4th Michaelmas 2008, Shepherding King

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

Revelation 19, 11-16

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 strike the nations down, 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 Sunday

October 26, 2008

Rev. 19: 11 – 16

  

In the created world, one of the primary polarities is that of gender. This division extends even into the plant world. There are trees that are paired. In order to be fruitful, the male and female of the species must be nearby.

Today’s reading is paired with that of last week. We saw the majestic picture of the cosmic woman, clothed in the radiance of loving-kindness, crowned with the radiance of star thinking, standing above the moon chalice of the earthly. She was giving birth, but child was threatened with extinction by a fiery red dragon. She represents the ideal of the human soul, struggling to give birth to the Christ-Child within, threatened by destructive elements that lurk in the human constitution.

Today’s reading contains her spirit counterpart. Her Child is grown into the great cosmic warrior-king, the I AM. Royal, sovereign and active on behalf of the will of God, He rides on the white steed of pure thinking. His two-edged sword of discernment fights for truth and justice. And his garment is dipped into the purity of his sacrificial human blood. He is followed by the hosts of those who, through His sacrifice and their own, have risen to the heavenly spheres through  purity of thought and heart.

The cosmic woman and the cosmic warrior-king are two positive aspects of the future of humanity. Our souls struggle to give birth to the Son God within. But this spirit birth is threatened by the tendency toward selfish, destructive egotism. This dragonish element actually resides in our blood. He who would be born within us will become the shepherding king in and among us. He wields His sword of discernment and with his staff of meteoric iron rules and subdues the negative elements in our blood, ‘purifying it and making it spirit-receptive’.

The Lord King’s upright staff of iron is directed at the destructive fiery dragon element in us, our self-centered devouring egotism. Our egotism is purified by the sovereign Christ element of self-sacrifice. United with the sacrifice of His own Blood, we too will live among those clad in white, who follow Him in purity of thought. We too will be a part of the living stream of human evolution. We too will be those who follow God’s will, what God wants for humanity.

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4th Michaelmas 2009, Tme to Change

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

Revelation 19, 11-16

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 strike the nations down, 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 25, 2009

Revelation 19: 11 – 16

Today’s reading speaks of a white rider on a white horse who judges justly and battles for justice.

In a medieval legend, a hermit on a journey meets a young man who becomes his traveling companion. But the hermit becomes dismayed when after a night of hospitality in a castle, the companion appears to have stolen a golden cup, which he then offers to thieves the next night after their rather inhospitable hospitality. Further along it seems the young man sets fire to a house from which he begged a drink. With herbs he helps a young ill boy to his death, and the boy’s father, their guide in the mountains, he pushes off a cliff. When the hermit finally protests, his companion reveals that he is Michael the Archangel. He explains that the golden cup was poisoned; by taking it, he saved the king’s life and ended the lives of the robbers. The burned down house will reveal an unknown but invaluable treasure. The ill boy not saved would have grown to be a criminal, like his father their guide, who was a thief and murderer.

Michael then says: Often, before God, what is just seems unjust in the eyes of human beings.

And so we temper and broaden our expectations of what inner and outer justice means. For in the words of John O’Donohue:

Michael, Richard Kroft

The mind of time is hard to read.

We can never predict what it will bring,

Nor even from all that is already gone

Can we say what form it finally takes;

For time gathers its moments secretly.

Often we only know it’s time to change

When a force has built inside the heart

That leaves us uneasy as we are.[1]

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[1]  John O’Donohue, “For the Time of Necessary Decision”, in Blessing the Space Between Us, p. 143.

4th Michaelmas 2010, Forge Us

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

Revelation 19, 11-16

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 strike the nations down, 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 Sunday

October 24, 2010

Revelation 19: 11-16

Even in the mild climate of Southern California, we are no strangers to wind storms, firestorms, flooding. They demonstrate the incredible power and strength that manifests in the natural world. They can strip the leaves off trees, down the deadwood. They are nature pruning itself, ridding itself of the no longer useful. They are a part of life.

