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The Reappearance of the Christ - Chapter III - World Expectancy
Let us forget distance, remoteness and vagueness and realize that we are talking of exact and literal happenings on our planet. We are dealing with recognitions and occurrences and with factual events which are the conscious possession of many. The Christ of history and the Christ in the human heart are planetary facts. There is one aspect of this return of the Christ which is never touched upon and to which no reference is ever made. It is the factor of what this coming out again among men, this return to outer everyday activity will mean to the Christ as He faces it. How will He feel when the hour of His appearance arrives? There is a great initiation spoken of in The New Testament to which we have given the name of the Ascension. Of it we know nothing. Only a few items of information are brought to us in the Gospel story; the fact of the mountain top, of attendant watchers, and of the words of Christ, assuring them that He was not leaving them. Then a cloud received Him out of their sight. (Acts I, 9.) There were none present who could go further with Him. Their consciousness could not penetrate to the place where He had chosen to go; they even misinterpreted His words and only in a vague and mystical sense has humanity ever understood His disappearance, or the significance of His persistent but unobserved Presence. The watchers were assured by two of the Knowers of God Who were also present that He would come again in like manner. He ascended. The cloud received Him; today the clouds which cover our planet are waiting to reveal Him. He is now waiting to descend. This descent into our unhappy world of men can present Him with no alluring picture. From the quiet mountain retreat where He has waited, guided and watched over humanity and where [55] He has trained His disciples, initiates and the New Group of World Servers, He must come forth and take His place prominently on the world stage; take His part in the great drama which is there being played. This time, He will play His part, not in obscurity as He previously did but before the eyes of the entire world. Because of the smallness of our little planet, and because of the prevalence of the radio, of television and the rapidity of communication, His part will be watched by all and the prospect must surely, for Him, hold certain horror, must present its tests and major adjustments, plus painful and unavoidable experience. He does not come as the omnipotent God of man's ignorant creation, but as the Christ, the Founder of the Kingdom of God on Earth, to complete the work He started, and again to demonstrate divinity in far more difficult circumstances. The Christ suffers, however, far more from those in His Own household than from those in the outer world; His work is more impeded by the advanced aspirant than by the intelligent thinker. It was not the cruelty of the outer world of men which caused the depths of sorrow to the Christ; it was His Own disciples, plus the massed sorrow - spread over the entire cycle of living - past, present and future - of humanity. He comes to correct the mistakes and the misrepresentations of those who have dared to interpret His simple words in terms of their own ignorance, and to recognize those whose faithful service has made His return possible. He too is facing a major test, preparatory to a great initiation and when He has passed the test and fulfiled His task, He will pass to a still more exalted position in the Father's House or to some distant place of service where only the most exalted can follow Him; [56] His present position will then be taken by the One Whom He has prepared and trained. But before all this can happen, He must again enter the public arena, play His part in world affairs, and prove the scope of His mission. He will gather round Him, in the flesh, His chosen associates and advisors; these will not be the ones who gathered around in those earlier simpler days but those members of our human family who today recognize Him and are preparing to work with Him as far as in them lies. It is a different world to which He is now planning to return and this is largely due to the intellectual development of the mass of men. This presents Him with stupendous difficulties, for the intellects of men must now be reached and not just their hearts (as in the earlier days) if the Will of God is to be intelligently carried out on Earth. His major task is surely the establishing of right human relations in every department of human living. I would ask you to use your imagination and endeavor to think out what must be the implications of the task which confronts Him; I would ask you to ponder on the difficulties which He must inevitably face - the difficulty, above all, of mass intellectual wrong emphasis. He, the Representative of the love of God, is asked to work again in the world arena wherein His earlier message has been negated, forgotten or misinterpreted for two thousand years, and wherein hate and separativeness have distinguished all men everywhere. This will plunge Him into a foreign atmosphere and into a situation wherein all His divine resources will be needed, and will have to be tried out to the uttermost. The generally accepted idea that He will return as a triumphant warrior, omnipotent and irresistible, has surely no basis in fact. That He will ultimately lead His people, humanity, [57] into Jerusalem is a fact, founded on a secure foundation, but it will not be into a Jewish city called Jerusalem but into "the place of peace" (as the word "Jerusalem" means). A careful consideration of the world situation today and a dedicated use of the imagination will reveal to the sincere thinker how appalling is the task which He has undertaken. But He has again "set His face to go to Jerusalem." (Luke IX, 51.) He will reappear and guide mankind into a civilization and a state of consciousness in which right human relations and worldwide cooperation for the good of all will be the universal keynote. He will - through the New Group of World Servers and the men of goodwill - complete His association with the Will of God (His Father's business) in such a manner that the eternal will-to-good will be translated by humanity into goodwill and right relations. Then His task will be done; He will be free again to leave us, but this time not to return but to leave the world of men in the hands of that great spiritual Server Who will be the new Head of the Hierarchy, the Church Invisible.
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