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Jesus’ birth in the fullness of time.
When I was young and growing up I was taught that Jesus was born in the fullness
of time. I was very curious about this notion of the fullness of time. What
does it mean for time to be full? Is time a kind of bucket that can be empty
or full or perhaps half full or half empty? The explanation that was given
to me by a Dominican sister was that it was the perfect time for Jesus to
be born. Everything in history had been preparing for his appearance and
all the conditions were exactly as they needed to be for his birth. At the
time I accepted this explanation but today I find it unsatisfactory. If Jesus’ birth
was the incarnation of Divine with Human, if it was God himself incarnating
into flesh, then wouldn’t he have been able to adapt to any situation,
to any time period?
Malcolm X once pointed out that if Jesus had been born in modern times, Christians would be walking around with electric chairs around their necks. To put that into present day perspective, they would be walking around with syringes around their necks. I suspect that he wanted to point out the fact that the cross has gained a kind of symbolic meaning which stripped it of its contemporary meaning as a common means of execution. And yet, I still cannot believe that an incarnate God could not have dealt with these modern times.
So what else could fullness of time mean? In the Catholic teachings, Mary is described as full of grace and there is a connection between this fullness of grace and this fullness of time. She is full of grace because she bears the son of God who is born in the fullness of time. Still, it is not enough to help me understand this fullness of time.
I should point out though that Christmas is not the most important Christian holiday. Today is. Easter is the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection, his conquering of death so that we can all conquer death. He promises immortality for his followers. I will get back to the question of immortality in a minute.
First I want to talk about MY fullness of time. How can time be filled up for me? That’s what I want to know. I have been fighting a battle with time for much of my adult life. I come up with many ideas in my imagination and these imaginings will sometimes turn into projects. In my mind the project is complete. As I strive to actually create the project, time becomes involved and there never seems to be enough of it. Partly this is because I tend to be doing several of these “time consuming” projects simultaneously. I “run out of time.” It appears to me that time gets emptied out of that bucket. I never have enough of it.
I must listen more carefully to myself. What could I possibly be saying when I say that I don’t have enough time? How much time do I have? Well, I have from this moment until the moment of my death. No more, no less. That is my allotment. Of course I do not know the precise time of my death, so I do not know how many minutes I have left. But would that really make a difference? I am 56 years old. It is pretty unlikely that I will stay on this planet more than 112 years. If I do stay for 112 years then my time cup is still half full, or is it half empty?
We are so used to measuring time in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years. I started attending this church in 1990. That was 17 years ago. What does a statement like that really mean? Was I really the same person 17 years ago when I stepped into this church the first time? Is this really the same church? I look out into this congregation and I can tell you that less than half the faces I see were present in this church 17 years ago. There is a story about a guy who tries to sell Abraham Lincoln’s axe for a large sum of money. The potential buyer asks if the axe had really belonged to Abraham Lincoln. The seller soundly claims that it had indeed been owned and used by Abraham Lincoln. He does admit that the axe handle was replaced seven or eight times, but that ought to be expected for an axe that is used. Upon further questioning he admits that the axe head was also changed two or three times. So is it the same axe? Is this the same church? In the seventeen years since I started coming here all the cells in my body have been destroyed and replaced probably two or three times. Am I the same person? How about seventeen years from now? Will this be the same church and will I be the same person? I will be 73 years old. Will I still walk up here and give sermons? Where is that 39 year old man who walked into this church in 1990? Where is that 73 year old man? Could he be sitting over there? Could he come forward to give a sermon? Would anyone be interested in hearing what he has to say? Will he have completed any of the many projects that I am so concerned about today? Will it matter if he did or didn’t? Will he have just as many new projects in mind and wonder where he will find the time to do them? Or will his allotment be used up even before his 112th birthday?
O.K. so what do I do about this problem that I have with time? What are some potential solutions?
Walking backwards in time
Merlin is said to have walked backwards in time. In The Way of the Wizard by Deepak Chopra, Merlin says, “All of us are surrounded by the timeless. The question is, What do you do with it?”(1)
We cut it up into little pieces and call them seconds. Einstein discovered that those seconds do not tick identically for everyone everywhere but slow down or speed up depending on our velocity. We experience this also internally. When we are young, time goes slowly. As we get older time seems to go faster. When we are enjoying ourselves time tends to speed up and when we are miserable time tends to slow down.
Einstein said: "For us believing physicists, the distinction between the past, the present, and the future is only an illusion."
So, how illusionary is time anyway? Richard Bach wrote a novel called One (2). In it he and his wife Leslie travel to a place outside of time. They fly over a network of worlds in a small plane. Occasionally they land and find themselves in an alternative universe where they meet and talk to alternative versions of themselves. All are present simultaneously. This novel is based on the theory that every time we make a choice the universe splits. I chose to give this sermon today. I could have chosen not to do so. According to this theory I did choose not to give this talk, and another universe was born that follows that decision. It may be almost identical to this universe, but there would be some changes. Someone else gives the sermon and this leads to certain people getting ideas that affected their lives which caused differences to occur. That universe goes on until another choice is made and it splits again. All these universes exist simultaneously. Each may also have a different time speed. If one could travel between these dimensions, then one could visit oneself at any time in the past or the future, each different than all the others.
