2nd 3rd or 4th
Michaelmas
Revelation 12: 1-17
And a momentous image was
unveiled in the world of spirit: a woman, clothed with the radiant power of the
sun, the moon under her feet, her head adorned with the crown of the twelve
stars of heaven. And she is with child and cries out in the labor and pain of
giving birth.
And at the same time a second image was revealed in
the heavens: a great fiery-red dragon with seven heads and ten horns. On its
head it has seven crowns and its tail is sweeping a third of all the stars in
heaven and dashing them onto the earth. And the dragon is standing before the
woman about to give birth, so that when she bears the child he can devour it.
And she bore a child, a son ”who would shepherd all nations with a rod of
iron.” And the woman’s child was caught up to God and to his throne. And the
woman fled into the wilderness where she has a place that God keeps ready
there, so that they can take care of her for days numbering one thousand two
hundred sixty.
And a war flared up in the spirit world. Michael
and his angels fought against the dragon. And the dragon fought in the midst of
his own angels, but he was not strong enough, and there was no longer
any place for them in heaven. Down came the dragon, the giant, the serpent, the
evil one called both Satan and the devil, deceiver of all the world. Onto the
earth he came hurtling down, and all his angels with him.
And I heard a great voice in heaven, saying:
Now can begin the working which proceeds from our God—
The power to heal the world,
The power to transform all being,
The power to draw everything into godly being.
Arisen is the spirit leadership of his Christ.
Overthrown is the accuser of our brothers,
He who accused them night and day before the countenance of God.
They have overcome him through the blood and the sacrificial power of
the Lamb
And by the divine Word to which they bore witness.
They did not love their own lives too dearly, nor did they fear death.
Therefore, rejoice you heavens
And all who lodge therein!
But woe to the earth and the sea:
For the Adversary has come down to you,
And he seethes with measureless fury,
For he knows that his time is short.
And when the dragon recognized that he had been
cast onto the earth, he began to persecute the woman who had borne the son.
Then the woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she could fly
into the desert to her appointed place, where she is to be nourished for a
cycle of time, for cycles of time, and for half a cycle of time, far from the
face of the serpent.
And the serpent opened his mouth and spewed out a
river of water after the woman so she would be swept off her feet by the river.
But then the earth came to the woman’s assistance; it opened its mouth and
swallowed the river which the dragon spewed from his mouth. And the dragon
burned with fury against the woman. He stormed away to make war on the rest of
the woman’s seed, people who keep to the divine world aims and who are united
with the destiny and witnessing of Jesus. As I saw this I was standing on the
sandy shore of the sea.
3rd
Michaelmas
October
13, 2013
Revelation 12:1-17
When we are under the stress
of time pressure, some of us may fall apart; some of us may manage to focus
intently and work quickly, and then afterward collapse. But for a few, in an
emergency time expands and somehow slows down. They somehow know exactly what
to do and do it encased in a bubble of calm.
The reading says: ‘The dragon
seethes with measureless fury, for he knows that his time is short’. He is
under time pressure. But his pressure is to do the most damage and destruction
he can in his limited allotment of time. He also knows that by turning the
stress and pressure on us, by infecting us with his fury, he can sooner or
later create collapse.
The woman, the Soul of
Humanity, is giving birth to the Divine Child. She is given a divine gift—the
wings of the eagle. They enable her to get above the problem, above the dragon,
and look down on it. And then time expands and slows down. She knows exactly
what to do. She flies to a solitary place, an inner place, where she is encased
in calm and nourished by the divine.
The dragon in his fury is
heavy and earthbound. And even when he spews forth a flood of lies, of
information, of requirements and misinformation, the earth itself is willing to
assist in the rescue of humanity’s soul. The earth itself absorbs the flood of
the dragon’s fury. The earth and nature do their best to help provide a
physical space of calm nourishment.
What is it that keeps our
individual souls from being persecuted and flooded? It is our own solitary
place, the inner space into which we go with our eagle wings of compassionate
thought, our place of spiritual nourishment, of prayer and meditation. But we
must practice flying. The Native American poet Joy Harjo says:
To pray you open your whole self
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To
sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
…And
know there is more
That
you can't see, can't hear
….Like
eagle that Sunday morning
Over
Salt River. Circles in blue sky
In
wind, swept our hearts clean
With
sacred wings.
We
…know that we must take the utmost care
And
kindness in all things.
Breathe
in, knowing we are made of
All
this, and breathe, knowing
We
are truly blessed because we
Were
born, and die soon, within a
True
circle of motion,
Like
eagle rounding out the morning
Inside
us.
We
pray that it will be done
In
beauty.
In beauty.[1]
www.christiancommunity.org
[1] Joy Harjo, “Eagle
Poem”, in (How We Become Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2001)
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