2nd St. Johnstide 2012, Divine Union

St. Johnstide

Da Vinci

John 3: 22-36

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.”

2^nd St. Johnstide

Baptism, Sombart

July 1, 2012

John 3: 22-36

Here in the Northern Hemisphere it is high summer. The earth is in the sun’s embrace. Meanwhile the other side of the earth is in midwinter. With both sides of its being, the earth is looking to her sons and daughters. Her greatest wish is that the soul of humanity be joined with the Sun-Spirit, just as she herself has joined with Him. In joining with Him we will become fruitful, and fulfill our divine destiny.

It is no accident that the gospel reading mentions a bride and bridegroom. For it is the time when the soul of humanity is to wed its Beloved.

St Francis of Assisi said:

Baptism, Habegger

I hear you singing, dear, inviting me to your limb.

I am coming , for all that we do is a

preparation for love.

I hear you singing, my Lord, inviting me to your throne.

We are coming, dear, for all the toil you have

blessed us with is a preparation to know and hold the

sacred.

I hear you singing, my soul, but how can it be that

God’s voice has now become my own?

“That’s just a wedding gift for our

Divine Union,”

my Beloved

said. [1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] “A Wedding Gift”, St Francis of Assisi, in Love Poems to God, Daniel Ladinsky, p. 44. Picture by Titian.

2nd St. John's Tide 2014, Weight is Love

St. Johnstide

John 1: 19-28, 29-34, 35-39

This is the testimony of John, when the Jewish leaders sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” Freely and openly he made confession. He confessed, “I am not the Christ [the Anointed].”

Then they asked him, “Who are you then? Are you Elijah?” And he said, “No, I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.”

Then they said, “Who are you? What answer are we to give to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?”

He said in the words of the prophet Isaiah, “I am the voice of one crying in the loneliness: Prepare the way for the Lord [so that the Lord may enter into the inmost soul (self).”

And those who had been sent by the Pharisees asked him, “Why do you baptize if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water. But someone is standing in your midst whom you do not know, who comes after me although he was before me. I am not worthy even to untie the strap of his sandals.”

This took place in Bethany near the mouth of the Jordan where John was baptizing.

The next day he [John] sees Jesus coming to him, and says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes upon himself the burden of the sin of the world. He it is of whom I said: ‘After me comes one who was before me, for he is greater than I  [for he is ahead of me].’ [After me comes one who was (generated) before me, for he is the prototype.] Even I did not know him; but for this I have come, and have baptized with water, so that human souls in Israel might become able to experience the revelation of his being.”

And John testified: “I saw how the Spirit descended upon him as a dove from the heavens and remained united with him. I did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend, so that it remains united with him, he it is who baptizes with the [breath of the] Holy [Healing] Spirit.’ And I saw this, and so I testify that this is God’s Son.”

2^nd St. John’s Tide

July 6, 2014

John 1: 19-34

Today’s reading begins with questions about identity. The Hebrew leadership asks John the Baptist who he is. In all humility he acknowledges that he is not the Messiah, the anointed one of God. They ask him if he is Elijah, who was to precede the coming of the Messiah. And although Christ says later that ‘ he is Elijah who was to come’, [1] either John no longer remembers his previous existence, or else he is making the claim that he is no longer working in the grandiose style of the great prophetic leader of the Hebrews. Instead he claims to be a single voice, speaking from lonely and deserted place, saying: Make preparations.  John is who he is; he voices what needs to be said in the moment. He awakens our sense of personal responsibility.

In fact John the Baptist epitomizes the state of the modern soul. We are who we are, now. We no longer remember previous lives - we may not even remember our current yesterdays! John in us is the single voice in us, speaking  in the now, telling ourselves that we must prepare ourselves so that Christ can enter into us and abide in us.

We need to strengthen and create order in our thoughts, in our feeling life, so that an inner space arises, a space that stretches into a path for the entry of the Lamb of God. Christ came as the Lamb in order to carry the burden of human separation from the divine. This separation from the divine has created our capacity for our sins, our failings, our weaknesses. It creates our errors and our denials of the divine.

