Posted by Roberta Grimes • May 10, 2025 • 0 Comment
Jesus, The Teachings of Jesus, Understanding Reality
Morning has broken like the first morning.
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird.
Praise for the singing,
Praise for the morning,
Praise for them springing fresh from the world.
Sweet the rain’s new fall, sunlit from heaven.
Like the first dewfall on the first grass.
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass.
Mine is the sunlight!
Mine is the morning!
Born of the one light Eden saw play.
Praise with elation! praise ev’ry morning,
God’s recreation of the new day.
Morning has broken like the first morning.
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird.
Praise for the singing.
Praise for the morning.
Praise for them springing fresh from the world!
Eleanor Farjeon (1881 –1965), from “Morning Has Broken” (1931)
History is written by its winners. Only consider for a moment how all the big and little events of human history have happened, and often by happenstance, even some of them shaped by tiny chance events of which we never were even aware. And among the clearest winners of the Christian religion’s very earliest history were the Councilors at the Roman First Council of Nicaea in the year 325 C.E. Those worthies first codified the transformation of a few select portions of the three-hundred-year-old Way of Jesus into the earliest form of the modern Christian religion, by order of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Those Councilors cemented into place a very few select dogmas as the new religion’s core of required beliefs, foremost among which were the fear-based notions that Jesus’s death on the cross had been a sin-sacrifice, and that our afterlife carries with it the certain threat of eternal hellfire. It is important to note that substitutionary atonement, in particular, never was proclaimed, or even imagined, by Jesus.
I will say that again! The core teaching of Roman Christianity, that Jesus died on the cross to save us from God’s judgment for our sins, was never said, never hinted at, and almost certainly never even imagined by Jesus. He told me in April of 2022 that He had chose to be crucified so He could rise from the dead for us and thereby prove that we will live forever, and that explanation frankly makes a lot more sense. If Jesus had been dying only as a sin-sacrifice, then He would not have needed to rise three days later. In fact, His doing that would actually have damaged His value as a sin-sacrifice.
No, Jesus meant His crucifixion as a love-gift to us, but instead Constantine seized on it and made it ugly. And Constantine’s barbaric version of it was only one out of many in the bountiful cornucopia of ideas that had begun in the rapidly spreading Way of Jesus after the Lord’s death and resurrection. Even the idea of a fiery hell never came from Jesus Himself! And none of these negative teachings would have survived as anything but fringe nonsense, if Constantine had not chosen each of them as especially powerful and scary notions, and therefore as concepts that he wanted to include in his brand-new Christian religion. So human history’s winners chose those ideas to be at the center of their Christian religion as they first put it together. And that is where those ideas remain. And random ideas that did not come from Jesus are held as holy and sacred core Christian truths to this day.
Thomas and I write these words just as the Vatican is choosing Pope Leo XIV, who is to be the 267th Pope of the Catholic Church. The current news is all about how long this sacred tradition is, how it traces right back to Saint Peter himself, and how the first Pope, Peter, was a fisherman who, with his brother, Andrew, long ago was called by Jesus to come with Him and become His “fishers of men.” Like nearly all of Jesus’s Disciples, the Lord’s much-beloved friend Peter was later martyred, but only in Peter’s great old age. When the Romans sought to crucify Peter, the old man demanded that he must be crucified hanging upside-down, since he thought himself unworthy to be crucified the way Jesus had been crucified nearly four decades before, hanging right-side-up. And legend has it that when the Romans tried to grant the old man a reprieve from his long and excruciating upside-down dying, Peter refused it, and he insisted that he be left on his cross until he died. But we can only wonder now what Peter, Andrew, Thomas, John, and all those other Disciples who once sat at the very feet of Jesus must think of all the Medieval pomp and ritual of this choosing of Peter’s latest successor? Do they imagine that all this Catholic formality has anything to do with their own lives and their teaching mission at all?
