November Trinity IV
Revelation 1:1-20
This is the unveiling of the being of Jesus Christ, which proceeds out of the divine world for those who would serve Him. To them shall be revealed what must of necessity happen in the future and powerfully presses into world events. God formed this revelation in imagery and sent it through His angel to His servant John. And so John speaks as a witness to everything he saw, that is, to the Divine Word and the life of Jesus Christ, which serves as a testimony. Blessed are they who know how to read the prophetic words, and blessed are those who know how to hear them, and all who take what is written in this book into their souls; for time presses.
John, to the seven
congregations in Asia:
Memling
Grace
and peace to you
From
Him who is, and who was, and who is coming
And
from the seven creating spirits before His throne
And
from Jesus Christ.
By His
witnessing, He is the archetype of trust.
He
is the firstborn from the realm of death,
He
is the leading spirit of the Kings on earth.
He
has turned to us in love, and by the power of His blood
He
has released us from the spell of sin which lay upon us.
He
has established us as true kings and made us into priests
before
the divine Ground of the World, His Father.
To Him
belongs all light of the spirit and all power of soul from eon to eon. Amen.
See: He comes in the realm
of the clouds.
All eyes shall see Him, also
the eyes of those who pierced Him. And those down the ages will lament about Him.
Yes. Amen.
I am the Alpha and the Omega,
Thus
speaks the Lord our God
who
is, and who was, and who is coming,
the divine ruler of the world.
I, John, your brother and your companion in all trials and also in the inner kingdom and the power of endurance which we possess through our oneness with Jesus: I was on the island of Patmos. There it was granted to me to receive a share of the divine Word and to bear witness to the sufferings of Jesus.
On the Lord's Day, I was lifted up to the world of spirit, and I heard behind me a mighty voice like the sound of a trumpet. It said: write what you see in a book and send it to the seven congregations: to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and Laodicea.
And I turned to see Him whose voice was speaking to me. And as I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and amid the lampstands, a figure like that of the Son of Man:
clothed
with a long billowing garment,
Sombart
encircled
round His breast with a golden band;
His head and His hair
shining white like snow-white wool,
His
eyes like a flame of fire,
His
feet like burnished bronze glowing in a furnace,
His
voice like the rushing of many streams of water.
In His
hand He held seven stars;
from
His mouth issued a sharp two-edged sword
and His face shone as the sun shines in its full radiance.
And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet and was as if dead. But He laid His right hand upon me and said: "Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last and the living one. I was dead, and look! I am living, and I bear the life of the world through all eons. Mine is the key to the realm of death and the shades. Write down what you see: what is now and what is to come.
"The secret of the seven stars, which you see in my right hand, and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the picture in the spirit for the angels of the seven congregations, and the seven lampstands are the seven congregations themselves."
1st November Trinity
October 31, 2021
Revelation 1:1-20
Imagine being given two large seeds, a real one and a cleverly made replica. Could we tell just by looking which one was real? Using all of our senses, could we distinguish between the living one and the merely material one? We could certainly test them by planting them and seeing which one sprouts.
There are many images of Christ in art and descriptions of people’s experiences of Christ Jesus. Perhaps not all of them correspond to the true, living, creative essence of His being. How can we tell the difference?
In His revelation to John, we have been given a living image of Christ. He bears a human form, yet one infused with fire. His head shines sun-white with the pure radiance of His thought. His breast is encircled with the gold of a merciful, loving kindness. His hands hold the creative weaving of the seven-fold evolving nature of life. His feet glow with the burning activity of purifying transformation.
His eyes shine with the creative fire of love. And as we listen, his voice resounds with the music of living waters.
This is the true picture of Christ. And we can know that
He is the true living seed because he was planted in the earth and was born out
of the realm of the dead. ‘I AM the Living One,’ He says. ‘I AM the true seed. Plant
Me in your hearts. Plant Me in your midst. Hear my life-giving voice in your
congregations. Let Me live in you.’
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