Spirituality
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At various times in the past and in various ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our own time, the last days, God has spoken to us through the child, the child that God appointed to inherit everything and through whom was made everything that is. Christ is the radiant light of God's glory and the perfect copy of God's nature, sustaining the universe by a divine and powerful command; and now that Christ has destroyed sin, he has gone to take his place in heaven at the right hand of divine Majesty. (Hebrews 1:1-3) A pilgrimage is always a journey of the heart, a leap of faith into a distant land. And whether we journey inward to our own depths or outward to the farthest reaches of our unknown worlds, our hearts always precede us. A pilgrimage is also a journey to a sacred place, a place of longing and re-membering, where all that is broken, lost or wounded cries out for healing. And so we go there taking only what is essential. All else is left behind. A pilgrimage is also a rite of passage. We pass through this deep experience and we are reborn in some mysterious way. Because of this, we cannot return to what was before. We have become a new creation and we are forever changed. Like the Magi, like Mary and Joseph and the Child, we return by another way. God's pilgrimage into the realm of the human is fully like ours. The scriptures tell us that God, in the Christ of the Cosmos, has journeyed into time and space, into creation and history, longing to find a dwelling place in the deep, warm recesses of our won human hearts. They tell us that God has entered so fully into the human experience that everything has changed. The old creation has been imbued with a new dimension of Spirit and a new creation has begun. God is becoming all in all. The Wisdom Literature, the words of the prophets and the Christological Hymns, which echo again and again through the seasons of Advent and Christmas, all tell us of this cosmic journey, of God's great leap of faith into the realm of the human. The Wisdom Literature speaks of a pre-existent Wisdom who was with God in the beginning, who played before God on the surface of the earth, who found delight in the children of the earth (Proverbs 8:22-31). It speaks of this cosmic wisdom as a word who came forth from the mouth of God, who searched for a place to rest, who pitched its tents among us (Sirach 24:1-11). The prophetic literature also reveals this deep cosmic wisdom and this all-powerful cosmic word as coming forth from God, as the source of all creativity, as fulfilling this Mysterious One's desires (Isaiah 55:6-11). It reveals the coming of a chosen one, filled with a spirit of wisdom and understanding, whose word will restore integrity and justice, inaugurating a realm that is led by a child where not only we humans but all creatures will live in harmony (Isaiah 11:1-9). The Christological Hymns of the Christian Scriptures celebrate this cosmic wisdom and this all- powerful word in the historical Jesus, exalted above all as the Cosmic Christ. They sing of this Eternal Wisdom-Word as the visible image of the invisible God, as the Beloved Child of God who was with God in the beginning. They praise this Wisdom-Word as the One who is above the angels, the one in whom all things have their being, for whom all things were created. They honor this Cosmic Christ as one who was in the form of God yet did not cling to this equality, who took human form, entering our history, dwelling in our midst. They proclaim Christ's obedience unto death, and exaltation and enthronement by God as the first-born of the dead, as the pre-eminent ruler of the universe who unites and reconciles and brings peace to all creatures in the heavens and on the earth. They give thanks to this Cosmic Christ who has returned to realms of unending glory and yet is with us always, empowering us to be beloved children of our glorious God. John 1:1-16; Ephesians 1:3-10; Philippians 2:6-11; Colossians-20; Hebrews 1:1-4
Through these images the Scriptures sing of the pilgrimage of God, through and with and in the Cosmic Christ. They proclaim that through God's pilgrimage everything has changed. A New Creation has begun and all creatures are gathered up and re-membered in the Cosmic Christ- wolves and lambs, calves and lions, mountains and hills, rocks and trees, suns and moons, galaxies and quasars all led by the little Child of God, the Cosmic Christ at the heart of all time and space, all creation and all history.
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