4th Michaelmas 2022, The Great Moral Order

 2^nd 3^rd or 4^th Michaelmas Sunday

Revelation 19:11-16 

Giusto de 'Menabuoi, Padua Baptistry

And I saw the heavens opening up.

And behold, a white horse! And the rider who sat upon it is called faithful and true, who judges justly and battles for justice. His eyes are like flames of fire, and his head wears many crowns, inscribed with a name which no one knows but he himself. The cloak that covers him has been dipped in blood, and he is known by the name "Word of God." 

And the warriors of the sky ride behind him upon white steeds, clad in clean, white linen. And he has a sharp-edged sword coming out of his mouth with which to subdue the nations, and he will shepherd them with a staff of iron. He treads on the winepress holding the wine of the wrath of God's will, the ruler of all. 

And written on his robe and on his thigh is the name: King of all kings, Lord of all lords. 

4^th Michaelmas

October 23, 2022

Revelation 19:11–16

To make wine, the grapes have to be crushed. All the long nurturing and tending seems to be turned into its opposite — the grapes are destroyed. Why? Ironically, to preserve them. They undergo a change of form so that they can yet continue to exist on a different level as wine.

Christ in the Winepress, 17th century artist unknown

Our lives also have their harvest times. There are periods when all we have worked for seems to undergo a change, transformed by something that feels to us wrathful and destructive. 

But we must realize that all forms of life are subject, fortunately, to transformation. Indeed, if this were not so, life could not continue. Old forms need to be broken down and destroyed so that new forms can arise. Breaking down ultimately serves the ongoing evolution of life itself.

We can be comforted when we realize that the treading of the winepress of change that may appear to destroy our efforts is driven by the Creating One of God, the White Rider. He came to earth to clothe himself within our human blood.           

He is faithful, loyal not only to God his Father but also to those of us who feel ourselves trodden upon by life’s burdens. For he requires nothing of us to which he himself has not been subjected. He allowed himself to be crushed so that the wine of his redeeming blood could flow. 

And he is true, rightly and completely aligned with the great moral order that underlies true justice. He shepherds us toward the winepress. His harvesting stroke and his treading the winepress with its apparent destruction serve a higher order and purpose. They create a higher kind of life out of what we have so far created and tended. The juice of our lives becomes His wine so that the true value of our lives is preserved. He begets timeless existence so that the true good of our lives may endure.

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4th Michaelmas 2021, God's Justice

 

2^nd 3^rd or 4^th Michaelmas Sunday

Revelation 19:11-16 

And I saw the heavens opening up.

Queen Mary Apocalypse

And behold, a white horse! And the rider who sat upon it is called faithful and true, who judges justly and battles for justice. His eyes are like flames of fire, and his head wears many crowns, inscribed with a name which no one knows but he himself. The cloak that covers him has been dipped in blood, and he is known by the name "Word of God." 

And the warriors of the sky ride behind him upon white steeds, clad in clean, white linen. And he has a sharp-edged sword coming out of his mouth with which to subdue the nations, and he will shepherd them with a staff of iron. He treads on the winepress holding the wine of the wrath of God's will, the ruler of all. 

And written on his robe and on his thigh is the name: King of all kings, Lord of all lords.

4^th Michaelmas Sunday

October 24, 2021

Revelation 19:11-16 

A child who breaks a window can make amends by paying for a new one. Or perhaps the child could even learn how to repair and replace broken windows themselves—a life skill acquired that could serve them and others in the future.

In today’s reading, we are given an uncomfortable picture of a warrior on a white horse, battling for justice and proper discernment. What issues from his mouth is the sharpness of the Word of God, He who sees all as it truly is and directs us in what needs to be done.

Although not a gentle or easy picture, we can nonetheless draw a certain comfort from it, for it implies that with God’s justice, a certain order and guidance will be maintained. There will be predictable consequences for what we do and lessons to be learned from them, lessons that will benefit both us and others. The fierce wrath of God’s will is the corrective, aimed in love at bringing us back into a right relationship with Him and others, repairing our own brokenness, and acquiring crowning life skills.

Through many, perhaps difficult, life lessons, we can learn the art of amends, recompense, and repair. And when we have acquired the skills, whitened our garments, we can join with the hosts of those in white who also battle for what is just according to God’s Word.

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4th Michaelmas 2020, Trials of Summer

 

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2^nd 3^rd or 4^th Michaelmas Sunday

Revelation 19:11-16

And I saw the heavens opening up.

G. Roland Smith

And behold, a white horse! And the rider who sat upon it is called faithful and true, who judges justly and battles for justice. His eyes are like flames of fire, and his head wears many crowns, inscribed with a name which no one knows but he himself. The cloak that covers him has been dipped in blood, and he is known by the name “Word of God”.

