The True Story of Christmas

Well, this is our closing night for a little while. We close tonight and reopen on January the 5th, which is really three weeks from tonight. I will not be sending notices. I will take an ad in the Times just about a week or a few days before we reopen, so do not expect a notice and titles. It will be appropriate, the title and the subject, when we reopen.

Because I am not speaking beyond tonight and this is the Christmas season, I would like to tell you the story of Christmas, the true story, not as hundreds of millions of people really believe it. For ten days from today hundreds of millions will celebrate Christmas, and they will think in terms of some being who was born 2,000 years ago in some strange and unique manner. And that is true…but not as the story is told. Any attempt by theologians to equate faith with historical information or scientific facts or philosophic, I would say, speculation, is bankrupt. That is not the story of the birth of Christ. When Christ is formed in us, he is born.We are the cocoon as it were; we are the egg in which Christ is being formed. And when he’s formed, at that very moment when he’s formed, and the time is fulfilled, then it is alive, it is awakened—-it’s our very self—-and we come out and we are born. This is the story. I wouldn’t care if the whole vast world rose in opposition. I am only telling you what I know from experience. This is not theory, I’m not speculating. And so any attempt to put it into any other form is folly. It isn’t so at all. Everyone in this world is simply being formed into Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God. It takes all the pains and the sufferings of the world to produce it, and when it’s completely formed in us, at that moment then it comes out.

Now, let the churches this coming fortnight be bursting to overflowing. It makes no difference, it’s good. Let them hear it even though it’s distorted. Let all the priesthoods of the world tell their story in a distorted manner, it’s perfectly alright. But I’ll tell you, the few that are here, how it really takes place. And may I tell you, no one knows until that moment when the hatching is about to take place, but no one knows. I will tell you this night and tell you in detail in the hope that you’ll remember it. But when it happens it is so startling, so bewildering, you will forget, but not really. Something in the depths of your soul will know what is taking place, and then you will simply return to the outer scripture and read it for confirmation of the experiences that you’ve just had.

It will come in the most wonderful manner. You’re told in scripture that it came so suddenly and unexpectedly in an unobserved inn. The inn was completely unobserved. No one knew that something great would take place in this inn, and no one knew that the occupant of the inn was selected that moment in time. And here, you make a journey from wherever you are living. So you were living—wherever you are that’s home, that’s base—and for reasons that you need not explain you make a journey. The scripture tells you that they went off because it was decreed they should all pay taxes. And at that moment came this moment of delivery. Well, paying taxes…we all pay taxes, it’s been going on forever. So if you go from here on a journey, it’s a vacation. If you go to visit a friend, if you go on a business jaunt, whatever you do, it’s removed from where you are, and you invariably stop at an inn. You may call it a hotel, call it a motel today, call it a friend’s home, I don’t care what you call it; it is that you are removed from where you were. And so, you make your journey physically. And you retire quite normally in a simple inn, not knowing that this is the moment for you to be delivered of that which has been formed in you, your very being. And while you retire quite simply, suddenly the most intense electrical power seems to be applied to your brain. You’ve never felt anything in this world like it. Here, you begin to awaken and awaken and awaken, and then you are completely awake as you’ve never in your life been awake before. I think I’m awake now. I see you, I see you vividly.Everyone in this room I can spot and those that I know by name I could call by name, in this area. But this is like a dull, dull state compared to this awakening. There’s a clarity, there’s a translucency you’ve never known before, and you awaken, and you find yourself in your own skull.

And then one moment not of panic but of deep concern that you are in a skull. You don’t think of it only as a skull, you think of it, strangely enough, as a sepulcher. You know that you are in a sepulcher, and if you are in a sepulcher then someone must have thought you to be dead to have placed you here. For here I awake…I awake in a tomb. Why am I in a tomb and the tomb is my own skull? So if I’m awake in this tomb, someone placed me here…or did I voluntarily go into it and fall asleep? I don’t know. I simply found that I am in a tomb, and for a moment I think it’s sealed, completely sealed. Then one moment later I feel that if I could but push the base of the skull, something would give and I would come out. And so I push the base of the skull and I come out just as I thought I would, head down. When I start moving out, pushing myself out, then I pull the remaining portion of me out, and there I am, I am out.

