Fruit of the Contemplative Life
Fruit of the contemplative life: => Contemplative Christianity => : Alexander April 16, 2022, 11:31:35 AM
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I was reflecting today on the holiday of Good Friday. In the Christian tradition, this date represents the death of Christ, when he expires on the cross. Following this is the entombment of Christ, when his few remaining followers take him down from the cross and place him in a tomb. This is the low point of the Christian narrative. In early Christianity this is where the story ended… an apparent tragedy, disappointment, and anticlimax.
I think that stories like this are very profound. The individuals who came up with them were very wise and thoughtful people. They knew what they were doing when they created this tale.
When I worked with Catholic colleagues, I asked them one day what they made of the story. But, they were more concerned about whether they could eat meat or fish for lunch instead. So, I think that very few people ever ponder these stories and try to unpack the meaning that is contained within them.
This story, in particular, I think is a mystical formula. It is trying to communicate a very deep, very profound truth about the human condition. The truth is expressed in the experience of Christ himself: however, this truth can only be realized and achieved by individual effort in the imitation of him. It cannot be communicated to the general mass of people.
All human beings are confronted by this reality: the reality of doom, the reality of death. Thus, Christ’s death represents the fate of us all. The entombment that follows represents the normal state of resignation and atheism: the idea that this material, physical life is all there is and there is nothing that can be done about it. One lives a simple worldly life and that is all.
An important factor to remember from the story is Christ’s suffering. When he is on the cross, Christ suffers greatly. He is being tormented; he is suffocating. This suffering represents the human condition: the adversity, strife, and conflict of existence. Most importantly, however, the suffering of the cross represents the individual’s reaction to this reality: the heroic acceptance of and rising to meet the challenge.
If the heroic path is embraced, there occurs transformation – divinization – and man becomes more than simple material man. This is the meaning of the resurrected Christ: man’s potential realized, man becoming more than a simple physical creature. Man can rise above the fate of the other animals.
Thus follows the great event of the Christian tradition: the resurrection of Christ. I particularly like the Greek portrayal of this event as Christ’s conquest of death. This event shows that the same fate is possible for us all. At the same time, the framing of this event as a conquest shows the importance of individual effort and agency in one imitating Christ. As, without this individual effort, the same fate cannot be expected.
A final thought I had about all this was that these stories are mysteries. That means they must be unpacked, ruminated on, and experienced for oneself. If this process is not gone through, the story loses all of its import.
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Thank you, Alexander, for posting your reflections upon Jesus' crucifixion. While I agree there is much to be learned from this reflection, but the key thing to get is organized religions tend to marginalize, if not martyr their mystics, and Jesus is an example.