Many people believe that Jesus Christ is the literal and only Son of God, and that he will return in body relatively soon. This is a story that has been told for hundreds of years. But ancient words on a page are not so easily understood, and this story reinforces the idea that God is separate from us, and that we are not worthy. However, we are now nearing the end of the age of limitation and entering the age in which we understand that we are divinely powerful, so it is time for our understanding of Christ to shift as well.

We were told that Christ was born in a manger in a stable near Bethlehem. However, several Gnostic texts describe Christ being born in a cave, attended by a midwife. Several stories report a brilliant light emanating from the cave during labor and birth. In A Latin Infancy Gospel: The Birth of Jesus, which is a medieval document based on other texts, the midwife describes some unusual events coinciding with Christ's birth:

"In that hour, everything ceased. There was total silence and fear. For even the winds stopped, they made no breeze; there was no motion of tree leaves; no sound of water was heard. The streams did not flow; there was no motion of the sea. All things produced in the water were quiet; there was no human voice sounding; there was a great silence. For the pole itself ceased its rapid course from that hour. Time almost stopped its measure. All, overwhelmed with great fear, kept silent; we were expecting the advent of the most high God, the end of the world.

"As the time drew near, the power of God showed itself openly. The maiden stood looking intently into Heaven; she became as a grapevine [or, she became snow-white]. For now the end of good things was at hand. When the light had come forth, Mary worshiped him to whom she saw she had given birth. The child himself, like the sun, shone bright, beautiful, and was most delightful to see, because he alone appeared as peace, soothing the whole world. In that hour, when he was born, the voice of many invisible beings in one voice proclaimed "Amen." And the light, when it was born, multiplied, and it obscured the light of the sun itself by its shining rays. The cave was filled by the bright light together with a most sweet odor. The light was born just as the dew descends from Heaven to teh earth. For its odor is fragrant beyond all the sweet smell of ointments." *

What she describes is an Ascension event, which has happened at other times on our planet, such as when the sun stopped its course in the sky in the biblical story of Joshua. In the midwife's tale above, the earth also stopped spinning, and time stood still. In his birth, Christ brought in a new kind of energy to the planet to help it prepare for the shift in consciousness we are undergoing now. Christ is special because he was born already knowing who he was—knowing his own divinity.

So, does this miraculous birth mean that Jesus—Yeshua—was more special than the rest of us? No. It was his purpose—a purpose he had trained for over many lifetimes. He came to remind us who we all are and to prepare us for our own Divine awakening. In fact, we as a race had the opportunity to ascend at that time (we always have free will), but we did not choose it.

The life and purpose of Yeshua has become distorted by myth and politics. While Yeshua promoted equality, peace, and love, and the promise that everyone could accomplish the things he did, this did not please the authority figures of the day. Their power depended on a populace who was powerless, and Yeshua's empowering message was a threat. If peasants and slaves understood that Caesar and his ilk were their equals, the fabric of society would crumble and change. Yet, Yeshua's teachings were popular, so the best option that those in power had was to co-opt the movement and reshape it to suit their purposes.

In the pagan religions, the god and goddess represent the masculine and feminine aspects of God. This understanding is strongly tied to the rhythms of nature, and the course of the year, the seasons, and phases of the moon play an important role. Long ago, pagan peoples selected a man to be King of the Year, to represent the god of nature. They also chose a goddess, who was the Queen or High Priestess. The details vary with the people, but basically the pagan King was born on the winter solstice--December 21. This King was ritually sacrificed in the spring or summer, and in the earliest days of these rites, the community ate the King's flesh, taking his essence into themselves. After his death, the King's soul journeyed through the underworld, only to be reborn again at the winter solstice. In this cycle, the goddess also aged through the year, being reborn with the King.

When a centralized Christian church came into being and tried to spread its authority, it realized that in order to win the hearts of people, it couldn't require them to forgo their festivals and culture. But the church saw that Jesus could fit the role of the pagan King very well, so they adapted the pagan rituals for a new Christianity that they created. In this new religion, Christ became the King who was born at the time of the winter solstice, and he was later ritually sacrificed on the cross at Easter, which gets its name from the fertility goddess Eostre (represented by rabbits and eggs). Christ was then ritually eaten in the rite of the Eucharist. The church further accommodated the pagan gods and goddesses by incorporating some of them into the legion of saints, which the people could continue to worship.

The night of December 25, to which date the Nativity of Christ was ultimately assigned, was exactly that of the birth of the Persian savior Mithra, who, as an incarnation of eternal light, was born the night of the winter solstice (then dated December 25) at midnight, the instant of the turn of the year from increasing darkness to light.
—Joseph Campbell, "The Mythic Image"

The church's view of Yeshua prevails largely because they were so successful at suppressing other views. The Cathars, Knights Templar, Manichaeans, various Gnostics, and many others had their own view of what happened. Is any one view "right?" No, but different perspectives help us to understand the life of this very famous man.

With the relatively small number of writings left to us about Yeshua, it's hard to know exactly what happened, but we know that something significant did. We know that Yeshua was a man of peace, and that Love was his only commandment. We know that he was compassionate, and that he recognized the divinity in all things. He was God only in the sense that all of us are, and he tried to tell us so in ways that we could understand. He attempted to pull the veil away from our eyes, to help us see and to remember who we really are.

Will Christ himself return? No, and why should he? We don't need him to save us. We must save ourselves. We have the power. We have had it all along. We're wearing our ruby slippers right now. Like him, WE ARE GOD. If he is a son of God, then we are all sons and daughters of God. No one is above us, except God itself.

When Yeshua spoke of a return, he was referring to the return of Christ Consciousness, or Unity Consciousness, on this planet. This is something that is available to everyone. We ARE Christ. We ARE the return of Christ. We are here now, born for this moment, to BE that consciousness on the earth. One man speaking Love could be stopped. Millions or more speaking Love cannot be stopped. Together, we will shift this planet into Light and into a new era.

So be it! Glory, hallelujah!

* Barnstone, Willis, ed. The Other Bible. HarperSanFrancisco: 1984.