Today’s reading is a stormy one. It gives us a mighty picture of the strength and power of the Michaelic countenance of Christ. He rides a white horse, the image of the purified soul. He is loyal to truth and true justice. The cloak that covers Him, is dipped in His own blood of sacrifice. And although no one knows His inner name, we call Him the Logos, the creating Word of God. He it is who impels evolution.

We may wonder that it says that He strikes the nations down, but it is part of rightful evolution that cultures, nations rise and fall. His winepress extracts the useful essence of every human life, of every culture, to nourish the future. On His cloak of sacrifice and on His thigh, the ‘pillar’ on which He stands, it is written that He is the King of kings, the true and just leader of all cultures, of all of humanity, into our future development.

It is a powerful picture, and an uncomfortable one. But the old, the no-longer-useful, the no-longer-living must be cut away, wrenched free from that which is capable of moving into the future. We too can become those in clad in white, who have cut away the deadwood and are ready to ride into the future. In the words of the poet, we pray:

Strike, too, O Michael,

Red human hearts as well

Lightning-like let surprise

Waken our clouded eyes.

Kindle our thoughts with sight

Till they leap crystal-bright.

Forge us, O Autumn Lord,

Fiery, sun-like

Into your sword.[1]

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[1] Christy MacKaye Barnes, “Autumn Sun”

4th Michaelmas 2011, Purifying Essence

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

Revelation 19, 11-16

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 strike the nations down, 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 23, 2011

Revelation 19: 11- 16

Especially 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.

This tone is the mask of the archangel Michael that the Christ being wears at the moment, the earnest gesture that threatens the adversarial powers that threaten humankind. The message 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 replenished 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; not so much because they need punishing, but because each nation has its season. A nation rises and falls according to what human evolution needs at any given time.

He treads on the winepress containing the wine of God’s will. This ‘wrath’ of God’s will is regenerative, perhaps like a cleaning fury 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, to squeeze the essence of our lives into a nourishing drink in support of what the angels are trying to accomplish with us. 

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4th Michaelmas 2012, Overcomers

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

Revelation 19, 11-16

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 strike the nations down, 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

Oct 21, 2012

Revelation 19:11-16

The Rider on the White Horse has a name that only He Himself knows. It is a name only He can say: I AM. I AM the I AM, who was, who is, and who is to come. Many crowns I have, for I have ruled over many ages. Once I appeared in a burning thorn bush. Now I appear as a Kingly Shepherd-Warrior. I Am cloaked in blood, because blood is the carrier of living Selfhood.

We too, miraculously, bear the name that is both common and secret. For no one can mean what I mean when I say ‘I.’ This name is God’s gift to us, His gift of the seed of His divine essence. We too bear many crowns, the symbols of all that we have overcome.

The White Rider rides in our blood. One might say He helps us to conquer the nations in us, that is, to overcome our genetics and heredity. The warriors in white are all those overcomers who have already crossed the threshold before us. They come to His aid, and ours, in battling that which would subdue our true selfhood, put it to sleep; they come to do battle with that which would destroy the seed of the divine in us. The sword of the Word—I AM—cuts us free from deceptions, delusions, fear.  For only one force is true, faithful and truly sovereign—the greater I AM. 

The Christian Community

4th Michaelmas 2013, Life Lessons

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

Revelation 19, 11-16

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 Sunday

October 20, 2013

Revelation 19:11-16

 

A child who breaks a window needs to learn to make amends by paying for a new one. Or perhaps the child could even learn how to repair and replace broken windows himself—a life-skill acquired that will serve him 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, 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 draw a certain comfort from it nonetheless; 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, lesson 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 relationship with him and others, repairing our own brokenness and  acquiring crowning  life skills.

Through man, perhaps difficult, life lessons we can learn the art of 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, written in our conscience.

3rd Michaelmas 2006, Womb of Light

2^nd 3^rd or 4^th Michaelmas

Revelation 12: 1-17

And a momentous image was unveiled in the world of spirit: a woman, clothed with the radiant power of the sun, the moon under her feet, her head adorned with the crown of the twelve stars of heaven. And she is with child and cries out in the labor and pain of giving birth.

