Christ our Resurrection and Life
"Wherever you are on earth, you wish to
perceive the Mystery that lies at the Heart of your heart.. 'Why be afraid? I,
Jesus, am here; I am the Christ. I loved you first… In you have I set my joy!
..Recognized or not, the Risen Christ remains close
to every person, even those unaware of Him. He remains there in secret."
(Brother Roger of Taize, No Deeper Love)
Paschal Mystery
In the
Lenten Liturgy we celebrate the Paschal Mystery of Christ. In my childhood years
the only thing I understood was that Easter was a time for dressing up in fine
clothes and families to take pictures. I never made the connection very well
between the death and resurrection of Jesus and real life. So I've been
reflecting on that every since. Yet in the Christian tradition we teach the
death and resurrection of Jesus as the pivot point of Christian life. If this
is only historic event, how can this be central to our own spiritual life?
I have
come to understand the Paschal Mystery of the life, death, and resurrection of
Christ, is the mystery of *our* life and all existence. We celebrate this
mystery in the spring of the year when there is the rising of new Life. In the
spring the new life arises out of the death and transformation of the old life.
The
rising of new life arises out of death, and the relinquishment of all that has
gone before. New life is the developmental fulfillment of the life cycle. The
butterfly in Easter Christianity is a potent symbol of transfiguration and
resurrection. The caterpillar dies as it was before, and leaves behind the husk
of its former existence so the butterfly can spread its wings and leave the
bounds of earth. The old life has
to be cleared away, so that there is space and room, for the new life to
emerge. The season of winter is this phase in the rhythm of the seasons, so
that spring can burst forth.
For us
the meaning of resurrection, the invitation to join Christ in the Risen Life is
not just about the resurrection at the end of physical life or the end of time.
Resurrection is the potential that awaits us here and now to live the Risen
Life of Christ in our own. In the tradition of Eastern Christianity we realize
the goal of human life is Christification, to bring forth and manifest the Life
of the Risen One fully in our own human life, in the uniqueness of our own
journey and life development. Easter and Resurrection therefore are what we
live more than just what we believe.
Resurrection
is not something we do alone or of ourselves. It is the something we
participate in; it is the way we unite our life to the Life of Christ in the
way of the Cross, in the many deaths of self relinquishment and kenosis. We face these transformative movements
most clearly in time of trial and loss. Living the Resurrection is the way we
die to the former life we lived, and are given to the consecration of the Risen
Life of Christ coming alive in our own life.
Gethsemane and Easter
Two
visual representations of the Paschal Mystery are the icons of Christ in the
garden of Gethsemane and the icon of Resurrection called Anastassis (raising
up). The first shows the
self-offering and surrender of Christ, while the disciples sleep. They show all
those resistances in our humanity that don't want to face the truth of the way
life is in our vulnerability and impermanence. These sleeping apostles in us
resist by being unawake or unconscious or distracted. The Christ of Gethsemane
is a vulnerable Christ, and we are not different. The self-offering of Christ, the kenosis of Christ, is
what makes the second movement of Rising possible. And so it is also in our own
practice of Breathing Yeshua each moment, releasing and offering. In our
opening in the Heart and in the space of our surrender to Christ we are then
joined to His Rising. We are
lifted up and out of the deadness and stagnation of our habitual patterns, as
represented by the Christ figure reaching into the underworld and lifting up
the figures of Adam and Eve in the Anastassis icon. The discarded keys and
locks in the icon represent the unbinding of our chained and oppressed
condition. Christ is the liberator who frees us from death to live His Life.
Resurrection
is a life long process of living out the Paschal Mystery. Gethsemane is part of
the process, Golgotha is part of the process, and Easter is the fulfillment of
the process in each of our lives. Years ago in presenting a hospice workshop a
pastor invited to participate made the comment: "There are too many
Christians who want the Resurrection and are unwilling to accept the
crucifixion." In other words we come to participate in the Risen Life of
Christ through our equal participation in His crucifixion in our own life.
Yeshua poses that same question to each of us
when he says, " Can you drink the cup which I am to drink?" Our
invitation is to drink fully the cup of our life and death, and to allow all
those experiences of joy and sorrow to be the means of our redemptive,
transformative work. (Mathew
20-21).
In the garden of Gethsemane we are
presented with the vision of a Yeshua in his vulnerability. He is a human who
sees the losses he faces, the pain of complete desolation, of abandonment, of
aloneness, of not only the loss of his own biological life, but also the loss
of the experience of union with the Source that all humans experience. In the
Garden of our Gethesemane again and again our own human will cringes before the
onslaughts to our vulnerability. In moments of crisis we come face to face with
the physical and psychological vulnerability that is our humanity. Like Yeshua we may say, "Let this
cup pass from me" We just don't want it. "Make it go away." The ego says, "I didn't
bargain for this." And our
time of trial arises as fear and despair grips us in small or big ways. The
life of Faith can take us deeper.
