This morning we'll talk about the innocence of God's Son. Innocence, of course, is a
central theme in the Course. It's what the ego has always striven mightily to deny and argue against
by telling us that we are sinful creatures because of what we—we're told we did to God; betraying His
Love, crucifying His Son, and then making up a whole universe to support our sinful thought, and
all this goes against the true innocence of God's Son, which is His guiltlessness or sinlessness;
all of these would be synonyms, and they all reflect the idea that nothing happened
to mar the perfect Love and the perfect Oneness of God and His Son. God and Christ, Father and Son,
Creator and created remain perfectly at one, and, "Not one note in Heaven's song [of innocence (we
could add that) has been] missed," (T-26.V.5:4). Nothing changed. But that's not what the ego has
told us, and that's not what the world reflects, and that's certainly not what our life as individual
bodies teach us. We're always taught that we are sinful. In fact, the very fact that we're here in
bodies just screams out that we are sinful, that we have separated from God. The body itself is the
embodiment of the ego's thought system of separation, and this doesn't even begin to
get into what we do with other bodies which, of course, is very sinful. And if you redefine
"sin" as selfishness, then you just have to look at what happens when you have a fetus and then
when you have an infant. All the fetus and infant cares about is feeding itself or being fed, being
taken care of, being—being nourished; doesn't care about the mother after the child is born,
doesn't care about its parents, doesn't care about loss of sleep, doesn't care about anything
other than its selfish need to serve its self-centeredness and, of course,
there's no way of avoiding this. That's how bodies were made. So, that when we talk about "sin" we're
not only talking about what the world would call "sin," doing things the world calls "sinful,"
but we're talking about just being here as bodies, emotionally as well as physically,
is just heightening the idea that we are guilty creatures because of our inherent or innate
selfishness. So, there's no way of avoiding the idea that we believe that we are guilty.
When Jesus tells us at the beginning of the teacher's manual that the Course is only one
form among many thousands of the universal course, (M-1.4:1-2), he says that the major theme or the
unifying theme of the universal course is God's Son is guiltless. In other words, nothing happened
between Him and His Father. Nothing happened to mar this perfect innocence of God's creation.
But again, we are all born with what certainly in Judaism and Christianity
we're told is original sin. Well, the Course's version of original sin is simply the belief
that we separated ourselves from our Creator and Source. But we are all born with this innate
sense of having not only done something wrong by virtue of being born, but being something wrong,
like within every fiber of our being, of our existence screams out what the Course refers to
in one place "The Witnesses to Sin" (T-27.VI), which in that section has to do with pain,
but that we are all the witness to sin. So, how could it be that we would ever believe that we
are innocent? Helen Schucman had a wonderful vision before the Course came, I think, which I
talk about in my book, "Absence from Felicity," in which she saw herself in the presence of this
magnificently beautiful and holy woman that was like a priestess that I discuss in my book really
is really kind of Helen's true self. But she saw herself in the presence of this priestess,
and she was terrified to look at the priestess's face because she was afraid of how this holy woman
would be looking at her; that she'd see all of her sins, all of her guilty secrets, and so Helen
could not look at her. And finally, she was able to look at her in her face, and she realized that
the priestess didn't even see her sins. All the priestess saw was the innocence of God's child and
Helen, I think, burst into tears at that point ("Absence from Felicity", pages 87-88). That's
our fear. That's our fear, that...the fear is not that we are guilty and sinful. The fear—
that's what the ego tells us—the fear is what if we allowed ourselves to look at ourselves the
way Jesus looks at us or the Holy Spirit looks at us and sees only innocence? What then to our
whole existence, which is built on the fabrication of this colossal lie that we are sinful, guilty
creatures? What the Course helps us to understand is that we really cling to this guilty self-image
and this sense of sin because that proves that the ego is right and God was wrong and then,
of course, we take this perceived sin, deny it in ourselves, project it out, and see everybody else
as sinful, which merely reinforces the guilt, because once again we're crucifying God's Son
by seeing Him not as God created Him. So that we're all like Helen in this vision, on the
one hand terrified of having our guilt and sin being exposed, and then being even more terrified
that this lovely, holy person that symbolizes our true Self would simply look at us and not see us
the way we see ourselves. And then, finally the tears of joy and the tears of gratitude come when
we realize that the whole thought system of the ego was just made up and that we truly never left
our Father's house, that we still remain at home in God, and our dreams of exile were simply that...
only dreams and that nothing happened, nothing's changed. The perfect Love that
created us and that we are is still within us. That perfect innocence of God's Son,
the innocence of Christ; the Son that God created as Himself. As the workbook would say: Innocence
created me innocent (W-pI.67). So, there's all these layers that we defend against
this recognition. First, the feeling that we are so guilty and we're terrified if that guilt
is exposed, we'll be punished and destroyed. Then it's the fear that the guilt is made up,
which means that the whole ego thought system is made up, which means I don't even exist,
and finally that tremendous sense of humility and joy and gratitude that says, "This entire
thought system is wrong and is not true, and this individual, special identity of mine
is not true and I do remain as God created me, wholly innocent as my Source is wholly innocent,
and if I am wholly innocent everyone else is innocent with me."
Where then are the justifications for judgment and attack? They all disappear into the nothingness
at which they came and this leaves, again, only the innocence of God's holy Son.