I thought of adding a subtitle to this sermon so it would be “Creation Journey: A Heretical Exegesis of the Gospel of St. John” which would of course put me in good company historically of the many heretics of our faith. But I decided that was a bit too fancy and my research is hardly sufficient to pretend a thorough exegesis of the Gospel of John. So we will keep it as Creation Journey and see what happens.
One of the mysteries of science is the beginning of the universe, which is metaphorically described as the Big Bang. Since the laws of science were born with this Big Bang, science cannot tell us anything about what happened before its occurrence. One would think then that religions could help us out here. Genesis offers us two distinct creation stories. Neither story gives us much of a clue as to what was before the beginning. In the first story when God made everything in the first five days and then humans on the sixth, it starts out with a “formless void, with God’s spirit hovering over the waters.” In the second story, where God makes humans first and all the plants and animals afterward, the heavens and the earth were already present. So what was before? We don’t have a clue.
There is a short account in Buddhist teachings called the Heart Sutra. This is written as an invitation and guide for humans to fully understand the nature of reality now, to deeply understand that this universe that we experience is illusion. However I find the account to be the clue we are looking for to begin to comprehend what existed before the beginning of this universe, before the Big Bang.
Before the beginning was nothing, no thing. There was no time; there was no space. There was no form; there was no formlessness. There were no feelings, no thoughts, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no spirit, no sights, no sounds, no smells, no tastes, no feelings, no religion, no spirit, no ignorance, no knowledge, no birth, no incarnation, no old age, no death, no re-incarnation. There was no pleasure, no suffering, no greed, no compassion, no understanding, no consciousness, and no separation. So even though there was no thing, in some strange way it could be said that there was a oneness to the nothing.
Then something happened. Oneness asked itself “Who am I?” The very act of asking such a question was the first creative act and Consciousness was born.
The birth of Consciousness was a powerful bang; in fact it was the Big Bang. With the birth of consciousness came the birth of time and space, the birth of the Universe as we know it. The birth of Consciousness was the beginning.
So now we turn to the Gospel of St. John that I read in the Opening Words. In this account the author says:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
However the author didn’t say “Word.” He wrote the book in Greek and he said “Logos,” which has been translated into “Word,” which in my opinion is a terrible translation. A Greek philosopher named Heraclitus first used the term Logos around 600 B.C. to designate the divine reason or plan which coordinates a changing universe. As a philosophical term, logos meant the ‘world-soul’, the soul of the universe. This was an all-pervading principle, the rational principle of the universe. It was a creative energy. In one sense, all things came from it; in another, men derived their wisdom from it. It is likely that the author of the Gospel of John was well aware of this understanding of the term Logos and he used it purposely to make his point that Jesus was the in fact a personalization of this impersonal world soul, and that his existence in a sense personalizes God as well. If the Logos becomes human, then it must be personal to begin with, rather than impersonal as the Greeks thought of it. He also strongly made the point that Jesus was the only incarnation of God, which is where we part ways, as I believe that we are all incarnations. He does, however waiver a bit, in my opinion when he says that believing in Jesus gives humans the power to become children of God. So he is clear that Jesus was the first incarnation of Logos, but he leaves open the possibility of all us humans becoming the same.
In my opinion the wrod "Conscoiusness" is a more accurate translation of the word "Logos." So now we return to the Gospel of John and I have replaced “Word” with “Consciousness” and altered the pronouns accordingly, which gives us this:
In the beginning was Consciousness. Consciousness was with God, and consciousness was God. Consciousness was with God in the beginning. Through Consciousness all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through Consciousness. All that came to be had life in Consciousness and that life was the life of humans, a light that shines in the dark, a light that darkness could not overpower. . .
Consciousness was the true light that enlightens all humans; and Consciousness was coming into the world. Consciousness was in the world that had its being through Consciousness, and the world did not know it. It came to its own domain, and its own people did not accept it. But to all who did accept it, it gave power to become children of God, to all who believe in the name of Consciousness, which was born not out of human stock or urge of the flesh or will of humans but of God. Consciousness was made flesh and lived among us and we saw its glory.
John is telling us that our awareness, our consciousness, is the God-like part of us. If Jesus is Consciousness-made-flesh, are we not also the same?
Returning to the Genesis stories, we find that in both creation stories, humans have quite an elevated place. In the first, we read:
God said, 'Let us make man in our own image.'