But how about this universe? Is time illusionary here? It sure appears real and it definitely has a direction to it. Each moment the past turns into the present and the next moment the future takes over and the present becomes the past. In The Fabric of the Cosmos, Brian Greene talks about the arrow of time and the problem that this has presented to physicists (3). A fancy way to speak of this is that our experience of time is asymmetrical. We’ve all seen films that are shown backwards. The chaos of a room reverses as all the broken pieces come back together. This is obviously not our experience of time. The shattered glass does not turn back into an intact window. Time only goes in one direction. The interesting thing about this though is that the laws of physics show no such asymmetry. The math works exactly the same whether time runs forward or backward. In other words, physicists have yet to find any reason why time should be asymmetrical. It would be much more logical if it were symmetrical, if eggs would un-break as often as they break and windows would un-shatter as often as they shatter. Currently there is substantial study directed towards the first few moments of the universe after the big bang in hopes of discovering a reason for the apparent asymmetry of time.
Another way of looking at time is to see it as a giant circle with the present moment in the center. The energy of this moment influences the energy of all the other moments which exist as concentric circles around the center point, like the ripples that we see when we drop a rock into a pool of water. The pool of water exists in the now moment and within that pool are all that we perceive as the past as well as all that we imagine as the future. We live in the center Now Moment. Our minds, however, wander throughout the pool and play in the ripples.
Perhaps this Now Moment is the fullness of time that Paul talks about when he says in his letter to the Ephesians: “. . . he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (4)
So, what would it look like to, like Merlin, walk backwards in time. There are stories of him going to cemeteries and christening the headstones. Let’s discuss a simpler example.
Each morning during the week I wake up with the powerful intention of going to work. In a sense, as soon as I make this clear choice, I am already at work. I then walk backwards in time to experience the process of driving there. I can choose whether to listen to music on the way or sit in silence. I can decide to feel tired or energized. All these experiences are possible as I travel backwards in time from being at work to leaving home.
When I definitely chose to give this sermon a few weeks ago, in a sense it already was written. My intention, my choice was fulfilled instantaneously. The sermon was written and delivered as soon as I chose to do it. Then I walked backwards in time from that future moment (which is now) because I wanted to see how I went about writing it. So for the last few weeks, I have been experiencing the creation of the details of the sermon. For example, initially I had entitled it “The Illusion of Time.” That was my original intention and my original decision. As I walked backwards in time, however, I discovered that I had changed the title to the “fullness of Time” because I realized that today was going to be Easter. I got to experience re-reading parts of several books. I have a copy of The Way of the Wizard somewhere but as I walked backwards in time, I discovered that I could not find my copy so I found myself going to the library to borrow a copy of the book.
James Hillman talks extensively about living life backwards in his book The Soul Code (5). He explains that there is an acorn essence within each of us that we are born with. This daimon, this angel self is who we essentially are. He talks about a Picasso painting called in English “The Young Painter,” a copy of which is in your order of service. He drew this painting at the age of 92, shortly before his death. Hillman writes:
This haunting, simple image turned out to be the initiatory experience for my theory of life lived backwards. Here is the invisible Picasso caught on the canvas, a self portrait of the daimon that inhabited him all his life. At the end, it emerges and shows itself. “Here,” it says, “This is who you are, Picasso, you are me, the ever-young painter. I am the clown, the innocent, fresh eye, the dark eye, the quick-moving Mercurius, the sentimental, bluish melancholy, the little boy. I am your ghost. Now you see who drives you, what has kept you fresh and eager, and now you can die”. . . .Here was the portrait of the acorn painted by the oak.” (6)
The Resurrection
I promised to get back to the question of conquering death or the resurrection. Jesus is said to have brought Lazarus back to life after he already was starting to stink in his grave. Presumably, however, he then had to live out the rest of his days and die again. Modern science has created many Lazaruses. Many tell of their experiences of going through a tunnel of light and love, or talking to family and friends who have died before them, and of feeling a powerful sense of peace. Some scientists also have studied these near death experiences and explain it as some process that the brain goes through due to the severe trauma. All of these folks though must finish out their days and die again in the usual way.
The Resurrection of Jesus however ends differently. He doesn’t continue with life and die later like Lazarus, but he eventually experiences some sort of ascension. He apparently has a kind of light body. In the Acts of the Apostles he instructs those he visits not to touch him. We do not know what would have happened had anyone tried. Would their hand have gone through him? Christian teachings instruct us that his resurrection and ascension are powerful signs of hope. He told Lazarus’ sister Martha that whoever believes in him will never die. Is this to be our future as well? Can we escape death?
