Look into your Vision of Christ

Most people know who Christ is through what we read, hear or explore. How many of us have learned what he really is? I mentioned in one of my recent articles regarding what electricity is. The impetus of what electrical energy can do is something. But no one, not even Edison or Tesla can explain to us what electricity is in its essence. Only what it can do. So, it is a similar scenario when explaining the real essence of Christ unless we have a deep relationship with his person. Unless we allow ourselves an opportunity to spend a deeper connection with the Son of God in an intimate manner, that is, man to God where all secular avenues are put aside, and we see only the divine equity of more than a person who created us, instead part of us becomes a part of Jesus who became our other self and died for me alone.

This is more than a philosophical enhancement that we might just ponder for a while until we tire of contemplating what we only think about. It will take more than envisioning what Jesus did when he went to the cross with the sins we all committed. We had to be part of that crucifixion in such a way that somewhere in our spiritual connection we too had to feel the blows of the spikes penetrating our flesh and the insults he felt even before Good Friday. Walking with the Savior for over three years places our finiteness in the same entity of disbelief and insults of rejection as our Lord did.

Without becoming a spiritual and physical creature that looks like a man of God who willingly accepts the tortuous reality from the very humans who were the reason for his Incarnation, we cannot say that we really know who Christ is.

I would say that our heroes of the past proved they could stand as a Living Christ with the same suffering he endured from the first day he began his mission of redemption. St. Francis of Asisi, St. Joan of Arc, Saul of Tarsus, and untold numbers of other martyrs. Could anyone reading this do the same? Unless you can answer in the affirmative then you must seek what else you might do in accepting this cross that calls to those who have not yet found the courage to wear the crown of Christ as a lamb of sacrifice. We are always wearing this cloak of courage, but do not always recognize the signs that many of us wear as hope and faith in our Savior.

One way to know Christ in a very personal presence is to accept the three hours he was on the cross and the victory his death/resurrection opened for you and I as we too stood for three hours within our hearts for peace in a world that has lost its hope; for those who have no faith.

To know Christ is to be one with him. To share his passion is to accept his suffering. To become one in him is to learn to love and forgive as he did on Calvary!

Ralph B. Hathaway