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

 

2nd Johnstide 2021, Heart-Warm Thanks

Johnstide

John 3:22-33
 
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, 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

Sombart

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 Truth [or, that there is no higher truth than the reality of God]."

2^nd Johnstide
July 4, 2021
John 3:22-33

John the Baptist came with a mission. He was to witness the incarnation of the Light of the World in Jesus at His baptism. He came to prepare souls to also be able to perceive Christ. He inaugurated a rite of purification, a ritual immersion, which allowed individuals to have their own unique spiritual experience. Some saw the quality of their own lives pass before them; others felt the glorious beings of the spiritual world.

Sombart

As we hear in the reading, those following Jesus were also undergoing baptisms. John’s reaction to the ‘threat of competition’ is noteworthy.

John’s very name means ‘God is gracious.’ God graced John with the opportunity to complete what he had come to do. He witnessed; indeed, he helped midwife the incarnation of God’s Light and Love. And John speaks out of the meaning of his own name when he says that spiritual power is given as grace. He recognizes that his own day is beginning to decline while Jesus’s sun is rising. And so John graciously lets go the baton as he passes it on.

God is gracious. He gives us our lives and sends us to fulfill our tasks. And when we have accomplished what we have come to do, when we have borne witness to our times and loved those whom we were sent to love, we send the Father our heart-warm thanks for the opportunity to be on the earth, doing what we do. And so as the poet says:

May the light of your soul bless your work
with love and warmth of heart.
….
May the sacredness of your work bring light and renewal
to those who work with you
….
May it release wellsprings of refreshment,
inspiration and excitement.
…..
May dawn find hope in your heart, ….
May evening find you gracious and fulfilled.*

---

*John O’Donohue, "For Work," in To Bless the Space Between Us, p. 146.

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/

2nd Johnstide Homily 2020, Spirit Creates Order

2nd Johnstide

Matthew 3:1-17

In those days, John the Baptist came. He proclaimed his message in the isolation of the Judean desert. He said, “Change your hearts and minds. The realm of [the human being filled with] the heavens has come close.”

He it is of whom the prophet Isaiah speaks:

A voice is heard, calling in the loneliness [of the human soul]: ‘Prepare the way for the highest leader [within the soul], make his path straight and good [Order your feeling and thinking, so that within you a path arises for the inner Lord!].

John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather girdle around his waist. Hard fruits and wild honey were his food.

At that time, people came out to him from Jerusalem and the whole of Judea and from the region around the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the flowing waters of the Jordan and confessed [admitted] their sins [failings, and the errors of their lives].

When he saw that many Pharisees and Sadducees also came for baptism, he said to them, ‘You sons of the serpent, who has told you how to escape from the coming World-Fire [Fury]? Now, therefore, strive after [to bring forth] the right fruits of the change of heart and mind. Do not think that you are safe by saying: We have Abraham as our father. I say to you: the heavenly Father is just as able to raise Abraham-sons from these dead stones. Already the ax is laid to the root of the trees [of the bloodlines], and every tree that does not bear good fruit is felled and thrown into the fire [of testing]. I baptize you with water to lead you to a change of consciousness [heart]. He who comes after me is mightier than I; unworthy am I even to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will cleanse his grain of the chaff. He will gather the wheat into the barn [for the future], but the chaff he will burn in an unquenchable fire.”

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the

Icon, Baptism in the Jordan

Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. But John refused and said, “It is I who need to be baptized by you—and now you come to me?”

Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now. It is good thus so that we fulfill properly all that destiny [divine righteousness] requires.” Then he consented.

Having been baptized Jesus was already coming up from the water again when behold, the heavens opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending in the form of a dove and alighting upon him. And a voice spoke out of the heavens:     

“This is my Son whom I love,

            [Today I have conceived him. Luke 3:22]

In him will I reveal myself.”

2nd Johnstide

July 5, 2020

Matthew 3:1-17

At the end of the day's work or a big project, the environment may have become disordered.  Clean-up is called for. A visitor to one of the original Waldorf curative schools was told that he could find the school's founder and teacher after-school still in the classroom, cleaning up. As the visitor approached, he could hear the teacher repeating a phrase again and again: The Spirit creates order! The Spirit creates order!

