Christmas 2021

To speak of the Christ being born in all of us all the time, as Eckhart spoke of in our Christmas Eve DM yesterday, is to speak of values and virtues being born in us. 

It is therefore to speak of the sacred masculine and how central this message is to Jesus’s announcing that the “kingdom of God” is at hand and that it dwells both within and around us.  It is in the air, in the community, in the body that is humankind.  Or can be.

It takes inner work to bring this Christ alive in all of us and in our communities and interactions with one another.  It takes an alternative consciousness from what Empires or kingdoms of old tend to peddle.

The sacred masculine is about virtue and values and the strength to implement those values from the inside out.  It necessarily comes up against opposition for such a transformation of values does not take place in a vacuum.  This is one reason Jesus is referred to often as a “spiritual warrior.”

In the Jesus Christmas story we are told that Herod, the empire’s rep in Israel, was so threatened by this new-born baby that he ordered the murder of all baby boys in the district—collateral damage we might call it today.

While angels sing about Peace and Joy and Inclusiveness to shepherds, a cloud of danger and menace hangs over the Christmas promise.  The danger is so great that Jesus and his parents flee to Egypt–of all places– for safety.  (Egypt, after all, was the place of enslavement of the Jewish people and a symbol of evil and running there for safety is informing us that something very menacing indeed is happening back in Israel under the Roman Empire.)

Thirty years later that same empire would catch up to Jesus and his dangerous announcement of the “kingdom of God among us”—a kingdom of justice and peace, compassion and forgiveness, that could challenge Empire’s values to the core.  So he was executed accordingly.

Patriarchy and the reptilian brain triumphed—at least temporarily. 

And today?

See Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine;

Also see Matthew Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ.

Also see Matthew Fox and Bishop Marc Andrus, Stations of the Cosmic Christ.

To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.

Banner Image: “The Holy Family.” Painting by Matthias Stom (fl. 1615–1649) on Wikimedia Commons.

Queries for Contemplation

What parallels do you see between the threat felt by the Roman Empire in the Christmas story and today’s empire mentalities?  Have alternative values been implemented in history since Jesus’s time?  Can they be now that the body of humanity faces its own extinction from climate change and turning our backs on the sacredness of nature?

Recommended Reading

The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine

To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature,  to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God

The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance

In what may be considered the most comprehensive outline of the Christian paradigm shift of our Age, Matthew Fox eloquently foreshadows the manner in which the spirit of Christ resurrects in terms of the return to an earth-based mysticism, the expression of creativity, mystical sexuality, the respect due the young, the rebirth of effective forms of worship—all of these mirroring the ongoing blessings of Mother Earth and the recovery of Eros, the feminine aspect of the Divine.
“The eighth wonder of the world…convincing proof that our Western religious tradition does indeed have the depth of imagination to reinvent its faith.” — Brian Swimme, author of The Universe Story and Journey of the Universe.
 “This book is a classic.” Thomas Berry, author of The Great Work and The Dream of the Earth.

Stations of the Cosmic Christ
By Matthew Fox and Bishop Marc Andrus.

This is a book of meditations on the Cosmic Christ, accompanying the images of 16 wonderful clay tablets by Javier Ullrrich Lemus and M.C. Richards. Together, these images and meditations go far beyond the traditional Stations of the Cross to inspire a spirit awakening and understanding of the cosmic Christ Consciousness, Buddha consciousness, and consciousness of the image of God in all beings, so needed in our times.
“A divinely inspired book that must be read by every human being devoted to spiritual and global survival. It is cosmically brilliant.” — Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit