Young and Ancient

How can a man be born when he is old?

Listening to Jordan Peterson’s biblical lectures, the final part of each oration given over to a question and answer segment, I was struck by the direction Peterson went off of an audience member’s inquiry. The phrase which captured my attention amounted to the position that the archetype Westerner, Jesus, is a young thirty year old, and the Eastern archetype is much older. There was some talk as to how this fitted into wu-wei, and something about erotic sculptures adorning Indian temples.

As I said before in my post, Wu-Wei, I know next to nothing about Eastern culture or religion. My idea of Chinese food is Panda Express. However, as life has its coincidences, this exchange came to me after purchasing a copy of the Toa Te Ching. It seemed worthy of more than passing consideration, and my first thoughts are these, ancient and young.

I’ll have to write of what I know, and so I’ll write little of the Toa Te Ching: Christ as an archetype is a young man, but yet is old enough to say, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Christ as an example is one who dies and lives again. Dying, the old is sacrificed, and yet following the pattern of Christ, what was old is given new life. Here the dynamism of youth, as it is opposed to wu-wei, is in Christ lived out with the wisdom of age. Instead of the new overrunning the old, or the old like a cancer consuming the young, they are both one in Jesus.

I still cannot say I understand the Toa Te Ching enough to credit myself or my writing as having any critical merit as regards it, and so my thoughts are to be taken, if taken at all, as a learner’s rambling note.

Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

John 3:4-5