3rd November Trinity 2007, Increase the Light

3^rd November Trinity

Revelation 7: 9-17

Next I looked and saw a great crowd beyond anyone’s power to count, from every nation and all races and peoples and tongues standing before the throne and before the Lamb draped in garments of white and with palm branches in their hands, and they shout with a great voice saying,  “Healing and help [salvation] to our God who sits on the throne and through the Lamb.”

And all the angels were standing in a ring around the throne and the elders and the four living beings, and they fell down in front of the throne upon their faces and adored God saying,

Yea, so be it. Amen. [To our God be blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength for an age of ages. Amen.”]

All the blessing power of the Word, that creating permeates the world, all the revealing might of the spirit, that enlightens the senses appearance, all the light of wisdom that leads us to true knowledge, the secret of transformation which gives worth to all being, that brings the world forward, and all the strength and power of the spirit –they belong to our God from aeon to aeon. Yea, so be it, Amen.

And one of the elders spoke up, asking me: “These people draped in garments of white, who are they and where did they come from?”

And I said to him, “Good sir, you yourself know.”

And he said to me:

These are the ones just come from the great Suffering. They washed their garments clean, and made them shining white in the blood of the Lamb.

That is why they can stand here before the throne of God

And serve him day and night in his temple.

The One who sits on the throne shall settle down upon them [dwell upon them].

They shall not hunger ever again, nor thirst again;

The sun shall not bear down too hard upon them, nor anything burn them,

Because the Lamb, in the midst of the throne, will be their shepherd

And guide them to the springs of the water of life,

And God will wipe away each teardrop from  their eyes.

3^rd Sunday November Trinity

Durer

November 11, 2007

Revelation 7: 9-17

  

This wonderful image: a Being of Light and sacrificial Love on a great throne; the four living beings of space, the twenty-four elders of time; and all the angels, all of them prostrate in a ring around the source of light and love. In the humility of their great power, they are sending toward Him a counter-offering: all their own praise and radiance, their wisdom and gratitude, their honor and strength, thereby strengthening His light, His love, His healing work.

And with them are the countless purified human beings who have died. They are standing upright, themselves radiant Selves clad in white, raising their own voices in praise and in the recognition that all help and healing comes from the Son on the Father’s throne. In their very understanding and praise of this, they are sending their own strengthening forces toward the Lamb and the Spirit God, who is the light radiating from the throne. Those purified, living across the threshold are helping increase the light in the spiritual world, to strengthen it, so that it shines even into the earthly realm. This is their task, and ultimately also ours.

Earth has become a place of spiritual darkness, of suffering and pain. But we, both those living on earth and those living in the heavens, are led by the Lamb who is also the Shepherd. He leads us through the suffering, to the living wellspring, the shining waters of life, where all suffering and grief is transformed into joy, into light and living love.

Let us join the ones in white in singing our praise of the Lamb. Let us offer Him the joy and strength of our grateful awareness of his healing of mankind. Let us help Him increase the light, the life and the love shining into the world through our offering of our noblest thoughts, our heart’s love, our active devotion.