In the second God fashioned man from the dirt and breathed life into him. According to this story, he eventually banned him from the garden when he says:
“See he has become like one of us, with his knowledge of good and evil. He must not be allowed to stretch his hand out next and pick from the tree of life also, and eat some and live forever.”
It seems to me that in all three accounts, humans are identified as sharing divine qualities. We are pieces of Consciousness. Our life is the breath of God. By our own action we became like a god and we have only to eat the fruit from the tree of life to become immortal.
So now I will continue the creation story.
So Consciousness was born. The Oneness was aware of itself. The Big Bang was birthed. God could look at itself. There was the looker and the lookee. There is a division although there is only one. Let us say there is now a King and a Queen. Both are consciousness; both are God; both are full of love for each other. Both are love. This love had an expression and many children were born. These are the children of God we hear about often in the scriptures. There is a finite number of these souled beings. Each of us is a souled being. Each of us is a spark of Consciousness. Each of us is God also.
As a souled being, you explored the inner kingdom. You knew you were loved at every moment by the king and the queen because you were part of them. There were no rules; you were totally free to explore. One day you ventured off so far that you got lost and couldn’t find your way back. At that point, you felt fear and you pleaded with the King and queen to come and find you, but they did not. You fell into the Wall of Fire.
In the Wall of Fire, you were shredded into billions of pieces. You fought and struggled. The more you fought the more you suffered and the worse it got. Finally you surrendered and fell into a kind of nothingness that was even worse. You didn’t know who you were and you forgot everything wonderful about Home with the King and Queen.
You couldn’t even look around because you were not even aware of yourself. Then all of a sudden you were aware of a something at the edges. It was your shadow. By observing your shadow, you became aware of yourself and your own existence. You awakened and found others like you. You and the others had a vague idea of finding the way home to an earlier time when you were in a beautiful place, but try as you might, you were unable to find your way back or remember much more about Home.
You became desperate and tried to steal energy from the others as they did to you. You formed alliances and groups to add to your strength and power. You discovered that you could play with the energy and matter that was evolving and spreading out throughout the universe. At first you were only aware of the dark energy and the dark matter, which constituted the vast majority of the Universe. You were able to create many wondrous things utilizing these energies and matter.
At some point, one of you discovered what we now call regular energy and matter. At this point, the first generation of stars had already run their life spans and exploded, releasing lots of heavy elements that formed denser objects such as planets. You and some others became fascinated with this energy and matter and decided to conduct an experiment. You became part of a group called he Order of the Arc, which consisted of members of every angelic family who shared this interest.
Your experiment was to see if it would be possible to merge in some way with this matter and energy. This order of the Arc succeeded in ways that far exceeded your expectations. You helped create the planet Earth and began a long process of learning to join with biology.
At first you gently connected your energies with others energies such as trees and animals. At some point you jumped in totally and lived part of the life of a lizard or a toad, a dinosaur or a whale. Then you would jump back out. Some got stuck and couldn’t get out until the creature died. The first time this happened to you, it was horrifying. When you did get out all your friends gathered around and helped you to cope and you didn’t go back in for a long time. Eventually some got used to it and learned to experience the intensity of the life of a particular animal.
Eventually we standardized our form by choosing a particular ape creature and here we are today. Blessings to all of us, human angels, explorers, innovators, and ultimately creators.
°Much of the material for this sermon was strongly influenced by a series of talks given by Geoffrey Hoppe of the Crimson Circle who for many years channeled an entity named Tobias. (The character of Tobias appears in the Book of Tobit, which is a well recongized biblical book that didn't quite make the final cut.) Many of these channels are available in a publication entitled "Journey of the Angels" which is available from the Crimson Circle website. The opinions, organization, presentation and energy of this talk however are my own and, as a sovereign master, I accept full responsibility for what I have said.
In the discussion after this talk, someone asked me why I presented this information as fact rather than providing pros and cons to the information. My answer to this question was that I have shared a story. If I were to use the convention of presenting pros and cons, this would invite the listener or reader to "get into the mind" and examine and dissect the information. Instead, it is my hope that folks will open their hearts and expand their energies, and get "out of the mind." I invite all who read this to receive it as an energetic story, to hold it to your heart, use your own discernment, and choose how much of the energy of this talk you would like to integrate into yourself. Whatever doesn't fit, leave it alone. I have no interest or desire to persuade or convince anyone of anything. All who read this are souled beings who are free to choose, and I honor that choice.