Myths and Legends of Jesus

from

Myths  and  Legends  of  Jesus

Special  Session   Riverside,  California

Uranda   March 16, 1947

When we pause to consider the fact that virtually all of the so-called world saviours, and many of the pagan gods, came into manifestation on earth, according to legend or history, through some type of Divine visitation to some woman especially set apart or perfected for such purpose, we have to come to some conclusion. It is not necessary to examine all such legends or stories in order to come to the truth. It is significant that the points of similarity that exist with respect to so-called world saviours in this regard, is limited to characters, real or legendary, who have had a tremendous influence upon the trends of thought and function of the people of the world down through the ages. 

We recognize that there is some truth in every teaching that exists for any period of time, else it could not exist, and when we find any one point re-appearing in such a wide range with respect to so many different teachings and teachers, it seems to me that it is reasonable to suppose that there must be some basis in truth for such concepts, whether real or legendary, and that if there is such a truth then it is important that that truth be recognized so that the real meaning behind the stories may begin to have an influence in our lives. 

With respect to all of these stories, the very fact that the concepts developed with respect to them have tended to make the people of the world feel these world saviours, or any one of them, to be something separate and apart from the world of humanity, having some special process of birth or origin which made it possible for that particular being to manifest Divinity, but which, according to the concept, likewise provides an excuse for humanity as a whole for failing to attain to such perfection; and causes the human mind to say that, if, in the case of Jesus for instance, He was born under such conditions He had it comparatively easy to achieve what He did, and because we are so separated from Him in the matter of birth, we are necessarily separated from Him in the processes of life—and there is a great gulf fixed insofar as the human consciousness is concerned, between that which the Master achieved and that which human beings can achieve. Thus it is that the devil, seizing upon a truth, presents it in a false light, and uses that very truth to defeat the purposes of the truth. 

The so-called miraculous, or immaculate, conception of Jesus Christ is a matter that is controversial from the standpoint of religionists, and with many of them the point is established so thoroughly in prejudice that if it is even suggested that the meaning generally accepted is erroneous, anything else that may be said is rejected in advance. Therefore, to the degree that we can come free of any tendency toward prejudice in this regard, it seems reasonable to suppose that if there is any fundamental truth in the story of the birth of the Master Jesus, then He, being the greatest Teacher that the world has ever known, must surely have given something in his own words which should reveal or provide the key for, at least an understanding of the truth with respect to His manifestation in the world. 

If Jesus neglected to provide a key to the understanding of any phase of His own revelation of Deity on earth, then how could He say, in His great prayer of intercession, as given in John 17: "I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do"? Our time tonight does not permit our examining the whole Teaching of Jesus in search of the key, so I shall draw your attention directly to it. In John 14 we have a record of the Master’s words where He said: "The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself, but the Father Who dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works." During the Master’s Ministry He spoke often of His Father, and He spoke often of the Oneness of His Father and the manifest being whom we call Jesus, and in this text He says: "My Father Who dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works." 

Human beings have lost the vision of their relationship to God. The Saviour was born to re-establish in consciousness an understanding of man’s relationship to God. Man, in the fallen human consciousness, thinks of his parentage as being limited to that generally recognized in the human sense—his earthly father and his earthly mother. The one point wherein man in the fallen state is permitted to participate in relationship to true Creative work in the physical sense, is with respect to procreation, but because of this fact man has tended to think of the whole matter as if it were a purely physiological proposition instead of recognizing that the one point where he is still permitted to have a relationship with true Creative work is still the point where he could, if he would, discover his fundamental relationship with God.

In the story of the Master's birth we have a presentation which is properly designed to take attention away from the earthly father, in order to establish a consciousness or awareness of the relationship of God to birth, not just the birth of Jesus Christ, but the birth of every man, woman and child on the face of the earth. It has always seemed to me to be utterly ridiculous to claim, on the one hand, that Jesus is supposed to be our example and then to claim, on the other hand, that He had a birth into the world so far different from that which we are privileged to have. If our birth into the world is so far different from His birth into the world, then God would be asking the impossible of us, to expect us to accept Him as our example, because if there was anything true with respect to the Master's birth that is not true with respect to our birth, then He is not our example—He is simply a Being so far separated from us, and so far above us, that there is no hope of our ever achieving that which He achieved. 

