Who is Jesus for us? How do we see this very special man, whose teachings have become a doctrine capable of spreading around the world and changing human thinking? How do we feel it in our lives? A master? A messiah? A model? An angelic spiritual being? A god made man? A Prophet? Just a good man, with enormous empathy, capable of dragging crowds and making his ideas prevail? A miracle worker? A myth?

If we were to go around asking those who pass by if they believe in Jesus and how they see Him, we would get many and varied answers. Even among those who consider themselves to be true believers in Christianity, the way in which they view the central character of their beliefs is, for the most part, quite impractical and poorly founded.

We have been accustomed over the centuries, in which the most traditional religions have dominated, to see Jesus as the second person of a divine trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit); we do not understand its meaning, and we were always told that it is a mystery that we are not allowed to question, but simply accept it.  However, as the human mind progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult to accept dogmas of faith; we are becoming more demanding. For everything we get used to reasoning, to try to understand and to accept only what reason achieves and understands as correct. It is normal and fair that this be the case. For this reason, intellectual evolution is always faster than moral evolution. Advances in intellect are a valuable resource for learning to discern between good and evil, between right and wrong, between the true in the light of reason and the mythological.

It is therefore important to demystify the idea of ​​a Jesus-God. He always referred to God as the Father. He never presented himself as a part of Him, whatever that might mean. Spiritism, appearing as the Comforter Promised by Jesus, appears to us based on two essential and deeply interlinked aspects: the revelation of the Spirits and the discernment achieved by reasoning. These two fundamentals are so interconnected that the Spirits did not tire of insisting on the importance of accepting only what reason can understand as true. It is always appealing to the reason that Kardec, along the Codification, makes us, step by step, arrive at spiritual truths. The Spiritist Doctrine, in short, is the Doctrine of reasoned faith. 

As such, Spiritism brings us to know a Jesus quite different from the one we were used to. By demonstrating, in the light of reason and revelation, that God created all his simple and ignorant children, subject to the Law of Progress, which works for everyone within the same parameters and in the same molds, by making us realize that everyone is destined to the same relative perfection, which is gradually achieved, as our efforts to moralize and grow in wisdom, that this can only be achieved at the cost of numerous reincarnations, in the different worlds of Creation, which allows us the necessary readjustments, at the expense of trials and atonements, in short, by demonstrating that the rules are the same for all the children of God, it completely neglects that there are special children, already created perfect, and others who have to fight, at the expense of pain, for the desired perfection.

We came to see and understand Jesus as one of us, someone who was created like us and who reached perfection over time, at the cost of sacrifices, renunciations, through reincarnations that were propelling him to spiritual progress. He is just someone who was born long before us, and who, when we were created ourselves, had already reached the state of Pure Spirit, becoming a co-creator with the Father. As He himself said: “When this world was created I was at the right hand of the Father”, that is, as we say, He was already His right hand, already working in the divine team, presiding over the destinies of this planet of ours, at the time, in the beginning of creation.

It is in this sense that we consider it worthwhile to dwell a little on how the Spirit Joanna de Angelis presents Jesus to us. Joanna de Angelis is the Spiritual Mentor of the medium Divaldo Pereira Franco, through whom she manifests herself, as the spiritual author of a considerable number of high-value works. Namely, those integrated into the so-called Psychological Series, in which it establishes connections between Spiritist Psychology and Carl Jung's Analytical Psychology.

Using the vision and analysis of this venerable entity, who in one of his reincarnations came to know Jesus and to make contact with His teachings, becoming a Christian and witnessing his Faith through martyrdom, we will find a Jesus-man, among men, standing out for its high degree of moralization, but maintaining its human characteristics, offering itself as a model of behavior capable of being an engine of change and progress. Let us stay, for our reflection, with some of his considerations about the Loved Master that we seek to follow, and about His message that, more than ever, we must learn to admire and, mainly, follow: 

"Jesus is the most remarkable Being in the History of Humanity."

“Living in a time when ignorance predominated in the form of individual and collective shadow, which also occurs these days, although on a smaller scale, Jesus split the dark side of the society of creatures, illuminating consciences with the proposal of liberation through the knowledge of the Truth and integration in the sovereign postulates of love.” 

“The Gospel is the most beautiful poem of hope and consolation ever known. Concomitantly, it is a precious treatise on contemporary psychotherapy for the countless evils that afflict the creature and humanity.”

“Superior to the conjunctures he faced along the way and unscathed by the temptations of the human path, having overcome them previously, he became attached without diminishing his own greatness, mixing with the people, and standing out from him by the great attributes of His Spiritual Reality.”

"It is all harmony that captivates and sweeps up crowds."

"Jesus, the excellent Man, arrived on Earth and faced ignorance in predominance, bringing the message of love that had never been presented before in the formulation of which He made himself bearer."

"All the goals of the Good News that He brought are centered on the future of the Spirit, on his total emancipation, on his incessant search for God."

“Only love, as Christ taught and lived - to treat divine and precious lymph - will solve the magnificent and distressing human torments.”

“Jesus was not the biotype of a conventional legislator. He did not come to submit to humanity or to submit to the laws in force. He was the bearer of a revolution based on love in its most excellent and subtle essentiality, and adopted it transforms the moral foundations of the individual and of society”.

“Due to this limit of understanding (ours), the Man-Jesus avoided deepening the liberating lessons, offering the one that is essential and is synthesized in love from all points of view considered, preparing the advent of a future New Age, which it would present itself through the expansion of mediumistic phenomena, with the advent of Spiritist Psychology deflecting the Doctrine codified by Allan Kardec.”

“The direction He points to us continues to indicate freedom. The bonds were built by each one, for their own spiritual slavery. Faced with such considerations, in the barbarian of stormy days, it is advisable to consult Jesus without ceasing. And, if you have ears capable of listening in discerning, you will hear Him repeat: I am the Path: Come to me!”

The list of references is already extensive. But many more could be presented, of equal importance and value for the analysis we intend. We are not going to add our personal considerations or interpretations, so that there is no obstacle to the reflections we want each one to make, based on the vision of the venerable Mentor. We would just like to add, as a final reminder, that, as Joanna asserts, "Our safe guide remains Jesus."

It makes perfect sense that our conclusion is also a quote from Joanna de Angelis, making her wish our own: 

“Hoping that the contribution, which we now present to the dear reader, can awaken the Deep Psychology scholars to update the teachings of Jesus, and to deepen the questions that He addresses, we plead with Him, as our Unmistakable Friend and Excellent Therapist, that inspires and keeps us in the incessant search for self-illumination and self-illumination, which we need.”

Bibliography:

Granary of Blessings, by Joanna de Angelis, a psychographics by Divaldo Franco; Spiritist Bookshop “Alvorada” Publisher, 1983.

Jesus and the Gospel in the Light of Deep Psychology, by Joanna de Angelis, a psychographics by Divaldo Franco; FEP, 2014.

After the Storm, by Joanna de Angelis, a psychographics by Divaldo Franco; FEP, 2016.