The Arena, Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891

by Various

The years of Jesus’ life of which we have no record, save the one instance of his questioning and answering the wise ones in the temple, represent the time of preparation, discipline, study, culture, contemplation, necessary to fit us to give to others the benefit of our experience and attainment. For no one can lift another to a higher round of the ladder of life than that upon which he stands himself.

The immersion in the Jordan shows a willingness to conform to existing customs, when no principle is sacrificed thereby and a point of contact with the masses can thus be established, so that the truth symbolized by the rite of baptism can be shown forth through the action of those formative, purifying, spiritual forces that sustain to the psychical realm the same relation that water bears to the physical world.

The temptation of Jesus is typical of the time of testing that comes to every one who takes a step in advance of the age in which he lives. The principle of resistance called Satan confronts such an one at the very outset of his mission, and seemingly insuperable obstacles arise as foes to his progress. But he who first meets and masters all inward opposition, through knowledge of the law and allegiance thereto, can conquer every outward phase of hybrid beast and human, whose selfish pride and cruel greed have been well imaged as a devil with cloven foot and fiendish face.

The Sermon on the Mount is a statement of spiritual axioms. It lays before us the law of love for the neighbor, as the very instinct of self-preservation. Not to do for others as we would be done by, is to fail to furnish food, raiment, and shelter for our own souls. Physical and intellectual man gains worldly strength and honor as he takes to himself and retains riches and knowledge regardless of the rights of others. In contradistinction to this, the spiritual man gets treasure and wisdom imperishable, as he serves his fellow men, and freely gives of whatsoever he may have, of which his neighbor stands in need.

The beatitudes, with which the speech begins, such as man never spake before, tell, in a symbolism that is self-evidently true, the way by which alone, real happiness is won. We are blessed or cursed of God, through the working of His laws immutable, according as our relation to those laws is one of knowledge and obedience, or of ignorance and perversity. As, in the Hebrew tongue the words we render, “to curse,” and “to bless,” run back to the same root idea, so in point of fact, the very suffering which, sooner or later, comes to us when we are out of touch with the divine order of love to God and love to man, is the means appointed to bring us to that harmony which all must gain.

The lowest things are often seen to signify the things most high. A parable, paraballo, is that which “throws before” us such concrete imagery as best serves to foreshadow and to fit the mind to understand a certain abstract principle. As we become disciples, “learners” of the Truth, we find it speaks to us only through such emblems as enable us to reason from the things we do already know to those concerning which we wish to be informed. The words of Jesus went forth full-freighted with vitality. They were truly spirit and life, because charged with a virtue that can only come from a soul in submission to the law by his lips enunciated. Hence we see why, in the mystical language with which the Gospel of St. John begins, he is called the Logos, Reason or Word of God, from God and one with God, because he reveals the divine thought concerning man, inherently perfect from the first, but requiring time and space for its outworking. That human individuality may be maintained, man is uplifted only over the fulcrum of his own will. This volitional power is the ray in us of that Creative Energy whose name Jehovah signifies, I will be what I will to be. Thus, then, oneness with God is not sameness with God, nor the absorption of human personality in the Infinite Being. It is simply a state to be reached in our progressive creation where we will come to a knowledge of the laws of life, and will consciously co-operate with those divine decrees governing the origin, nature, and destiny of the soul. To illustrate the possibility of such achievement and exemplify the way of its attainment, was the mission of the Christ. But it has been so much easier to idolatrously worship his person than to embody his principles, that ceremonials and doctrines have been substituted for the life he lived. This is a sufficient reason for the manifestly unsaved condition that the so-called Christian world still exhibits in all manner of bigotry and disease, social unrest and iniquity.

The name Jesus signifies “that which makes whole.” So we find the one who bore it, true to his title, healing the bodies of men and giving to their souls a cure for sorrow. Yet, even he was made to feel that of himself he could do nothing, so keenly was he conscious of the fact that every self-denying sympathetic soul becomes a mediator, through whom the reconstructive forces of the universe make their impress felt upon the race. He speaks of prayer and faith, as mental states to be entered into and maintained, if we would be and do the best we can. His injunctions in reference to prayer correspond well with the meaning of the Greek verb euchomai which we render “to pray,” and which signifies to put forth effort rightly, i. e., along the lines of laws understood. He said that true prayer is not the repetition of any words, nor the asking for that which we may think it best that we should have. For the spiritual man knows that his labor for others insures of himself the results that are best. So the discourse of Jesus in this connection defines prayer, in its highest sense, as an inward, not an outward attitude; a state of mental receptivity to the guidance of truth and desire for the good of others, always to be observed, not the mere utterance of terms of petition or praise. He tells us to withdraw into the soul’s most secret place, where God already sits enthroned, and there commune with Him.

Before in spirit and with understanding we can in thought, and word, and deed, articulate Our Father! we must pass back in review through all the cycles that have rolled around, since this old earth of ours first turned in space. We then behold the most attenuate form of matter of which we can conceive, as a condensation of creative energy, yet but a matrix fitted for the reception of a planet seed or soul. We recognize a divine involution as the antecedent and causation of all so-called natural evolution. We see each link in the chain of being, from least to greatest, from the simplest to the most complex; grass, herb, and tree, fish, reptile, bird, and beast, as multiple yet orderly expressions of the immanence and permanence of the fatherhood of God. We view the creation of man as His highest handiwork, in which the seed of human life, bearing latent within it every high attribute and potency possessed by its celestial source, is placed or planted in a prepared material environment. We look back through the ages upon the travail of this our soul, and are satisfied as we see it gradually rising to the mastery and reformation of the physical form and animal soul, in which and with which it has been tabernacled to gain a necessary experience. From savagery to civilization, through planes of physical, intellectual, and moral consciousness we pass, borne upward by the overshadowing power of God to realize the omnipresence of its fatherhood. From this right starting-point there follows of necessity a conception of that vital fraternity of man which makes us members of one body, and which precludes the possibility of the gaining of a lasting good by any individual part thereof without a benefit to all.

Each other portion of the prayer of prayers is seen to have a correspondingly deep significance, when carefully analyzed, although formulated as an object lesson in our spiritual kindergarten, the church. The name of God we hallow, but not as did the ancient Israelites, by refusing even to mention the sacredly incommunicable Yahweh. For we have learned that the right name is what expresses the nature of that which is named. So that the only way in which we can reverence the name of God or Christ is by the consecration of our time and talent to the expression of all the God-like, Christ-like qualities with which, as human beings, we are gifted.

What foolishness, if not blasphemy, it would be for us to ask that the will of God should be obeyed in the world about us, when His laws of gravitation and chemical affinity, crystallization and cell-growth, rule supremely in each of earth’s kingdoms. But the constant aspiration of our hearts should be that the elements of earthiness within us, that militate against the expression of our highest ideals, shall hear and heed a juster rule than that of selfishness. For no outward act of legislation can usher in heaven’s kingdom on the earth, in human institutions, until many individuals have by its inward presence been guided and illumined.