St. Johnstide
John 3: 22-36
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| John in Prison |
After this, Jesus and his disciples came to the land of Judea. There he stayed with them and baptized. John also baptized; he was at Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there, and people came to him and were baptized. For John had not yet been imprisoned.
Then a dispute arose between the disciples of John and the Jews about the path of purification. And they came to John and said to him, “Master, he who came to you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore witness – here he is, baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”
John answered, “No human being can grasp spiritual power for himself that is not given to him from the higher worlds. You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’
“He who has the bride, he is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom, who stands by and listens to him, he is filled with joy at the bridegroom’s voice. This joy of mine is now full. He must increase, but I must decrease.
He who descends from above, out of the spiritual world, is elevated above all beings of the earth. Whoever is only of the earth, whose being arises from the earthly, his word is also earthbound.
He who comes from the heavens is elevated above all who have arisen from the earthly. What he has seen and heard in the world of the spirit, to that he can bear direct witness, but no one accepts his testimony.
But whoever accepts his testimony, sets his seal to this: that God is true [truth] [that there is no higher truth than the reality of God]. Whoever God has sent, his words are filled with the power of divine thought, for God gives the spirit to human beings not according to human rules, but according to the creative power that he awakens in man.
The Father holds the Son surrounded in his love, and has given everything into his hands. Whoever trusts in the power of the Son within himself, he grows out of the earthly into timeless life.
Whoever cannot trust in the power of the Son within will not behold the world of life; rather the working might of the spirit world must one day burn him like a fire that will consume him.”
3rd St. Johnstide
July 9, 2017
John 3: 22-36
The plant grounds its roots in the earth; it rises and spreads its leaves into the air. And then it holds up the chalice of its blossom to the sun. It sends its fragrance and pollen heavenward, where they will be enriched (and inseminated) by the sun's life-giving rays. Into its chalice-blossom the plant receives new life, which will form in its seeds.
Without the sun, none of this would happen. The plant and its processes have their reality. But the underlying, pre-existing reality rests in the sun.
But the most real reality, the real antecedent truth behind the existence of everything, even of the sun, is God. God is the highest, the truest, the most real of all levels of reality. Far in the future, nature and all its forms will have disappeared. But God will still be, holding all in His loving embrace.
He gave us, gives us His Son, whose presence abides with us, in us, on earth. With His Son, God has given us the power to awaken His own creative potential, His divinity, within us.
As we raise the chalice of our heart, as we send the fragrance of our self-offering toward the Christ-Sun, He, humanity's bridegroom, in turn sends His life-giving grace to fill our hearts, to make fertile the seeds of divinity within us. He sends into us the highest reality of God, as seed of a new life.
