1st Trinity IV 2022, Seed-Sized

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:

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: 

Ninetta Sombart

clothed with a long billowing garment,

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." 

1^st Trinity IV

October 30, 2022

Revelation 1:1–20 

John, the writer of the book of Revelation, struggles to put into words what he hears and sees in the spirit. Through his words, he creates a picture for us. In his word picture, we see the One he sees and hear the One whose voice he hears. 

The altar is a kind of re-creation of what John saw. Like John, we are here in the spirit on the Lord’s Day. We see the seven lampstands in the seven candles. And amongst the burning candles is a picture of the One we hear about in John’s vision: 

clothed in a billowing garment…

eyes like a flame of fire…

face shining like the sun in full radiance. 

Oleg Shuplyak

The picture painted above the altar is a kind of stand-in, over and against the day when we are able to see the Living One himself there, face to face. For He is indeed there at the altar, amidst the candles. At the altar, we are offering Him what He needs to transform himself into yet another form. After our offering of substances united with our most noble selves, He changes himself in yet another picture. We then receive Him, clothed in snow white bread from a silver paten, shining in wine in a golden chalice. 

In bread and wine, he makes himself small, bite-sized, seed-sized, 

so that we can take Him into our Selves.

so that He can grow in us,

so that we may become his community.

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