. I admit, however, that when I read the Gospels, I often mark in my notes passages that seem to me to reveal the experience of the evangelist. The famous question repeated twice towards the end of Luke’s Gospel is a good case in point: “Did not our hearts burn within us as He spoke to us on the way and opened us up to understand the scriptures?” Each time I read those words, they not only resonate in me, but I am quite sure that I am hearing the voice of the evangelist, based on his personal experience. (And why not? He was a human being open to God.)
Again, it seems likely that even if none of the four evangelists actually “saw the Risen Christ” in the way that Mary of Magdala or Simon Peter did, through faith they came to share the experience, and to know Christ in them and with them. Again, In reading the Gospels, it is not at all difficult to see that the authors have a living faith experience: not a set of beliefs about Jesus, but a sense of ongoing union with Christ. This awareness of union with God in and through what these men call “Jesus” or “Christ” is the essence of faith in the Christian sense. And yet, none of the evangelists explicitly says in his own words, “I have seen the LORD,” or equivalent words, although the evangelist known as “John” seems close to implying this reality again and again. Under the stories he relates—such as the encounter of the woman with Jesus at the well in Samaria—clearly encapsulate, communicate, a genuine encounter with the Risen Christ. They do not make sense otherwise.
Still, there is one New Testament writer who claims to have had the experience of Christ Risen as LORD. And his documents are, according to reputable scholars, the earliest New Testament documents. In fact, the letters of the Apostle Paul are the earliest known writings by a “man in Christ,” by what we call “a Christian.” And Paul repeatedly refers to his experience of the Resurrected Christ, and on significant occasions explicitly says things such as “have I not seen the LORD” and “Christ appeared also to me,” and so on. Although a secondary source, the Acts of the Apostles, written by the evangelist known as “St. Luke” (long held to be a disciple of the Apostle Paul) support such claims repeatedly. In short: in the letters of the Apostle Paul, we have documents which maintain in no uncertain terms that the author has experienced Jesus Christ crucified as alive, and as LORD—as the presence of the living God in his soul.
The decisive core of Christian faith is the awareness of Christ in and with one’s consciousness. To believe in Christ is to be aware that God is in one’s mind or soul, and that this divine presence is decisively and unmistakably linked with Jesus who had been crucified, and whom “God raised from the dead.” Christ is, among other things, the experience of God in communion with Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, and who is experienced as alive in one’s soul. This claim must be clarified.
2 Interlude: preaching and writing
Christ: What does it mean to preach as a Christian? What is writing in Christ? To preach Christ is to allow the presence of Christ in one’s soul or mind to communicate to other human beings in whom Christ is present. This is, I believe, what the Apostle Paul means at the opening of his letter to the Christians in Rome, in which he mentions preaching “from faith to faith,” that is, from the experience of faith in the preacher to the experience of faith in the hearer. In simplest words, but with an easily misunderstandable formulation for those who may wish to misunderstand: to preach is to present Christ, to allow Christ within to nourish Christ within.
It is difficult to preach from within Christ, because in the act of preaching, one must concentrate on the formulation of words, pronunciation, volume, receptivity of hearers, and so on. When one attends to such things, it diminishes, but does not necessarily negate, the awareness of Christ within that the preacher is interpreting. A preacher’s role is not to present “the Bible” or “the teaching of the Church,” and so on. A catechist may have such tasks. A preacher of Christ, on the other hand, must literally present Christ in speech. To this purpose is the preacher appointed by the Risen Christ: to communicate Christ as LORD to fellow human beings. As noted, the difficulty comes in public presentation, when one must be aware of so much else than the presence of Christ in the heart. The preacher could write the sermon or homily and read it, but that allows a veil of a written text to interpose itself between Christ-in-speaker and Christ-in-hearer. A written task puts up a veil. Preaching without a text allows the Risen One to speak here and now, and demonstrates faith in the preacher that Christ will indeed come through, that one need not be hyper-vigilant about every formulation, each word, because God is greater than our human conceptions. Exact formulations do not matter. God does not need precision; He needs a speaker to love and to trust Him, and hearers to love and to trust Him. The rest really does not matter so much. Imprecision, mistakes, sloppy phrases, mispronunciations: what are these compared to nourishing the spiritual presence of Christ in human souls?
