loss of healer, a guide, a mentor, a son.
The words of Jesus, when probed for their spiritual import, as we are
taught in the Writings for the New Church, tell a very different story than what
all these people saw. Jesus Christ was letting go of the final vestiges of his mere
mortality. He was not simply rising into that deeper level of his human spirit,
as we experience when we let go of anger, hurt, or a feeling of failure.
He was actually becoming that deeper divine spirit that had been his soul
all along. While his body felt all the wrenching pain of this horrible torture,
His spirit was feeling more and more free, connected with the Divine itself. He
went through the same process of letting go and then forgiving. He replaced
the thought, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” with, “Father,
I entrust my spirit into your hands.”
As you approach the table and communion with your Savior, you are
invited to see embodied in the bread and wine, the love and wisdom your Lord
displayed in His life, and in His death.
Rise above thoughts of the circumstances of this world, and see your place
in the Lord’s kingdom, partaking of His Divine love and wisdom in your own,
finite life.
Accept His gift of forgiveness, which He gives not because you have
successfully negotiated a relationship with Him, but because by dying, He
gave redemption to you as a free gift, and because you look ahead to His
resurrection and see that He is still giving you forgiveness.
That is the process he went though. Let us follow Him on that journey
to a way of being that is an inner goodness, an inner wisdom, and so into the
spiritual, real, present kingdom He has established for us.
The Rev. J. Clark Echols, after 32 years of pastoral work, is fully
engaged as a licensed mental health counselor at the Professional
Pastoral Counseling Institute of Cincinnati, Ohio. He regularly
posts at www.clarkechols.com and www.glendalenewchurch.org.
You may contact him at [email protected].
503