The Way We Become
Some readers begin any conversation about Jesus with a simple, honest question: Did he even exist? It’s a fair place to start.
Despite the debates that surface online, the historical existence of Jesus is not particularly controversial among scholars of the ancient world. Christian and non-Christian historians may disagree about who he was, what he taught, and what should ultimately be made of him. But there is broad agreement that a Jewish teacher named Jesus — or Yeshua, as he would likely have been known in his own Jewish world — lived in first-century Palestine and was crucified under Pontius Pilate.
The evidence is not confined to the Gospel accounts themselves. Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian writing under Roman patronage, refers to Jesus and, in another passage, to James, whom he identifies as “the brother of Jesus who was called Christ.” The Roman historian Tacitus, writing in the early second century, records that Christus—the name by which he understood the origin of the Christian movement—was executed under Pontius Pilate during the reign of the emperor Tiberius. And earlier still, Paul, whose letters are among the earliest surviving Christian writings, describes meeting James, whom he calls “the Lord’s brother.”
None of this proves the theological claims made about Jesus. History cannot settle that question. It simply gives us reasonable ground for saying that behind the traditions, doctrines, and centuries of interpretation stood an actual human being. For me, that is where the more interesting question begins.
If Jesus lived, taught, and was crucified nearly two thousand years ago, what was it about his life and message that proved so enduring? What did his life represent? And perhaps more importantly: What was he trying to awaken in us?
One striking feature of Jesus’ legacy is that he left no writings of his own — no letter, manuscript, or treatise in his hand. Everything we know of his words comes through others. That matters, because the sayings attributed to him were remembered, repeated, translated, interpreted, and eventually placed within traditions that continued to evolve.
For many Christians, this presents no difficulty. They believe that those who preserved and eventually recorded these teachings were guided by the Holy Spirit, and that the resulting scriptures therefore carry divine authority. I respect that as a matter of faith. But it is also a theological belief rather than something history itself can demonstrate.
Historically, what we can say is that the words of Jesus have reached us through other human beings. This does not make them unreliable. It simply means that whenever we ask, What did Jesus mean? we are already entering a world shaped by memory, language, transmission, and interpretation.
Perhaps that is unavoidable. Jesus taught in ways that resisted simple explanation — parables, metaphors, paradoxes, questions, and images: seeds, lamps, doors, bread, water, shepherds, vineyards, kingdoms. Again and again, the listener had to do more than hear the words. They had to discover what the words pointed toward.
This raises an intriguing possibility: What if the deepest part of the teaching was never meant to be contained entirely in words? Was Jesus directing his followers toward something they had to discover for themselves — something that ultimately had to be experienced?
The earliest followers of Jesus did not possess a completed New Testament. They carried memories, stories, sayings, and experiences. Their understanding of Jesus was not formed by opening a bound book and explaining a settled doctrine. Their faith was lived, spoken, remembered, argued over, and experienced.
This is where my own questions begin.
When Jesus spoke of truth, life, spirit, the kingdom of God, or of being “the way,” was he primarily asking people to believe certain things about him? Or was he pointing toward something they were meant to discover — and become?
There is an important difference. One understanding places the doorway outside us: Jesus as the unique external figure through whom salvation must come. Another possibility is that Jesus embodied the way so completely that his life became a demonstration of what human consciousness looks like when it becomes united with the divine.
From that perspective, “follow me” becomes more than allegiance. It becomes transformation.
The question is no longer simply whether we believe in Jesus, but whether we can awaken to the same divine reality to which Jesus pointed.
And this is where the familiar words attributed to him — I am the way, the truth, and the life — begin to take on another possible meaning.
But that interpretation leads to a more difficult question. If Jesus was not simply asking others to believe in him, but was showing them a way of becoming, then what did he expect his followers ultimately to become?
There is a passage in the Gospel of John that has stayed with me since childhood. Jesus tells his followers that whoever believes in him will do the works he does, “and greater works than these.” Those are remarkable words. They do not sound like the words of a teacher placing an absolute boundary between himself and everyone who follows. At the very least, they invite us to ask whether Jesus expected something within his followers to grow beyond anything they imagined possible.
Perhaps this is where the distinction between Jesus and the Christ becomes important. We commonly speak of Jesus Christ, but another expression invites us to hear the words differently: Jesus — the Christ.
What if the Christ was not something humanity was meant only to encounter in one extraordinary person two thousand years ago? What if Jesus embodied so completely what I am calling Christ consciousness that his life became a demonstration of what union with the divine might look like in human form?
By Christ consciousness, I mean an awakened awareness of our relationship with the divine — an awareness that transforms how we see ourselves, one another, and the world around us. In a broader sense, I use the term to describe a universal divine or creative principle that exists beyond any individual human life and seeks expression through embodied life.
But that expression is not automatic. Free will remains an essential part of the process. We can open ourselves to that consciousness or resist it, choosing again and again whether what we recognize inwardly will find expression in the way we live. Compassion must become compassionate action. Love must become something lived. An awareness of unity must shape the way we encounter one another. Or… we can choose otherwise, allowing separation, self-interest, or hostility to shape the way we encounter the world.
In Jesus, I see an extraordinary manifestation of Christ consciousness: the universal made visible through a human life. He did not merely speak about divine consciousness. He embodied it.
From this perspective, Christ consciousness is not something humanity was meant only to witness in Jesus. It is something that must find expression through human beings if it is to become active within the human world.
If Jesus intended his own relationship with the divine to remain forever beyond human reach, his statement about his followers doing “greater works” becomes even more intriguing. It seems, at the very least, to leave open another possibility: that his followers were not simply being asked to admire what they saw in him, but to discover something within themselves.
And that leads to a more uncomfortable question.
Over the centuries, Christians have understandably placed Jesus at the center of their faith. But is it possible that in our desire to honor him, we have sometimes placed so much emphasis on the person of Jesus that we have lost sight of the transformation toward which he was pointing? What if the purpose was never simply to worship the teacher, but to follow the way?
There is an enormous difference between believing that Jesus experienced a relationship with the divine that no other human being could ever enter, and believing that his life revealed what becomes possible as human consciousness awakens to its relationship with the divine. Was Jesus revealing a relationship with God that belonged uniquely to him, or does his life also reveal a spiritual possibility open to all of us?
One view emphasizes who Jesus uniquely was; the other asks what his life reveals about what we might become. The first asks us to stand before him, while the second asks us to follow him. Perhaps both have their place. But I find myself wondering whether, in our desire to honor Jesus, we might sometimes become so focused on who he was that we overlook what he was asking us to become. Perhaps honoring the teacher and following the way were never meant to be separate.
And that brings us back to those familiar words: I am the way. What if “the way” is not merely something we are asked to believe?
What if it is something we are asked to become?
Continue the journey...
— uMdali Light 🌿
This reflection began with a question