WHEN A CHILD MET CHRISTIANITY

I was told as an innocent young child that Jesus, a very nice man, died willingly for my sins, my wrongdoings, my shortcomings and the thought of it made me feel a terrible guilt. The guilt made me consider joining the outfit that taught me that message to perhaps in that way assuage my guilt. But, truly, at a deeper level, inside me, I was wishing Jesus had not died for me at all; that He had instead allowed me to bear the consequences of my own failures since it was so obvious to me that He was so much more than I would ever be. As it turns out, He did just that for me and all others.

Many, many years later I listened to someone speak to a group concerning the truth of it all in the manner of Jesus dialoging with a gathering of friends. He concluded by saying when you see the terrible dilemma of the whole human population you must feel, not bad for “yourself”, but bad for the whole of humanity from which you are inseparable, you feel utterly responsible. And in that I felt the truth of the story of Jesus’s sacrificial death. Real action has no future. There is such a thing as vanishing as a separate self and not wanting ever to be found. That one leaves your salvation in your hands out of love. And I could no longer take the sacrifice of Jesus personally. 

Jesus may have told of what he had seen, to Mary Magdalene for one, and the story was told and retold for many generations before Christianity as it exists today arose.  It had by then become possible by pasting together selected pieces of gossip over centuries to present a tale wherein the leading character dies on a cross a bloody death to save all the rest of mankind. It was the Romans who saw its potential as an organized program around which to reunite its fallen empire. It is put together by thought to promise all troubled peoples a Heaven somewhere else after death by telling it that some other “perfect”person died for the forgiveness of all their sins and omissions.

In the telling it became a crucifixion and actual death of the body and resurrection for a reason. Made into a personal sacrifice one could tell it and keep hold of the old favorites of the  personal self, now saved for eternity, along with its connections to all its favorite traditions, with all its allegiances, desires, ambitions, greed, lust, plans, etc. It was adopted as the official religion of Rome in that form and continues down to the present age. Although the Romans could see the popular attraction of such a teaching, they failed to  see that selling God is never going to lead to anything good hence the falling of Rome. Christianity is passed off or justified as a tale of the killing of innocence, as if that is a good thing, a sacred thing, but face it, adults do not read it that way for they are too far from innocence, kids do. And Kids are struck in terror by the tale…I will get slaughtered if I remain like a child, therefore, I must adjust to a world that includes the killing off of the pure and innocent. And most of us do adjust and become adults. Strange it is that Jesus had admonished his listeners that they must become as children to enter the Kingdom of God. Adults accept the preaching of a personal savior which allows them to remain separate from “bad guys” who do not have the same savior and now we understand why Christians are so willing, eager even, to send armies of their own children to kill humans in droves who are seen as in conflict with their personal selfish interests as “Christians”. 

Jesus flew all right but not from one place to another place in space. His escape was within entirely. The true story of Jesus is decidedly not a guilt trip. It is a complete release. Heaven he taught about is not in some place…away from Earth…it is here now. And now contains the future. So, real action has no future. Eternity is not a long, long, long, long time. It is now and the future as one. There is such a thing as vanishing as a separate self and not wanting ever to be found. Thus a sudden realization cheats death of all its power.