A Very Focused Consciousness
By John Gavazzoni

It has become popular of late to associate spirituality with something called, "Christ-consciousness." Extolling Christ-consciousness has become the latest fashion among the tribe of the fashion-minded--a tribe noted for "itching ears." I dare say it's gone beyond fashion to fad. "I can't be left out of this fashion parade. The brethren need to see that I'm really with it, dressed to the tee."

Well, I'm about to rain on the parade. First of all, I'm not all that happy about how "consciousness," has become the preferred way of describing what Paul called, "the renewing of the mind." But, I'll make a concession--as I have in the title of this writing--to how pervasive that description has become, and throw it a bone by using it as a springboard to make a most important point, i.e., that if we must associate spirituality with Christ-consciousness, let's take note of what, more than anything else, characterized the consciousness of Jesus of Nazareth, who, after all is THE Christ of Christ-consciousness.

In a word, our Lord's consciousness was without distraction focused upon His Father. It was a consciousness that arose from a relationship. It did not create the relationship. Jesus was conscious that "the Father has life in Himself, and gives the Son to have life in Himself." His was a consciousness of utter dependency, knowing that not only did He owe having been given life by having been begotten of the Father, but that even the sustenance and continuation of the life was a matter of the Father continuing to give Him life: "He GIVES the Son to have life in Himself." (emphasis mine). Note the present tense: "He gives the Son..."

THAT was the Life; THAT is the Life, which He came to give, and that, more abundantly to all the world. It is the life of, and which is, communion with His Father, and in union with Him, our Father. Communion with the Father is true life. Communion is life, and life is communion. Jesus made that clear as recorded in John 17:3: "And this is life-eonian, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." That knowledge of God in the Greek speaks of a communion-of-being kind of life, a life of experienced, ontological union-of-spirit intimacy.

Jesus went on, after the above introductory explanation of the nature of eonian life, to make it clear that "the true God," is Father God. Want to get a real feel for what Christ-consciousness is? Read the whole 17th chapter of John. Our Lord's focused consciousness in that hour of His travail was completely upon God as His Father. If you have true Christ-consciousness, you're conscious of having been drawn, wholly by grace, into that nuclear intimacy.

I'm in nothing less than travail to be able to communicate what is pressing upon my spirit on this subject. Christ-consciousness is about our very Lord's focused consciousness of the Father as greater than He. Jesus' experience in the Garden of Gethsemane was the ultimate, all-inclusive, all-summarizing when-push-comes-to-shove crisis in all of human history. In that hour, all that was within Him turned to His Father with an awareness of His Father's attentiveness to, in, and for, His hour of supreme need. THAT turning of the whole being to the Father, IS true Christ-consciousness.

He had a brief open-window of that assurance, knowing that that would shortly be denied Him. He knew that He, according to His Father's will, must take to Himself the darkness of all humanity's collective ignorant sense of being abandoned by God. When, on the cross, that darkness finally did engulf Him, having known before that it was to be, did not in the least alleviate the agony. But all this time the Source of all consciousness held Him securely. Here's what we need to know about consciousness: The Father is Son-conscious; the Son is Father-conscious, and we are secure within that very focused, mutual attentiveness.