Christ, the divine Son, the God, would enter our souls so as to overcome our lonely separateness, and to reunite us with our Father. We open our souls to him. We strengthen and order our souls’ forces so that our thinking, our feeling and our willing can become strong, weight-bearing, enduring; so that we, with Christ, can peacefully and lovingly carry the burden of the sin of the world. For as the poet says:

Salvatore Mundi, Leonardo da Vinci

The weight of the world

is love.

Under the burden

of solitude,

under the burden

of dissatisfaction

the weight,

the weight we carry

is love.[2]

---

[1] Matthew 11:14

[2] “Song”,  Allen Ginsberg , in Collected Poems 1947-1980

2nd St. Johnstide 2013, Attention is Interest

St. Johnstide

John 1: 19-28, 29-34, 35-39

This is the testimony of John, when the Jewish leaders sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” Freely and openly he made confession. He confessed, “I am not the Christ [the Anointed].”

Then they asked him, “Who are you then? Are you Elijah?” And he said, “No, I am not.”

“Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.”

Then they said, “Who are you? What answer are we to give to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?”

He said in the words of the prophet Isaiah, “I am the voice of one crying in the loneliness: Prepare the way for the Lord [so that the Lord may enter into the inmost soul [self].”

And those who had been sent by the Pharisees asked him, “Why do you baptize if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”

John answered them, “I baptize with water. But someone is standing in your midst whom you do not know, who comes after me although he was before me. I am not worthy even to untie the strap of his sandals.”

This took place in Bethany near the mouth of the Jordan where John was baptizing.

The next day he [John] sees Jesus coming to him, and says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes upon himself the burden of the sin of the world. He it is of whom I said: ‘After me comes one who was before me, for he is greater than I  [for he is ahead of me].’ [After me comes one who was (generated) before me, for he is the prototype.] Even I did not know him; but for this I have come, and have baptized with water, so that human souls in Israel might become able to experience the revelation of his being.”

Egbert Codex

And John testified: “I saw how the Spirit descended upon him as a dove from the heavens and remained united with him. I did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend, so that it remains united with him, he it is who baptizes with the [breath of the] Holy [Healing] Spirit [and with fire].’ And I saw this, and so I testify that this is God’s Son.”

The next day John was again standing there, and two of his disciples were with him. And as he saw Jesus walking past, he said, “Behold, the [sacrificial] Lamb of God [through whom humanity’s sense of self will be purified.]”

The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?”

They answered, “Rabbi [Teacher], where are you staying [where do you live] [where do you take refuge]?”He said, “Come and you will see!”

And they came and saw where he stayed [lived], and remained with him all that day. It was about the tenth hour [four o’clock].

2^nd St. Johnstide

July 7, 2013

John 1: 19 – 39

Each of us, at the core of our being, has an eternal self. This eternal Self clothes itself in different personalities, with its own particular time and destiny. Our self-awareness is usually limited to our current incarnation. The eternal core self is hard to find, hard to recognize.

When John the Baptist is asked who he is, he answers from an awareness of his temporal self. ‘I am not Elijah, not the Christ, not the prophet.’ At the same time he is clear about his personal destiny - that he came to baptize.

He is also clear about Jesus’ identity. He sees past Jesus’ earthly personality to His eternal core as the Lamb of God, upon whom the Spirit of God descended and remained. And he is aware that his own destiny is to serve Christ Jesus.

Awareness of one’s own eternal core Self is a gift of grace. Perhaps it is more important to develop an awareness of the eternal selves of others than it is to look for our own eternal core. Perhaps it is more important for us to stand as witnesses for each other – to recognize, as John did, the eternal self of the other, to accompany their destiny. Perhaps this is part of the change of heart and mind that John advocates: that we turn away from self-involvement, toward a humble support of others. As someone said:

Attention is not concentration.  Attention is interest.  If you’re interested in something, then you’re attentive.  And if you’re attentive, you discover many things.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---