That’s the beginning. I awoke from a state of death. I didn’t realize I was dead. Someone thought me dead because I was placed in a tomb. I come out of it, I find myself now completely out of the tomb. I open my eyes to the world and I look back, and strangely enough although I am out of the tomb, the thing out of which I came is still present. That’s the strange part. For I came out of the tomb and the tomb was my skull; and yet here is the thing, the body, out of which I came. That doesn’t make sense but it’s true. There it is, I look at it, it’s ghastly pale, pale as snow. And then a wind, the most unearthly wind is disturbing me, and I cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. I look around and then I think it’s over there. I turn my attention for a moment over there. As I look over there wondering is this thing so strong it’s going to blow the whole area down—I’m not diverted more than moments—when I look back and the body is gone.

In its place sits—and I’ll tell you because you are few tonight; I didn’t tell it in my little circle, in my little booklet; I told it impersonally, but I will repeat it—-my three brothers were there. I say this to you tonight for a purpose, my three brothers were present. The oldest, called Cecil, was at the head; the second, called Victor, was at the right foot; and the third, called Lawrence, was at the left foot. They heard the same wind that I heard; but they didn’t see me, they couldn’t see me. I could see every thought that they entertained. My vision was so clear that they couldn’t think unless it became objective to me. Everything they thought I saw. That’s what I was at that moment. They couldn’t see me for one moment. Lawrence, my third brother, was the most disturbed and he went off to see where the wind was coming from. He hadn’t gone more than one or two paces when something attracted his attention, and looking down he said to my two brothers who were sitting on the bed, “Why it’s Neville’s baby!” and they in turn said, “How can Neville have a baby?” in the most strange, unbelieving manner. He didn’t argue the point. He lifted up the evidence and placed it on the bed. Then I took the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and into its little heavenly face I looked and I asked, “How is my sweetheart?” It just simply broke into a smile. And then the whole thing dissolved.

Now, I tell you tonight from experience, everything written about Jesus Christ in the Bible is a sign, but everything, from beginning to end. The manner of his birth is a sign to those who know who he is. But everything, I don’t care what it is it’s all a sign if you know who Jesus Christ is. I tell you this for a reason. It’s all true, every word is true. It happens to us when Christ is formed in us. And you have no way to reveal it to another on this plane, if they are anchored on this plane, to satisfy them. A few days ago, last Saturday, the religious editor of the Los Angeles Times received a letter. In the letter he was offered five thousand dollars if anyone in this world could produce evidence that Jesus Christ lived. One condition imposed upon it, he would give $5,000 to anyone who could prove that Jesus actually lived, but you cannot produce any book, any writing in evidence. He wanted scientific facts. He wanted historical truth, as he considers historical truth, not even philosophic speculation, just scientific facts, archeological facts.

Well, he will hold that check forever. He will never be able to part with it, because this is not based upon this world at all. You are told a story and you either believe it or you don’t believe it. When you believe it, it takes root. You may be here for unnumbered centuries. You don’t begin because you come into the world; you are already in the world. “Eternity exists and all things in eternity, independent of creation, which is an act of mercy.” So the whole vast world is here, and you don’t move from where you are to the formation of Christ in you by the mere passage of time. You move only when the idea of God’s plan of salvation is heard and believed. When you hear it and believe, then you start a journey…still in the same world. And the journey, may I tell you, is a journey of horror, a journey of dismay, of real affliction. But the affliction is for a purpose: It fashions you into the image of God. When it is completed you are awakened and brought forth, and you are one with God.

So you could be here and reject it completely. And the mere passage of time in this world— as the tyrant of tyrants, as the wisest of the wise, as the richest of the rich—will mean nothing until heard and accepted. Not just heard, but you hear it and you accept it on faith. You can’t have…you can have no proof in this world based upon scientific facts. So I stand before you to plant the seed. I tell you it is true. Every thing that happened in my world is recorded in scripture. This is a sign you are told. A sign, what sign? That something has happened—that a savior was born. What savior? Well, the only savior mentioned in scripture is God. He has moved to a higher level of his own being. His creative power came into the world of death personified as a man, and the whole vast world takes the personification and worships it. And that’s not it at all. Hasn’t a thing to do with the personification. It’s his creative power buried in us in the world of death. Then he tells a story and we hear it and we believe it. Those who believe it have accepted the seed which is the seed of God, and then we come out. For this remains, the whole vast world of death remains. Everything here is part forever of the eternal structure of the world. And he simply plants his seed upon man and lets it grow…if it is accepted.

