See the Unity Within and Find Joy
by Rev. Cory Coberforward
John 15:10-14
If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.
Psalm 16:7-11 (responsive reading for live service)
I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me.
I keep my eyes always on the Lord.
With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure,
because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
nor will you let your faithful one see decay.
You make known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
Read the written message below with music videos
There’s something about the holidays that speaks “joy.” Whatever we celebrate and for whatever reason, when it’s with family and friends (with treats and music) we can’t help but find some level of joy – at least, most of the time! In fact, it’s when we find a sense of oneness, setting aside our personal issues, as well as our political differences, historical arguments, and reactive judgments, that we often find the most joy during the holidays. For good reason! In a way, when we do this, we are setting aside our deep sense of personality (our ego) for our family and friends, or, in other words, we find the greatest joy and love when we “lay down our lives for our friends.”
This was the exact sentiment that I hear when I reflect on Christ’s words, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Of course, at first, I hear these words and think the obvious: that Christ spoke of his death and his belief that there’s no greater love than dying for our friends. We should be willing to die for our friends in such a way. But, crazy enough, it’s often even harder to allow our sense of separate self (which is our false idea of ourselves, the root of our ego and fear) to die for others. And yet, we know from sages across traditions that setting aside our false idea of ourselves is the key to finding the ever-present eternal love, peace, and joy already within.
Christ often spoke on many levels at once. Indeed, it says in the Christian gospel that he “only spoke in parables.” Christ was a big proponent of the idea that we never truly die, that we find eternal life in the light of Divinity. But there was one aspect of life that he does speak of as dying, and that is essentially our sense of being an isolated person, which we fear is us and at risk of being extinguished forever at death. This fear of being demolished is sometimes said to be the root of all fear (part and parcel with belief in separateness), veiling our joy of life. Our over-identification with our body, which does pass away, is the root of this, and Christ seems to have come into the world partly to disrupt this idea on multiple levels (see: his bodily resurrection). He calls us “the light of the world,” which is in turn called eternal, the life of the children of God.
Many of us celebrate Christmas because we are celebrating the son of God entering the world, someone whom mystics like Emanuel Swedenborg believed was one with God (thus, with the Holy Spirit, not a trinity of three people but of one). And Christ himself, from what we know of his teachings, believed that each and every one of us is ourselves a child of God, not separate from Divinity. However, he knew full well our state of ignorance of this. This is why it is said he taught a gospel of “repentance,” originally meaning to turn around or within, pointing us to our inner light to find our unity with God, the parent of all.
Even today, when many of us believe that all gifts are from God (even Christmas ones, which explains Santa Claus!), we have trouble accepting and integrating the full implications of this. This can be because we haven’t been gifted the “practices” that might help us dis-integrate our false sense of separate selves. It can also be due to a fear of what happens when we accept unity with God and others, but our sages assure us that unlike the limiting and controlling aspects of our own personalities, when we wake up to our true natures, we only become more ourselves, more creative, fearless, and freer.
Christ was the ultimate example of this, someone who woke up to his true nature entirely. Even though we celebrate his birth and his time in the manger in the Christian tradition, the scriptures also describe how he is eternal, around since the beginning, that he is the Word, God, and the light of life. In a way, this presents a good model or practice for us when allowing ourselves to lay down our lives for our friends. What do you know of your own light of consciousness? Do you remember it starting when you were born? Do you (or anyone else) know for a fact that it ends?
As scientists or believers in truth, we would do well to stick to what we know, not adopting the beliefs of others without some level of investigation and doubt. This includes religious teachings! And even in religious settings, we are often not exposed to much inner exploration in this manner. When we return to this one practice, modeled after what we hear of Christ, we are reminding ourselves of how little we know about awareness itself. This can be infinitely liberating because out of everything that we experience, awareness is the closest thing to always being present (even in dreams) and it is the very thing that allows us to get to know anything else. And in my own life, I find directing awareness toward my sense of fear, suffering, and any other uncomfortable feelings (which, I’ve come to know, all stem from a false sense of separateness and limitation), helps to dispel these feelings. Like putting a damp outfit out into the sun to dry. Many sages have offered these kinds of lessons, but it indeed takes practice and inner exploration for us to uncover the gifts of the truth of these teachings.
Out of everything in our inner lives, awareness is the closest thing to being like light (it even enlightens light for us!). And, during the holidays, there is often a special emphasis on lighting candles – as we do at the Church of the Good Shepherd, lighting candles that represent hope, peace, love, joy, and ultimately, Christ. Christ told us that we are the light of the world and he is called the light of life. Where might we turn to experience this light which must be always present to us, enlightening the world and life itself? We have but to notice that all things arise to us and in us as the light of the world, everything we experience is in our light. The details always change, our minds and bodies are different, but awareness itself is shared equally by all, from the greatest to the smallest creatures. When we come to fully see how we are one in this light, our ability to love opens and our joy blooms. As Chris said, heaven is within us, always present but unknown.
Christ said in our readings that he “told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete,” tasking us to love others as he has loved us. Christ loved us just as he loved God, with his entire being, and that is no coincidence! His harshest words were for the part of us that uses our sense of false humility and separate self to undermine our full knowledge of God and ourselves. When we know ourselves truly, we will naturally love others as ourselves because any sense of separation will be seen as an illusion, thus fulfilling his “commandment.” And as John 15 told us today, when we follow this command we become true friends with Christ, and we get to finally enjoy the holidays fully, with gripes, gramps, unc’s, aunts, Christ, and all.
Blessings,
Cory