Fresh Christian Theologies

By Mairi Colme

A Vision of the Cosmic Christ

The Christian message with fresh eyes

Full of energy, vigorous and revelatory - remarkable, fresh, and enlightening - eminently readable.

Elucidating the message the apostles first preached with freshness.

Readily Forgiving

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Regency Publishers
• Release date: Dec 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9781960113504

Book preview

Fresh Christian Theologies

Mairi Colme

Copyright © 2023 Mairi Colme.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author and publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review.

ISBN: 978-1-960113-51-1 (Paperback Edition)

ISBN: 978-1-960113-52-8 (Hardcover Edition)

ISBN: 978-1-960113-50-4 (E-book Edition)

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Contents

A Vision of the Cosmic Christ

Prologue

Chapter 1: Completely Human

Chapter 2: Born God

Chapter 3: Replete with the Spirit

Chapter 4: Raised to God’s Right Hand

Chapter 5: Kyrios of the Cosmos

Chapter 6: A New Creation

Chapter 7: Always Coming

Epilogue

Readily Forgiving

Chapter 1: Forgiveness as the Secret

Chapter 2: Forgiveness as Showing Mercy

Chapter 3: Forgiveness as Dis-enchaining Ourselves

Chapter 4: Forgiveness as Transformative Act of the Will

Chapter 5: Forgiveness as Pure Free Gift

Chapter 6: Forgiveness as Releasing Wellsprings

Chapter 7: Forgiveness as Supernatural Life

Saying Yes to God

Chapter 1: My Tragic Story as a Mother

Chapter 2: Transforming Suffering in the loss of my Son

Chapter 3: The Meaning of Mary’s Yes

Chapter 4: Imitating Mary in Faithful Response

Chapter 5: Recovering a Meaningful life

Under the Four Moons

Chapter 1: The Ponichee Shell

Chapter 2: The Omrik Raiders

Chapter 3: The Tsveemok Beast

Chapter 4: The Kayitot Fruit

Chapter 5: The Kavastah Goblet

Chapter 6: The Thummot Dice

Chapter 7: The Parashini Horse

Chapter 8: The Hakemot Council

Chapter 9: The Netsak Hawk

Chapter 10: The Evedeem Girl

Chapter 11: The Tselach Pot

Chapter 12: The Tiflat Letter

Chapter 13: The Goipek Elder

Chapter 14: The Kesephor Crown

Chapter 15: The Melakom Seat

Chapter 16: The Chazul Panther

Chapter 17: The Kelicherev Sword

Chapter 18: The YomArvabah Day

Glossary

A Vision of the Cosmic Christ

The Christian message with fresh eyes

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Prologue

One of the most amazing sentences ever spoken in the history of humanity was when Peter rose to his feet in front of a crowd at Pentecost, in Jerusalem around 30 AD, and procla imed:

God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ. (Acts 2, 36)

He was so inebriated by insight that they thought him drunk with wine. Yet its impact is now lost on us, after two millennia of Christianity, when instead of a revolutionary idea, it has become a quiet creed that so-called enlightened people feel they need to reject. Yet what they reject is not that vision which fired the early apostles, which turned them from a bunch of frightened men into fiery crusaders who would lay down their lives for their belief; it is not that original proclamation, or "kerygma, which took the ancient world by storm. No, what people reject is a mere caricature of Christianity, some little aping concept of it which, apart from the Christmas story of son of God come on earth," is completely at odds with what the original disciples saw, believed, and preached.

It is easy to ridicule a silly caricature, whilst failing to get to grips with what the whole bible is essentially saying. To achieve the latter you need to soak yourself in the bible an hour a day for a decade, which as a Benedictine oblate studying Divinity I have done, so that I can offer my insights in this way to others, in the hope of communicating a vision of the cosmic Christ.

It is maybe a new vision for the 21st century, urging sceptics and believers alike to look at Jesus with fresh eyes, but in trying to recapture the "kerygma, the original proclamation of those who were friends with Jesus on earth, it goes back to the roots. It is not a matter of saying something different and new, but of walking in the ancient paths," of encapsulating that truth which has perhaps united all visionaries down the centuries when they can cry out, like Stephen with his face shining at the point of martyrdom:

I can see heaven thrown open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. (Acts 7, 56)

What did they see? What is the vision which illuminates and intoxicates?

