Rev. James Hindes

Modern city life has been called rushed, crowded and inhuman. If this is true we can also ask: Is it possible to be a Christian living in a city? Of course, we know there are millions of people living in cities throughout the world. Furthermore, life in Denver, Berlin, New York, London, Tokyo, Rome, Buenos Aires, etc. is not all that different. Modern technology has united all these cities with a network of communication and transportation possibilities that enable us to speak of one city, the city of the earth. Indeed, because of modern communication even those living in the country today are a part of the great world city.

Only in recent decades has this become true. At the beginning of life on earth, man lived in a garden. In Genesis we find the picture of the beginning: The Garden of Eden. We lived in and with nature; a nature filled with divinity and the harmony of God. In the course of time, we grew away from God and from nature. Villages, towns and cities were built. People lived together to protect themselves from the vicissitudes of nature, from the suffering nature can cause. But the pain and suffering caused by humans to each other gradually became greater than the pain caused by nature.

Then, in the middle of time, the creator of man and nature came to the earth himself. He absorbed all the inhumanity of which mankind was capable and died the death on the cross. That was just the beginning. Since then a new human being is waiting to be born within everyone – our true self, our higher, Christened self. This self is in the care of the Christ, is living “in him.” As we draw near him we grow into our true selves, we become who we really are and want to be.

But how do we approach Christ? Where is the path to Christ? Since it is the same as the path to our true selves, it is also the path to find out who we really are. And we find ourselves most quickly when other people confront us with the consequences of our deeds. Illusions evaporate when we are presented with an objective reflection. In the city we are confronted most clearly and constantly with the consequences of human activities, with the results of our own actions – with other people. Here is the secret: other people tell us who we are, lead us to Christ. The real life in a city is not in the concrete, steel and asphalt, but in the millions of people and in the relationships between them. It is in the way they treat one another, in the way they live together.

To live with this and to accept it as Christ did is to live in Christ.

Since the Resurrection, he has united with us even more deeply than before. He lives in the relationships between people. When they suffer he suffers and yet it is also there that he can unfold his resurrecting power. There the light of resurrection can transform lives. Christ and his power of renewal, his power of resurrection can be found in city life, particularly in city life.

In the beginning was the garden. But what of the end? In the Book of Revelations is a picture of the new earth, the resurrected earth of the future. It is not a garden again. It is called the New Jerusalem and it is a city. Cities do not grow up “by themselves” but must be made, built by human beings. The future of the earth requires our conscious cooperation. Since Christ’s death and resurrection, every human being bears another person deep within, the higher self, the Christened self waiting to be born.

Every encounter with another human being, every conflict with another person, offers us the opportunity to find Christ and to meet our true selves. It is an opening for the power of resurrection to flow into our lives and into the lives of those around us. Since Christ’s resurrection, every city – the single city which the earth has become – bears another city deep within it, the New Jerusalem, the Christened earth waiting to be born. This is our task: the resurrection of the dying earth existence.

T he path through the city can lead to Christ. It can lead to the Christ because darkness calls forth light, suffering calls forth compassion, pain calls forth love, the love that overcomes death, the love that can transform modern cities into places of resurrection.