I hope you will accept it. I tell you every word I have told you is true. The child in my hand is a fact, I can feel it now, I can see its face now. I can see the entire picture from beginning to end, as this power took place in my brain and awoke me from a long, long sleep. Then I found myself in the sepulcher. I came out. As I came out I looked back and that out of which I emerged was ghastly pale, as told in scripture. And here was the evidence of my birth in the form of a child, and those who witnessed the sign couldn’t see the twice-born man.

Now, how could I prove to anyone save in faith that I’ve experienced it? Well, let me tell you a story. You and I speak of death; it’s obvious things die every moment of time. You and I have gone to funerals and we’ve said goodbye to friends that we hope we will see…but we hope. We speak of the cold hand of death, we speak of the jaws of death, we speak of the king of terrors, and people speak, “Oh well, alright, that’s just some poetical expression.” Is that really true? Is there such a thing as a hand of death? Well, let me share with you an experience. It took place six years ago. We were living then on El Camino, it’s a little street just at the end of the Strip, north of the Strip. One morning my wife said to me when we met for brunch, “I had the strangest experience this morning.” She said, “I awoke and I sat up in bed, and then you came into the room and you sat on the bed. And then as you sat on the bed, a hand came out of nowhere and a hand grasped my hand. I didn’t see the face of the hand, I didn’t see what possessed the hand, it was just a hand and it held me in a firm grip. Then you looked up seemingly at the body where the hand was attached, and you said, ‘Oh, my friend Death.’ And then I said to you, ‘But I don’t want to die.’ I said, ‘Are you afraid to die?’ and she said, ‘No, I’m not afraid to die, but I don’t want to die now.’ Then I said, ‘Alright, if you don’t want to die now, alright’ and the two hands disengaged, and she returned to her normal state here.”

May I tell you, at that time in her life six years ago, she felt quite low in spirits, quite low physically, and really entertained the thought that she would make in the not distant future her exit from this world. So the hand of death is not, as the world thinks, some wonderful poetical figure of speech. God is man and everything in this world is personified as man, yes, even death, but everything in this world. And I knew him well. And that was before I had the experience of being born from above. I would have to have known him well to reach the point where I could be born from above, for every man goes through death after death after death in this world having accepted the idea that he would come out as God. And so I saw what I called my friend, I knew him so well.

So here, I tell you everything in scripture is true. This story of Christmas is a true story, but not as hundreds of millions will be told it ten days from today. They will be told that some unique experience took place 2,000 years ago, and they’ll be told that it was something that happened in a natural thing, like a man not knowing a woman and the woman having a child through her womb. Christ is not born that way. Christ is formed in the skull of man. You and I are born naturally in this world from the womb of woman. But Christ in us is being formed by our life in this world, fashioned and shaped into the image of the invisible God. And when it’s perfect, but really perfect, then it is awakened; and it’s you and you are Christ. And we’re all gathered together into one body and that body is Jesus Christ. You are Jesus Christ, the being formed into the likeness of Jesus Christ; and when you are completely perfect you are extracted from the skull and brought into the body of Jesus Christ.

