SOUNDING OFF:

At least two times a year, Jesus is in the headlines. Of course at Christmas and now again, recently, at Easter.

Labeled a man, myth, metaphor, messiah and manifestation — take your pick — he has commanded the attention and confusion in the personage of Jesus the Christ. To the Jews he is a fraud, to the Muslims a holy person, to the Christian fundamentalists God revealed in a perfect book of history and indisputable wisdom and laws, to atheists a man-made destructive myth, to the uncategorized world a puzzle of promise, hope and out-of-this-world mystery.

Each one of these groups is non-monolothic in their belief. There are close to 2,000 different Christ churches, cults, sects and disciplines that say they are the word. They have fought and are still fighting in the name of the prince of peace.

Atheists can become agnostics overnight and vice versa while railing against the crimes of molesters, religious wars, the greed of money-hungry televangelists, and ask straight-faced, “How could there have be a Jesus and have this all happen?” They boast, “If I ruled the world it would be better than this.” They too look for the perfect world or formula while not embracing a self-evident truth they trip over instead of standing on.

It is past time that the doubters look beyond the glaring inconsistencies of the Bible, the borrowed stories, the crimes of the church including King James, popes, televangelists and the questionable beginnings of Christianity simply as ammunition against the believers. They must also pay recognition to the unlimited possibilities of a created world that is timeless and infinite. Also they must acknowledge that manifestations and higher wisdom did happen through the diverse times of Isis, Krisna, Buddha, Lao Tzu and Jesus.

On the other side, the die-hard believers must set down the excess baggage of things that don’t make sense such as the age of the Earth, the impossible and indefensible stories. They must recognize if they condemn these same stories in other predated religions as myths and metaphors, they must do the same when they claim them for their own. They must recognize they can’t have it both ways with either the stories or the higher teachings. Wisdom and manifested truth is truth no matter who said it

As in the popular song, “One Tin Soldier,” when forces fought for and killed to find truth, they found under the blood soaked battlefield that covered the secret message buried in a chest, “PEACE ON EARTH & GOOD WILL TO ALL MEN.” As with Jesus, call him a myth, a metaphor, a messiah, a manifestation or a man with the simple command of “Love thy neighbor as I have loved thee” makes all the debate, added baggage and doubts irrelevant.

It is the message, not the messenger. This transcends the preacher, the doubter, the Buddha, Lao Tzu and Jesus. If people became this it would be the fulfillment of idealistic dreams and religious prayers.

TIM C. LEEDOM lives in Newport Beach.