Icon,John the Baptist, Angel of the Desert, detail

Today's gospel reading describes such a moment in human history. The old phase of the elite bloodlines is over; their work is done. John the Baptizer said, "The ax has been laid to the roots of the trees," the ancestral trees of the bloodlines. This is because their mission, that of creating a pure bodily form for the Messiah, is complete. After this, there can only be decay; for the bloodlines are no longer capable of spiritual awareness.

Yet a new order is arriving. The Spirit creates order! Jesus comes to the Jordan as the beginning of a new era for human beings. Christ, the divine Son and our Brother, will enter humanity. Everything will be up-ended. Even John the Baptizer's perception of his own unworthiness is no hindrance. Now a new order, a new Spirit consciousness, has arrived. Now the divine will inhabit the body. Now heaven can reveal itself on earth, for a new spirit consciousness of love for all human beings, beyond bloodline, tribe, or nation, will slowly and gradually take over the earth. 

It is true that elitism, tribalism, and nationalism will ever try to interfere with the new order. But they have no future. Only the Spirit creates order. Now is the time to recognize that all of humankind is one family, for we are all children of God. Here the 15th Psalm is a kind of prophecy: 

Lord, who can be trusted with power,

Codex Rossanensis, Christ as Good Samaritan

and who may act in your place?

Those with a passion for justice,

who speak the truth from their hearts;

who have let go of selfish interests

and grown beyond their own lives;

who see the wretched as their family

and the poor as their flesh and blood.

They alone are impartial

and worthy of the people's trust.

Their compassion lights up the whole earth,

and their kindness endures forever.*

 

 

*Psalm 15, in The Psalms, translations by Stephen Mitchell

 

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.

1st St. Johnstide 2019, Reality

St. Johnstide, 

John 3: 22-33 (adapted from Madsen)

St. John the Baptist Church in Jordan

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.’

Carolsfeld

“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 Truth[that there is no higher truth than the reality of God]. 

1^st St. Johnstide

June 30, 2019

John 3:22-33

Pollen Cloud

At the peak of its development, the blossom releases its pollen into the air. The pollen rises toward the heights; the sunlight weaves its life into the pollen, which returns to the world of earth. It joins with other plants to form seeds that carry life into the future. It is important to note that when pollen grains soar, they do not return to their original flower. The invigorated pollen that enlivens a particular plant comes from somewhere else, possibly from far away.

Gratitude is the opening of our hearts, the blossoming of our souls. Warmly felt gratitude is an invisible spiritual substance that rises upward toward the Spirit Sun. His spirit light weaves into this substance of gratitude, enlivens and transforms it. Our gratitude returns to earth, transformed, as His power of light and life and love. Like pollen my prayers of gratitude, do not return to me; they enliven others. And it is the prayers of others that enliven me. Christ’s power in human hearts is what gives us all a future.

The Baptism of Christ, from Berry's Book of Hours 

Christ, the Spirit Sun, keeps His heart open toward the Father. For Him, the Father is His transforming sunlight. John, who announces Christ, is also connected to the Father’s Spirit. He too is surrounded by the Father’s love. John is a kind of human/angelic mediator, a messenger sent on ahead to announce Christ’s impending arrival. He would shake us awake. He bids us open our hearts, to stream forth gratitude, so that Christ may send his enlivening power into all of us, so that we may continue to live. 

“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.” John 3:35

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3rd St. Johnstide 2016, Fire of Love

St. Johnstide

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.”

3^rd St. Johnstide

July 10, 2016

John 3: 22-36

Cell mitosis (division)

After an egg is fertilized, there follows a rapid division, as 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 cells multiply. But the division and multiplication are directed by an over-arching wholeness. They are driven by the spirit of a living creature.

In today’s reading, the arrival of Christ Jesus in John the Baptizer’s sphere prompts a division among the people. But John understands that an over-arching spirit is driving this development. Christ has arrived as the bridegroom of humanity. And his union with us is creating a rapidly multiplying new people, a new and all-inclusive race of Christ-people. This new folk crosses and transcends the previous racial and tribal boundaries.

The ideas and thoughts of the divine world are directing this new development in humankind. The growth of the Christ folk is surrounded, warmed and enlivened by the Father’s love. The Spirit fire of a love creative of being has been ignited in humankind. It unites us and burns away selfish egotism. Individuals can feel it, like the poet who says:

Listen, I've light

in my eyes

and on my skin

the warmth of a star,

….

