3rd June Trinity, New Light and Sound

June Trinity

Crijn Hendricksz

John 3: 1-17

There was a man in the circle of the Pharisees, whose name was Nicodemus; he held high rank among the Jews. He came to Jesus in the night and said, “Master, we know that you are a high teacher of mankind, come to us from God, for no one can do such signs of the Spirit as you do unless God himself is working together with him in his deeds.”

Jesus answered and said to him, “The truth out of the spirit I say to you: whoever is not born anew from above cannot behold the kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born again when he is old? Can he return to his mother’s womb to be born again a second time?

Jesus answered, “the truth out of the spirit I say to you: whoever remains as he is, and does not come to a new birth out of the formative power of the water and out of the breath of the spirit [or, …and is not born anew out of the spiritual power of eternal becoming and out of being touched by the might of the spirit world] cannot enter into the kingdom of God. What is born out of earthly elements is of earthly nature. But what is born out of the breath of the spirit, is itself spirit. Do not wonder that I said to you that you must be born anew from above. The spirit wind blows where it will; you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from, or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born anew out of the breath of the spirit.

Nicodemus replied and said to him, “How can one attain this?”

Jesus answered, “You are a teacher of Israel and do not know? Amen, the truth I say to you: we speak of what we know, and we bear witness to what we have seen in the spirit, but none of you accepts our testimony. When I speak to you of earthly things and you do not believe them, how shall you believe when I want to speak to you of heavenly things? No one has ascended to the spiritual world who has not previously descended out of the spiritual world, that is, the Son of Man.

Just as Moses once lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who finds his power in their hearts can win a share in the higher life beyond time. God has so loved the world that he has given his only begotten Son. From now on, no one who fills himself with his power shall perish, for he will share in timeless, higher life. God did not send the Son into the world to condemn it, but in order that the world be saved [healed] through him, and not fall prey to ruin.”

June Trinity

June 14, 2015

John 3: 1-17

Each human being has two sets of parents. Our earthly parents made possible the birth of our physical body. At the same time a second set of parents are also at work. Mother Earth offers her great body to support, to nourish and sustain all her children. And our Spirit Father sends our eternal spirits into the earthly body, again and again. Yet, as the poet says, ‘our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.[1] We don’t remember the spiritual home from which we have come.

Christ’s conversation with Nicodemus tries to indicate that there is yet another layer to being born, another way, while we are still in bodies on earth. Our spirits can be touched by the power of development, touched by the might of the spiritual world. And this is the birth of a second Man in us. It is an awakening and a remembering. We awaken to the reality of our spiritual nature; we remember our spiritual home; we move on the breath of love.

When Nicodemus asks how to accomplish this, Christ foretells the deed that will make this possible for all human beings. He is lifted up on the cross, arms outstretched, embracing the whole world in love. He ascends to the place where the world is eternally created and sustained. He sends the living spirit of love and understanding to enlighten our thoughts.

He, Christ, is indeed the renewer of the world. Through our love for Him, we too can be reborn, here and now, out of the might and power of the good beings of the spiritual world.

…for many now can hear again

the word of angels: Do not fear!

New light and sound in us appear

for strengthened heart and wakened ear.[2]

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[1] William Wordsworth. 1770–1850, “ Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”

[2] Lent Song, German folk song, translation from Camphill

4th Easter 2007, Undercurrent of Joy

4^th Easter

John 15: 1-27

I AM the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he trims clean, so that it will be even more fruitful. You have already been purified by the power of the word that I have spoken to you.

Abide in me and I in you.

Just as the branch cannot bear fruit out of itself unless it is given life by the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you stay united with me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains united with me so that I can work in him, bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not remain united with me withers like a branch that is cut off. Such branches are gathered up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me, and my words live on in you, pray for that which you also will, and it shall come about for you. By this my Father is revealed, that you bear rich spiritual fruit and become ever more truly my disciples.

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Ground your being in my love, just as I have taken the aims of my Father into my will and live on in his love.

These words I have spoken to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is the task I put before you: that you love one another as I have loved you.

No man can have greater love than this, than that he offer up his life for his friends. You are my friends if you follow the task I have given you. No longer can I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I call you my friends because I have made known to you all that I have heard from my Father.

You did not choose me, but I have chosen you, and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruits should live on after you, so that what you ask the Father in my name he should give it to you. I say to you out of the fullness of my power: Love one another.

If the world hates you with hatred, remember that they hated me first. If you belonged to people in general, they would love you as belonging to them; but you do not belong to them, because I have chosen you out of mankind. That is why people hate you.

Remember the word I spoke to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master’. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have held on to my word, they will hold on to yours also. Everything that they do to you they will do as though they did it to me, for they do not know Him who sent me.

If I had not come and had not spoken to them, they would be without sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who turns in hatred against me turns in hatred against my Father also. If I had not done deeds among them, deeds which no one else has ever done, they would be without guilt. But now they have seen me, and have still hated both me and my Father.

But it was to fulfill what is written in their law: ‘They hated me without a cause.’