I once read a story that takes place in the future when medical science has advanced far beyond what we can imagine. A forty year old man starts having some unpleasant symptoms. His lower back hurts a little. He is sleeping more erratically. Occasionally he has trouble urinating or moving his bowels. So he goes to the doctor who does lots of tests. Finally he calls him into his office and looks very grim. The man asks what is wrong with him and the doctor tells him that he has a rare condition of which there is no cure. It takes a while for the man to absorb this, but finally he asks what it is. The doctor explains that it is a condition that gradually will get worse. He will eventually get more pain. His skin will get wrinkled. His energy will lessen. His thinking ability will also gradually decrease. His bones will get less dense and viable. In fact his whole body will slowly disintegrate and he will die. As you can imagine the man is devastated. “How much time do I have,” he asks in a small voice. The doctor hesitates. He tells him that he will assign a team of doctors and will monitor his condition constantly. He tells him that if any of his organs get to where they will no longer function new ones will be grown and implanted. However he finally acknowledges that eventually it will get so bad for him that he will probably be ready to die. “So how much time do I have?” the man persists. The doctor say, “It is called aging and you will most likely have four or five decades, perhaps more if you decide to prolong it.” The man walks away in a deep slump.
So obviously we are all in this condition. So what of the promise of eternal life? Is there nothing we can do? As Unitarians, it is easy to simply dismiss such promises, but is there a part of us who would like to find some way out of this dilemma? If we cannot escape from death, can we at least escape from a miserable painful one?
Chopra states:
Molecules form and dissolve, returning to the primordial soup of atoms. But consciousness survives the death of the molecules on which it rides. What was once a bundle of energy in a sunbeam turns into a leaf, only to fall and change again into soil. This change of state crossed many boundaries. A sunbeam is invisible, whereas leaves and soil are visible. A leaf is alive and growing, whereas sunbeams aren’t. The colors of light, leaf, and soil are different, and so on.
But all these transformations exist as constructs of the mind. The actual energy present in the sunbeam experiences no change at all – it is simply part of the constant play of photons and electrons that underlies everything, whether we perceive it as dead or alive. Modern science has already led us into the appropriate new perspective; now we have to learn to live it. Visionary thinkers such as Einstein can only help us overcome mental barriers; we have to break through the others, the emotional and instinctual barriers, ourselves.
The emotional fear of death is one such barrier.(7)
In a sense, Chopra is saying that the reason we will die is that we deeply believe that we will die. We deeply believe this because we are afraid to die. Our fear creates the inevitability of death.
I would propose that a change in perspective might make a big difference. As Chopra suggests, does the energy of our consciousness ride on molecules?
We think often of these molecules as somehow living inside of everything, creating its form. Atoms are just little pieces of the whole, right? As we know all, atoms have a nucleus with electrons orbiting around that nucleus. We are familiar with the periodic table that lists the number of protons and neutrons in each atom with the corresponding electrons orbiting around the nucleus, like planets around the sun. Quantum physics tells another story. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle tells us that it is impossible to establish the location of a particle if we know its velocity, or vice versa. We can only know the probability that a particle will be in a certain position. So instead of asking where the electrons are, we need to enquire where the probability cloud of possible locations for the electrons is. If you could imagine the size of the nucleus of an atom to be the size of a basketball, how far away do you imagine the electron cloud to be? Remember that nothing exists between this basketball and the electron cloud. It is empty space. There is that much empty space in every atom.
Do you think the electron cloud would be as far away as the door of the church? Downtown Sioux City perhaps, could it be that far away? If that was true, then it would really be true that atoms are almost entirely empty space. Any guesses? Well the answer is LeMars. The electron cloud would be in LeMars [about 25 miles away]. Let that sink in for a moment.
As these molecules are destroyed and re-created, as subatomic particles wink in and out of existence as quantum physics tells us, what of ourselves, what of our consciousness? Like Picasso, do we each have a daimon that sits at the center of that consciousness? Could that daimon, that angel be who we really are? If this were true, then does it help us with the issue of death?
My plan is to practice consciously living my life backwards and see if that makes a difference in how I perceive time. I would invite you to do the same. Let’s see what happens. Maybe the promise of eternal life can be manifested.
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Closing Words:
“Trust in trust, have faith in faith,” Merlin said. “That is the only solution when you have lost trust and faith.” In the heart of ourselves, each of us is nothing but trust. Being and love are also innate parts of ourselves, but it is trust that allows us to breathe easy, to accept the earth’s spirit as our own. And the technique for remembering this is as simple as the technique for remembering anything else. Allow yourself to stop believing that struggle is the answer. Appreciate in silence the life that is meeting you at every moment. With this silent acceptance comes the tremendous energy that is hidden in the present, and in that energy are abundance, peace, intelligence, and creativity. All these are the gifts of silence wrapped inside the spirit of the earth. (8)
(1) Deepak Chopra, The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want, Harmony Books, Random House New York: 1995, p. 43.
(2) Bach, Richard, One, Dell Publishing, New York: 1988.
(3) Greene, Brian, The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality, Alfred A. Knopf, New York: 2004, p. 13.
(5) Hillman, James, The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling, Random House, New York: 1996.
(6) Hillman, James and Ventura, Michael, We’ve Had A Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World’s Getting Worse, HarperCollins, New York: 1993, pp. 61-62.
