The Second Coming
What does the Coming Mean?
Christians expect this manifestation to be clothed in the form of Jesus. Muslims anticipate the return of their own great Prophet. The Jews are looking forward to the arrival in their midst of a modern manifestation of Jehovah. Followers of other oriental faiths are imbued with similar expectations, in accordance with the prophetic tenets of the religion to which they belong. Expectation is world wide and by no means confined to any one section of the human race. The Bahais are convinced that this universal ‘Coming’ has already happened and that the founder of their faith Baha’u’llah, arrived among us last century, in fulfillment of the Promise made by Jesus, the Christ, nearly 2,000 years ago.
I should like to turn your attention to a wider and more extensive concept of the ‘Coming of the Lord’ in these latter times. I do not interpret this coming as a single event, fixed immutably in history for a particular moment in time and space.
In my view this Advent consists of a long series of cosmic and mundane happenings, that may well extend over a period of at least 100 years of our ‘time’. I have touched upon this thesis in ‘A Man Seen Afar’ in relation to the incarnation of Jesus in Palestine to herald the birth of the Christian era. His Coming had been in process for the best part of a century, before his bodily arrival on earth. During this period, cosmic and spiritual movements were taking place in regions beyond our ken, preparing the way and the conditions for hte personal arrival of the Master. Details of these preparations cannot be defined in human terms – they included the release of a particular and specific wave of spiritual energy, which was destined to bring a measure of enlightenment into human consciousness: to create a leaven of a kind that would enable the Christ Spirit through Jesus, to carry out its mission, when the time came for Jesus to walk bodily among us. In my view, similar happenings have always preceded the descent to earth levels of great messengers from the mind of the Creator and from time immemorial.
Now let us return to our times. I have spoken of what Christians refer to as the Second Coming, adding that, in my view, it is already here. By this I mean that the influx of a fresh wave of cosmic energy is now among us, available for immediate use in our daily lives.
The Coming is gradual, unrelenting and still far from its culmination. The first evidence of its presence and influence is to be seen in the mighty fermentation now so apparent in the hearts and minds of many millions everywhere, and especially among the younger generation. Fermentation of this kind is a cleansing process, involving, to use a trite phrase, the shattering of many old bottles and formal outworn beliefs. It is a process which causes unrest, tribulation, revolution and in so doing, its Divine purpose is obscured from the eyes and minds of all those who are ‘Asleep in matter’. Behind and within all this turmoil, the discerning can perceive that a ‘Coming’ is now in process of manifesting here and now. The vast movements influencing human consciousness inwardly herald the dawn of a new Era and cannot be stayed, or prevented from ultimate fulfillment.
The culmination of this coming may well be already on the horizon – beyond time and space conditions this culmination has in fact reached its fulfillment, but we who are at present confined in time and space, are aware of this and await mundane events to prove it concretely and to our limited understanding.
Wellesley Tudor Pole, God is Love
Thanks for this from WTP.
Here is something from Rudolf Steiner, who, in my view, like Valentin Tombeg and WTP had their fingers (hearts too) on the pulse of the Second Coming:
Just as on the physical plane in Palestine, at the beginning of our era, an event occurred in which the most important part was taken by Christ Himself — an event which has its significance for the whole of humanity — so in the course of the twentieth century, towards the end of the twentieth century, a significant event will again take place, not in the physical world, but in the world we usually call the world of the etheric. And this event will have as fundamental a significance for the evolution of humanity as the event of Palestine had at the beginning of our era. Just as we must say that for Christ Himself the event of Golgotha had a significance that with this very event a God died, a God overcame death — we will speak later concerning the way this is to be understood; the deed had not happened before and it is an accomplished fact which will not happen again — so an event of profound significance will take place in the etheric world. And the occurrence of this event, an event connected with the Christ Himself, will make it possible for men to learn to see the Christ, to look upon Him.
What is this event? It consists in the fact that a certain office in the Cosmos, connected with the evolution of humanity in the twentieth century, passes over in a heightened form to the Christ. Occult clairvoyant research tells us that in our epoch Christ becomes the Lord of Karma for human evolution. This event marks the beginning of something that we find intimated also in the New Testament: He will come again to separate, or to bring about the crisis for, the living and the dead. (Acts X:42 — To testify that He is the one ordained by God to be Judge of the living and dead. II Timothy IV:1 — Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead.) Only, according to occult research, this is not to be understood as though it were a single event for all time which takes place on the physical plane. It is connected with the whole future evolution of humanity. And whereas Christianity and Christian evolution were hitherto a kind of preparation, we now have the significant fact that Christ becomes the Lord of Karma, so that in the future it will rest with Him to decide what our karmic account is, how our credit and debit in life are related.
From lecture 3 From Jesus to Christ 7th Nov 1911.
How does Christ judge in the 21st Century ? How do we judge ?