Writing can be considerably different, as the one writing has time and opportunity to choose words more carefully, to polish formulations, to consider the effects of certain formulations on readers. Still, even in writing, one should prefer, I think, directness and truthfulness of communication more than learned formulations. Perhaps if one is writing for theological journals, one must be very particular about every formulation. But why write for learned journals, when the faithful need nourishment, and have often been deprived faith-filled, Spirit-filled preaching and teaching? Why write books to sit on library shelves, when men and women are longing for God? “Of writing many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” So writes Qoheleth. I agree with the first phrase, but not the second. Aristotle was correct, I think, when he wrote that study is the one activity that one can do the longest without being wearied. Study, or the concentration of the mind on particular problems, energizes and awakens the mind. Study employs reason, and reason in the Greek sense is the divine Intellect in a human being; reason and Christ are one. Perhaps if one fails to exercise or eat while studying, it could indeed be “a weariness of the flesh.” What awakens the mind is the right use of reason, and studying the things of God, and what truly matters in human existence, immerses one in life-giving reason. If one simply emotes and babbles without the use of reason, then one would presumably become weary, or at least wearisome to others. As the Apostle writes in I Corinthians, “In community, I would rather you speak a few words with reason than babble many words in the Spirit.” Christ needs to be presented by reasonable speech.
To preach is to present Christ, to speak from Christ within to Christ within, working through our human bodies, feelings, minds. Our humanity is ever present, and limits, hinders, “shapes,” in effect, the presentation of Christ. Man can limit God, but not overcome Him: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome the light.” Nor can any human being eradicate all of the effects of the divine light shining in, although some apparently work religiously at blinding themselves to the light.
3 On the core of Christian faith
Now I will attempt to articulate what seems to me to be the core of Christian faith, the decisive center, the essence of faith itself. The attempt is fairly tentative, but must be made, even if I blunder a little. One cannot sit by and see Christian faith pass away into doctrinal quibbles and institutional game-playing. Too much is at stake: God in mankind, Christ.
The essence of Christian faith is the experience of the presence of God. The experience of divine Presence is grounded on the particular person’s loving trust and surrender to God. Without this faith-as-surrender, without simple, childlike trust, the divine remains, as it were, beyond the center of one’s being. Or the divine is present, as that is God’s nature—to be, to be present—but the human being is not attentive, not receptive to, not open to, the divine Partner.
The essence of faith is the experience of divine Presence. If one having this ongoing experience identifies the Presence as Christ or the Holy Spirit, one is within the Christian orbit; one is a Christian. If one identifies the divine Presence as the I AM that spoke to Moses and through the prophets, one is a Jew. If one identifies the divine Presence as Krishna or another god of the Hindu pantheon, then one is a believing Hindu. If one identifies the Presence as Intellect, as Nous, then one is a philosopher in the tradition of Heracleitos, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle.
Now, I will make a bold claim: the God experienced as present, and named differently, is one and the same God. The God of Moses, the Ehyeh-asher-Ehyeh, is the Johannine Christ: “Before Abraham was born, I AM.” The God of Aristotle, Reason, is the Christ of the great Fathers of the Church, the divine Logos. God is God, and this One is present to each and to all.
Why does a Christian identify the Presence of God within as Christ Jesus, or the Holy Spirit? Because these are the symbols, the names, with which one is familiar. The mind has been stocked with symbols, as a pond is stocked with trout. When one experiences divine Presence, the symbols at hand, the words already present in the mind, become the medium through which one experiences, and by which the participant than communicates his or her experience of the divine. Furthermore, the divine may choose, for its own reasons, to identify itself as Christ: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” “Who are you, LORD?” “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” God chose to reveal Himself as the crucified and Risen Jesus to the man who becomes, through the experience, the Apostle Paul. If God had revealed himself as Zeus, we may not have heard anything more from Paul!
Who is this God that is present? And why is it that the divine seems to be intensely present sometimes, but not always? Surely God can never be contained or controlled, and the attempt to grasp God in some decisive way leads to spiritual emptiness. Better by far to be open, receptive, longing, grateful, and “let God be God,” and experientially come and go as God wills. “The Spirit blows where it wills.” Indeed, it does. There are moments when the divine—as Christ, as Spirit, as Nous—is so burningly present that one cannot speak. These moments are the most intense and alive moments in life. And yet, they more or less pass from consciousness through the waves of time. One has a duty, I would think, when granted divine experiences, to remember them, to cherish them, to think about them, to share them with those men and women who will receive the things of the Spirit.
***
You ever present, and ever beyond my understanding, shine in, as You will. Break through the veils have formed over your piercing eye, your divine Mind, and illuminate me, as You will. You are God; there is no other. Enkindle within once again the fire of your love, that I may experience You as You permit, and share you gratefully and joyfully with every you I meet. God of Jesus Christ, God of Moses and the prophets, God of the philosophers, God of all saintly men and women, God of every human being coming into this world: Be to us as You are, as You will. Amen.
