Was Jesus sent down from Heaven?

I believe that Jesus was human, born of a virgin – anything is possible with God. But I have difficulty seeing him as being literally sent down from heaven by God, as his only son. That tends to put a human form and human emotions on God, which I have difficulty imagining. But even Jesus referred to God as his father, so I guess I am wrong. Many Christians have a personal relationship with God, speaking to him as a person in the same room with human emotions such as sadness at our sin. But I don’t see heaven as “up there” and the earth “down here” and I don’t believe God speaks in words, despite the many stories in the Bible. Jesus certainly speaks to us, as have the many Christian writers down the ages. Well all of us can be right because the nature of God is the biggest mystery of all.

Although I have difficulty believing all the aspects of Christmas as it is celebrated here in the West, I certainly believe in the Easter story and the Resurrection of Jesus. Christmas is my least favourite time of year, Easter with its joyous declarations on Easter Sunday, is my favourite time.

One fault I see with modern Christianity is that it is too “literal”, too pat. Instead of accepting the mystery of God, we try to use precise language to describe something for which words are useless. That is what motivated me to look at Christian mystics (the search started with Eastern mystics). I know that many people take the words of the Bible literally but I can’t do that.

A priest who I know, in a sermon in Jan 2024 talked about mysticism, that we should look for mystical things in our lives, when we least expect them. These can be important pointers for our lives. On a secular theme, this is exactly what Mindfulness teaches us: that as we open our minds and hearts, we see and hear daily miracles around us… bird song, the colours of the countryside. Not much colour here in Lanzarote, it is all rather black and volcanic! But many daily miracles here too.