Good Friday 2008, Many Voices Shout

Good Friday

March 21, 2008

John 19: 1-15

The Gospel reading[s around the crucifixion are ones of enormous paradox and tension. We are presented with a wrenching picture: Christ, the Creator, the Divine I AM, is reduced in mockery to the caricature of a king. They dress Him in royal purple. His crown is of thorns, his scepter a reed with which is himself is struck.

And yet ringing through the whole account are words of great truth. Some truths are spoken in malice by half-consciousness human beings. They convey an irony and truth of which the speakers are unaware. They say for instance, ‘It is necessary that one man should die for the people’. Or, ‘nothing deserving of death has been done by him.’

And through it all, Christ stands, absorbing their hatred and their blows. He even clarifies the proceedings in the beginning by speaking the great truth that ultimately justifies for them their execution: “I am the Son of God.” In speaking these words, He gives them what they need to make happen what He came to do.

The players in this great world drama all represent parts of the human being: in each of us there is a high priest who upholds tradition, the way thing are and must remain. In all of us there is also a Pontius Pilate, put in a position of discernment, who tries to do the right and just thing and fails, overwhelmed by impossible forces far beyond his own control.

And within and among all of us there stands the Christ, gently steering the whole procedure, speaking the great truths of His eternal existence, patiently bearing our own denials of Him and our weaknesses. He has placed Himself at our feet, guiding our steps, cleansing our way, turning our failures into positive strength. He is sovereign, a king over the world of truth. “For this I was born,” he said, “and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.” Jn 18:37 The truth is: that He embodies love.

We are subject to the shouting of many voices in our lives, some of them from within our own souls. Some of these voices would enslave, deny, and destroy us. But we can also hear the voice of truth amid the noise. Yet facing and doing what truth reveals can require great courage. For the greatest aim of a human life is to love God back with all that we have.

Thomas Aquinas wrote,

I said to God, “Let me love you.

And He replied, “Which part?”

“All of you, all of you”, I said.

“Dear,” God spoke ….”It is a feat way

beyond your courage and strength.

You would run from me

if I removed my

mask.”

I said to God again,

“Beloved I need to love you—every aspect, every pore.”

And this time, God said,

“There is a hideous blemish on my body,

though it is such an infinitesimal part of my Being—

could you kiss that if it were revealed?”

“I will try, Lord, I will try.”

And then God said,

“That blemish is all the hatred and

cruelty in this

world.”[1]

God’s love is so great that it can embrace hatred and cruelty. We are in the process of growing a love that capable. Sometimes the truth is spoken through the mouths of even our enemies. Again, Thomas Aquinas:

every truth, without exception—no matter

who makes it—is from God.[2]

Christ’ whole life and death summed up the greatest aim of the human soul—to love God with all we have, and to love others as ourselves. In truth, they are the same. For, just as He is in us, Christ is in everyone else as well, in that which is patient and long-suffering, forgiving.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Thomas Aquinas, “Could You Embrace That? in Love Poems from God, Daniel Ladinsky, p. 136.

[2] Thomas Aquinas, “On Behalf of Love”, Love Poems from God, Daniel Ladinsky,, p. 123.

1st November Trinity, 2007, Soul's Sunlight

1^st 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

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 this 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.”

1^st Sunday November Trinity

October 28, 2007

Revelation 1:1-20

The sun shines like a great globe in the heavens. It illuminates the sky and the earth, giving objects clear outlines, delineating light and shadow, shining on everything in an equally objective way. It draws growth upward. Its light is so intense that we cannot gaze at it directly.

Today’s reading unveils the dead and risen Christ as a being like the sun:

Head and hair shining white…

Eyes like a flame of fire…

Feet glowing…

Breast encircled with gold…

Face shining like the sun in its full power.[1]

The intense light of His being reveals all, both light and shadow, in an entirely objective way. In His light we see ourselves as the creatures of light and shadow that we are. Yet his gaze also contains another element. It is the fire, the living force and power of love. He shines on us in love, coming to our aid, banishing fear, helping us to rise and stand. Bathed in his light, objective but not judging, we are helped and healed, encouraged to grow.

Thomas Aquinas says:

Nothing in existence is turned away.[2]

The delight a child can know,

My Lord confesses He experiences

Whenever He looks at you.

God sees nothing in us

That He has not given.[3]

He is our soul’s sunlight. In Him we rise and grow.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Rev. 1: 13-16

[2] Thomas  Aquinas, “The Mandate”, in Love Poems from God, by Daniel Ladinsky, p. 127

[3] Thomas Aquinas, “ Whenever He Looks at You”, Ibid., p. 132.