Yet true freedom from fear only is
resolved only when we give over our vulnerability in sheer gift of love and
trust. Like Yeshua we have the
capacity to loosen the fist of our hand and hold it out empty and offering our
own humanity and emptiness to the Beloved. This giving, this choice, isn't one
we make by ourselves It is our union with Christ that allows us to make that
gift in Him. Christ
chooses in us when we say, "I choose You. Let Your will be mine in this
moment forward." Then we begin to move in freedom to accept that our life
suffering and circumstances are the cross on which we can be fully given in
love and transformed. The cross of "what gets in the way, becomes the
Way." In this way we are united with the Cross of Christ in every moment,
and every circumstance of life.
This is the heart of Prayer of the Heart, to be fully given in love in
Christ.
Luke 9:23- "If you
want to become my followers let them deny themselves and take up their cross
daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, those
who lose their live, for my sake will save it." It is in this emptying and relinquishment of all
those things that we have identified with in this life, all our ideas of
success and failure that we release from our false identity; we lose our life
and therein find our True Life who is Christ. We must make room, make space,
and give a whole hearted
"yes" for Him to live in us.
"Unless a Grain of Wheat fall to the
earth and die, it cannot bear fruit." (John
12:24) Falling is not a bad thing in the Gospel. The culture deems falling as
failure. Yet falling is inevitable in life. The real question in our practice
is how do we fall and what do we do when we fall. Can we learn to fall in
self-relinquishment to Christ? Can we learn to keep going in our walk with
Christ when we fall? Can we let our falls be the occasion of our deepening
self-gift to Christ? Are we willing to take the next step in our falling?
Yeshua says: “ Be not afraid .. I am with
you always.”
(Matt. 28) This is the promise that we are never alone in our journey.
And it may be in our falling that we are most accessible to Yeshua, most aware
of our need and His presence as our Faithful companion in this life.
Our Daily Cross
How do
we take up our cross daily, when do we do this? In our practice of Prayer of
the Heart both in stillness and in the middle of life we cultivate the interior
movements of presence and adoration. In our adoration we bow in self-offering
love to Christ who is our Life. In the ceaseless invocation of the name of
Yeshua we unite our human life to the Life of the Risen One and we enter the
life of Resurrection.
Our
cross of human vulnerability and impermanence, our cross of separateness, are
the raw material of our daily bowing in adoration and self-offering in love.
All of us, without exception come through life wounded, especially in the
earlier years when we are most vulnerable and least defended. Our wounds, the
wounds we often deny and run away from, can be seen as the sacred wounds of
Christ. We may have hidden them in shame, or in fear. The way we defend our
wounds and protect ourselves from further harm may keep us from loving more
deeply. Yet it is these very wounds that are the way of our salvation. If
we look closely in our journey, it is the way that we have been hurt or injured
in life and our search for healing and strength that become our Way into
Christ. For me the early
injuries of insecurity and isolation, became the fuel for my finding true
sanctuary and true belonging in the Heart of Christ.
The
main purpose of God's redemptive work is that we may be restored to a life of
participation in His Life in Christ. Hence true redemption, true
salvation, is the healing of the soul's capacity to receive and manifest the
love of Christ, present within us from the beginning.
Our Sacred Wounds
Our
Wounds in the Paschal Mystery are the means of our redemption and opening to
the Risen Life of Christ. Think of those times in your life when you are
brought closest to your wounds, to your vulnerability as a human being. They
are times of crisis, when the habitual patterns don't work, when the usual
supports aren't present. They are a time of trial when the temptation is to dig
a hole and climb into it, or lash out in anger or self-defense and fear. This
is the moment when the cross of Christ is our redemptive path. In this moment
when we allow Christ to choose, and say "yes"- that we are given in
love, given in trust to love more deeply, more fully, more completely. That is
a Resurrection moment. The
beatitudes teach us that Resurrection happens only in our vulnerability when we
really exercise Faith to take refuge in Christ. When things are going well,
when the mind and psyche feel secure, we are comfortable in our habitual
patterns and old husks. When things fall apart, through grace, the self of
separateness can fall apart into the life of communion with Christ. Holding
it together isn't always a good thing. When we fall apart into the arms of
Christ, that is a good thing indeed and we break free from our husks into
butterfly glory and flight.
The
moment of trial, of doubt, in a relationship, in a human encounter, in
helplessness can be the moment of death and resurrection. (And isn't what we
fear the most helplessness?) Can I do this? Can I drink this cup? Can I give
myself without reservation to the love of God in even this? That is our Garden
of Gethesemane.
Think
of your Cross in life, and the carrying of it, as the particular way we bring
the wounds of our human soul, and the knot of separateness again and again to
the healing and restoration of God. Christ is the One who carries the cross in
us, the One who unravels the knots of isolation and separateness. He is the One
who opens us to the choice of self offering in Him; and His love, again and
again, ceaselessly opens us to Himself in the course of a life time.
Think
of those choices you have made, when it was most dark, when you were most in
trial, most in crisis. Think of when you were most willing to reach out with
empty hands and ask for help in making the choice for what is most good, most
loving, and most healing, regardless of the cost. In each moment, in the
darkest moment, this is the cross of Christ which brings us to the death of the
cocoon of our self absorption and into the flight of freedom to Love, as we are
called to, as we were loved into existence to do.
