Death No More
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Saying 1: And he said, “Those who decipher the significance of these assertions will be exempt from mortality.”
Thomas was an old soul, his essence carrying the weight of countless lifetimes. Over the centuries he had been a farmer, a scholar, a warrior and a wanderer. But in result of his varied incarnations, a gnawing ache developed-a longing to transcend the cycle of birth and death and rebirth into this exhausting world! This was the object of his deepest desire, conceived as salvation in the vernacular of his presently Jewish culture. He sought the elusive thread that would weave him into the fabric of eternal consciousness- his Christhood. Never again to accumulate endless biographies. Never again to perpetually discard personalities after personalities, only to resurrect in soul for yet another, forgetful foray into life. So, shall he continue to learn, to grow, piecemeal? Or shall his soul find that gushing fountain from which he might endlessly drink? Even the Heaven to which he might enter and from which he might go out, at will? (John 10:9)
In the bustling city of Capernaum, as restless as the endless incarnations of humanity, Thomas met Jesus whom he initially perceived as a spiritual teacher. Jesus’ presence implied a depth of knowing as massive as the root system of an old, olive tree, even as his words bore fleshy fruits. Jesus’ eyes, deep and knowing, seemed to peer into Thomas’ very essence. Could it truly be? So, when Jesus looked piercingly at Thomas and uttered the words, “Come follow,” Thomas, in that instant, set aside his life and lifetimes.
In his innermost soul he exclaimed: “My teacher, my Lord, my Master!”
This spiritual teacher was an enigma to Thomas, wrapped up, as the saying goes, in an enigma. Jesus did not hold status and place among the Pharisees, the more popular teachers of the Jews. Yet neither among the Sadducees, the more elite leaders of the Israelites. To Thomas, Jesus almost gave an air of being descended from heaven like a son of a god-even like onto the gentile folklore of the Greek and Roman occupiers. But a son of a god in conquered, Jewish skin? Dawning a common, Judean tunic?
In time, Jesus accumulated eleven other disciples, and Thomas gained a new and spiritual family. Thomas gradually sensed, as he knitted himself to them, that the life he now lived transcended the lifetimes he carried in the recesses of his soul. Even that every moment of his present life was equivalent to millennia of past biographies!
Jesus would teach the crowd in parables, short tales implying spiritual truths. But like wayward sheep which have all gone astray (Isaiah 53:6), the souls of the people were not seeking truth, in truth, but only spectacle (Matthew 11:16–17). “Therefore, I speak to them in parables,” Jesus revealed, “because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand” (Matthew 10:13). The disciples held a second level of intimacy with Jesus, so he would speak to the twelve plainly about spiritual matters (John 16:29). They enjoyed this fellowship with Jesus because they were his genuine followers, sincerely seeking truth. But Thomas enjoyed a third level of intimacy with Jesus due not only to his sincere search, but because he was fully prepared to comprehend the truth. So keen was the hunger of his eternal soul, albeit mediated through a dry and sharp mind.
Jesus therefore validated Thomas with a prophesy uttered in a mysterious, even shadowy moment: “You shall be my twin. For you shall come to Christhood, as have I, and you shall never die!” Thomas was, however, so unprepared to engage with this very thought that it immediately slipped from his otherwise beartrap mind, like water through a sieve.
But one day, Jesus spoke a saying to a woman named Martha that seized Thomas’ imagination. “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die…” (John 11:26). This saying arrested Thomas because Thomas had always been disposed to knowledge, to understanding, while Jesus was advising belief. Yet not only this, but also the claim Jesus made! Can one live, even if one died, and might one indeed never die? The charge to believe and the contradiction of Jesus’ saying assaulted Thomas on two levels. On the level of the disposition of his character to understanding over merely believing, and on the level of his logicality itself.
