St.
John’s
Mark 1, 1-11
Mark 1, 1-11
 |
| Sombart |
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:
‘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]
1st
St.
June 24, 29, 2008
Mark 1:1-11
 |
| Habegger |
The zenith of the sun year
has passed. It may seem as though all we have to look forward to are gradually
shorter days and increasing darkness. But that would only happen if we were
mere creatures of nature. As human beings it is our truly human spiritual task
to interiorize the Sun.
Featured in this gospel
reading are two human beings, John the Baptist and his cousin Jesus of
Nazareth. John, the stern father figure, is the last of the old prophets. He
recognizes that human beings stand at a threshold of something totally new; and
that they need to prepare for it by doing some inner housekeeping, by
straightening up inwardly and creating an open space.
And next to him is Jesus of
Nazareth. While respectful of the old forms, He is ready to take the next step
forward for humanity. John’s baptism of immersion breaks open the seal of Jesus’
human nature and allows Christ, the inhabitant of the sun sphere, to enter into
Him. Jesus is the receptive one into whom the spirit dove descends, as it did
with Mary at the annunciation. To her the angel announced, “You will conceive
and bear a son.” At the Baptism the Father Spirit Himself announces to the one
whom Mary conceived and who now receives the Christ. He hears “You are my
beloved Son, in you is my revelation. Today I have conceived you.” Mark 1:11 , Luke 3:22
John and Jesus, two human
beings helping each other to advance humanity through their heart’s choice –
preparing, opening, receiving.
A 14th century
English mystic wrote:
Sear my inmost being
with your fire and my heart
will burn on Your altar forever.
Come,
I beg you,
O
sweet and true glory!…
Come,
my Beloved,…
to my
soul
and
slip into it with most
sweetly
flowing love. Set ablaze
with
Your heat every penetrable
place
of my heart and, by filling
its
inmost places with your light,
feed
the whole with the honey-flowing
joy
of Your love….[1]
During this second,
descending half of the year, we are to practice what John and Jesus have
modeled for us: preparing, opening, receiving the light and the love of the
Christ-Sun. In doing this we are working
toward the day when we too have taken the light and love of the Sun into our
hearts; when we, too, will hear, “You are my beloved son, my daughter. (With)in
you is my revelation,” the light and the warmth and the love, the One who has
come to us from the heart of the sun.
www.thechristiancommunity.org
[1]
Richard Rolle of Hampole (1300 – 1349), “Invitation to the God”, in Love’s
Immensity, by Scott Cairns, p. 106.