Chapter I

Completely Human

The false version of Christianity people have in their heads when they reject it, is that the second person of a threesome-God comes plop down to earth and takes on human nature like a dressing gown. In other words he’s not really human, he merely adopts a human guise temporarily, wafts round in it and then discards it when he goes back to heaven. The sceptics rightly reject this, because it is more like a version of a Greek myth, where a god comes down in disguise for a while, than it is a representation of biblical truth. The point is Jesus is one of us; he is really, entirely, wholly, totally human. If he were not totally human, he couldn’t have died in our place as a h uman.

When Jesus comes to John for baptism, the words which God supposedly speaks to confirm he has been elected for his saving mission are taken from Isaiah, and express the concept of this servant being chosen to represent us. And he can only represent us if he is chosen out of mankind:

Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom my soul delights. (Isaiah 42, 1)

The epistle to the Hebrews makes it clear that he could only represent us to God, stand in our place as our supreme high priest if he were really and truly one of us. This means he felt all the weaknesses of human nature and was tempted in all ways as we are, but the point is, he didn’t fall into sin when tempted but successfully resisted it. In this way he became the perfect high priest, chosen and appointed out of our own number, in the same way as the priests of Israel were, so able to represent us to God. If he weren’t properly human, but only in the guise of a human, he couldn’t have been high priest of the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 7) God didn’t choose, adopt, take to himself a spiritual being, like angels, or a semi-divine being, but a completely utterly human being:

He took to himself descent from Abraham. (Heb 2, 16)

This is Abraham’s seed, produced by human means; he is the end of a long line of physical descent, which is why the genealogies are so emphasized at the opening of the gospels. This means we are the same as him, made of the same stuff:

For the one who sanctifies and the ones who are sanctified are of the same stock. (Heb 2, 11)

When people said of Jesus that he was the prophet promised, and asked are you the one who was to come? they are speaking, not of the promise of a god to come into the world, but a human being raised up from among themselves. They are thinking that Moses’ words, from way back at the time of the Exodus, had come true:

Yahweh will raise up for you a prophet like myself, from among yourselves, from your own brothers. (Deut 18, 15)

They were not waiting for a divine personage but for a very human being, who would lead them to salvation as Moses did, to redemption and restoration. And when David wants to build a house, a temple for God, God promises that He would rather make him a House, a house of his lineage, so that the offspring of his own body would have an everlasting kingdom:

I will preserve the offspring of your body - - I will make his royal throne secure for ever. (2 Sam 7, 12-13)

Israel was waiting for this person, a person of royal descent who came from the loins of his ancestor David. That is why people shouted after Jesus, as the blind beggar Bartimaeus who begged for his sight to be restored in Jericho:

Jesus, Son of David, pity on me. (Luke 18, 38)

At the very beginning of the gospel story, before Mary has even conceived, we have the good old priest Zechariah, when his son John the Baptist is born, singing an exultant song to his God:

He has raised up for us a power for salvation in the House of his servant David. (Luke 1, 69)

Jesus really was the king of the Jews who was raised up from among mankind; he was the progeny, the offspring of David promised; he was a human king. This is the news that the gospel-writers proclaimed, how they set up the story of Jesus’ arrival on the scene. What Mary is told by the annunciation of the angel is that her baby who is to be called Jesus, meaning God saves, will be this offspring promised to David whose reign will last forever:

The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; he will rule over the House of Jacob forever and his reign will have no end. (Luke 1, 32-33)

Of course no human reign can be forever, as the king is subject to death; this is why in God’s intention, someone who was more than human had to be sent; but that doesn’t mean he is less than human. It doesn’t mean God sent a son of God who is only masquerading as a man.

The phrase son of God does not mean in the history of Judaism what we with hindsight take it to mean; the kings of the old testament, and sometimes prophets, were also called sons of God. What it implies is that the person has a special relationship with God; and when Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ, and adds the term son of God, or when the centurion uses the phrase at the cross they probably are asserting no more than this. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t signify more than this; for since Jesus is the one person on the planet to have conquered death, it implies he was Son of God in a more real way.

