New Year's Day 2012, Flame of Compassion

The Gospel of John, 1:1-18

transl. Adam Bittleston

In the very beginning was the Word,

And the Word was with God,

And the Word was God.

He was with God in the very beginning.

All things came into being through Him,

And without Him came into being nothing

That has come into being.

In him was Life,

Roland Tiller

And the Life was the Light of mankind.

The Light sines in the Darkness,

And the Darkness did not grasp it.

There came to be a man, sent from God,

His name Ioannes.

He came for testimony,

That he should testify of the Light,

That all might have faith through him.

He was not the Light,

But came to testify of the Light.

For the Light that in truth endures,

That illumines every man,

Was coming into the World.

He was in the World,

And the World came into being through Him

Yet the World did not know Him.

He came to the separate,

Yet the separate men did not receive Him.

But those who received Him—

To them He gave full power

To become children of God,

Those who have faith in His name.

They have their being

Not from the bloodsteams,

Not from the will of the flesh,

Not from the will of a man,

But from God.

And the Word became flesh,

And made his dwelling among us,

And we saw His glory,

Glory of one born from the Father alone,

With abundance of grace and truth.

Ioannes testified of Him, proclaiming,

That is He of whom I said:

He Who comes after me

Takes His place above me

Because He was before me.

From the abundance of His Being

We have all received

Grace upon grace.

The Law was given through Moses;

Grace and truth came into being

Through Jesus Christ.

God no-one has beheld ever;

The son Who is born of Him alone

And Who has His Being

At the Father’s breast,

Has come to lead our seeing.

Holy Nights

January 1, 2012

John 1: 1-18

Words contain a great mystery. They are handed down to us by our parents. Words are a legacy of the memory of how the world is structured, structured with beings, with actions, with qualities. Words are also the garments of thoughts. Thoughts not only reflect the past; they can also create the future.

This creating power of the Word manifested in the ancient past as the creation of the world. The Word’s first creation: Let there be light. The Word became light.

The creative Word is still resounding as a sounding power, creating the future. Now it says: ‘Let there be love’. But unlike the first creation, this resounding of the Word requires our human cooperation. Human beings must hear it; human beings must take its creative power into themselves.

Christ Jesus is the prototype of the human being who takes into Himself the divine force of creating love and shines it forth as a revelation. Through Christ, through Christ living in us, working in us, God’s grace shines forth into the world. Through Christ living and working in us, the truth of human creation reveals itself: ‘I have said you are ‘gods’[1]. The poet expresses it thus:

You were there in the beginning

you heard the story, you heard the merciless

and tender words telling you where you had to go.

….

you couldn't live

so close to the live flame of that compassion

you had to go out in the world and make it your own

so you could come back with

that flame in your voice, saying listen...

this warmth, this unbearable light, this fearful love...

It is all here, it is all here.[2]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] John 10:34-37 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’?  If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside—what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?

Jesus’ reference is to Psalm 82: ‘God presides in the great assembly; he renders judgment among the “gods”…. “I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’

[2] David Whyte “In the Beginning” in Fire in the Earth

New Year's Eve 2009, Offering Light

New Year's Eve

Genesis 1: 1-8

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.

And God called the light day and the darkness he called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”

And God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.

And God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning. A second day. 

And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

Blake

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

Blake

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

New Year’s Eve

December 31, 2009

Genesis 1:1-8

  

God’s very first act of creation was to generate light. At first diffuse, He separated the darkness out and gave the light form in sun, moon and stars. And finally He created the Light-Form of the Human Being. We are created as an image of God. Like God, the human being is a creator.

Iris Sullivan

Tonight, at the midnight hour, at this generation of a new year, our noblest thoughts and highest hopes are given a particular power. Normally what we think and strive toward is received by the angels and the archangels, the angels closest to us. They work as best they can with what we offer them, to help bring the future into being. But on New Year’s, the portals to the heavenly staircase are, for a moment, thrown open. Our noblest thoughts rise all the way up to the highest hierarchies. They in turn, give our offerings a particularly strong power to become reality. At New Year’s, the light of the future begins to take form.

