Christmas thoughts

If evil is control over others what then because civil society is based on a social contract. the agreement needs to be somehow related to human rights-

Jesus represented the power inherent in a person with no control. Born in a stable to very poor parents Jesus had no social status. Additionally he was born in Judea in the Roman Empire. Judea at that time was very very poor. SO he was a poor child in a poor family in a poor province. What control did he have over his world? None but the control God gave to him. And in some ways God gave him no control. His ministry on earth ended with his death on the cross. Despite the power he had to perform miracles he was clear duringhis ministry that his miracles were a distraction from his true teachings of grace, humility, the love of enemies, forgiveness, meekness, and submission to God.

What Jesus had was not control- but he had power. One of the main criticisms that people made of Jesus was that he had no control or real worldly power. How then could he be the Christ. He was the Messiah, proclaimed as a baby by the light of a single star. How could he be in control.

The goodness of Jesus was not his power or his control over the world. It was his message of forgiveness and meekness and grace in the face of God's love and mercy.
Jesus is often described as great because he was the light of God but he did not take the form of a power figure, a person of worldly influenece, He repeatedly served his disciples, washing their feet. He ate with lepers and tax collectors, people shunned by the majority of society.

There is a lot of serenity in accepting that the goodness in the world is not about power and control, or influence. It is a state of mind and of character. It is a way of being with other people.

Process theoloigy must see the prophetic tradition as a series of examples of actual events as people and actual occasions of people where the choice to follow God's will and to serve God concresces in the glory of God being made more clear to huamnity. The turht of God's will and God's message for what we should do as human beings becomes the new actual occasion where beauty can be experienced in the world.