Understanding Christ as the Lord of Karma

Jeana Lee, Continuing Student (Fall 2019)

‘Christ as the Lord of Karma’ is the theme this year at the Seminary of the Christian Community in North America. Co-director Rev. Jonah Evans gave a course on the Evolution of Karma and Reincarnation in connection with this theme. The term ‘karma’ describes the phenomenon that all actions have consequences, and these actions with their consequences follow a lawful pattern. In the realm of physical objects, this law is described as: ‘for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.’ As humanity has developed over time, our relationship with karma has evolved. Beginning with the present day and your own life, consider when you experienced the greatest growth, when you gained the capacities that you value in yourself. Ask yourself whether this was an easy, joyful time, or whether it was characterized by hardship and suffering. Most people find that their most valuable lessons, the experiences that made them who they are, came about through suffering. Our deepest suffering can lead us to an encounter with a loving presence, or bring us an inner awakening that profoundly changes our lives. You might recognize that it is only by going through the pain and difficulty of the experience that you were made open to receiving this love and solace. The advent of Christ’s incarnation on earth changed the relationship of humanity with suffering. Human beings have always experienced suffering. In ancient India, you would have understood your placement in the hierarchy of society as the result of your past deeds. Your sufferings would have indicated your misdeeds, and good deeds would have led to being born into a higher caste in the next incarnation. Karma allowed people to learn from their mistakes and elevate themselves to get closer to the divine, like climbing a ladder. However, the connection of human beings to this divinely ordered progression became weakened over time. The lawfulness of actions and consequences remained, but by the time of the Buddha, sequential incarnations no longer led upwards towards the divine world. Living during that time, you would have experienced suffering as the fundamental state of existence. Although it was the result of your deeds, there was nothing you could do to avoid it in the future. Buddha recognized that karma and reincarnation had become a sort of prison, an endless wheel rather than a ladder, and the only way to reach God was by escaping the wheel completely. Transcendence was the only hope. A relatively short time later, Christ descended to the earth and united with it. Whereas the ancient Indian people ascended a ladder away from earthly life towards God, and the followers of Buddha sought escape from the wheel of repeated earth incarnations, Christ’s deed has transformed the earth into the dwelling place of God. The old law of karma still operates, but the balancing consequences of our actions have become a pathway towards our true selves and towards the Christ Jesus. Whereas good deeds used to bring rewards and bad deeds used to bring punishments, the whole conception of reward and punishment is transformed. In light of our experiences of personal growth and encounters with divine love that are born of suffering, we must ask whether this suffering should be called a punishment, or could it be called a gift? In this age of self-consciousness, we have the possibility to look at our lives and perceive the gifts in suffering, to reframe our experiences in a way that reflects our own movement towards the divine. We no longer climb a ladder or try to escape from a wheel, but we open a door and meet God in the depths of earthly experience.