Would the Christ Come from Galilee?

          Let it be supposed that we have arrived at a theatre where a drama is being performed. That we arrive part way through the performance is of no consequence as the various motifs have been played and replayed, in various guises, from the beginning of human time. And it is likely that they will continue to be played for the foreseeable future. Let us then be seated and read our theatre notes. At the top of the page is an outline of the plot of the act we will be watching.

Title:       The Gospel of John 7:40-52. [Reproduced from the previous post, for reference.]

Scene 1:
40. Some of the crowd who had been listening said, "He is indeed the prophet,"
41. and some said, "He is the Christ," but others said, "Would the Christ come from Galilee?"
42. Does not scripture say that the Christ must be descended from David and come from
Bethlehem, the village where David was?"
43. So the people could not agree about him.
44. Some wanted to arrest him, but no-one actually laid a hand on him.

Scene 2:
45. The guards went back to the chief priests and Pharisees [the Sanhedrin] who said to
  them, "Why haven't you brought him?"
46. The guards replied, "No-one has ever spoken like this man."
47. "So," the Pharisees answered, "You, too, have been led astray?
48. Have any of the authorities [the Sanhedrin] come to believe in him? Any of the Pharisees?
49. This rabble knows nothing about the Law - they are damned."
50. One of them, Nicodemus - the same man who had come to Jesus earlier - said to them,
51. "But surely our Law does not allow us to pass judgement on anyone without first giving him
      a hearing and discovering what he is doing?"
52. To this they answered, "Are you a Galilean too? Go into the matter, and see for yourself:
      prophets do not arise in Galilee."

Of course, like any good drama, there are various levels and subplots to engage our attention. Let us begin with the main characters.

The Sanhedrin:      The name by which the Elders and Pharisees are known. This body, which hasn't received a very good press in the Christian world over the years, is the guardian of orthodoxy. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. When faced with a problem the Ego finds a solution, an approach, and continues to value and judge all future and apparently similar problems in the same way, no matter how inappropriate its response may be. This ego is the self-appointed adjudicator of what is right and what is wrong, what is theirs and what is ours, the very essence of duality.

The Rabble:          This false, virtual Ego-state requires help in its proxy confrontation with the true, real self, and enrols the thoughts, emotions and physical senses. Thoughts and emotions are transient and usually uncontrolled, having no leader except the self-serving ego.

Jesus the Nazarene:     This is the figure with whom the Sanhedrin are locked in this timeless confrontation. In the 'out there' world there is much about this man that remains completely unknown, but it may be assumed that most of his time was spent preaching in Galilee, a hotbed of religious and political agitation. In the 'in here' world he represents that part of us that is real, our true selves. Though knowledgeable, our real, higher selves are unorthodox [protestant in the original meaning of that word] in the paths they choose to travel in order to find truth.

The Disciples:              The Nazarene also needs make use of the conscious attributes of the ego but in an organised, truth or reality-oriented way. Of course, nothing is one hundred percent, black and white.

          We live in a universe of probabilities, and so it is not surprising that we find a Nicodemus in the ego-state, just as we will find a Judas Iscariot owing allegiance to the higher self. I would add the further point that each actor on the stage must play their part according to the script. It would, therefore, be highly inappropriate to assume a judgemental stance against or for any of the actors in the drama.

          In Scene 1 we observe the crowd, or less strident rabble, the agent of the ego, trying to get some sense out of its experience of something beyond itself. There is an appeal to the Law, to the Scripture, to fundamentalist orthodoxy. But answer is there none. And how could the Truth possibly arise from any other source but logic, rationale and reason, it asks? Some part of the ego always wishes, self-protectively, to trap and imprison this truth. There seems always to be the desire, even compulsion, to lock spiritial reality safely away even though its ability to do so is ultimately an illusion. "But no one actually [or could] lay a hand on him."
          In Scene 2 we are well and truly back with the ego which is demanding why the real self has not been tamed and imprisoned. Why? Because this truth is something quite beyond the illusions that are normally accepted as our truth. Although the enquiring mind may discern hints of truths beyond the mundane, again it is the rationale of the ego to discount such exploratory questing. "You, too, have been led astray? If we the authorities are not convinced, how can you be?"
          Then the questioning Nicodemus enters the argument. For me, he epitomises the other side of the never-ending inner debate about spiritual truth. As a party to that debate, I have found myself in the same position as the crowd and the guards. What is the Christ? Is it identical to the higher self, or is it some power that infuses the higher self? The possible answers to those questions require more data before I give my response.

          There are two characters that I have not discussed so far. One is the Christ, which I will leave for future writings. The other is the observer of the drama. As we look around the theatre we will notice that each of us seems to be the only observer of this drama. This I-awareness is perhaps the most important part of the play. Without that, what would be the point of enacting the drama?
          As with any drama, we sometimes miss some of the plot details, or even some of the subplots. Often, particularly through discussion and further thought, those missed details come to light at some future time. I trust that this will be the case here.
          Now I will address the question, "Are you a Galilean too?" Insofar as I am non-fundamentalist, and non-religious in the orthodox meaning of that word, I suppose I do tend towards being a Galilean. Yet I must also admit to not being entirely free of egoistic machinations and instincts. I further think that it is that position in which the I-awareness is bound to find itself. It must neither be so focused on the higher self that it is oblivious of the ego and its power, nor so focused on the ego that it is lulled into a not-I sleeping state.
          The foregoing is how I interpret the given scriptural passage. To be of any real value, I think the chosen method of analysis must prove to be consistent. Logic, rationale, even perhaps reason, may be flouted, but not consistency.