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Jesus perceived with a gleam of approval as Thomas grappled with his thoughts. “The Teacher saying that one might die but yet live could mean that one might be resurrected to life if one believes,” Thomas began to ponder, “just as he resurrected Lazarous.” Yet the Lord added that if one believed in him, one would never die, while Lazarous died again. The full understanding cannot therefore refer to physical life and physical death exclusively. For logic dictates that to be alive in one fashion, if also consistent with being dead, can only mean being dead in another manner. The Master must therefore be referring to spiritual life and physical death. He must mean that when one believes in him, one is resurrected from spiritual death and becomes spiritually alive, even if one might physically die. While even when one physically dies, one might still eternally spiritually live if one truly embraces him, perhaps in the world beyond. This can finally only mean that one’s soul or kernel of consciousness is eternal, and that embracing Jesus has something to do with awakening to oneself. So that one’s personality does not encounter death or interruption of one’s biography in forgetful reincarnation.” At this moment, Thomas, by the gift of the Father, received a nearly perfect understanding of Christhood. But one last revelation was needed.
Thomas came, in time, to comprehend the truth that one might be physically alive yet spiritually dead. That this was the meaning of Jesus’ words to the young man who postponed following Jesus, prompting Jesus to say, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the Kingdom of God” (Luke 9:60). If one is not aware of one’s divinity and eternity, one is dead in one’s sins. Which is to say, ensnared in one’s own errors and ignorance. Yet even after death, or even in the midst of this spiritual death of endless and blind incarnations, one might still attain one’s eternal realization if one embraces Jesus. More specifically, if one embraces Jesus who, having attained his Christhood and is therefore Christ, one attains one’s own Christhood in the same movement.
For Christ is but the self which remembers its eternal and divine nature!
Despite his great enlightenment, however, Thomas did not yet realize the integral value of the body as a sacred part of oneself. For “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good…” (Genesis 1:31). This final understanding came at Jesus’ self-revelation after resurrection.
“Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands,” referring to the marks of crucifixion. “Reach out your hand and put it into my side,” the side which was pierced by a Roman soldier to quicken Jesus’ physical death. “Stop doubting and believe’” (John 20:27). For despite Thomas superseding the other disciples in understanding, he yet did not comprehend in full, effectively falling behind their faith. Wherefore he even appeared backward to them, that he might walk hitherto, hidden in humility before men. For his role was now to lead the contemplative, unseen church, as Peter’s is to lead the active church. Neither would another public ministry of Christ be needed as the church continued the mission of Jesus.
Like Martha, therefore, the busy one, the active church consists of most people. The mass of humanity, spiritually dead but on the verge of life, preoccupied and immersed in the matters of the world. Because they are less disposed to the contemplative, unlike Mary who sat in awe of Jesus, they are therefore charged to approach Christhood through faith, through belief. Wherefore also, while the active church might become susceptible to the error of concluding that belief is enough, in and of itself, leaders of the flock would have to rebuke their spiritual waywardness. Reminding them that genuine faith requires obedience to the teachings of Jesus, not just words. For “Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
Therefore, while it was Peter’s charge to mother the active church, it was Thomas’ charge to gather the contemplatives who seek Christhood in knowing and understanding, in study and in perpetual prayer and contemplation. These contemplatives are the unseen ones to the majority who have little time to perceive.
Thomas, after Jesus’ death, proceeded hence to seed the monastic and contemplative traditions of the “Jesus movement,” out of the spotlight. This work of Thomas is moreover largely invisible to Christian history because his call to humility hides his legacy, even as the hidden Christ. Yet what does it matter? For Thomas observed all these things and understood. That he might become twin to the Christ, as he among the disciples was called to attain Christhood by knowing- and shall never die.
In hereafter living his Christhood in the unbroken eternity of his inheritance, Thomas has escaped the sting of death. He will remain Thomas forevermore, no longer suffering the interruption of his character and the reshuffling of his soul at physical death. He now forever comes into the Father’s house, into the heaven of heavens, and goes out to the pasture of worlds, at will. Seeding his flock of contemplative Christians, who by intercessory prayer and spiritual union with Christ, work their spiritual work for the greater salvation of the world!
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