Christmas, Captivity and the Cosmic Christ (The Creator of the Universe and Human Destiny) By Professor Anton Meemana

1/19/2011

0 Comments

 
The Creator of the Universe and Human Destiny

God is present in our pain, in our suffering, in our daily struggles more intimately than we are present to our selves. God also struggles with us, on our behalf, when we continue to struggle in life. The good news is that the Creator of this universe, the Maker of this universe is ever present in us, amid us, amongst us, deep within us, above us, under us, beside us, over us, below us, adjacent to us, next to us and by us.

God can never abandon us, nor can he neglect us. God has no future independently of us, apart from us, without us. God’s life is necessarily tied with our lives. God encourages us, gently coarse us to take more and more risks on behalf of love. Only a courageous person can love. Every meaningful risk in life is a leap of faith. Every such risk brings us closer to God a bit more.

Love loves reaching out, stretching out. Love thrives on endless expansion without  frontiers. The one who does not love is a black hole, contaminating everything around oneself and self-destructing  oneself  while destroying everything and everybody else too. By nature love has to explode constantly; love must burst out, flare forth, explode and expand. What will not explode will implode, self-destruct itself. The one who loves is a supernova that gives birth to thousands of new suns, comets, planets, moons and asteroids. 

Even star dust stems from God and hence contains sparks of divinity. The dust is a sacred reality. A star which was made of dust showed the wise men as to where the Christ had been born. Dust reflects the wisdom of God. God is present even in dust. The dust is the best proof that God does indeed exist. The true significance of anything is not in its size. The tiniest particle possesses a universal significance for the love of God is a cosmic event, a planetary phenomenon.


Read More
0 Comments

Christmas, Captivity and the Cosmic Christ Part I (Incarnation and Redemption) by Professor Anton Meemana

1/10/2011

1 Comment

 

Christmas, Captivity and the Cosmic Christ Part I (Incarnation and Redemption) 
by Professor Anton Meemana




On this special season that we celebrate the birth of the savior in Christian tradition, I would like to share the insights and reflection of a former atheist and now a devout believer of Christ, Professor Anton Meemana. He lived in the Philippines for more than 20 years as a political refugee from Sri Lanka. This piece that shall run for several weeks is entitled “Christmas, Captivity and the Cosmic Christ”.

Christmas is the grand feast of the wretched of the Earth. Of course, the rich can also celebrate it but only in solidarity with the poor. The true festive joy is in pouring out one’s whole self for the life and happiness of the others. Every true celebration is a communal enterprise.

True celebration requires a sense of healthy exaggeration, a sense of dazzling jubilation and a sense of shining exuberance, but never extravagances.  Extravagances kill the spirit and the joy of celebration and make it superficial, dry and lifeless.

Incarnation and Redemption

Incarnation, that is, God becoming a human in Christ Jesus, hints the proper orientation of human history. History is incarnation written large. Incarnation quenches the thirst for reincarnation. Incarnation transcends and transforms the need for reincarnation. Human history is restlessly and relentlessly in search of its Incarnator, its Redeemer. In taking human flesh, God has definitely and decisively embraced and befriended history and that is the beginning of its redemption. Repetition guarantees nothing and hence God can perfectly redeem us even without reincarnation. With God there is no past, present and future. There is only eternal now and therefore there is no need for reincarnation for our salvation. Reincarnation is absorbed in incarnation. Incarnation offers the possibility for a new life right now, right at this moment, right here. There is no need to postpone it for another life, for another time. Now is the temporal eternity.

Now is the moment of our redemption and emancipation. Now is the moment of truth. The truth of incarnation permeates the entire universe with sacredness, holiness, divineness and therefore every second, every moment is holy and therefore is an auspicious moment. With and in incarnation time is sanctified and made sacred. Now is the auspicious time. Now is the beginning of a new life, a new creature, a new man and a new woman. Redemption has already been granted and all we need to do is to claim it and to be worthy of it.

Incarnation is the protective skin of humanity. Incarnation is the second birth of the universe; it is the second Big Bang of the universe. It is the motor power of history. The whole universe is an incarnated reality; it is a divinely-incarnated cosmos. Jesus’s birth affected not only human beings but also the entire universe. Jesus is the saviour of the whole cosmos, of each galaxy, of each solar system, of each star and planet, of each supernova and black hole, of each comet and asteroid and meteorite, of each human being, of each animal and plant, of each bacterium and chromosome and microcosm. The whole universe is eagerly and enthusiastically longing for its Incarnator.

Incarnation is divine flesh entering our muscles, God feeding his body to us for our life, divine blood running in our hearts, divine chromosomes entering our cells, divine red blood cells entering our bone marrows, divine lenses visioning our eyes, divine breath entering our lungs, divine enzymes entering our saliva, divine tissues entering our ligaments, divine bearings entering our knee  caps and joints.

The deepest and the ultimate meaning of history stems from incarnation. History is a useless passion without incarnation. History is full of horror and terror without it. Incarnation incorporates history in its unfolding. Incarnation invests in history out of unconditional love, compassion and mercy. Incarnation investigates history out of clemency. God disincarnates from his own self in order to incarnate in our midst. God leaves his heavenly abode in order to pitch his tent amongst us.

Incarnation facilitates the process of deification. We are created to become divine, are created for the union and communion with God and nothing less than that is an absolute waste of our precious life. In this sense, a vast majority of people, without any doubt, waste their lives and have meaningless deaths.  Most people may be rich, educated, famous, wealthy and self-sufficient but feel empty deeply and desperately.  They are born, they buy and they die without finding as to why they are born into this world.


Read More
1 Comment