But when the Comforter comes, the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bring knowledge of me and will be my witness. And you also will be my witnesses, because you have been united with me from the very beginning. 

4^th Sunday after Easter

April 29, 2007

John 15: 1-27

A grapevine has deep roots. They draw up water and minerals, life and strength, from deep in the earth. As a living being, the vine directs life and strength upward into the branches, the unfolding leaves, the developing fruit, so that each part can fulfill its task.

At Easter, Christ descended into the depths. He rooted Himself forever in the earth, becoming the Vine of Life through which all life now rises and flows. We are the branches of His life.

Poets sometimes sense this joyous undercurrent of life that streams through all things. Wordsworth says:

                        …And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns

And the round ocean and the living air

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought

And roll through all things.[1]

While with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

We see into the life of things.[2]

By sending His life into and through us, Christ makes possible for us a depth of joy. He gives us strength to fulfill our life’s tasks. He makes it possible for us to become fruitful in the ways of love.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] William Wordsworth, “Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey,” William Wordsworth: The Major Works, Oxford Classics, p. 134

[2] Ibid. p. 132 

Good Friday 2010, God's Human Face

Holy Week, Good Friday

John 19: 1-15

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him scourged. The soldiers braided a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and threw a purple cloak around him, walked up to him and said, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and struck him in the face.

And again Pilate went out to them and said, “Behold, thus I bring him out to you, so that you may know that I find no guilt in him.

And Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple cloak. And Pilate said to them, “Behold, the man!” [Behold, this is Man!]

When the chief priests and the Temple attendants saw him, they shouted, “Crucify him, crucify him!”

Then Pilate said, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.”

Then the Jewish leaders replied, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he has made himself a Son of God.”

When Pilate heard these words, he was even more alarmed, and again he went into he courthouse and said to Jesus, “From where have you received your mission?” But Jesus gave him no answer.

Then Pilate said to him, “You will not speak with me? Do you not know that I have the power to release you and also to crucify you?”

Jesus answered, “You would not have power over me unless it had been given to you on high. Therefore the greater burden of destiny falls upon him who handed me over to you.”

From then on, Pilate tried to set him free. But the people shouted, “If you release him, you are no longer a friend of Caesar, for everyone who makes himself a king is against Caesar.”

When he heard these words, Pilate led Jesus out, and sat down on the judgment seat in the place called the Pavement, in Hebrew Gabbatha. I was the day of the preparation of the Passover Festival, about midday. And he said to the people, “Behold, this is your King.” But they shouted, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!”

Pilate asked them, “Shall I crucify your King?”

And the chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar!”

Good Friday Evening

April 2, 2010

John 19: 1-15

When we are born, the bones at the tops of our heads have not yet grown

Josephine Wall

together. They are still open. The Father’s sun, moon and stars still shine their living cosmic forces down into us through this ‘skull skylight’. They pour the living, forming forces of the cosmos into us, helping us shape the growing instrument of the body.

As we grow, the skylight closes. To quote Wordsworth:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!  

Shades of the prison-house begin to close  

        Upon the growing Boy,….  

At length the Man perceives it [heaven] die away,  

And fade into the light of common day.[1] 

The window to heaven shuts. But all the while, we are shaping our own unique and very individual faces.

Grunewald

Christ opened a new skylight into the human constitution. At Jesus’ Baptism, “as he came up out of the water, he saw the heavens were torn open, and he saw the spirit of God descending upon him like a dove.” Mark 1:9 – 11 Jesus, the unique individual, is born anew, from above, through water and the Holy Spirit. The breadth and power of the cosmic dimension are reunited with the uniquely individual human. And thus a new human being is formed. Christ Jesus becomes the New Adam, our new ancestor. Uniting ourselves with him, the heavens will open again for us too.

Christ Jesus is also God with a human face. His disciples were so united with him in love that they began to look like him, to wear His face. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Judas came along for the arrest because someone who knew Him had to point out which one to take prisoner.

God, eternally divine, and eternally human, now wears a face that shows what every human being experiences on earth—from radiant joy to deepest anguish--and everything in between. The face of Christ, above all, shows deep compassion, born of an intensely intimate understanding of the human condition. There is no interior space that he has not inhabited. He danced at weddings, and experienced the joy of friendship. He also experienced the terrible and lonely suffering of torture and execution. But above all He knew the mighty joyous sense of triumph of fulfillment, of the accomplishment of overcoming for the first time the deepest tragedy that has befallen us—death itself.

Memling

Scientists studying the brain have recently discovered what are called mirror neurons, sensory centers of empathy that allow us to read faces, and to perceive what others are feeling. Through this perceptual mirroring, we can respond to others appropriately.

The face that Christ presents to us in art is often earnest. His face expresses an intent seriousness. It is as though He were silently asking: will you mirror Me? I have plumbed the depths of human experience in order to understand you, to gather you up from the depths. Will you take Me as seriously as I take you? Will you now plumb your own depths, to find Me there?

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Wordsworth, "Ode On Intimations of Immortality"