The Mystic Christian Reader

After finishing "Lamb," I decided I was going to embark on a true reading of the New Testiment. I called myself a Christian as a kid, and after a somewhat long break, am doing so now again... So I thought it would be pertinant to actually read the document from which I proport to believe.

As I read, I found that much of what I'd been raised on as "The Gospel Truth" was anything but. Today's case in point: The baptism of Jesus as recorded by St. Matthew (3:16,17)

"16And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17and behold, a voice from heaven said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."

How is this different from the scene as Sunday School and the movies have taught us to remember it? "The Gospel Truth" shows us CLEARLY that this experience, so familar to our Protestant American mind, with the bird and the booming voice of God from heaven (probably sounding a great deal like Charton Heston or James Earl Jones, if we are to believe the movies) was an INTERIOR experience of Jesus'. The Bible states explicitly that "the heavens were opened up to HIM" and "HE saw the spirit of God".

So, what our cultural memory teaches us is the "Gospel Truth" is actually NOT. The people surrounding Jesus that day didn't hear the booming voice of God from the sky, and they didn't see a dove made of light decend upon Jesus. Only Jesus saw these things. The experience that St. Matthew recounts here is the moment of enlightenment of Jesus, the event of his "Christing"

The deeper revelation of this verse, if we are to read into it a bit, is even more illuminating. If the voice IS God addressing Jesus, why would He say "THIS is my Son?" Wouldn't He say "YOU are my Son?" Since He didn't say that, we must assume that Jesus THE MAN isn't the Son of God as we have prevoiusly been raised to believe that He was. Instead, God addresses Jesus and says THIS is my Son. Whom, then is God refering to?

I believe that God references THE EXPERIENCE... The CONSCIOUSNESS... Jesus became THE CHRIST at that moment. God was refering to the EXPEREINCE or the STATE OF MIND that Jesus was witnessing at that moment when He said "THIS is my son..." The body of Jesus ben Joseph became a recepticle for the only begotten Son of God at that moment, just as we all can also become, for does it not say, in John 1:12--

"But as many as received him, to them gave He power to become THE SONS OF GOD, even to them that believe on his name"