a property, knowledge or skills and withmany other things. We cling to them, not being able to let go, we ourselves being completely forgotten in all of this. We can make sense of it with the original sin or count on letting all our attachments go one day in Paradise. But who knows if we wish to go there at all, if a kind God confiscates all our toys? Let’s face it: which one of us at this very moment feels like giving everything away and asking for nothing in return? And so, unlike all the roles God and people had learned to play up to the present time, this new role was absolutely exceptional. It was a tremendous challenge: the person who accepted it, could not forget all the way down the line who he or she really was, could not blend in with the role. The individual had to prove to be both one hundred percent God and one hundred percent man at the same time, without any tricks, either spiritual or physical or anything in between. So who was going to attempt this? At first, it would be an unknown man from Nazareth, who had been teaching people wisdom and love, who had healed the sick, although he could have done more. All the people who Jesus loved managed to play only their own roles: the fishermen played fishermen, customs officers played customs officers, Israelites played those who hated the Romans, and the Romans those who condescendingly ignored it. And no one was allowed to be robbed of his or her role, as such a person did not believe that he or she was capable of playing any other role. Even when Jesus tried to take a sick man’s role off and offered him the role of a healthy man, He was denounced by the man! It was only Jesus who was never attached to His role. He was unhesitatingly willing to swap the role of the respected and beloved teacher for the role of a condemned criminal, and finally, willing to give up His very life’s role on the cross, if God’s script went that far. It was the total devotion and detachment from His own role which enabled Jesus to know absolutely who He really was, that is never to forget His Father, the writer and the director of the drama. And it was also supreme love which bonded him with His beloved Father and reminded Him, even during the hardest moments: Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Phillip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Phillip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. (see John 14:6–10) It seems that not even Jesus’ closest disciples could comprehend immediately who they had before them. Even the intelligent Phillip apparently failed to grasp the point. At that time, how could he have recognised that He was God? Indeed, He looked like an ordinary person! He had all the human thoughts, all the human emotions, suffered like a human, Spirituality Studies 1 (2) Fall 2015 77 (9)
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