Christ in Us (2 Corinthians 5)

The other day I was at Disneyland with my 5 year-old nephew Josh. Josh thinks that Pirates of the Caribbean is too scary, and he won’t ride it; but he likes going on the Haunted Mansion.
As we rode through the seance room, Josh asked about the figure inside the crystal ball. First he asked, “What’s her name?”
“Madame Leota,” I said.
Then he asked: “Is she good, or bad?”
And it reminded me of when I was five. I also was afraid of Pirates of the Caribbean, but enjoyed the Haunted Mansion. And I also wanted someone to tell me if someone was good or bad.
I remember when my Dad would watch western movies. I liked it when he told me that the good guys wear white hats, and the bad guys wear black hats. That sure made things easy.
But then I got older, and I learned that things weren’t always so simple. The world was a lot more complex than I realized, and certainly a lot more complex than a western in which the good guys always wore white and the bad guys always wore black.
In school I learned about matter, and I learned about waves of energy. These were two different things.
Then I learned that photons of light sometimes behave like particles of matter, and sometimes behave like energy. They defied easy categorization.
And I learned about electrons. Sometimes they are here. Sometimes they are there. Sometimes they are both here and there.
And I learned about e=mc², and the theory of relativity, and dark matter; and that no one really understands dark matter, not even the world’s best scientists who study it...
It’s all a Dr. Who wibbly wobbly timey wimey thing.
It’s all a Good Place Jeremy Beremy thing.
It’s all a lot more complicated than categorizing things by the color of a hat.

But sometimes, that’s just the way things are. There are things that defy categorization or explanation. Things that can be two things at once. Things that don’t make rational sense, but that's how they are, at least to the extent that we are able to understand things.
And if we allow ourselves some time to really ponder such things (not make sense of them, ...but just ponder them) we dip our toe into the amazing mystery of the reality of God.
Mere words are never enough to describe the mysteries. Poets try. Mystics try. And poets and mystics have always been thought of as a little weird, because they try to wrap their minds around things that can’t be fully understood. They try to put into words things that can’t be put into words. They try to define things that are beyond our ability to define.
Teresa of Avila was a Spanish mystic in the 16th century. She talked about castles inside of castles, realms inside of realms, things she saw in visions. I try to understand her writings as a description of reality, and it all makes no sense. And I want to dismiss her and so many other mystics as so many throughout the centuries have.
And yet, at the same time, their mystical explanations that make no sense draw me in. And I can’t help but ponder them. And I feel myself lost in wonder at being surrounded by a divine mystery that I cannot fully understand.
When I think about God… many questions arise. We study the Bible and find answers there, but every answer leads to even more questions and mysteries.
At some point we need to just dwell with the mysteries. We need to spend time with the questions and marvel at them, without seeking logical explanations. We need to stand in awe of how light can be both energy and matter, and how electrons can be both here and there, and how energy can equal mass times the speed of light, squared, without waiting for an explanation of how that is possible.
In the first chapter of John’s gospel, Christ is described as the Word… John describes Christ as the Word, the Word that was life, the life that is light for all people; a light that shines in the darkness.
And it’s interesting that light is used as a description for Christ. Light, which is a particle, and a wave of energy, just as Christ is both God, and human. How can one being be both? How can one being be two things at once? I don’t know. This is a lot more complicated than telling who’s a good guy and who’s a bad guy just by the color of their hat.
How do you tend to think of Jesus? Do you think of him as more human, or more God? … My tendency has been to focus more on his human side, that he was a great human who fully understood God; I’ve been a little more reluctant to embrace Jesus’ divine status.
But of course, he is both. And I’ve been reading some material lately that emphasizes this. And I am left in awe at how Christ is so much more mysterious and wonderful than I am capable of comprehending.
It stretches the imagination.
And the way Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God also stretches the imagination.
He who was both human and God - talked about the kingdom of God as a realm that is both now and not yet. That is also hard to understand. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
And Jesus said that the kingdom is like a mustard seed. And he said the kingdom is like a banquet. And he said the kingdom is like someone searching for and finding a lost sheep, a lost coin, a lost child. And he said the kingdom is like yeast.
How can the kingdom of God be all these things?
Clearly, Jesus is trying to stretch our minds. He’s trying to stretch our minds into thinking of things in ways we've never thought before… seeing things in a way we've never seen things before.
