Jesus Invites us to What?

Jesus raises a challenge and an invitation unlike any other religious founder.  He asks for more than the utterings of the Poets, Mystics and Shamans found in all the oral traditions of time.

The invitation of Jesus goes beyond the Buddha’s deliverance from the illusion of a separate self and the resulting suffering, and the notably non-theistic religion that bears his name, which makes no claim and offers no promise of deity.

The peace offered by Jesus is in stark contrast to the violent conquest of religions exploited for militant or political purposes.

The victory of Jesus is greater than the liberation of conquering self that is promised by Jainism or the quest for immortality pursued by the Egyptians.

The rationale Jesus extends to us out reaches monolithic intellectuals like Confucius, the ancient Greeks, Aristotle, and the secularists of modernity who offer naked reason as the solitary refuge from superstition.

Jesus delivers us directly and personally.  He does not serve as an institutional intermediary between God and the individual propped up by Papal aspirations of authority.  Likewise, he speaks for himself.   His word goes far beyond the Christian Reformers and their Protestant progeny, whose claims are based on superior rhetoric about Jesus but who do not purport to speak on behalf of Jesus.  His call to us is more than the prophetic claims of Moses, Mohamed, and Joseph, who all professed to actually speak with and for God, but not to be God.

The invitation of Jesus to us is not about virgin births, magical powers, physical healing, rising from the dead, or divinity, numerous competing examples of which we can discover in history.  None of this embodies the unique invitation of Jesus.

Find the Path, Take the Path, Become the Path

Jesus says simply, “come unto me.”  He invites us to follow him, not because he has seen the path, or knows the path, or can merely lead us to the path, but because he is the path.  He did not claim to merely show us the way.  He said, “I am the way.”

In this extraordinary claim, the lessons we learn from the mortal Jesus are far different than what we learn from the immortal Christ.

The mortal Jesus was a man, like us.  He was born.  He lived.  He learned.  He grew.  He loved.  He ministered.  He suffered.  He died.  Like us, he did not start out as the path, but discovered the path, and learned the path.  Then, most importantly, and unlike any other founder of religion, he became the path.  In this becoming, perhaps more than in any other way, he reveals the path to us.

Jesus reveals more than just the location or direction of the path.  On one level, by inviting us all to come unto him and join him on the path, Jesus exposes the path.  On another level, his invitation directs us to the ultimate end of the path. By joining him on the path, we can also join him in becoming the path.  That is ultimately where the path that Jesus took led him, and where it will lead us.

If we follow Jesus in the way he went, we will become like him in every way, not just in some ways.

Jesus the Archetype of Meditation

Jesus is the Grand Archetype of what all meditations in all applications and all traditions universally aspire to accomplish.  He is the One.  He is unity perfected.  Jesus is the material manifestation of the spiritual Christ.  He is the universal good — the peace, the love, the hope, the healing, the oneness, and the goodness to which all religions point us. 

Jesus will reveal the true nature and ultimate purpose of all faiths to their adherents.  Jesus gives light even to those who deny his existence or divinity.

That is why we meditate.  Discovering the true and ultimate purpose of every expression and variation of faith is what the Meditations of Jesus is all about.