A Very Unitarian Easter
April 16, 2023
Many people in our culture are divided about what Easter means. This Easter, I offered some new Unitarian views of Easter, beginning with the insight that Easter marks the death of the historical Jesus AND the birth of the mythological Christ.
In a previous sermon on “Jefferson’s Bible,” I examined the work of Thomas Jefferson, Albert Schweitzer, and members of the Jesus Seminar who cut away parts of the New Testament that are mythological to reveal the “historical Jesus”. This is important work, and it leaves much of the New Testament on the cutting floor. Today I turn my attention to the mythological parts of the New Testament using an approach that was popularized by mythologist Joseph Campbell (The Power of Myth).
A short summary of my discoveries is this:
Easter marks the death of the historic Jesus and the birth of the mythological Christ. “Christ” is not the last name of the historic Jesus. It is properly “the Christ” which like “the Buddha” is an honorific title given to a revered teacher and sage. This mythological being is revealed most clearly in the parts of the New Testament that Thomas Jefferson cut out.
The Miracle Stories testify to the healing powers of “the Christ”. The End of Time prophecies in which “the Christ” is both prophet and agent of the destruction of this world. And the Beginning stories, especially in John’s magnificent hymn (John 1-4), portray Jesus as “the Logos”, the Co-creator with God.
In shifting attention from the historic Jesus to the mythological Christ, we are directing our attention to a cross-cultural archetype of the divine incarnate in a human body, the “God-man”, “the Christ or Buddha” or the “Over-soul”.
This shift in attention requires a different approach. Rather than mistaking mythic images for “signs” that produce true or false statements by linking them to observable facts, we will treat mythic images as “symbols” which generate multiple meanings, are ambiguous, and sometimes evoke the presence of a mystery beyond words. In a word, we will shift our attention from Truth to Meaning. We will set aside the question of whether images of “the Christ” are true or false and instead ask “What do they mean?” By focusing on Meaning and Mystery, we enter the realm of mythological-infused thought.
The archetype or stable cross-cultural meaning of “the Christ” can be partially understood as the convergence of four key clusters of images.
The Messiah Christ
The Jewish Christ is Jesus the Messiah. The Messiah is one chosen and anointed by G-d to guide his people, both as individuals and as a “Beloved Community”. He or She is both a political leader and an ethical/spiritual leader. Jesus the Messiah carries forward the Jewish faith in God’s Law but gives it a new twist: now Jesus is the maker of the Law, the law of Love followed by the shadow of Judgement.
The Magi Christ
“Jesus the Magi is the healing and transforming power of Love.”
The Babylonian Christ is Jesus the Magi. The Magi are represented in the birth stories of Jesus by the 3 Magi or 3 Kings. Their journey to bring gifts to the baby Jesus signifies the succession of the old orders of Magical Power and Kingly Authority to a new order where Jesus Christ is both a miracle worker and king.
Jesus as Magi performs the Miracles that Thomas Jefferson cut out: healing the sick, raising the dead, feeding the multitudes bringing moral instruction and sometimes redemption to the outcasts of Jewish society: Gentiles and tax-collectors, hookers and thieves, non-Jews, and the poor. After Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, his two sisters wash the feet of Jesus the Magi and anointed him with oil to honor the ministry of Jesus as a healer.
Jesus the Savior
A universal form of Christ is Jesus the Savior. Many cultures hope for a Saving Power that can do for human beings what we cannot do for ourselves. This turn toward a “Higher Power” often goes along with a recognition or confession of human limitations.
For Christians that Saving Power is “the Christ”; for Pure Land Buddhists it is “the Buddha”; for some Hindus, it is “Krishna the Avatar of G-d”. Like many Buddhists and Unitarians, I’m dubious about this idea and all the chest-pounding and self-abuse that accompanies it. However, if I set aside my own beliefs, this belief in a higher Saving Power is one way to acknowledge our real limitations as human beings.
As a golfer I know in my bones that “most hits are misses” and even on a good day, it takes 9 or 10 misses to set up a makable putt. This gap is real, but where does it come from? Rather than focusing on human sin, I prefer to focus on the power of human imagination.
We can almost always imagine a better self, a better neighbor, and a better sermon than the one we are now experiencing. If we can imagine something better, what will fall a little short? Rather than interpreting that gap as human sin, I prefer to read it as a testimony to the power of human imagination.
Jesus the Sage
Another universal Christ is Jesus the Sage. A sage is a teacher, a mentor, and a guide. As such Jesus the Christ and Gautama the Buddha are personifications of Wisdom and the art of Mentoring. Jesus like Gautama and Socrates are teacher, and mentor that acts like a lighthouse beacon for wandering souls.
This mythic framework elevates the teachings of these Sages and imbues them with a deeper meaning and a sense of representing timeless truths. The Sage archetypes sometimes transforms the Teacher (Jesus, Buddha, Socrates…) into the Teaching which is both a gain and a loss. There are important differences of course between the teachings of Jesus, Gautama, and Socrates but the role of the Sage is relatively stable and constant across the differences of time, place, and culture. The Sage embodies Wisdom, prompts ethical and spiritual awakening, and instructs, and guides human souls on the way to Redemption and Awakening.
TLDR
Jesus the Christ can be understood cross-culturally as the convergence of these four archetypes through which the Divine becomes present in a human form:
Messiah
Magi
Savior, and
Sage.
“The Christ” is the personification of the Power to lead and inspire (Messiah), the power to transform and heal (Magi), the power to liberate and restore (Savior), and the power to instruct and guide (Sage).
Each of these facets or archetypes reveals the Divine or Absolute in a human form. They proclaim that what is immortal, divine, and real is present in this temple made of human flesh and blood.
They are not the Divine Light itself
but the form that Light takes
when it passes through and illuminates
the human eye, heart and mind
with all our gifts and limitations.
As St. Paul says (1 Corinthians 13.12)
while housed in this human body
we see as if “through a glass darkly.”
but a time may come
when we see clearly as if face to face
knowing as we are known
when our individual Lights return
to the One Light that makes all things new.