1st November Trinity
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 which 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 to the life of Jesus Christ, which serves as a testimony. Blessed is he who knows 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
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| Durer |
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 first born 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 aeon to aeon. Amen.
See: he comes in the realm of the clouds.
All eyes shall see him, also the eyes of those who pierced him.
And men 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 in the power of endurance which we possess through our one-ness 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 to Laodicia.
And I turned to see him whose voice was speaking to me. And as I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands, a figure like that of the Son of Man:
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 aeons. Mine is the key to the realm of death and of 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.”
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| Artist Unknown |
November 1, 2015
Revelation 1, 1-20
This reading gives us the image of Christ Jesus surrounded by golden lampstands. We are told that the lampstands represents seven congregations. This implies that one of the functions of a congregation is to provide light; perhaps the light of insight, or better, to be a kind of beacon, a light that beckons towards Christ in their midst.
Christ also holds seven stars in his right hand. We might infer that these stars are an image for the seven archangels who rule the various ages of time. They are the guiding stars of the congregations. Christ holds them all in his hand.
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| Michael, Arild Rosenkrantz |
The guiding archangel of our time is Michael, whose name is a question: Who is like God? With the image of Christ, the Son of Man, we have an answer: the one born out of death, shining, flaming gold like the sun, with the sword of the creative word of God issuing from his mouth. And he says to us, Do not be afraid. I bear the life of the world through all aeons. And perhaps we can hear the voice of Michael echoing, telling us as a congregation to become like the image of the Son of Man: full of life in spite of death, creative, and radiant.
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