Woman Clothed with Sun, Arild Rosenkrantz

And at the same time a second image was revealed in the heavens: a great fiery-red dragon with seven heads and ten horns. On its head it has seven crowns and its tail is sweeping a third of all the stars in heaven and dashing them onto the earth. And the dragon is standing before the woman about to give birth, so that when she bears the child he can eat it up. And she bore a child, a son ”who would shepherd all nations with a rod of iron.” And the woman’s child was caught up to God and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness where she has a place that God keeps ready there, so that they can take care of her for days numbering one thousand two hundred sixty.

And a war flared up in the spirit world. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. And the dragon fought in the midst of his own angels, but he was not strong enough, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. Down came the dragon, the giant, the serpent, the evil one called both Satan and the devil, deceiver of all the world. Onto the earth he came hurtling down, and all his angels with him.

And I heard a great voice in heaven, saying:

Now can begin the working which proceeds from our God—

The power to heal the world,

The power to transform all being,

The power to draw everything into godly being.

Arisen is the spirit leadership of his Christ.

Overthrown is the accuser of our brothers,

He who accused them night and day before the countenance of God.

They have overcome him through the blood and the sacrificial power of the Lamb

And by the divine Word to which they bore witness.

They did not love their own lives too dearly, and they did not fear death.

Therefore, rejoice you heavens

And all who lodge therein!

But woe to the earth and the sea:

For the Adversary has come down to you,

And he seethes with measureless fury,

For he knows that his time is short.

And when the dragon recognized that he had been cast onto the earth, he began to persecute the woman who had borne the son. Then the woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she could fly into the desert to her appointed place, where she is to be nourished for a cycle of time, for cycles of time, and for half a cycle of time, far from the face of the serpent.

And the serpent opened his mouth and spewed out a river of water after the

woman so she would be swept off her feet by the river. But then the earth came to the woman’s assistance; it opened its mouth and swallowed the river which the dragon spewed from his mouth. And the dragon burned with fury against the woman. He stormed away to make war on the rest of the woman’s seed, people who keep to the divine world aims and who are united with the destiny and witnessing of Jesus. As I saw this I was standing on the sandy shore of the sea.

3^rd Michaelmas Sunday

Birth of Light, Roland Tiller

October 15, 2006

Revelation 12: 1-17

The Book of Revelation describes mighty events. These are letters from the spiritual world to us. They apply both to great spans of time, and also to our individual lives. The cast of characters are both great spiritual beings and at the same time parts of our own souls.

There is the soul woman in all of us who is about to give birth to the spirit child. The very existence of this child is opposed by destructive beings who once lived in spiritual realms and now live on earth. For the time came when the heavens had to send the forces of destruction to the earth, so that we human being would grow strong in dealing with them. Heaven was cleansed so that the heavens were free to offer us the power to heal, the power to transform, the power to spiritualize both the earth and ourselves.

The dragon persecutes us, breathing destruction. But we are given wings of prayer with which to rise to a place of nourishment and strength. The dragon seeks to drown us. But the absorptive power within our souls’ own groundedness in the earth keep us from being swept away. The dragon breathes a burning fire, but again our soul’s solidity finds the cooling waters with which to smother the flames.

The forces of soul with which we defend ourselves from the dragon are the forces of Christ, he who lives in the deepest part of our souls. He gives us the resurrection force with which to rise above the dragon. He gives us the absorptive power to accept that we must battle evil. He gives us the power with which to subdue the dragon force within.

All this takes place at a depth within which is mostly for us a darkness. But it is the darkness of a womb, that one day will give birth to light. We shall not fear the darkness.

In the words of Rilke:

I love the dark hours of my being.

My mind deepens into them.

There I can find, as in old letters,

the days of my life, already lived,

and held like a legend, and understood.

Then the knowing comes: I can open

to another life that’s wide and timeless. [1]

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[1] Rilke, The Book of Hours, Love Poems to God, trans. by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, p. 51

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