Christ Is Born As You

“God’s first “idea” was to become manifest—to pour out divine, infinite love into finite, visible forms. The “Big Bang” is now our scientific name for that first idea; and “Christ” is our Christian theological name. Both are about love and beauty exploding outward in all directions. Creation is indeed the Body of God.

In Jesus, this eternal omnipresence had a precise, concrete, and personal referent. God’s presence became more obvious and believable in the world. The formless took on form in someone we could “hear, see, and touch” (1 John 1:1), making God easier to love.”- Richard Rohr

We celebrate Christmas as the birth of our teacher and way shower, Jesus of Nazareth. We honor him as our example, one who revealed the fullness of the Christ embodied in human form. We also celebrate Christmas as the recognition that the same potential, the Christ, is born as each of us. Every moment is our opportunity to behold the Divine as ourselves and as all creation.

Exploring the Jesus story as a metaphor for our own story, we recognize that through Jesus, as through each of us, the full potential of the Creative Life Force (God) poured itself forward into creation in order that it might be revealed. To put it simply, in all its complexity, God was revealed to itself, as itself. Jesus exampled this by awakening from attachment to the human conditioned consciousness, and realizing his Oneness with God, whom he referred to as the ‘Father,’ he courageously exclaimed, “I and Father are one.” (John 10:30)

In every moment, we come full circle in our journey with Jesus when we acknowledge that the same potential to accept and realize our Oneness is inherent in each of us and we willingly surrender to it. In fact, it is only due to our belief in separation that we can ever see a distinction between ourselves and God, the Creative Life Force that is constantly and consistency living itself in us, through us, as us. As the writer of the book of Acts says, “In [God] we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28 NRSV)  God is pouring itself into the world every moment of every day as you and me. It is ours to choose to awaken to that Truth, realize our Oneness, and live from that Consciousness.

One if the foundational Scriptures of Christianity and one that was drilled into me in the Baptist church is John 3:16 & 17,

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (NRSV) 

This Scripture has traditionally been interpreted to mean that God sent Jesus to atone for the sins of the world by sacrificing him on the cross. Further, that if one believes that Jesus was God’s only son, then he or she will be saved from what would otherwise be an eternity in hell.

Unlike traditional Christianity, we in Unity do not view Jesus as the only son of God sent into the world to redeem it, but rather as one whose life may serve as an example for the potential within each of us to recognize, realize and reveal our Oneness. Interpreted from a metaphysical perspective, John 3:16 & 17 might read something like,

God, the Creative Life Force, loved itself into creation as the Christ and gave itself to all, as all, so that whoever exercises the power of Faith (consciousness centered in God) will know that God is eternally living and giving itself to the world and will realize their oneness with it. God did not love itself into the world to condemn it, but so that the world could save itself through its own recognition, realization, and revelation of Christ expressing.

From the realization of Oneness, we might even say,

“I, being one with God, am giving my Self to the world so that the world can be redeemed as I show the way and model a life lived from the conscious awareness of Christ as the only Truth of all creation.” 

Through our realization and revelation the world is redeemed, or to use the traditional Christian word “saved.”  The world is saved through each one of us awakening to the glory of the Divine that he or she is. And, as we awaken, we assist others in awakening as well. Christ redeems the world through the world’s conscious recognition and realization of itself as the Christ. And, as Christ is recognized and realized, anywhere in any moment, it is revealed as all creation.  

Redemption, or salvation, happens in the instant that we are willing to let go of the idea that we are separate from God and surrender to and realize our Oneness. Then, from the consciousness of realization, Christ is revealed as we choose to know it for ourselves and for the world.

We have come full circle in the realization that Christ was born not only through Jesus, but Christ is born every moment that we are willing to surrender and allow God to have its full, undiluted, unencumbered expression in us, through us, as us. The Christ is in you today. Allow Christ to be born and revealed as you today.

Let us affirm together,

“I give all of my Self, the Christ of my being, in every moment so that the world might awaken to the Divine expression of Christ that it is.”

Merry Christmas to all!