The Jewish people in the 1st century, heavily oppressed by the Romans, and no longer in control of their own country, were waiting for the Messiah; hope was at fever-pitch, and people assiduously practised their religion in order to bring this salvation about. They were waiting for the promised king; Messiah means anointed one and it was kings who were anointed.

The Jewish scriptures gave them a vision of this Messiah as an all-conquering hero, who would set the world to rights, who would triumph over God’s enemies who occupied the land, and bring peace and restoration. This is the virtuous Branch so often promised, a true king, wise and virtuous, -

a shoot springs from the stock of Jesse, on him the spirit of Yahweh rests - -he judges the poor with integrity.

(Isaiah 11, 1-4)

He will be like the great shepherd-king David, who will be kind and caring over the people who formed his flock, who would usher in a new reign of peace in Israel, when knowledge of God would flood over the land like a sea, and begin a new restoration of Eden:

The wolf lives with the lamb - - they will do no hurt, no harm, on all my holy mountain. (Isaiah 11, 6-9)

There would be return of the exiles, the land would be blessed, fruitful and fertile, each man could eat in plenty from his own fig-tree; virtue and peace would flourish and last forever:

In his days virtue will flourish, a universal peace until the moon is no more (Psalm 72, 7)

And seeing the whole earth is God’s, and not just the land of Palestine, they envisaged this universal peace to extend over all the earth, from where God is installed on his holy mountain:

His empire shall stretch from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth. (Psalm 72,8 & Zech 9,10)

All people of the earth would worship Yahweh, the one true God, God of Israel, and all the knowledge and wealth of the world would flock to offer homage in Jerusalem, the city where God had chosen to dwell:

the nations come to your light - - the wealth of the nations flow to you. (Isaiah 60, 3-5)

This is what the Jews expected from their Messiah,- someone who would rid their sacred soil of the pesky Romans, someone who would restore the rule of Israel to themselves and to the mighty Lord, by means of fighting and conquest, - an all-conquering hero like their last hero Judas Maccabaeus who fought the Greeks. Jesus is perceived in the gospels as this king, - right from the beginning when the magi see the rising star of the king of the Jews and offer him their wealth and homage in Bethlehem. This is the scriptures coming true; the arrival of God’s anointed king.

But then what happens? Despite people assuming he would fight like the Zealots, despite the crowds trying to make him king as happened after the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus resolutely refused to take up arms and lead a movement. Instead he seemed to have a different agenda. Indeed when it is suggested they take up swords in Gethsemane, it probably is because they think they are suddenly going to turn into a movement which fights for its aims. And judging by the way they talk along the road of who is going to be the greatest in the kingdom, they are still thinking that this is a physical kingdom which they are going to fight for. It must have been in their minds, for this is precisely what they are implying when they ask at the Ascension:

Has the time come? Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel? (Acts 1, 6)

This human anointed king they were following clearly was expected to overthrow the Romans and usher in a real divinely-ordained new kingdom. But this wasn’t a spiritual kingdom of heaven after death, it was expected as a real one on the earth. This explains the emphasis about king of the Jews when Jesus was on trial. The high priest Caiaphas asks tell us if you are the Messiah?(Mt 26, 63) Pilate asks just as directly, aware that a man claiming to be king was a threat to Roman rule Are you the king of the Jews? (Mt 27,11) When he is brought out to the crowds, he is displayed over-against Barabbas with the question Shall I crucify your king? (Jn 19,15) And of course the Sanhedrin cannot dissuade Pilate from writing the sign King of the Jews, as if it were a statement of fact. (Jn 19,21-22) But it is a fact; when the promised king finally came he did not resist the violence of men, but they treated him as they pleased:

the Son of Man is about to be handed over into the hands of men - -who will mock him and spit at him and scourge him and put him to death. (Mark 10, 33-34)

It had from days of old been reckoned that God alone was king of the Jewish nation, but the time had come when they asked Samuel for a real physical king like other nations. (1 Sam 8, 5) God through Samuel warned them that they would come unstuck with this idea, and having a king would lead them to rack and ruin; but they insisted, so Saul was chosen. It was only David actually who was a man after God’s own heart; all the other kings did terrible things and brought suffering. Then finally when God sends them this perfect king, capable of making mercy and peace flow like a river throughout the world, they go and crucify him! Even as they crucify him, their king reigns over them from the cross!