No wonder there are not one but multiple stories in the gospels of the blind being made to see! We need to allow ourselves to see and understand everything in a whole new way! We need to learn how to speak in a whole new way, learn how to hear in a whole new way, learn how to think in a whole new way, learn how to learn in a whole new way.
Analyzing will only get you so far. At some point you also need to just let go. You need to breathe. You need to be still…& in that breathing, & in that stillness, come to know God in a whole new way.
It’s all so mind-opening, isn’t it? Or, maybe, mind-blowing. It takes all those neural connections in our brain, unplugs them, and plugs them in in new places. And everything looks different as a result.
Everything looks different.
I think that’s why the apostle Paul said in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians that, from this point on, we won’t recognize people by human standards. We won’t recognize people by human standards because we won’t recognize Christ by human standards.
We’ve learned to see Christ in a whole new way.
And since Christ is in every person - since he is the light of the world that shines even in the darkness - we learn to see not only Christ in a whole new way, but every person.
Every human, we see in a whole new way.
In every person, we see that image of God.
In every person, we see Christ.
In every person, we see the one who was light and life, yet who became human.
Verse 21 of our scripture says that the word, the life, the light of God - Christ himself - the one who knew no sin - became sin.
It’s easy to get caught up on that word, sin. Let me suggest to you some synonyms. When Paul says that Christ became sin, Paul means that Christ became that which is earthy. Profane. Flesh. Human. Fleeting. Self-centered. Mundane. Finite. Separate.
Christ became these things so that we, and all people, might become the righteousness of God.
In other words, Christ became earthy, profane, flesh, human, fleeting, self-centered, mundane, finite, and separate, so that we who are all those things might become holy; of heaven; sacred; spiritual; timeless; God-centered; God-filled; infinite; boundless; connected.
Our minds are used to thinking of these things as separate. We separate movie characters into good guys and bad guys just as we separate sin from righteousness. Just as we separate heaven from earth. Just as we separate what is holy from what is profane.
But in Christ, what is holy became profane so that we who are profane might see that we are also holy. Christ became an earthly being so that we would understand that we earthly beings are also citizens of heaven. Christ dwelt in a finite human life so that all humans would understand that there is something within them that is infinite.
In Christ, all the barriers are torn down.
In Christ, the curtain in the temple that separates what is holy from what is unholy is torn apart. Holy and unholy are united. Brought together. Reconciled.
Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest, writes about these things in his book the Universal Christ. And in that book he mentions people who come forward to receive communion, and as they make their way back to their seats, they keep glancing back at the altar, because they know that Christ is present in the bread and cup, and their eyes are drawn to where Christ is.
Except… they have partaken of the bread and the cup. Which means instead of looking back to the altar, they should be looking within. They have partaken of the break and cup - ordinary elements that come from the earth, but made holy by the presence of Christ - they have taken these things into their own body, so that they who are ordinary humans can also be made holy - holy because of the presence of Christ now within them.
That is the powerful symbolism of communion. Christ is in us. We have partaken of Christ’s body and blood. The Word is within us. The light and life is within us.
It’s so hard sometimes to think of ourselves as holy. Beloved. God-filled. This world beats us down. Too often, this world tells you that you are nothing.
That is a lie.
You have the spirit of God within you.
All the mystery and wonder of God is within you.
God, who is holy, became human in Jesus for that very reason: to show that all humans are holy, beloved, God-filled.
And Jesus told us to break bread in remembrance of him, so that we would remember all this, to remember that he is within us and among us.
One of the greatest things we can do is to learn to recognize the presence of Christ in us. That’s how we can love ourselves, as scripture says.
And, likewise, one of the greatest things we can do is learn to recognize the presence of Christ in our neighbor. That’s how we can love our neighbor as we love ourselves, as scripture says.
This is why the Hindus say “namaste.” “The sacred in me bows to the sacred in you.”
Which leads us to the point of all this. If you recognize the sacred in you, then you will stop beating yourself up over so many things, and you will learn to better appreciate what a marvelous and good human you are.
And if you recognize the sacred in others, it will make a big difference in how you treat them. Imagine if everyone recognized in each other that divine energy that is the presence of Christ. Think of how much more kindness there would be in the world, how much more love there would be, how much more peace...
This world is holy. All of creation is filled with the presence and the splendor of God. God is in you. God is in your neighbor. Everything is holy. Everything is sacred.