They Have Taken Away My Lord

They  Have  Taken  Away  My  Lord

from  The  Passing  of  Graven  Images

Martin Cecil   Dec 21, 1986

I was thinking a little about our use of that portion of the Bible which purportedly describes to us the Master's presence and experience on earth. We have something here which has come alive for us so that it is no longer merely a story in a book. It has come alive to a certain degree. 

Christians talk about Jesus Christ. We may speak of our King. When it comes right down to it, what's the difference? There is a character described here in the Gospels. This is a story. No one really knows where it came from. There has been a certain amount of effort to find what might be referred to as the historical Jesus, rather than the Jesus of the Gospels. I think it is fairly safe to say that no one has been very successful in this. Many ideas have been put forward as to the nature of the Jesus of the Gospels. Where did this character come from? Was it a real character? 

If you're trying to make it so by looking at the form of things you will come up with an image. And human beings, obviously, have come up with an image. I'm thinking of this particularly in the Christian world; and I suppose most of us have had some sort of a background of Christianity, certainly from the standpoint of heredity in many ways, of generations and generations of people who read this story in the Bible and assumed that it was true and that it had reference to some certain particular character. However, as I say, when you start looking for that character, historically speaking, you don't find him. 

There are those who have postulated the idea that the Jesus of the Gospels was invented out of the characters of certain historical personages, maybe a couple of them or more. Well, someone was quite bright, evidently, if this was done. Of course, it is true that the Jesus of the Gospels largely supports the building of the Christian religion. So presumably the things that are there were there because they did support this human effort. More recently of course there have been what are called the Dead Sea Scrolls, which have described another character. No doubt there has been a suppression back along the way of certain aspects of what it was that appeared on earth, in order to make possible the building of the doctrine of Christianity. This is not exceptional, mind you. You can look into this from the standpoint of other religions too. 

All I am saying here is that, insofar as we are concerned, we have seen Jesus very largely through the eyes of the Gospels. However we have also seen something which went beyond that, because there has been some sort of a living experience, something that we have had in our own experience which transcends the form. We don't need the form, really, to tell us what the experience is. It's something that springs forth into expression in our living if we will let it, let the light shine. The idea has been, in the Christian world at least, "Look at the light.'' The light was Jesus, Jesus of the Gospels. The statement has been made a number of times that all history is fiction. Are we to exclude this? 

We have all, I'm sure, established images in consciousness relative to Jesus—largely based in the story of the Gospels. "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.'' Some have painted pictures of the image they had in consciousness. But everybody had the image in consciousness, in whatever measure and whatever it seemed to be. I am suggesting that this must be relinquished. It must dissolve. 

We find ourselves in a situation somewhat like what was spoken of in this story when Mary Magdalene was in the garden—again according to the Gospel—and couldn't find the body of Jesus. There was someone there whom she questioned: "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.'' I would suggest that everybody needs to come to that point. 

Here is an image which people cling to; it's very precious to them. But one cannot experience the truth if one clings to an image, even the image of Jesus. How then can the truth be known? Well we are aware of the way. But fundamentally it is taking the same position in one's own world as Jesus was purported to have done in His. That's the only way you could find out what the truth is. We don't need to go back there because all that is real is here now. The truth can be known now. 

An aspect of judgment is this business of setting up an image. Thou shalt not make unto thee any image or a likeness of anything, even in the heaven above, certainly not in the earth beneath, though everybody has done that. Everybody has worshipped their external idols and been largely governed by what is present in the water under the earth, in other words the subconscious elements that come out of the past through heredity and in various ways. But there has been a deliberate setting up of an image of Jesus Christ in the Christian world, and other images in various ways in other religious doctrines. The view is: "There is the light''—the image is the light. One may feel rather self-righteous by reason of the fact that one may not have externalized one's image, but you still have it. There are people of course who seek to externalize it in their living. This would require a very, very good person, if we are considering the Jesus of the Gospels. It isn't a matter of trying to imitate Jesus according to one's image of Him. Immense numbers of people have endeavored to do this, to make a facsimile of Jesus. What blasphemy! 

The only way to discover what the truth is is to be it. You can't be it if you think it's over there somewhere, even if it's over there simply in consciousness. So there is something to be relinquished here, simply because one assumes the responsibility of standing in the place where we have an awareness that He stood relative to the world. 

The image has always been valuable to people because it helped them to feel right about not accepting the responsibility. If one can have an image to worship, well, provided that image is at the very peak—and in the Christian world that would be Jesus Christ, presumably—then one doesn't need to assume the responsibility that He, even in the story, suggested that we should. As long as we have an image, there is something separate from us, and we remain in the identity of human nature. Human-nature identity is the identity that is separate from the truth; and if we see an image, obviously we have an identity still which is separate from the truth. I think it is well due that we should realize that "they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.'' We don't need to know, because each individual assumes the responsibility of being the truth. 

Nobody can ever assume that responsibility and identity as long as the human-nature identity persists. So, clearly, one must come to that point, somewhere along the line. I think most of us have been sidling up to it a little. But the truth is now. It's not in the past. It's not in any image that we could create in consciousness. There are those who have tried desperately to do this. They have read the Bible with such care and application, seeking to find that truth. Well of course it isn't there. The truth is here. The truth is in the individual himself or herself. Only when it comes out can he know it or she know it. Let the light increase.

© Emissaries of Divine Light