According to the internationally recognized group of elite, non-believing,
academic, forensic/historical, international scholars known as The Jesus Seminar, the
lives of most in Jesus day were tortured beyond anything known on planet
earth today. As impossible as that is to fathom, that is their massively
researched conclusion.
I grew up perceiving that Jesus was furious, but fully self possessed and
appropriately planned and scripted when he flipped the tables in the temple.
For the last decade I've realized that the "furious" part of my perception was
incorrect. Jesus was Universal Love incarnate, in the same way Hitler was
and Dick Cheney is, Evil incarnate. I've realized that Jesus was NEVER not
a brother to anyone, and that this was a brotherly, not "furious," not violent
act.
But just this morning I realized that Jesus "lost it!" Just as Einstein "saw"
possibilities, likelihoods actually, in the realm of physics that most of
us STILL can't "see," Jesus "saw" that the Living Hell of most in his day could
INSTANTLY be displaced within each individual that became Universal Love
Incarnate, and that doing so en mass would likely avert the total destruction
of the Jews in Israel, that otherwise appeared certain to him, that in fact
did occur within the next 70 years.
BUT NO ONE COULD HEAR HIM! NO ONE COULD HEAD HIM! TRY AS HE MIGHT,
LABOR AS HE DID, NO ONE COULD HEAR WHAT HE WAS TELLING HIM, THAT
WOULD TOTALLY AVERT THEIR INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE HELL! And to
this day we still don't, can't, won't "hear," and now it is within months, or a few
years of being too late for us all.
He "lost it." In the Temple, he "lost it." As Gandhi knew, as Tolstoy saw
before him, Jesus was just a man, as Einstein was just a man. Near perfect
in his realm in comparison to anything we've ever seen - but an imperfect,
finite man.
Flipping the tables may have been Jesus' most powerful contribution to us -
his most penetrating wake-up call. But it was NOT the moment that Jesus
would have been the most proud of. It was not out of "knowing how to
respond" that he did it. It was out of knowing A RESPONSE WAS URGENTLY
NEEDED that he expressed himself in this way - a desperate outcry, an
act of Faith that expressing the "Truth" imperfectly was more responsible,
and an infinitely better Service than repressing or delaying any expression at all.
"The Little Dutch Boy" seeing the dike spring a leak, didn't know how to
save the town, but knew that doing nothing was death to the town.
Jesus "lost it" inside, and chose that allowing that to become manifest was more
responsible, was more Loving than the much personally safer path of keeping his
mouth shut and his hands to himself. It got him Crucified, a fact that surely he
didn't regret, as he would have seen that this unpremeditated, spontaneous act
was among his greatest contributions to His Family.
Idle speculation? "Start, I think you are the reincarnation of Jesus
Christ." First said to me decades ago, who I consider the world's greatest
Peace Maker of recent times, an avowed "non-believer," has stated this to me several
times these last 3 years. Massively humbled, and encouraged by these
words, I none the less relegated them to the realm of fancy, I suppose in part
because I am a non-believer in such things myself. But this morning I see that what
I was being told is "a" reincarnation of Jesus. Not "the," but "a." Yes, it is
clear to me that I've been moving in this direction throughout my life, in
EXACTLY the same way that Pr. Obama, a life-long admirer of Abe Lincoln
clearly is becoming a reincarnation of Abe, and other life long students have
quite automatically, quite unintentionally become a "reincarnation" to
substantial degree, of the object of their life's focus. And in doing so, the
one that moves toward being "a" "reincarnation" gains insights into
their Subject that otherwise would not be possible. No, the thoughts
expressed above are more than idle speculation.
