Ask-Seek-Knock

Our theme for the Advent season this year at Unity Spiritual Center Denver is “A Season of Wonder.” In keeping with the theme, I sat last night wondering, “What in the world am I going to write about this week?” And, “What on earth am I going to talk about this Sunday?” Even though the title of my lesson for Sunday is “Embrace the Mystery,” I am usually quite uncomfortable sitting with and embracing those two mysteries.

As I was able to quiet my mind a bit and relax into meditation last night, I was comforted by the gentle reminder that I do not have to figure it out. All the worry and struggle over trying to think of something to write about and speak on is the ego’s way of keeping me caught up in the idea of an “I” that is separate. And, that always stimulates fear. When we are in fear, there is no clarity because there is no conscious connection with Spirit. 

Once I was able to get past my initial angst and relax into a quite space of meditation and contemplation the following Scripture came to me –

“Ask, and you shall receive. Seek, and you shall find. Knock and the door will be opened unto you. For everyone who ask receives, everyone who seeks finds, and for everyone who knocks the door is opened.” – Matthew 7: 7-8

My wondering then became, “I wonder what in the world that has to do with Advent and Christmas? Maybe I tuned into the wrong channel.”

However, as I sat with it longer, I was reminded of my post from last week. In Unity we honor Jesus as a teacher, an elder brother and our way-shower. We celebrate the birth of this enlightened master at Christmas. In this passage from the Sermon on the Mount which many, including famed author and teacher Emmet Fox, believe to be the codification of Jesus’ teaching, he shared a deep and profound truth as he spoke from the Christ consciousness. Those reminders helped me to feel more at ease with using it as a source Scripture for Advent.

This passage can be, and often is, confusing if not confounding when we read it and attempt to understand it from our human perspective. Just imagine, if you will, the people who were sitting on a hillside listening to Jesus that day. They were primarily poor Jews who had been and continued to be under the rule of a foreign power, Rome, and who were often subjected to harsh treatment and abject living conditions. I wonder what they were thinking. I’m sure they had been asking God to deliver them from their oppression, to provide for them and to return them to freedom. Can you imagine how incredulous they must have been upon hearing this man say that it is given to everyone who asks, that those who seek find, and to those who knock the door is opened? Now image those today who are living in poverty, homeless, hungry and oppressed reading or hearing this Scripture. I wonder if they, too, are dubious, wondering how this could possibly be true.

It is often challenging, if not impossible, to understand Jesus’ teachings from our human perspective. We most often want to apply his teaching to the manifest realm. We tend to interpret his teaching in application to our human needs and desires. While Jesus understood and appreciated the importance of our basic human needs, they were not typically his primary focus.

To Jesus, the most important desire was the longing to know Oneness, to attain God consciousness, and to embody the Christ - the potential perfection for mankind. 

When Jesus said, “Ask and you shall receive” he was not talking about worldly goods. He was referring to a sincere asking to know God. When one asks with a pure heart and intention, he receives. The asking and receiving are one.

When he said, “Seek and you shall find” he was talking about seeking the Christ within, not the outer searching that we often engage in. When one truly seeks to know himself as the Christ and that is the sole intention of seeking, he finds.

When he said, “Knock and the door will be opened unto you” Jesus was using the metaphor of the “door” to represent anything that we allow to separate us from the conscious awareness of ourselves as the Christ made manifest. When we earnestly “knock” with thoughts and intentions on any “door” that appears to separate us, it is opened. The opening occurs in our own consciousness. When it is opened the one who knocks is greeted by the image of Christ as himself. 

Allowing the Christ to be revealed as the self is the real message of Christmas. Advent is a time of reflection, possibly upon the things we allow to be in the way – the “doors” that separate us from that knowing.

My prayer is that during this season we will allow ourselves to reconnect with our deepest desire, our soul and sole desire – to know ourselves as the Christ revealed. When that is our intention and we ask in our hearts, seek within ourselves, and knock at the door of our perceived limitations, we shall receive. We find and open to the Christ within.

Join us during “A Season of Wonder” as we open to the conscious awareness of the indwelling Christ. Let us come together to prepare our hearts and minds to celebrate Christmas.