So if I say I stood in his presence, what presence?—the presence of the risen Christ. Jesus appeared, this universal humanity, and I saw his form, and it is man. He embraced me when I knew who he was, for he asked me a simple question, “What is the greatest thing in this world?” I answered, after stating faith and hope, I said, “Love, the greatest of all is love.” And then love embraced me. Now, may I tell you, when John wrote these words in the epistles of John he wasn’t speculating (whoever John was). I believe the character, which is not really Lazarus; it’s called Lazarus, the one who’d experience the ___(??), restoration from death, that was Lazarus—but whoever wrote the epistle when he said “God is love,” I tell you he didn’t speculate. This was not his conclusion after he thought in some philosophical manner. This was revelation, when God revealed himself. I didn’t know that God…I heard it…but I didn’t know that God was actually love, infinite love, until he unveiled himself before me. So when I was brought into his presence and stood in his presence, I couldn’t think of anything but love, infinite love. Here, when he asked me the question and I answered as he intended that I should, and he embraced me, I became one with the body of love. And may I tell you, from that day to this, I am never divorced from it. I am in the Father and the Father in me, even though he sent me to do what I’m doing. As Paul made his statement to the Philippians, he said, Whether I should depart from this world and be one with Christ or remain…he didn’t know. But he had no choice; he said there was a work to be done—this is the first chapter of Philippians (verse 23)—and there’s a job to be done while he was in the body. He thought he had to remain in the body to complete the work and tell the world, but his longing was to depart from this world and to be one with Christ. For having felt the ecstasy, who on earth could find anything comparable to it? There’s nothing here that compares to it, and you long to be one with that which you felt. You’re still with it, but you’re insulated because you’re still wearing this body. And he uses the word “while in the body.” And so, I am in the body, said he, and I long to depart from this world and be one with Christ, but there is a job to be done while still in the body.

So anyone who has had the experience, they cannot for one moment find anything in this world that holds them, that interests them to the point where they want to succeed in it…they really don’t. I’m speaking from experience. I can’t conceive of anything in this world that I have as an objective, really, save for individuals. But I don’t have an objective for myself beyond that. I can’t conceive of another objective, I just can’t.And so I will take anyone’s request and hear it and I’m quite confident it will work. I am confident that every request if I hear it and accept it it’ll come to pass. Of that I am sure! Because I will hear nothing that I would not myself want as man. If you ask me to hear that someone is hurt, I couldn’t hear it. If you ask me to hear that someone is unwell, I couldn’t hear it. It’s not part of my world. If you ask that you should have money, I could hear that; that you have a better job, and all these things, I could hear these things, and they’ll all come to pass. I know it! But for myself I have no desire for these things at all.I feel like Paul. I can’t wait for that moment of departure and yet I know there are things to be done while I wear the body. I must, too, wear the body. That’s what he said in his first chapter to the Philippians. You read it carefully. If you take the new translation, called the New English Bible, it will give you a little different slant on the original Greek, but they’re all good anyway. But the archaic language of the old Bible doesn’t quite reveal what he intended to tell the world.

So I tell you the story of Jesus Christ is true…not as the world understands it. Jesus Christ is being formed in man. He’s formed in the skull of man, and the very moment that he is formed he is awakened, and that is called resurrection. God’s mightiest act is resurrection. Then comes the birth on the heels of the resurrection, and then comes the unfoldment of the entire picture. He knows who he is now. Because the purpose of it all is to give himself to his image, that’s God’s purpose. Not just to make an image but to endow it with the same power that he possesses which is life in himself. Well, if he gives himself to his image that he has formed and he was prior to that attempt a father, then the image at the moment that he succeeds in his transference of himself must be a father. And that’s the second act. And so, he actually transfers himself, he gives himself to his image; and the image awakes; and the image becomes the Father; the very Father that is God. For God is the Father of this heavenly Son. He sees his Son and the Son calls him Father.

And after that comes the next sign—-they’re all signs—the splitting of the temple from top to bottom; and he sees the sacrifice that was God. For now God is himself, and he sees the blood of himself which is called in scripture the blood of Jesus Christ, and he fuses with his own blood. Then he moves up into heaven. And then comes the final picture, where God sees the whole thing and it’s good and very good, and smothers him with affection, in bodily form of a dove. And he sees the whole thing unfolding within himself.

So I tell you the story that will be told ten days from today, where they have a little child on the outside, and animals all around, and wise men. I said earlier the wise men come…tradition has it that the wise men were brothers and they were kings, Melchior, Gaspar and Balthazar, that’s what tradition has it. Scripture does not record it. But as far back as we can go, the early fathers, someone had the experience; and now tradition has it that there were three brothers, one the king of India, one the king of Arabia, one the king of Persia. These were three kings and they were brothers, and they came to witness the event. So I record this to this small audience that you may know the thing is true. Whether it is always so that you have three brothers, I do not know. On the other hand, when David appeared in my world and I was David’s father…and not one moment prior to that event did I ever entertain such a thought. Well, three could come into your world and strangely enough they could be your brothers. You can have the same feeling, the same certainty about this relationship that you’ll have to David. For I know these three brothers in my world, Cecil, Victor and Lawrence, I know them. They are still in my world. It was Lawrence (who was a doctor) who got off the bed in search of the wind to find the babe. And the Book of Luke tells you that he was a doctor (Col. 4:14).

