Gordon Robinson | It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas everywhere you go

One week from today, the Christian world will celebrate the arrival of Jesus Christ to this mortal toil. His teachings have inspired the birth of a religion He never wanted or sought, provided too many mere mortals with tools used to control millions of minds for profit, and formed the basis for waging brutal wars and committing unspeakable atrocities.

In other words, no good deed goes unpunished.

But this Christmas, let us ask ourselves (which is where, in solitude and quiet, we’ll find God and God’s answers) who was Jesus, really? What did He stand for?

And this Christmas will be

a very special Christmas for me.

There’s a one-word answer: Jesus was, is, and always will be love. That’s it. That’s all. All of us were sent here by God to experience “reality” (best spelled “relativity”), but Jesus came for a special reason, which was to show us, by example, that the best way to fulfil our purpose was by love.

There are clues to what should be this obvious truth found everywhere, including in the Bible. The problem is that truth, peace, and love can’t generate a fraction of the profit as fear. So formal structures, like churches, use the Bible as a whip to punish us for experiencing aspects of mortality they brand as “sin”. Then we are brainwashed to believe that we should “confess our sins” to church leaders who often use this egregious invasion of privacy to better dominate and manipulate us.

Religions, including Christianity, are nothing more than crude fear-mongering in hot pursuit of mind control. Jesus never promoted anything adjacent to that.

I don’t know how love could do this to me

I’ve waited and waited for someone I never see

But I’m so sentimental and I’m so hopeful you’ll be here

So here I am every year, every Christmas

How do we know Jesus is love?

Christianity keeps telling us that God handed down ten “Commandments” that we must follow. These “Commandments” were allegedly delivered to Moses (in secret), and he was tasked, as God’s agent, to pass them on to us. But the text of these “Commandments” and the text of Moses’ own chronology of events in the Book of Exodus make it clear that God didn’t intend to “command” anybody to do (or not to do) anything.

Leaving the actual text aside, does NOBODY find it curious that an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God would grant His creations Free Will and then turn around and “command” them how to behave? Any institution other than a Christian church would view this logical inconsistency as at least deeply troubling.

But look at the text of the alleged “commandments” themselves. How often is the word “shalt” (shall not) used? Why that word? Thou-must-not would be a command. Thou-shalt-not sounds and reads more like a prediction of the future to me. Moses himself refers to the process as a covenant with God (Exodus 19:5). Dr Ralph F. Wilson, director of Joyful Heart Renewal Ministries, has been using the Internet to teach the Bible and train disciples since 1996. Regarding Exodus 19-24, he writes ( http://www.jesuswalk.com/moses/5_covenant.htm):

“The word ‘covenant’ is the Hebrew noun berit. Between nations it is a ‘treaty, alliance of friendship.’ Between individuals it is ‘a pledge or agreement, with obligation between a monarch and subjects: a constitution.’ Between God and man it is ‘a covenant accompanied by signs, sacrifices, and a solemn oath that sealed the relationship with promises of blessing for keeping the covenant and curses for breaking it.’ Here in Exodus, God makes a covenant with his people as a nation, on the pattern of the suzerain-vassal treaties found in the Ancient Near East.”

CONTRACT

I can reduce all that to one word. A “covenant” is a contract. Lawyers are familiar with all types of contracts, but the one God offers to us in Exodus is what lawyers would call a “unilateral contract”. A simple example of this would be the IOC offering a medal to anyone who can place in the 100 metres final. If you can place, you’ll receive a medal. If you don’t finish in the top three then thou shalt not medal.

Jesus explains this in layman’s terms when asked (Matthew 22:36-40):

“36 ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’

37 Jesus replied: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

38 This is the first and greatest commandment.

39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’

40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

We call ourselves “Christians”, but we always prefer incoherent ramblings of aged misogynists and homophobes in the Old Testament to the word of Christ. Why, Grandma? The easier to frighten you with my dear!

Like any good teacher Jesus didn’t bother to correct his disciple’s semantics. He simply explained.

God’s unilateral promise to us is IF we love God and love our neighbour as ourselves then our lives will be lived a certain way. If you love like that, thou shalt not kill, commit adultery, etc.

What does it mean to love God? To love God you must love yourself because God is within you. This isn’t blasphemy. This is the word of Jesus Himself.

In John 14, Jesus gives the oft-quoted speech about going to prepare a place for us with the Father. Thomas asks how. Jesus answers: “I am the way, the truth and the life”. Like a satirical politician in Apocrypha, Philip is confused and asks Jesus to show us the Father. Jesus replies: “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”

Jesus goes further to point out (Verse 20): “I am in my Father and ye in me and I in you.” There can be no clearer explanation of the connected Holy Trilogy that proves that we find God within NOT without. Then Jesus says (Verse 23): “if a man loves me he will keep my word” thus reaffirming the original unilateral contract with God.

JESUS IS LOVE

So Jesus is love. Jesus tells us to love. First, love God. We’ll find God within us, so to love God, we must love ourselves. Then we must love our neighbour as ourselves. If we can do that, Jesus/God promises us we shall not live a life that involves wickedness, cruelty, or dishonour.

So who is our neighbour?

We must get this right because Jesus has accorded this “commandment” the highest importance. According to Luke 6, your neighbour includes your enemy. Love thy neighbour includes seeking the good of others (1 Corinthians 10:24) and valuing others above yourself (Philippians 2:3).

In answer to that question, Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. The Apostle John wrote “love one another” (John 13:34).

I often teach my bridge students that when analysing opponents’ bidding, what they didn’t bid is as important as what they did. The same applies when you are “Declarer” (playing the hand). What the defenders don’t play is as important as what they do. Omissions are as important in bridge, law, and life as commissions.

It’s critical that nowhere in the Bible or in any academic or Christian analysis of the Bible can you find any mention of anything being excluded from “thy neighbour”. Obviously, the term includes every living thing. So love every human whether you like what they do or not. Love every animal. Love every plant. Love your environment. ALL are your “neighbours”.

Old Testament inspired demonising of certain sexual orientations or demeaning of alternative religions, philosophies, or ideologies is directly contrary to the Word of Jesus. Promoting criminalisation of church-labelled “immoral” behaviour like consensual sex between adults or using brutal military tactics against persons with different religious beliefs cannot honour the man whose coming we’ll celebrate next Sunday. It would offend Him.

This Christmas, written by brilliant singer-songwriter Donny Hathaway (with Nadine McKinnor) and recorded by Hathaway in 1970, is now a Christmas standard. Every Year Every Christmas, written by Luther Vandross and Richard Marx, produced and recorded by Luther in 1995, is my favourite Christmas song. Iconic songstress and Luther’s close personal friend, Miss Patti LaBelle, covered the song for her 2007 Christmas album Miss Patti’s Christmas. At the end of her version, she dedicated it to Luther.

So this Christmas, can we honour Jesus Christ by trying to love God, ourselves, and all other humans as ourselves? Then can we covenant with the God within each of us to do it every year, every Christmas?

Peace and Love.

- Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.