Strange to think that perhaps God needs what we have to offer, in order to create the future; that He invites our creativity. In the words of Nelly Sachs,

  

…Perhaps God needs the longing, wherever else shall it dwell,

….And perhaps is invisible soil from which roots of stars grow and swell -

….Perhaps in the sky of longing worlds have been born of our love -

….Around us already perhaps future moons, suns, and stars blaze in a fiery wreath.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Nelly Sachs, (Translated by Ruth and Matthew Mead, in A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now, ed. by Aliki and Willis Barnstone)

Holy Nights 2012, Born in Us

Holy Nights

1 John 4: 7-13

Sulamith Wulfing

Dear brothers, let us bear love toward one another, for true love comes from God; everyone who is truly loving is born of God and knows God.

Whoever does not truly love has not known God, for God is love.

And this is what revealed God’s love among us, that God has sent into the world his only begotten Son in order that we might live through Him.

God’s love consists in this: not in the way that we have loved him, but that he has loved us, and has given his Son to save us from the banishment of sin.

My dearly beloved, if God has so loved us, so also should we bear love toward one another.

Until now no one has seen God with his eyes. When we bring love to one another, God dwells in us and his love is fulfilled in us.

By this we know that we dwell in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

Holy Nights

Sulamith Wulfing

December 30, 2012

1 John 4: 7-13

Studies have shown that people often fall in love in response to the overtures of those who are in love with them. They fall in love because they are loved.

Today’s reading say that God’s love is different. God doesn’t love us because we love Him. God’s love generates itself. He loves us no matter whether we reciprocate or not. Even when humankind has turned away from Him, or has failed to recognize Him, He poured out His Being of Love in the form of His Son, the Word Incarnate.

Ancient scripture says that God’s intention for humankind was that we were to be His image and likeness. To become like Him means that we so evolve our capacity to love, that it can generate itself; that it can pour itself forth toward our fellow human beings; that our love is ever fresh, even if they don’t return it; even if they aren’t aware of it.

To be able to fulfill this high goal of love means that Christ has been born in us. It means that He dwells in our heart. In fact, that was why He came, hoping that we would give Him a dwelling in our heart. For as Angelus Silesius says

Though Jesus Christ in Bethlehem

A thousand times his Mother bore,

Is he not born again in thee

Then art thou lost for evermore.[1]

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[1] Angelus Silesius, “GOD MUST BE BORN IN THEE” in Selections from the Cherubinic Wanderer.

Holy Nights 13, Generate Light

Holy Nights

1 John 1: 1-10

William Holman Hunt

What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have beheld, and touched with our hands: the Word of God which bears all Life—the Life revealed itself, and we have seen it and so bear witness and proclaim it to you as the life which is through all cycles of time. It was with the Father and was revealed to us. What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

           

These things we write so that your joy may be complete.

And this it the message we have heard from Him and announce to you: that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness anywhere.

If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;

But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

If we say that we have not missed the mark, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our failings, He is faithful and righteous in order that he may forgive us our failings and may cleanse us from all sinfulness.

If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

Holy Nights

December 29, 2013

Iris Sullivan

1 John 1: 1-10

Light itself is invisible. This is not so easy to perceive—after all who sees the invisible? Sitting in a darkened movie theater, we see images on a screen, thrown by a strong light source behind us. Yet the only light we see in the space between screen and source is the scant light reflected from the dust motes floating in the air. Light makes things visible, manifests them. It is itself a kind of selfless, invisible medium in which we all live.

We human beings can also experience inner light. Our conscious awareness is like light, an invisible, selfless medium in which our thoughts and feelings, our acts manifest themselves. We can also generate more light. One of the seasonal prayers speaks of the heart light of prayer.

