1st St. Johnstide 2010, Devoted to Christ

St. John’s Mark 1, 1-11

Memling

This is the beginning of the new word from the realm of the angels, sounding forth through Jesus Christ. Fulfilled is the word of the prophet Isaiah:

Behold, I send my angel before your face.

He is to prepare your way.

Hear the voice of one calling in the loneliness of the human soul

Prepare the way for the Lord within the soul,

Make his paths straight, so that he may find entrance into Man’s innermost being!

Thus did John the Baptist appear in the loneliness of the desert. He proclaimed Baptism, the way of a change of heart and mind, for the acknowledgement of sin. And they went out to him from all of Judea and Jerusalem and received baptism from him in the river Jordan and recognized and confessed their failings.

John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist. Fruits and wild honey were his food. And he proclaimed:

           

Sombart

‘After me comes one who is mightier than I. I am not even worthy to bend down before Him and to undo the straps of His sandals. I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the fire of the Holy [healing] Spirit.’

In those days it happened: Jesus of Nazareth came to Galilee, and was baptized in the Jordan by John.

And at the same time as he rose up again out of the water, he beheld how the spheres of the heavens were torn open, and the spirit of God descended upon him like a dove.

And a voice sounded from the world of the spirit:

‘You are my son, the beloved —in you is my revelation.’ [‘Today I have conceived (begotten) you.’ Luke 3:22]

1^st St. Johnstide

June 27, 2010

Mark 1: 1-11 

 

The cycle of the year is not a simple circle. It is more like two circles joined in the middle as a figure eight, like the symbol on the front of the chasuble. Now, in June, we have come to the crossing point in the middle.

During the first half of the year, we remembered and filled ourselves with the power of Christ’s life on earth. The second ascending circle now begins with John the Baptist, a human being who was himself an individual of transitions. He was the last and greatest of the old stream of humanity. And at the same time, he is one of the first of the new, a renewed angelic being, sent before us on the path.

He midwifed and witnessed the birth of Christ into the man Jesus at the Baptism in the Jordan. The gospel gives image of this in the descent of the spirit dove. John as the representative of the old way will bow out before the Christ—‘He must increase, I must decrease.’ John 3:30  But at the same time, Christ takes him under His wing. John’s spirit will be released from his body at his beheading. And through Christ his spirit will become the new protective angel for the work of the circle of Christ’s disciples, guiding their work from across the threshold.

At this nodal midpoint of the year, we too are encouraged to take stock of what we have made of ourselves through our past deeds. And we are to recognize that our own future and the future of humanity and the earth will depend on our humble connection with Christ, He who creates all things anew. Rev. 21:5 Following John’s example, we too are to work upon and out of our future angelic nature. We do so through our purity of thinking, through the love of our hearts, through our will, devoted to Christ.

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