Because history is written by its winners, we likewise always assume that even the sideline details of our written history could have happened in no other way. But of course, that also is not true at all. Millions of the followers of the Way of Jesus were murdered by Constantine’s legions as he consolidated his power over his narrow and limited version of the message of Jesus. In order to protect what he was building, Constantine felt the need to destroy all other versions of the Way; and those early followers of Jesus that he did not succeed in murdering, he drove off into the deserts and into the wilderness. What Constantine never knew, however, was that two people who were not then in bodies, people that you and I know well, were also in attendance in 325 C.E. as those First Nicaean Councilors were constructing what would become the Christian Bible. Thomas and Jesus were especially obsessed with making certain that the Councilors chose the right versions of the Gospels for Jesus’s purposes. And while Constantine sought to insert his own ideas, our Friends were whispering in receptive ears that any changes the Councilors made must be placed only at the backs of those four chosen Gospels. We smile now to see the results of the Nicaean Councilors’ work, as we pluck their obviously later-added tidbits right back out again. So as the First Nicene Councilors did their Emperor’s bidding, so Jesus and Thomas went about their own work as well.
We full-well know that for the historical service that Jesus came to earth to perform, things could have turned out so differently! If the Emperor Constantine never had believed as he looked up at the sky one day that he was seeing a cross, and if he had not then imagined that he was hearing the words, “by this sign you shall conquer,” then might he ever have had even the slightest interest in creating a Christian religion? Well, no, of course not!
Jesus tells us now that He came to earth when and as He did with three essential purposes in mind. And He was well on His way toward accomplishing those three goals by means of His rapidly-spreading Way when in the year 312 C.E. the Roman Emperor Constantine derailed His progress. Here is what Jesus tells us that He came to earth to accomplish:
Jesus’s teachings on earth were specifically tailored to accomplish these three objectives. And understanding that explains so much! Of course, the words of Jesus are not organized by topic in the Gospels, but when we know what we are looking for, His words on each topic are easy to ferret out. Before we look at them, though, it is crucial that we realize that Jesus, as an aspect of the Godhead Itself, knew everything that you and I know, and much more, about two crucial facts:
With this quick preface, let’s look now at how Jesus spoke to His contemporaries during His three years of active teaching as He tried to achieve His three objectives as we have summarized them above.
What surprises us most is the fact that Jesus was so deeply antithetical to religious leaders, and to all religions. Our beloved Wayshower taught us to love endlessly, and He lived the very model of love, while all religions are essentially fear-based, just as Constantine built his new Christian religion around two fear-based teachings. Here are some samples of what Jesus said against the clergy of His day:
“Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes, and like respectful greetings in the market places, and chief seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets, who devour widows’ houses, and for appearance’s sake offer long prayers; these will receive greater condemnation” (MK 12:38-40). And, “Woe to you religious lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering” (LK 11:52). “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in” (MT 23:13). “Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men… You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition” (MK 7:8-9). “Why do you transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?… You hypocrites! Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far away from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men’” (MT 15:3-9).
WOW. Anyone who thinks that Jesus had anything but the rankest disdain for religions and for their clergymen, simply has not read the Gospels very closely!
Jesus urged the rest of us to establish a private relationship with God. He said, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise, you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. So, when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
“When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you” (MT 6:1-6).
Jesus’s teachings on love and forgiveness are the core of what He brought to us. And even two thousand years later, His words still sing! Just open your heart….
“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets” (MT 22:37-40). “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (LK 6:35-36).
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (MT 5:43-48).
Peter asked him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven” (MT 18:21-23). “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned. Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return” (LK 6:37-38).
It is clear to us now that Jesus never set out to start any religion! No, what He came to teach us to do was to begin a new spiritual way for people to deal with one another that would empower us to grow rapidly toward spiritual perfection. So, let us imagine now that Jesus’s love-filled Way was never brutalized. Jesus and His Disciples and the millions who were their first followers were instead among history’s greatest Winners! Imagine, if you can. And next week, let’s begin to consider what might be possible, for Jesus….
(Many photos are from Vecteezy.com)
