1st Trinity III 2021, The Power That Made the Universe

 

1st Trinity III

Mark 8:27 - Mark 9:1 

And Jesus went on with his disciples into the region of Caesarea Philippi (in the north of the land at the source of the Jordan where the Roman Caesar was worshiped as a divine being). And on the way there, he asked the disciples (and said to them), "Who do people say that I am?" 

They said to him, "Some say that you are John the Baptist; others say, Elijah, still others that you are one of the prophets." 

Then he asked them, "And you, who do you say that I am?' 

Then Peter answered, "You are the Christ." 

And Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. 

And he began to teach them, "The Son of Man must suffer much and will be rejected by the leaders of the people, by the elders and the teachers of the law, and he will be killed, and after three days he will rise again." Freely and openly, he told them this. 

Then Peter took him aside and began to

Get Thee Behind Me, Tissot

urge him not to let this happen. He, however, turned around, looked at his disciples, and reprimanded Peter, saying to him, "Withdraw from me; now the adversary is speaking through you! Your thinking is not divine but merely human in nature." 

And he called the crowd together, including his disciples, and said to them, "Whoever would follow me must practice self-denial and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever is concerned about the salvation of their own soul will lose it, but whoever gives their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel, their soul will find power and healing. For what use is it to a human being to gain the whole world if through that they damage their soul, which falls victim to the power of an empty darkness? What then can they give as ransom for their soul? In this present humanity, which denies the spirit and lives in error, whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the shining revelation of the Father among his holy angels." 

And he said to them, "The truth I say to you, among those who are standing here, there are some who will not taste death before they behold the kingdom of God arising in human beings, revealing itself in the power and magnificence of the spirit." 

1^st August Trinity

July 25, 2021

Mark 8: 27 – Mark 9:1

Changing our angle of vision brings us very different information. Looking at something from below shows us
a different aspect than from above; the right side may be different from the left, as the inner is from the outer.

Christ asks two questions of those following him. One is “Who do others say that I am?” And the answers are multiple: John, Elijah, a prophet. Then he asks, “Who do you say that I am?” It is a question that directs their attention within, to their hearts. And Peter expresses the recognition that in Jesus there lives the promised Messiah, Christ, the Son of God.

For all of us, what matters about Christ is not what others say about him, for there are as many opinions as there are people. What matters is our soul’s own inner recognition of who Christ Jesus is. For he wants to live in and light up each human soul. He wants to live in our thinking as the light of reverent wonder. He wants to live in our hearts as the light of compassion and empathy. He wants to live in our will as enlightened deeds that repair the past and prepare the future. 

We can perhaps hear His voice in the poem by Rumi: 

If you put your hands

Rosenkrantz

on this oar with me,

they will never harm another, and they will come to find

they hold everything you want.

 

If you put your soul against this oar with me,

the power that made the universe will enter your sinew

from a source not outside your limbs, but from a holy realm

that lives in us.*

 

 

* Rumi, “THAT LIVES IN US,” in Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West by Daniel Ladinsky