Well, this thing is so fantastic, for it happens in the mind of man. So, all…I consider every one…just as David came into my world—and not for one moment prior to that entrance into my world did I entertain the thought that we were related—to discover he is my son and always has been my son. Then, these brothers that I know now…if you do not have brothers, it could happen tonight and the three who would come into your world would have the same sense of relationship that my three earthly brothers have to me. I’m only suggesting that; I do not know that from experience. But I do know that when David came, I had no sense of uncertainty about the relationship. And so, when these three men come into your world, whether you have brothers here in this world or not, they will to you be like three brothers. For somewhere along the centuries back they felt that the three wise men were brothers, and they called them Gaspar, and they called them Melchior and Balthazar, and said they were three kings who were brothers. So I leave it with you to do what you will from this.

But the story of Christmas is a true story, eternally true. And when you’ve had the experience and you make your departure from this world, you leave it just as it is, having told your story. I can’t conceive…as Paul said in his letter to the Philippians, he wanted so much to make his exit on the heels of the experience but he could not. He had to wait, wearing a body, tied to this earth, to tell the story to all who would hear it and would accept it, but eagerly waiting for his departure. For as far as he was concerned the race was over, the fight was over, he kept the faith (2 Tim. 4:7). He heard it somewhere along the way. So don’t think for one moment that this story took place once and forever 2.000 years ago; it is ever taking place every moment of time the world over.

May I tell you that the story of the Bible this is sacred history, it’s not secular history. You begin with Abraham and come all the way through the entire line. Read the eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews and these are the characters that are eternal in you. And whether someone believes it or not, until you accept this story it doesn’t matter what you do or accomplish in this world. There’s no record of any Buddha, or Confucius, or a Plato, or an Aristotle, or a Socrates, or a Karl Marx, or a Hitler. These are not mentioned in this sacred history. None of these characters are mentioned, only from Abraham through to the end of the prophets. And Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the entire picture. The Old Testament ends upon the note of expectancy, and the New Testament begins on the note of fulfillment; and the two are one; you can’t separate them. The Old and the New are one; you can’t interpret one without the other. The New only interprets the Old and the Old expects the New. And here is your story.

So everyone in this world has it, but it’s not fertilized. In woven into man is the story. He hears it and the hearing would fertilize it if accepted. If he doesn’t accept it, it bounces off. He remains in the world and moves from state to state to state, and makes every effort to anchor himself here forever. And they do today, trying to live physically for an extra hundred years…and vegetate. When I think of these lovely fellows that have lived so beautifully in this world I think of Winston Churchill. Here is a perfectly marvelous wonderful fellow. He’s done such a marvelous job in the world, but at ninety the body shows its age, and here, well, he’s not the Churchill that you and I knew. None of them are and yet someone today wants to put it on for 200 years and maybe a thousand years. If you lived a billion years and Christ was not formed within you, it wouldn’t really matter.

Christ has to be formed in man, and Christ is the image of the invisible God. When formed, he awakens his image and gives to his image himself, and calls his image his son. He is declared son, why?—through his resurrection from the dead. You can’t quite grasp…you can grasp it in a way, but when you find yourself waking in your skull and know what it is, it’s not just a skull, it’s a sepulcher. So that lovely thought: “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” May I tell you, you can answer, “Yes, I was there.” “Were you there when they placed him in the tomb?” Yes, you were there. Do you know where the tomb is? Maybe, that you don’t know. May I tell you, the Bible tells you. Well, some call it Golgotha and others call it Calvary and still others call it “the place of the skull.” Well, then I must go and awaken my Lord, for they took my Lord and they crucified him, crucified him on the place of the skull. So the father goes…this is the story told in scripture…that they were servants, the prophets, who went into the field and asked for some return of the vineyard, and they beat them and chased them away. Then he sent other prophets and they beat those and threw them out. Then he sent his son (his creative power) and they said, “Now, he is the heir, let us kill him, for the whole thing will be ours if we kill him” (Mat. 21:33). So they killed the son. And then the father went and the purpose of the visit of the father was to awaken his son: “This my son was dead and he’s alive again; he was lost and he’s found” (Luke 15:24). So here is the story of every one of us sent into this world of death, and then told the most heavenly story of recovery. Some believe it and some don’t. So I ask you to believe it tonight, for if you believe it I can’t tell you when the thing will be finished in you, but only after belief does the work begin.

