Cosmic Christ Pentecost 6
Colossian 1 begins with a great Hymn to the Cosmic Christ: … The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and
invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Who or what is the Cosmic Christ? The term Cosmic Christ is the faith that the risen Christ is presence at the heart of the tiniest piece of matter – at the centre of tiniest atom, and Christ’s presence radiates into the largest universe. As Iron is plunged into fire and it burns and transforms in the presence of that fire, so too creation is plunged into the Divine presence of God and radiates that heat.
What does the Cosmic Christ mean for me? In the incarnation we have the perfect marriage of matter and Spirit – God takes flesh and dwells among us. (John 1). Thus, Christ is whenever and wherever the material and the Divine co-exist—which is always and everywhere and in all things. Thus:
1) We experience a healing of opposites: For Teilhard, all polarities --
science and religion, matter and spirit, body and soul, prayer and work -- are reconciled in the Cosmic Christ.
2) Christ is literally in all things; therefore, we find God moment by
moment in all things, in the Magnificent Mundane.
3) Evolution is holy, we have an evolutionary spirituality, an evolutionary consciousness. Chardin’s vision of evolution embraces the whole of the cosmos, the whole of creation, the whole of humanity and the whole human person – matter, mind and spirit. For Chardin, humanity is not a passive holder of evolutionary processes, but an active participant in evolution. Gradually we are evolving forward and upward into a greater consciousness, deeper into God, deeper into unity.
Luke 10:38-42
38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”