 And the warriors of the sky ride behind him upon white steeds, clad in clean, white linen. And he has a sharp-edged sword coming out of his mouth with which to subdue the nations, and he will shepherd them with a staff of iron. He treads on the winepress holding the wine of the wrath of the will of God, the ruler of all.

And written on his robe and on his thigh is the name: King of all kings, Lord of all lords.

4^th Michaelmas

October 25, 2020

Revelation 19:11-16

In a game like chess, there are rules. Certain moves are allowed, and others aren't. All the moves are sequential. And all the moves have their ultimate consequences.

God created the greater universe with a certain structural integrity. Things happen in a certain way in a particular order. There are consequences for everything that happens. Thank goodness!

The reading two weeks ago gave u

Albrecht Durer

s the image of the great feminine archetype, the soul of humanity. She is impregnated with the sun-radiant Son of God. She struggles to give birth to the Son of Man, the God of Love within and among us.

In today's reading, we hear how this Son of Man operates when he is fully grown. He battles to maintain the greater order, the order of justice, and just consequences. He, humanity's great I AM, the Creating Word of God subdues the nations.

God's love for us and ours for Him is not to be supplanted by a nationalistic and a warring love of country that destroys other nations. That time in the game has passed. That belonged to the age of Gabriel, the age of exploration and dominance. Gabriel's period ended over a century ago.

Arild Rosenkrantz

Now we are well into the age of Michael. His is the age of recognizing that all of humankind is one family. He hopes that we elevate all our human encounters. He invites us to work consciously with spiritual realities, with the angels, with those who have died.

God's long-term game plan for humanity is that we learn how to love, truly, and wisely. If humankind continues to ignore what is truly just and in line with God's greater plan, we will be defeated by our own maneuvers.

If humanity continues to behave unjustly based on greed or mere national interests, we will have to experience the other side of God's love. We will experience the 'wrath' which is simply the natural and objective consequence of our defying the greater order and purpose.

If we consistently fail to learn to love, if we set ourselves against the greater spiritual reality of God's hopes for us, we can only ultimately lose the game. And we are given the freedom to do that. Perhaps our personal endgame could be expressed in the words of the poet Stanley Kunitz:

In the haze of afternoon,

while the air flowed saffron,

I played my game for keeps—

for love, for poetry,

and for eternal life—

after the trials of summer.*

 

*Stanley Kunitz, "The Testing Tree," in The Testing Tree: Poems

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4th Michaelmas 2019, Battle for Truth

4^th Michaelmas Sunday

Revelation 19, 11-16 (adapted from Madsen)

Queen Mary Apocalypse

And I saw the heavens opening up. And behold, a white horse! And the rider who sat upon it is called faithful and true, who judges justly and battles for justice. His eyes are like flames of fire, and his head wears many crowns, inscribed with a name which no one knows but he himself. The cloak that covers him has been dipped in blood, and he is known by the name “Word of God”.

And the warriors of the sky ride behind him upon white steeds, clad in clean, white linen. And he has a sharp-edged sword coming out of his mouth with which to subdue the nations, and he will shepherd them with a staff of iron. He treads on the winepress holding the wine of the wrath of the will of God, the ruler of all.

And written on his cloak and on his thigh is the name: King of all kings, Lord of all lords.

4^th Michaelmas

October 20, 2019

Revelation 19: 11- 16

In our unsettling times, it can be hard to hear the message in today’s reading. Its tone seems strong, harsh even. But a closer reading can reveal a pattern of truth.

Schongauer

This tone is a kind of mask. It is the face of the archangel Michael that the Christ being wears at the moment, the earnest expression that threatens the adversarial powers who intimidate humankind. The reading reassures us that He, who judges justly and battles for truth is the guiding force in the evolution of our humanity.

He is pictured as wearing a cloak dipped in blood, with an iron shepherd’s staff. This is a picture for the iron in our blood, which keeps us strong, upright and moving decisively forward. This iron is strengthened yearly by our breathing of the meteoric iron in the atmosphere as the earth moves through the late summer meteor showers. With it comes an infusion of heavenly intent.

His two-edged, discerning sword—the creative Word of God—strikes down the nations, perhaps not so much because they need punishing, but because each nation has its season. A nation rises and falls according to what the human evolution toward love needs at any given time.

Mystic Winepress

He treads on the winepress containing the wine of God’s will. This ‘wrath’ of God’s will is transformational, regenerative, perhaps like a furious cleaning that creates order. This will of God separates out impurities, creating a purifying essence, a healing wine.

We are being reminded that it is time for the old and no longer useful in us to be discarded; that we need to join the warriors in white; for we are to press the essence of our lives, our love, into a nourishing drink in support of what the angels are trying to accomplish with us.