The inconceivable irony of this is of course why the disciples are so devastated. Nowhere in the Jewish scriptures is it suggested that this promised king of everything was going to be subject to violence and death. This is of course except in the suffering servant songs of Isaiah, which figured largely in Jesus’ own thinking; he himself quoted them, and they became so important to the early church with the benefit of hindsight. As they stand they could refer to the servant who is Israel, who always suffers abominably at the hands of other invading nations. But the point is, Jesus identifies himself as representing Israel, - and it is as the representative of Israel, called to be a true servant of the lord and ushering in His reign, that he dies an ugly and cruel death:

Surrendering himself to death and letting himself be taken for a sinner, whilst he was bearing the faults of many." (Isaiah 53,12)

He died on our behalf; died as mankind’s representative. He died for us in that he died instead of us, in our place. The crux of the crucifixion is here; he had to die as a human person for us, for if I said a god died for us it would have no meaning. But think what it might mean if a human being, sharing our very flesh, the stuff we are made of, died representing me, going ahead of me, -

If one man has died for all - - (2 Cor 5, 14)

It is for this reason Jesus called himself Son of Man. It was his device for speaking of himself without sounding pompous or hubristic whilst according to himself great authority. He uses the phrase for example when he was gainsaid for picking corn on the Sabbath, or when making his frequent statements of a future glorious reign;

then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with power and great glory. (Mark 13,26)

But it is stressing his humanity, the fact that he is one of us and representing us. He never called himself son of God, contrary to what many people erroneously believe. Son of in the Hebrew is a device for suggesting membership of a group; he is confirming his credentials as a bona fide human being. He is also of course alluding to the text in Daniel where one who like a son of man(Dan 7,13) is coming on the clouds and enters before the heavenly court, before Yahweh who is the ancient of days. This is not signifying his coming down on a cloud, as many people mistakenly think, but going up to the divine I am of the cosmos, and being given an everlasting kingdom:

On him was conferred sovereignty, glory and kingship - - an eternal sovereignty which shall never pass away.

(Daniel 7, 13-14)

It is clear Jesus was familiar with this text as he used it to reply to the high priest, when asked at his trial if he was the Messiah. It was thought a puzzle to the Jewish nation, as they did not think any human or mystical being of any sort could approach, rival, or equal the holy transcendence of the Godhead. So they were shocked beyond belief when Jesus identified himself with this figure and replied, -

You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.

(Mark 14, 62)

This sounded terrible to orthodox Jewish ears; the high priest tore his robes to signify blasphemy. Jesus combines the Daniel passage with the first verse of Psalm 110, which worsens the blasphemy, suggesting as it does some being of semi-divine status who is able to speak with the Almighty in his heavenly court:

Yahweh’s oracle to you, my Lord, Sit at my right hand and I will make your enemies a footstool for you.

(Psalm 110,1)

So Jesus is here averring, that though he is human, he is destined to have an eternal reign as king, commensurate with God’s reign as Lord of the universe. It is this statement that got him crucified, because unacceptable to the Jewish mind.

But it means that he knew where he was headed, he was aware of his destiny. Even on the cross he replied that it would happen today when the good thief appealed to him, -

Remember me when you come into your kingly power. (Luke 23, 42)

Jesus was crucified as one of us, and it is as a human king, chosen from among ourselves, that this statement has significance. The thought is astounding and truly shocking; the idea that a human person, raised up to be the promised and anointed king of the Jews, should somehow reign forever in the heavenly realm by the side of God!

Chapter II

Born God

But as well as being one of us Jesus Christ was sent. He was both raised up as human and had a divine pre-existence at the same time. Paul in his writings often asserts the divine nature of Ch rist:

His state was divine, yet he did not cling to his equality with God. (Phil 2,6)

John tries to grasp at the beginning of his gospel this divine pre-existence:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1,1)

People have the idea in their heads that this was a fellow-god sitting in glory, a separate entity with an independent existence. But it cannot mean that, considering how strongly the Jews believed that God is One and there is none beside him. What it means rather is that He was the creative principle in God. As the personified Wisdom proclaims in Proverbs,

"Yahweh created me when his purpose first