Awakenings

by Father Thomas Keating

Events in Jesus' Ministry

Chapter 7

The Ultimate Expression

"And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everybody who believes in him may have eternal life." For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everybody who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.
(John 3:14-17)

    This text begins with the striking image of the brazen serpent described in Exodus which healed the poison that the Israelites had contracted from the plague of serpents. As they looked upon the brazen serpent raised on a stick, the healing took place. Jesus uses this example to predict his passion. The image is ghastly: a worm fixed to a stake squirming in pain.

    This brings us to one of the most profound questions that the Gospel raises: What is Ultimate Reality? To manifest Ultimate Reality is the goal of the Buddhist religion and to manifest the Spirit is the goal of the Christian religion. This question might be brought into focus by juxtaposing two remarkable images from these two world religions. One is the Buddha sitting in deep samadhi with a smile of ineffable peace upon his lips.

    There is a shrine in Sri Lanka that Thomas Merton visited just before his death and where he received what he describes in his Asian Journal as the crowning grace of his Asian trip. He had gone to the East to seek Asian wisdom in order to enhance his contemplative Christian journey. He received at that shrine a remarkable enlightenment experience. He saw epitomized in that work of art the ultimate human achievement and the full realization of enlightenment-- the possession of all knowledge in perfect freedom, peace, and serenity-- captured by the smile of ineffable peace. The smile was not one of indifference, but of utter compassion without emotional involvement. The face of the Buddha suggests how he looked during his last samadhi before entering into final Nirvana, the attainment of oneness with all that is. The delicate smile transmits the Buddha's experience of unity to his disciples.

    Now let us look at the other image: Jesus dying on the cross, his lips contorted in the agony of thirst and suffocation. From those lips comes a cry of almost infinite despair, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" "Me!" that is, "Your Son!" This is the ultimate double-bind: Jesus Christ, the Son of God, experiencing the uttermost alienation that anyone could ever experience.

    Let us compare these two states, one of utmost serenity and the other of utmost suffering. These are, as far as we know, the states in which each of them died.

    Which manifestation of God is greater? If these two human beings are both manifesting the Ultimate Reality in a supreme manner, then who is this God who can be expressed in two completely opposite ways? Each expresses the Ultimate Reality in a way that no other human expression could manifest. The mystery that we call God transcends every human experience but is clearly present in the marvelous serenity lingering on the lips of the Buddha. What we draw back from is that the same divine reality is equally present in the suffering Jesus epitomized as he endures every level of human privation. His rejection, humiliation, and death tell us something about God that nobody had ever heard of or imagined. Jesus, in taking upon himself the human condition and laying aside the divine prerogatives that he could have called upon, rejects the archetypes of immortality, invincibility, and invulnerability and refuses to call upon his divine power to rescue either himself or his mission. He manifests the ultimate humility of God: the desire not to be God. This total emptying, which is the heart of divine love, takes place forever in the Trinity as the Father and the Son empty themselves into each other in the love of the Spirit.

    When divine love enters the human condition with the inevitable consequences of this union, it becomes total vulnerability God is present not just in serenity, not just in spiritual achievement; God is also present in failure and the utmost suffering, and he manifests himself equally in each expression. Jesus' passion and death is the revelation of the heart of God. Jesus took upon himself all the consequences of the human condition, one of which is sin; he who knew not sin experienced the psychological consequences of alienation from God, which is the chief fruit of personal sin. This meant the loss of his perception of oneness with the Father, who was the whole meaning of his life and mission. The crucifixion was the destruction of his life's work, not just his life. Thus, the lips of Jesus, torn by suffering and expressing the sense of abandonment by the Divine Person who was closest to him, tells us that God is just as present in his absence as in his presence, in suffering as in glory.

    This of course is not the end of the story Though Jesus died with the ultimate question still on his lips, he moved into a new and inconceivable reality The surrender of his personal union with the Father catapulted him into a state of being in which his very humanity becomes identified with the Godhead. He is in unity with the Father and with everything that exists. His glorified humanity shares the divine attributes. He is present everywhere, in everyone, in everything, and at the heart of all reality. He is the divine human being through whom everything returns to the Father.

This chapter is taken from the book Awakenings by Fr. Thomas Keating. You can obtain a copy from the Bookstore.  See Awakenings