In my
marriage, in my life as a father, as a counselor to the emotionally and
mentally afflicted, as a spiritual director, I have grown the most in love when
I had to reach with empty hands and a sense of helplessness and inadequacy. I
have opened the most when I asked for help to give of myself in love, the best
I could. This is the opening to the Risen Life of Christ, coming alive in me
and you. This is our death to the habit patterns and dead mental formations
that keep us locked in bondage. The times of my seeming failure and
helplessness, the death of my self-sufficiency and separateness, then become
the opening to consecration in the Risen Christ. Brother Roger of Taize tells us
about the nature of this Resurrection in Christ: " When Christ asks you, 'For you, who
am I? Suppose you were to reply; 'Christ Jesus, You are the One who loves me
into life that has no end.' " ( Brother Roger, p. 37)
Jesus
said, " I am the Resurrection and the Life, those who believe in me,
though they die, will live."(
John 11:25) The way we come to
that realization is through our humanity.
Paul in his letter to the Corinthians (I CO 1:23) said that he came to
proclaim neither the law of the Jews nor the wisdom of the Greeks but Christ
crucified. No high minded philosophy will bring us to oneness with Christ, but
only the cross of our life experience, if we let grace happen. He was talking
to people about what is real, that life is tough, and you can't realize
goodness by making rules or expounding lofty ideals; rather you come to love's
completion through the hard things in life. M. Scott Peck said that life is a
school for loving. And so it is in our relationships, they are a dimension of
the cross, the school of our life, where we learn to love, fully and deeply
Stations of the Cross
One of the important
devotional practices of my childhood was the stations of the cross. At some
level in my earlier life they made a deep impact because I understood they are
not about history, but about the mystery of living for you and me. Christ
crucified is about our living and our crucifixion as well.
Jesus is condemned- We are condemned when the hurts and injustices of
life, and when our losses and vulnerabilities catch up to us. Things may come
our way that we think we don't deserve. Our diminishments, the works we have
wrought, the relationships that have disappointed or hurt us, they condemn us
as well. What we had placed our hope and security in vainly, condemns us.
Impermanence and death intrude and condemn us. We are mocked and humiliated by
the judgements of the culture around us and by our apparent failures.
Jesus receives and accepts
the cross- We accept what life has
brought us, and let it be the means of our transformation to learn to love as
best we can, to learn to let Christ give Himself in us as best we can. We
accept the unavoidable and let it transform us, rather than give in to blind
resignation.
Jesus falls the first
time, the second, and the third- We
fall, we fail, we don't live up to what is best and deepest in us, Our weakness
is revealed. The fall to the ground is acceptance of our humanity, our
limitations. We learn a great wisdom, the acceptance, and above all, the faithfulness
of getting up again and again and going on. When we fall seven times, the
important thing is the eighth time we get up.
Jesus receives help- We are not self sufficient and separate, Christ
carries our cross with and in us, and others walk with us on this journey of
transformation in His love. We are never entirely alone or abandoned as Christ
continually offers Himself as our companion.
Jesus is stripped of his
garments- We are stripped and naked
in our defenses before God, and our utter and complete dependence on Him. Our
life arises in God, and remains ever one in God. The paradox is that in our
nakedness we discover our essence in God and our ultimate security.
Jesus is
Crucified-Yeshua is
nailed to the cross of his death- We are nailed to the cross of our own losses,
our own wounded humanity, and radical need for God
Jesus gives up His Life- We give up the life we have
known in self-offering to God. The prayer of consecration of Yeshua is our prayer-
"Into Your Hands, Abba, I commend my Spirit." For me this is the last
chant, the last mantra of the day. And in the official office of the monastic
tradition of Compline it is also the last chant of the day. It is the daily
commitment that we give up the life we have known that Christ can live in us.
And in our surrender the stone of our own separate-self life rolls away and the
life of Christ rises to live fully in us. In that moment we are offered up, as
the host in the Eucharistic liturgy, and are united in the offering of Christ.
Resurrection Life in
Ordinary Life
As we
deepen our practice in the Way of the Heart we come to live Resurrection in
ordinary daily life. We experience not just crucifixion but the glory and joy
of the Risen Life of Christ. Our
Resurrection becomes our journey of singular refuge in Christ alone.
We find
extraordinary joy in the ordinary life of walking with others, it is the road
to Emmaus, eating, drinking, cooking the fish for others. We find joy in
breaking bread; we sail on the sea of Galilee with Yeshua in the everday lives
of service. Resurrection life is sailing with Yeshua in this way, in the
ordinary life of ours. True enlightenment and mystic union leads to this state,
of living ordinary life with exquisite and extraordinary joy and love.
Resurrection leads not to separation but joining fully the unitive life of
humanity and all Creation. In us Christ can love and serve our loved ones, our
community, and the created world of all things around us. It is a life of
consecrated love and concern for all things. The true measure of a life then is
agape, unitive love, and its measure is the tender concern we bring to all we
do.
