Scripture is the story of the soul. Today’s readings chart two soul movements. In both, the soul meets Christ, who shines the light of Spirit on its composite parts, its buried contents. In each, the soul responds to that Christ-light differently.
In the first, what is “dead” in the soul quickens and is brought to the descending Christ who reunites it with what is still “living.” Paul uses imagery familiar to the Roman world: the triumphal procession of the emperor entering the city gates, met by a jubilant crowd.
When the command is given, when the archangel's voice is heard, when God's trumpet sounds, then the Lord himself will descend from heaven; first the Christian dead will rise, then we who are still alive will join them, caught up in clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Thus we shall always be with the Lord.
- 1 Thess. 4:16-17 (REB)
The soul is reintegrated, restored to its intended pattern in the presence of Christ.
In the second, Christ enters the synagogue, the holy sanctuary where the soul-forces gather. But the acceptable, the proper, rejects Christ because he embraces the whole self, not just the chosen. Faced with this loss of ego control, the little self repels the Christ entirely, driving him out of the city of the soul.
These words roused the whole congregation to fury; they leapt up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which it was built, meaning to hurl him over the edge. But he walked straight through the whole crowd, and went away.
- Lk. 4:28-30 (REB)
The soul remains unregenerate, the illusion of self still firmly in control, unwilling to be remade in the image of the Logos. It is not ready for the gift of Christ, who passes through its midst and goes away.
How does my soul receive the visiting Christ within?
Scripture quotations taken from the Revised English Bible, copyright © Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press 1989. All rights reserved.
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