Thoughts on essence

John 1:9-18

          There was a time when I did not have the devotion (if that's the correct word) to labyrinths that I have today. I was an inquirer and a novice. I beheld a tool that I did not know how to use but it appealed to me. I was on retreat at a Jesuit retreat house and my spiritual director for the weekend suggested a method that I recall as vividly today as if it had just happened. She suggested that I start the Labyrinth at today walking slowly to the center. Each turn and corner would be an event in my past. As I approached the center I got younger and younger with memories and experiences corresponding to those earlier times.  The center would be not my human birth but when I was conceived in the mind of God.  I recall all kinds of events going backwards and even recalled the day I came home from the hospital with my older brothers gawking at me and loving me (as they do today). How did I react to this new world with 3 older young boys. The power and awe of simply entering the center of the labyrinth in the presence of God at the moment he conceived me was overwhelming. I was shaking and in tears. 

             Rarely do we think of the moment in time when God conceived us, when God created us and decided what the world needed to help complete the 'plan' was a you or a me. It is a powerful, humbling thought even outside a labyrinth. We were not a physical being at all but yet we were there with God in our essence. 

            This is perhaps a poor analogy on my part of what Jesus was to God the Father. But we know Jesus was with God always. Jesus is the word come to life. Jesus is love personified.

       So many people get hung up on the notion that you have to be Christian to be saved, or Roman Catholic or generally a believer in Jesus Christ. If I think about this passage though, Jesus is merely the name of the personification of what Jesus was all along, from the alpha to the omega. His earthly presence is minuscule in time compared to how we look at things. Jesus' overall presence and existence encompasses everything.  I could easily argue that it is not so much the personification of Jesus that we must abide in (with no disrespect or minimization intended),  it is more his essence and what his essence means to us. Not unlike my presence at the moment of my conception by God the father except Jesus always was and always will be, completely irrespective of him taking human form.

       In earthly form Jesus chose to experience life in our limited way but that in no way limited him as the Son of God. His presence and essence is not simply a physical one that lasted 33 years. As I said, the alpha and the omega. The message of his life of 33 years is a message that transcends his physical life. It is that physical life that we can cling to as a guide in our present form, in our earthly presence.  But the message of love and Jesus' essence goes far beyond any earthly presence.

      Must we accept Jesus as our Lord and saviour to attain salvation? Is it possible to attain our earthly goals of wholeness by embracing completely his message and his essence even if it is in some other form or name? ( the true essence of another revealed faith for example ).  Jesus as human, however holy and while still the Son of God was limited to human form, communication and a life that truly transcended an earthly shell we call bodies.

        I am pondering the true essence of a being, my savior, Jesus Christ. Is it possible to live a "christian life", a life of holiness and wholeness by living the essence of Jesus without his worldly name?  Just some thoughts.

            

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” ’) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.