  And

everything alive

(and everything's

alive) is turning

into something else

as at the heart

of some annihilating

or is it creating

fire

that's burning, unseeably, always

….*

*Franz Wright, “The Fire”, in God's Silence

www.thechristiancommunity.org

2nd St. Johnstide 2016, Family of Humanity

St. Johnstide

Visegrad Codex

Matthew 3:1-17

In those days John the Baptist came. He proclaimed his message in the isolation of the Judean desert. He said, “Change your hearts and minds. The realm of [the human being filled with] the heavens has come close.”

He it is of whom the prophet Isaiah speaks:

A voice is heard, calling in the loneliness [of the human soul]: ‘Prepare the way for the highest leader [within the soul], make his path straight and good [Order your feeling and thinking, so that within you a path arises for the inner Lord]!’

John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather girdle around his waist. Hard fruits and wild honey were his food.

At that time people came out to him from Jerusalem and the whole of Judea and from the region around the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the flowing waters of the Jordan and confessed [admitted] their sins [failings, and the errors of their lives].

When he saw that many Pharisees and Sadducees also came for baptism, he said to them, ‘You sons of the serpent, who has told you how to escape from the coming World-Fire [Fury]? Now therefore strive after [to bring forth] the right fruits of the change of heart and mind. Do not think that you are safe by saying: We have Abraham as our father. I say to you: the heavenly Father is just as able to raise Abraham-sons from these dead stones. Already the ax is laid to the root of the trees [of bloodlines], and every tree that does not bear good fruit is felled and thrown into the fire [of testing]. I baptize you with water in order to lead you to a change of consciousness [heart]. He who comes after me is mightier than I; unworthy am I even to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will cleanse his grain of the chaff. He will gather the wheat into the barn [for the future], but the chaff his will burn in an unquenchable fire.”

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. But John refused and said, “It is I who need to be baptized by you—and now you come to me?”

Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now. It is good thus, so that we fulfill properly all that destiny [divine righteousness] requires.”

Then he consented. When Jesus had received the baptism and, [seized by the Spirit] was already coming out of the water again, when behold, the heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending in the form of a dove and hovering over him. And a voice spoke out to the heavens:

               

“This is my Son whom I love. In him will I reveal myself.”

St. Johnstide

July 3, 2016

Matthew 3:1-17

At the end of the day’s work, or a big project, the environment may have become disordered.  Clean-up is called for. An after-school visitor to one of the original Waldorf curative schools was told that he could find the founder and teacher still in the classroom, cleaning up. As the visitor approached, he could hear a phrase repeated again and again: The Spirit creates order! The Spirit creates order!

Today’s gospel reading describes such a moment in human history. The old phase of the elite bloodlines is over; their work is done. “The ax has been laid to the roots of the tree of the bloodlines.” This is because their mission, that of creating a pure bodily form for the Messiah, is complete. After this there can only be decay; for the bloodlines are no longer capable of spirit awareness.

Yet a new order is arriving. The Spirit creates order! Jesus comes to the Jordan as the beginning of a new era for human beings. Christ, the divine Son and Brother, will enter humanity. Everything will be up-ended. Even John the Baptizer’s perception of his own unworthiness is no hindrance. Now a new order, a new Spirit consciousness, has arrived. Now the divine will inhabit the body. Now heaven can reveals itself on earth. For a new spirit consciousness of love for all human beings, beyond bloodline, tribe or nation, will slowly and gradually take over the earth.

It is true that elitism, tribalism, and nationalism will ever try to interfere with the new order. But they have no future. Only the Spirit creates order. Now is the time to recognize that all of humankind is one family, for we are all children of God. Here the 15th Psalm is a kind of prophecy:

Lord, who can be trusted with power,

and who may act in your place?

Those with a passion for justice,

who speak the truth from their hearts;

who have let go of selfish interests

and grown beyond their own lives;

who see the wretched as their family

and the poor as their flesh and blood.

They alone are impartial

and worthy of the people's trust.

Their compassion lights up the whole earth,

and their kindness endures forever.*

*Psalm 15, in The Psalms, translations by Stephen Mitchell.*

www.thechristancommunity.org

*Psalm 15, in The Psalms, translations by Stephen Mitchell