1st Johnstide 2022, Weight of Love

 1^st Johnstide

Mark 1:1-13

 

This is the beginning of the new word from the realm of the angels, sounding forth through Jesus Christ. Fulfilled is the word of the prophet Isaiah: 

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 the innermost human 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 acknowledgment 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 [or, 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] 

And suddenly, he felt himself driven by the Spirit into the desert, and he remained in the loneliness of the desert for forty days, tempted by the Adversary. And he was among wild animals, and the angels served him.

  1^st Johnstide                                      

June 26, 2022

Mark 1:1–11 

Memling

During Advent, we heard the angel say to Mary, "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. The Son of God will be born of you." In today's Gospel, God's Holy Spirit descends again in the form of a dove, this time upon Jesus of Nazareth. The Spirit of God, Christ, descends and remains on Him. 

Just as with Mary, we could imagine that Jesus' Baptism marks the beginning of a pregnancy. His Baptism is the conception of Christ's Resurrection Body. (Indeed, some versions of the Baptism story say, "You are my Beloved Son. Today, I have conceived (begotten) you."*) This new body is conceived in love by the inter-workings of the Trinity and the man Jesus. Jesus offered his body as the womb for this conception of humankind's Resurrection Body that would be birthed at Christ Jesus' death. 

Da Vinci

Such a momentous event had its preparation, of course. John the Baptist prepared this process. His ritual act of immersion and cleansing made a path for the Spirit's descent. John's baptism ritual helped make this conception of the Resurrection Body possible. 

God's Spirit of Healing looks for human souls who, like Jesus, have opened themselves to the heavens. It looks for souls who have immersed themselves in a ritual of cleansing and who are offering themselves. 

The Act of Consecration is our continuous Baptism. The whole of the offering is an act of cleansing. We start, like John, with the acknowledgment of our basic unworthiness. As we immerse ourselves, step-by-step in this ritual of offering, we open ourselves, along with bread and wine and water, to the heavens. We seek to be permeated by God's Healing Spirit. 

For us, the Healing Spirit can descend, though only for a few of us can the Spirit remain permanently. Most of us are not yet strong enough to bear the weight of the Love of the World. But we come faithfully, week by week, to receive the Spirit medicine. We come to strengthen the vessel until the time when the healing Spirit descends on us and remains. 

*Luke 3:22, from Codex D

www.thechristiancommunity.org

 

1st Johnstide 2021, Shine in Darkness

1^st Johnstide

Mark 1:1-13

This is the beginning of the new word from the realm of the angels, sounding forth through Jesus Christ. Fulfilled is the word of the prophet Isaiah:

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 the innermost human 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 acknowledgment 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 [or, healing] Spirit."
 

Julia Stankova

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."
  
And suddenly, he felt himself driven by the Spirit into the desert, and he remained in the loneliness of the desert for forty days, tempted by the Adversary. And he was among wild animals, and the angels served him.

Daniel Bonnell

1^st Johnstide
June 27, 2021
Mark 1:1-13
  
At Christmastime, we awakened into mid-winter darkness.
The starlit heavens opened up, and a choir of angels announced the approach of the great Sun-Spirit who was to be born in humankind. Through late winter and spring, we watched as Jesus of Nazareth grew, teaching and healing. He died and overcame death, appearing to his disciples as they learned to know him in a new way. He united heaven and earth in his Ascension. And at Pentecost, he sent his Spirit awareness to keep himself alive in human hearts.
 
Now we stand at another turning point of the year.  It is mid-day [midnight in the Southern Hemisphere] in the earth’s year. And oddly, the gospel readings seem to start over—Jesus is baptized.  It is as if the gospel readings would like us to take a closer look, to focus in on something.  We see the moment in which Jesus, the man, offers himself.  He steps into the streaming, living waters of the Jordan.  The heavens are torn open. The Father's voice resounds, affirming His Son. The Son-God himself, Christ, enters Jesus.  Jesus becomes the Christ-bearer. 
 

Anton Mengs

At this midday in the year, instead of a choir of angels, one lone human voice, John the Baptist, urges us to offer ourselves, as Jesus did, to the intimate working of Christ in us, through us.  Now it is we who are to become Christ-bearers.  Now it is we who are to become true sons and daughters of the Father. 
 
From now on, the outer sunlight will gradually lessen [grow] as the days grow shorter [longer].  But the Christ-Sun wants to rise within us.  He wants to irradiate our being as he once did the man Jesus.  He wants us to see and hear, to change.  Within us, he wants to become the light that always shines in the darkness. 

https://www.thechristiancommunity.org/children-youth/camps/

https://www.thechristiancommunity.org/children-youth/youth-conferences/

1st Johnstide 2020, I am not I

1^st Johnstide

Mark 1:1-13

This is the beginning of the new word from the realm of the angels, sounding forth through Jesus Christ. Fulfilled is the word of the prophet Isaiah:

 

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 the innermost human 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 acknowledgment 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]

St. Johnstide

June 28, 2020

Mark 1: 1-11

As we grow older, our awareness expands. Imagine going back in time to visit our younger self. Imagine what we would want to say to that younger self out of our years of experience since our youth. Imagine how possibly painful our older self-awareness would be in the face of our former innocent intentions. And imagine how terrified our younger self would be to encounter this someone from the future who is so strangely familiar, who so intimately knows us.

John the Baptist is humankind’s older self. He is the older self who has gone ahead of us. He has something he wants to say to us. He is acutely aware of his own and humankind’s failings. Out of his broader awareness, he encourages us to change our way of thinking, to undergo a change of heart. This is all in preparation for an encounter with Christ Jesus, the innocent younger self of humankind.

John encounters the innocence of Jesus,

and the enormity of the spirit of God that descends upon Jesus like a dove. The result for this older self of John is a deepening of humility. ‘I am not worthy’, he says. I am doing my best to serve what God has as intention for humankind. But HE is the embodiment of the pure and grand intentions of the Godhead. He is the true prototype.  And thus He is even before me. He is my own younger self as God intended me to be.

We can experience painful self-awareness of our shortcomings, our failures to be what both God and we intended to be; and at the same time, this is a deep experience of God’s love for us, His willingness to sacrifice Himself for us, so that we can start over, begin again to be what we, and He intended us to be.

We shy away from such encounters; such painful self-awareness terrifies us; and to be so intimately known can be devastating. But it is a necessary step on the way to experiencing the mildness, the acceptance, the calm radiant forgiveness of the One who is our ideal future self. Such self-awareness is a necessary passage into the forgiveness that allows us to start over, to begin at the beginning again. It is the experience of what the poet Juan Ramon Jimenez speaks of when he says: 

I am not I.

I am this one walking beside me whom I do not see,

Whom at times I manage to visit,

And whom at other times I forget;

The one who remains silent when I talk

The one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,

The one who takes a walk where I am not.

The one who will remain standing when I die.*

 

* “I Am Not I”, by Juan Ramón Jiménez, in Risking Everything, ed. By Roger Housden, p. 19.