Concerning the third coming of Jesus

The story of Jesus is just that: a story. Being asked to believe in the story of Jesus is like being asked to believe in the story of Odysseus or Harry Potter or Star Wars--it's all very romantic and pleasant but in the end a story is not the type of reality that necessitates belief. The story is art. And art it is to be considered according to principles other then belief.

The story of Jesus is certainly high art. It is one of the most powerful pieces of art that we as a race have collectively experienced. Its power is to evoke an odd feeling of hope, something which is at once powerfully inspiring and awesomely challenging. The best works of divine art demonstrate these same qualities.

Where does art come from? I do not mean the creative force behind the art, but rather I mean the inspiration that triggers the imagination and stirs the artistic impulses. In the West we like to think that art originates in the soul of the creator, and that the origin is a completely individual well-spring. But what artist has ever created in a vacuum of cultural and communal isolation? Only the highest works of mystical reflection have been produced in such circumstances, and they all reference themselves to something beyond the individual, a source and inspiration that is supremely greater than the individual. That is, the very sources which come from the deepest isolation of individuality claim that their true origins are not the artist themselves, but rather a divine source existing beyond the sense of individuality.

Art is divine creation. "No matter how good or bad, art is a way of growing your soul." Kurt Vonnegut said something like that. This is because in the act of creation one taps into the source of all creation and struggles to attain a greater harmony with that source, a harmony of one's personal Dasein and the universal Dasein.

To say that the story of Jesus Christ is just a story is not to do the story an injustice--it is to treat it with the approach of truth, a truth which is said to have the power to "set you free". To treat the story not with an article of faith but with an article of reality is to do service to the story as a work of highest art, one whose well-spring is the universal divine that flows through us all and in all things. And more, it is to attain a higher understanding of the ways whereby art directs and guides human life in powerful and beautiful ways.

The first coming of Jesus Christ was in story--narrative art. This story produced a movement that took over the world powers of the West, reinventing such notions as love, justice, mercy, loyalty. The story obliterated the practice of animal sacrifice. The story unified disparate peoples and brought a common heritage to otherwise vastly diverse and divided societies. The story broke down the glass ceiling of transmigration of the soul. This was the work of the first coming, the first incarnation of Jesus Christ.

And the story was conscious of itself as a story, as a powerful story. It called itself the Son of Man and claimed “I and the father are one”. In the story of Jesus Christ we see an eternally self-referential source of divine power. The story as the son is the offspring of human and divine interaction. The story as the father births into humans a greater sense of being, evoking in us the inspiration to be more than we are—to become, indeed, ourselves sons of man. The story is also the father inseminating the listener with the seed of the son, which then becomes also the story revealed throughout history and in our own personal lives. In other words, this is not just any typical story we are dealing with—it is one of the most remarkable stories ever told but only if we approach it from the direction of truth-- that is, as a story. Such an approach loses none of the awesome potential of transformation inherit in the story but it does leave behind the shallow and hypocritical appeals to a false and theatrical emotion which attempts to believe despite itself in the reality of Jesus Christ. The reality is the story, because Jesus is the story. Outside of the story there is no Christ, but inside of the story is Christ and the entirety of creation. The story of Jesus Christ is just that—a story, but one in which the REAL is very discernable. The story is the first incarnation of Jesus Christ.

The prophecies spoke of a second coming, one in which the prophecies write: "this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven (Acts 1:11)." What is significant about this prophecy and others like it (even many of the prophecies Jesus made about himself) is that in almost all of them the sense of sight is the major vehicle of human realization of the second coming (see Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21). In some the ground will shake, in others the sea will roar, but in almost all of them there will be a "seeing" of the second coming.
Now, if the first coming of Jesus Christ was an artistic arrival, in the form of a narrative story (which is heard), then the second coming of Jesus is not going to be in any way different--it will also be artistic. And if that artistic incarnation is to favor the act of seeing in some way, then we should expect the second coming to be in the form of visual arts, rather than narrative arts.

The prophetic traditions also speak of the second coming as the time when Jesus would
secure his dominion over the powers of earth. Particularly Rome is used to represent these powers. Jesus would take over Rome in the second coming. So goes the tradition.

The second coming, I submit, has already occurred, in a very tangible and real manner: we call it the Italian Renaissance. In the Italian Renaissance we see Jesus coming from heaven in the same way that he went: first as a baby born, then as a man, then on the cross, then in the resurrection, and finally in the ascension. Jesus, as an artistic impulse with social transformative powers, took over Rome in the Italian Renaissance, and changed the way in which humans view themselves and their world. More than any other movement, the Renaissance ushered in the age of science with the use of the linear perspective style in which sight is progressive and moves in one direction toward a horizon. The progressive and observational techniques of science--which have taken over every power of the world--originated in the depictions of Jesus Christ in the Italian Renaissance, exactly as the prophecies predicted. The glorification of Jesus in Rome through art and architecture is the fulfillment of Jesus' empowerment over the dominions of the earth.

The second coming of Jesus already occurred as a revolutionary artistic movement which spawned the scientific revolution by teaching humanity how to see and how to observe--especially how to observe the heavens. The question is not when will be the second coming of Jesus, but rather when will the third coming manifest itself.