The Transparent Event: Post-Modern Christ Images - Softcover

Cock, John P

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0966509021 ISBN 13: 9780966509021

Publisher: Transcribe Books, 2001

Synopsis

Book by Cock, John P.

About this title

About the Author

John P. Cock grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. He and his wife and two sons were members of the family Order:Ecumenical for most of two decades, living in inner-cities of the United States and in villages of Indonesia and India. He is a retreat guide and the author of Called To Be: A Spirit Odyssey and Motivation for the Great Work: Forty Meaty Meditations for the Secular-Religious, with a foreword by Thomas Berry. His forthcoming book is Our One Spirit Tradition.

From the Inside Flap

"John Cock, along with my brother Joseph, is a pioneer in articulating the Word for our time." Bishop James Mathews, author of A Global Odyssey

"Scholarly, comprehensively sourced, grounded, readable, and life-addressing." Brian Stanfield, author of The Courage to Lead

"A valuable contribution to those who wrestle with enabling the tradition of faith to come alive in the pluriform, global village." Terry D. Bergdall, Ph.D., third world consultant; author of Methods for Active Participation

"My friend John Cock's book can help serious laypersons articulate what they believe." Evelyn Laycock, D.Min., Director the Lay Ministry Center, S.E. Jurisdiction Administrative Council, United Methodist Church; author of Hope for the Future

"This book is a welcome read of what makes us tick as human beings far deeper than the 'wisdom' of self-help books of late." Donald P. Elliott, M.D., FACS, FSTS (Heart Surgeon); Elder in the Presbyterian church

"I commend this book to seeking agnostics and religious persons of whatever faith." John L. Epps, Ph.D., consultant and writer, Malaysia; author of "Core Values of Civil Society," in Beyond Prince and Merchant

"Best damn book I have ever read. I will preach it till I die." Young minister west of the Mississippi

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

EPILOGUE

God is not an object. We blaspheme when we address that mysterious power as he, she, or it. "Anthropomorphism" is making God in our own image.

The great Christian heresy is making Jesus God. Jesus re-presents God, but is not God. To believe he is, is to try to get off the hook of discipleship, swapping faith for magic.

The freedom of Jesus, the faith of Jesus, and the passion of Jesus are our possibility as followers of the 100 percent human Jesus.

But Jesus the Man is not nearly so historical as Christ the Event, the transforming event of every person s existence.

We have considered Jesus as the Christ from the perspective of theologians who have dominated the last half of the 20th century. And we have re-created our own Christ images. What difference does it make if my Christ image is really mine? To me, all the difference relative to meaningful existence.

As human beings we have a general pre-understanding: the interrelationship of our cultural-mythological perceptions and our historical-real perceptions. How do we take the mythological and the real seriously as we exist in faith, realizing that our sense of meaning is created in our lifetime, more or less self-consciously? Said another way, we inherit a story about the meaning of life and an objective picture of mundane existence, but these will not finally sustain us; we must figure out the meaning of life for ourselves, where we stand. This is the context for the journey of faith. How we interpret our human journey has everything to do with meaningful living.

The spirit malaise of our time is the contradiction of our planetary society. A fourth to a third of the world s population, more or less, emphasizes this cure: faith in God through the Spirit event of Jesus the Christ (or through the religion that worships God in Christ s name).

This seems so very complex, this trinitarian truth handed down by the Christian tradition. But in essence, what we have been trying to understand throughout this book is that Jesus was related to God, and through the power of his Spirit, so are we related to that power.

I am reminded of a story. A woman saw a boy barefoot in the cold of winter, took him into a shoe store and bought him shoes and sox. He asked, Are you God? She said, No, but I am a child of God. He said, I knew you had to be related. Herein lies the seed of christology and the journey of Christian faith. Through his deeds the early followers asked Jesus, Are you God. He said, No, but I am his son. They said, We knew you had to be related. And he said, And so are you his sons and daughters."

We are the family of ultimate reality through the transparent event. The truth of the Christ image is that life is graciously good as given and is to be lived in humble and compassionate gratitude. Joseph Mathews said it well in the beginning poetry of this book: Jesus opened the future, made new the past, and filled the present full of meaning. This is the fruit of faith in God. What it means for all of us to live in reality is to be able to see life, as it is, as a blessed gift. All else is a distortion of reality, an illusion. This God-through-Jesus-the-Christ-Spirit poetry points to that which is worthy of our faith, worship, and vocation. We experience homecoming as we relate to this ultimate reality of life.

When we begin to genuinely give thanks for what is and who is, we are finally home. Being at home not going home sometime, some place up there--is essential to the transformation of our planetary spirit malaise.

As D. H. Lawrence suggests, let us be at home, at one, and at peace in this life, which happens this book maintains through the transparent Christ event.

All that matters is to be at one with the living God to be a creature in the house of the God of Life. at peace, in peace and at one with the master of the house, with the mistress,

at home, at home in the house of the living, sleeping on the hearth, and yawning before the fire.

Sleeping on the hearth of the living world yawning at home before the fire of life feeling the presence of the living God like a great reassurance a deep calm in the heart a presence as of the master sitting at the board in his own and greater being, in the house of life.

The name of the poem is Pax. Grace and peace are ours, as Paul says, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That old poetry is the stuff of our real lives.

Edition details

• Publisher: Transcribe Books
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0966509021
• ISBN 13: 9780966509021
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 297