3rd November Trinity 2016, The Great Suffering

3rd November Trinity

Durer, Adoration of the Lamb ,Metropolitan Museum

Revelation 7: 9-17

Next I looked and saw a great crowd beyond anyone’s power to count, from every nation and all races and peoples and tongues standing before the throne and before the Lamb draped in garments of white and with palm branches in their hands, and they shout with a great voice saying, “Healing and help [salvation] to our God who sits on the throne and through the Lamb.”

And all the angels were standing in a ring around the throne and the elders and the four living beings, and they fell down in front of the throne upon their faces and adored God saying,

Yea, so be it. Amen. 

All the blessing power of the Word, that creating permeates the world, all the revealing might of the spirit, that enlightens the senses appearance, all the light of wisdom that leads us to true knowledge, the secret of transformation which gives worth to all being, that brings the world forward, and all the strength and power of the spirit –they belong to our God from aeon to aeon. Yea, so be it, Amen. [To our God be blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength for an age of ages. Amen.”]

And one of the elders spoke up, asking me: “These people draped in garments of white, who are they and where did they come from?”

And I said to him, “Good sir, you yourself know.”

And he said to me: "These are the ones just come from the great Suffering. They washed their garments clean and made them shining white in the blood of the Lamb.

That is why they can stand here before the throne of God

And serve him day and night in his temple.

The One who sits on the throne shall settle down upon them [dwell upon them].

They shall not hunger ever again, nor thirst again;

The sun shall not bear down too hard upon them, nor anything burn them,

Because the Lamb, in the midst of the throne, will be their shepherd

And guide them to the springs of the water of life,

And God will wipe away each teardrop from  their eyes."

3rd November Trinity

November 13, 2016

Revelation 7: 9-17

The word 'suffer' has two meanings. One meaning is to mourn, to fell sorrow or regret over loss. The second meaning is to 'undergo', to endure patiently, to allow.

Grunewald Crucifixion

In the reading today, we hear about those who have undergone the Great Suffering. They are those who on earth have patiently endured life's losses. One existential loss we all suffer under is our lack of an immediate awareness of God and his angels. We long for a lost paradise. This is a trial certainly, but a suffering to be endured for a purpose. This very lack of awareness is the basis for our freedom of choice. We can choose to rail against our fate. Or we can decide to patiently endure this condition of separateness. And eventually, our suffering will bear fruit. For pain and suffering properly endured are purifying. Through suffering endured, our life garments are washed clean of egotism.

Master of the Holy Trinity, Mosoc

Pain and suffering create organs of perception. Our inner eye opens to the great suffering of others. They open to the great suffering of the divine on behalf of humanity. We become aware that the divine world needs our help, our active participation. Our acknowledgment, our praise and honoring of the great divine work of World Karma strengthens God's purpose in the world. 

Those whose eye is opened can, like Job, begin to see. They can begin to say, The Lord gives, and the Lord takes back. May the name of the Lord be praised.*

*Job 1: 21
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3rd November Trinity 2014, New Flowers

3^rd November Trinity

Throne of God

November 16, 2014

Revelations 7: 9-17

Next I looked and saw a great crowd beyond anyone’s power to count, from every nation and all races and peoples and tongues standing before the throne and before the Lamb draped in garments of white and with palm branches in their hands, and they shout with a great voice saying, “Healing and help [salvation] to our God who sits on the throne and through the Lamb.”

And all the angels were standing in a ring around the throne and the elders and the four living beings, and they fell down in front of the throne upon their faces and adored God saying,

Yea, so be it. Amen. [To our God be blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength for an age of ages. Amen.”]

All the blessing power of the Word, that creating permeates the world, all the revealing might of the spirit, that enlightens the senses appearance, all the light of wisdom that leads us to true knowledge, the secret of transformation which gives worth to all being, that brings the world forward, and all the strength and power of the spirit –they belong to our God from aeon to aeon. Yea, so be it, Amen.

And one of the elders spoke up, asking me: “These people draped in garments of white, who are they and where did they come from?”

And I said to him, “Good sir, you yourself know.”

And he said to me:

These are the ones just come from the great Suffering. They washed their garments clean, and made them shining white in the blood of the Lamb.

That is why they can stand here before the throne of God

And serve him day and night in his temple.

The One who sits on the throne shall settle down upon them [dwell upon them].

They shall not hunger ever again, nor thirst again;

The sun shall not bear down too hard upon them, nor anything burn them,

Because the Lamb, in the midst of the throne, will be their shepherd

And guide them to the springs of the water of life,

And God will wipe away each teardrop from their eyes.

3^rd November Trinity

November 16, 2014

Revelations 7: 9-17

In life we experience the events and conditions of the world; we receive the actions, the words and thoughts of others. And we suffer because we are open to being acted upon.

One pre-Christian response to this fact of our existence was to remove oneself from suffering by cultivating non-attachment. This is perhaps not a bad start, for we frequently suffer because we are over-attached to outcomes; we may be egotistically trying to spare ourselves. Yet Christ, the God made human, taught us that suffering can have redemptive power, especially when undergone willingly and for the sake of others. Suffering can be a real eye-opener.

Hardship and adversity can have a purifying effect on our egotism. It can cleanse us of our prideful sense that we can control our own universe. Adversity endured can teach us that there are gracious gifts to be found in places we do not wish to go, gifts we didn’t know we wanted. It can teach us that suffering can lead to transformation.

Necessary suffering well encountered washes our soul garments clean. ‘Thy greater Will be done,’ can lead us to recognize that there is a greater purpose than our everyday minds can know. In suffering we can find the comfort and consolation of a God who intimately knows what we are going through. For He has been there Himself. Indeed, He continues to occupy the precincts of suffering so that He will be there for us when we find ourselves there.  He will help us to make something out of it. The poet describes this process:

…And if, in the changing phases of man's life

Snowdrops in Snow

I fall in sickness and in misery

my wrists seem broken and my heart seems dead

and strength is gone, and my life

is only the leavings of a life:

and still, among it all, snatches of lovely oblivion, and snatches

of renewal

odd, wintry flowers upon the withered stem, yet new, strange flowers

such as my life has not brought forth before, new blossoms of me

then I must know that still

I am in the hands of the unknown God,

he is breaking me down to his own oblivion

to send me forth on a new morning, a new man.[1]

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[1] D H Lawrence, “Shadows”