The Universal Christ
The Inner Blueprint
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Let’s begin in the beginning with the prologue to John’s Gospel (John 1:1-11). John is not talking about Jesus; he’s referring to Christ. I’m going to give you my own translation, which I think is a fair one. Instead of “Word,” which is taken from Greek philosophy’s Logos, I’m going to substitute the word “Blueprint,” because it’s really the same meaning. Logos is the inner blueprint.
In the beginning was the Blueprint, and the Blueprint was with God, and the Blueprint was God. . . . And all things came to be through this inner plan. The inner reality of God became manifest in the outer world as the Cosmic or Eternal Christ.
No one thing came to be except through this Blueprint and plan. All that came to be had life in him. Now it’s become personalized. This great Universal Christ Mystery since the beginning of time now becomes specific in the body and the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The Blueprint has become personified and visible as a human being. (The particular gender is not significant here.)
And that Life was the Light of humanity. John is describing a bigger life, a bigger light, from which we all draw. This is Consciousness—a pre-existent form that is the Eternal or One Light. This great Light or Consciousness is the source of our little piece of light, as it were. You can also substitute the word Love. The Blueprint is a cosmic act of Love.
This Light/Life/Love shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. “The visible galaxies we see strewn across space are nothing more than strings of luminous flotsam drifting on an invisible sea of dark matter,” writes astrophysicist Adam Frank. [1] Franciscan Sister Ilia Delio explains: “Scientists speculate that dark energy comprises about 73 percent of the total mass-energy of the universe and accelerates expansion of the universe.” [2] Somehow the universe is an interplay between light and darkness.
This Blueprint was the true light that enlightens all human beings who have come into the world. So, the true light, Consciousness, or Love itself precedes and connects and feeds all of our smaller lights and attractions.
He was in the world that had its very being through him. But the world did not know him. In the same way, for the last 2,000 years, we have not understood the Cosmic Christ. We fell in love with the symbol instead of what Jesus fully represented. To love “Jesus, the Christ” is to love both the symbol and everything that he stands for—which is precisely everything. This lays a wonderful foundation for a new consciousness and a new cosmology—and a very different notion of religion itself.
References:
[1] Adam Frank, The Constant Fire: Beyond the Science vs. Religion Debate (University of California Press: 2009), 155.
[2] Ilia Delio, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love (Orbis Books: 2013), 24.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Christ, Cosmology & Consciousness: A Reframing of How We See (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2010), MP3 download.