Now let us go into the Silence.

We’re closing tonight and opening three weeks from tonight, on the 5th of January. So may I call your attention to the book table. My little booklet is out, called He Breaks the Shell. It’s the story of the unveiling of the image of God. And so you may take a look at it. There are other books there that I think you would like. Are there any questions, please?

Q: In your reference to the skull, where and of what is it?

A: Pardon me?

Q: Of what and where is it?

A: The 24th chapter of the Book of Luke, you’ll find…read the 22nd chapter…and they name it Calvary, the Latin form; Golgotha is the Jewish form. But Luke calls it by its name you and I understand: And when they came to “the place of the skull”…there they crucified him (John 19:17). So he calls it by the name that you and I understand. Well, Calvary means “skull” and so does Golgotha mean “skull.” We’re told in the Book of Romans, the 6th chapter, “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (verse 5). And think in terms of the first one that simply awoke. But we’re all together in that state. But for some strange reason it seems that only as the word is heard with acceptance does it start to grow, which is told us in the story of the sower who plants the seed, which is called the word of God; and it falls on four different types of soil and only on one type of soil does it grow (Mat. 13:18).

And people completely reject it. Those who completely reject it, alright, they reject it. It doesn’t mean they cease to be. No, no one ceases to be. They simply go from state to state to state in this fabulous world of God, hearing the story at another moment in time, and maybe by then they will be more receptive to the story. But when someone can offer $5,000 to anyone who could produce evidence that Jesus lived—you can’t produce a book in evidence or any paper—-he wants scientific facts. Well, Jesus Christ is a supernatural being. The birth is supernatural. Everything about him is supernatural. You can’t produce any evidence, any more than my wife tonight could produce the arm that held her arm. And when I looked up and saw the face and knew him so well and said, “Oh, my friend Death,” how could I present to anyone save in words the existence of a personification of a fact which is death? Death is a fact. People die; you can’t deny that all things die. Well, how can I take that personification of death which was a hand…all the poets have written about the cold hand of death…but I saw it, she saw it. And I knew him so well, because I have passed through these stages of death, and how often he has taken me by the hand until I overcame him. For you overcome death when you are raised from the dead. For the last enemy to be overcome is death.

But in the meanwhile he’s been your friend. He took you from one state to the other state to the other state. You leave this state to be inserted into another time slot for a purpose that is beyond one’s knowing at the moment. But after having gone through so many, you certainly would know him as a friend. But how could I prove to this man who offers $5,000? As the editor said, “He has a firm grip on his $5,000.” He wants the proof here in this world. Well, you can go to the Near East forever and ever, and excavate all of the Near East trying to find the sepulcher where he is buried. And may I tell you, some pope in the past or some emperor in the past named it, and that is now called the Church of the Sepulcher. That isn’t the sepulcher at all; it’s your own skull. That’s where he’s buried. But the story isn’t told.

So this coming Christmas it will be told in the same old form again. After 2,000 years they finally conceded that the Jews did not kill Jesus Christ. After 2,000 years! What else will they concede tomorrow? I hope that someone present is a good orthodox Catholic and Protestant who will go and tell the story that tomorrow in some other council they will concede that it is not what they so far believed. Hasn’t a thing to do with the garments that you wear outwardly. God does not judge from outward appearances, as you’re told, he sees the heart…that deep belief in man.

Well, what I told you this night is true. Every word is true, because I’m speaking from experience. I am not theorizing.

This being my last night until the new year, may I wish you all a true Christmas in the sense that may it happen to you! Thank you.