But He, Himself, said: "The works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than these shall ye do," thereby pointing out that that which He achieved we can achieve, and if we can achieve what He achieved, then that which was true of Him is true of us. It is not sacrilegious, on the basis of the Master's own words, to undertake to determine the truth with respect to His birth which will, at the same time, reveal the truth with respect to our birth, and if we recognize the truth with respect to our birth, we find that we are not so far separated from God that it is foolish and futile for us to accept Jesus Christ as our example.

The story of the Master's birth emphasizes rightly, to start with, that God was His Father. With the world consciousness as it was, and as it still is to such a high degree, there was no other way by which the truth of the Master's Divinity in relationship to His parentage could be focalized into the consciousness of the world in a way that would make it have vital influence in the attitude of the world. As the translation stands the wording of it does not necessarily give a clear indication of the truth of the matter, but rather tends to support the prejudiced viewpoint whereby the truth has been presented in a false light that defeats the purpose of the truth. So, the light wherewith we view this matter must come from the Master's own words. When He said that the works that He did were possible to us, and when l said that the Father within Him accomplished the works which He did, it is evident that He was recognizing the Father within us and recognizing that, to the degree that we let the Father do the works, the works of the Father would be done through us as surely as they were done through Him. 

We recognize that in the processes of birth the physical seed is present, and must be present, and if that is true of us and we say that it was not true of Jesus with respect to His birth, then we set Him apart from us where His Life can have no real meaning to us, and that peculiar distinction which has been established in consciousness has caused His life to not have very much real meaning, even to the mass of people numbered in Christendom, because they have felt that lie was too far removed from them for them to achieve; therefore, under the direction of the devil they developed the idea of mere acceptance with the lips, assuming that that would be enough, that Jesus did it all and they would not have to do anything but believe with the lips. How convenient!—and how certain to bring failure and maintain the supremacy of the devil! 

The physical seed was present with respect to the birth of Jesus. That may seem to you as an arbitrary statement on my part, and if you ask for Biblical proof I am not in position to give it, and prejudices tend to arise at this point and say that such an idea is utterly sacrilegious, but such prejudices are fostered by the devil so that he may maintain supremacy and defeat the purposes of the truth, and keep Jesus Christ from becoming the Ruler in the lives of men. 

Let us go back a little. The fall came into manifestation through Eve, and she was promised that through her seed salvation should come. Woman represents the negative manifestation of humanity; man represents the positive phase of humanity; but humanity as a whole is represented as a woman in relationship to the positive expression of God. We have, for instance in Revelation, the Church and its membership of men and women forming the Bride of the Lamb. From the standpoint of the relationship in actuality, in the right sense of man and God, man and woman are one, and the two in oneness are negative to God so that in that absolute oneness of man and woman the manifestation of woman in relationship to God is made manifest, so that the fatherhood of God, working through the woman, manifest as the oneness of man and woman, permits the manifestation of the birth of the child as revealed in the case of Jesus Christ. 

The perfect woman, insofar as this world is concerned, is the perfect manifestation or blending of man and woman, so that together they make a complete unit, and a unit that is negative or responsive to God, so that that which is of God may come through that one being into the world. This is the central, fundamental truth back of the story of the birth of Jesus, for the mother of Jesus, pictured in its idealism, simply symbolizes the perfect blending of man and woman. "They two shall be one flesh," and if they are one flesh they cannot be two pieces of flesh and separated, and considered as being distinct, one from the other; therefore, to the degree that we recognize that man and woman, as one flesh, become perfectly negative and responsive to God, then the fatherhood of God in relationship to birth or Creative activity on earth, becomes a reality. 

Now it is true that the degree of perfection in this cycle was higher in the case of Jesus Christ than is true in the case of most human beings. Nevertheless, it is true for each child who is born of a love union. In that union the male and female are one flesh and they constitute the woman in union with God the Father, so that God the Father is the father of the child, and the recognition of the Father in the Divine sense is absolutely essential to a realization that we are not far from God, and that in Reality we can, if we will, let it be so, fulfilling the Master's words, "Verily, verily I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do, shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." How? On the same basis, by reason of which His works were made manifest. "The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works."
 

So here we have briefly, directly stated, the real truth back of the story of the immaculate conception, and when we recognize this truth we realize it is not ridiculous, nor is God asking the impossible of us for us to recognize that Jesus Christ is our example, and that we are to follow Him.

© Emissaries of Divine Light