Much of what happens in our lives, both individually and collectively, is generated in the darkness of unawareness. Yet through prayer, we can generate light. Prayer and meditation become a light source, an inner lamp. This heart light can illuminate the events of our lives; it can ignite the light of understanding in us. In this way, darkness becomes a womb in which self-awareness and awareness of our place in the greater world, grows. For prayer unites us with God, who is Light. He is the One in whom all darkness of unawareness has been transformed into Light.

www.thechristiancommunity.org 

Holy Night 2007, Hearts Overflowing

Holy Nights

1 John 4: 7-13

Dear brothers, let us bear love toward one another, for true love comes from God; everyone who is truly loving is born of God and knows God.

Whoever does not truly love has not known God, for God is love.

And this is what revealed God’s love among us, that God has sent into the world his only begotten Son in order that we might live through Him.

God’s love consists in this: not in the way that we have loved him, but that he has loved us, and has given his Son to save us from the banishment of sin.

My dearly beloved, if God has so loved us, so also should we bear love toward one another.

Until now no one has seen God with his eyes. When we bring love to one another, God dwells in us and his love is fulfilled in us.

By this we know that we dwell in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 

Holy Nights

December 30, 2007

1 John 4: 7-13

A poet described a three-tiered fountain this way:

        High climbs the jet and, falling, fills

up to the brim the marble rounds

that overflow in veils and frills,

into a second basin's grounds;

the second, now too rich, forsakes

its waves and on the third one spills

and equally it gives and takes

and stirs and stills.[1]

This fountain is an image of God: the life-giving, bright water of love, falling from on high, filling and spilling over into all the world; the triune God as a threefold fountain, who continuously bestows His overflowing love and forgiveness on all below; a God of love both stirring and still.

The fountain is also an image also of the human being: hearts overflowing with love received from the Source; jetting upward toward Him; hearts filling and spilling out His love toward others. Equally we take from above and give to below. For we would be those of good will, whose hearts overflow, stirred by love, and who yet walk within the stillness of peace.

“By this we know that we dwell in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.” 1 John 4:13

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, “The Roman Fountain”

4th Holy Night 2008, Love Implanted

Holy Nights

1 John 4: 7-13

Dear brothers, let us bear love toward one another, for true love comes from God; everyone who is truly loving is born of God and knows God.

Whoever does not truly love has not known God, for God is love.

And this is what revealed God’s love among us, that God has sent into the world his only begotten Son in order that we might live through Him.

God’s love consists in this: not in the way that we have loved him, but that he has loved us, and has given his Son to save us from the banishment of sin.

My dearly beloved, if God has so loved us, so also should we bear love toward one another.

Until now no one has seen God with his eyes. When we bring love to one another, God dwells in us and his love is fulfilled in us.

By this we know that we dwell in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

Holy Nights

December 28, 2008

1 John 4:7-13

Shimmering in eternal realms is the great Tree of Life. In Egyptian myth this tree is pictured as the great world tree. Its branches support the star-studded sky, and it roots reach into the divine watery deep. Its trunk forms the axis around which the world revolves. In the myth, the god Osirus was encased in the trunk of this tree; he became the link between the earthly and the heavenly realms.

Christ Jesus carried this further: on the tree of the cross, the tree of death that became a tree of life, the divine creator’s arms are outstretched in an embrace of love that includes the whole world.

We are each a living replica of the tree of life. Founded at birth, we are rooted

in the divine depths. Our crown is in God’s starry heights. And at the very center of our being is the beauty of our heart, connected with the sun, shining with the creative power that unites all.  Our heart is the axis around which our whole world revolves.

This creative, sun-like center is the radiant beauty of love. It is supported on the one hand by mercy and on the other by justice. For the Christ-Sun on the cross was placed between the two thieves. To the one who was willing to assume responsibility for his own deeds, the Christ-Sun’s beauteous love showed mercy—“Today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” Luke 23:43 To the one who railed and egotistically cursed God, cutting himself off from divine love, there could remain only the severity of God’s justice.

A merciful and just love—this is the love that God enacted on the field of history. This is the love that He has implanted in each human heart, from there to be radiated forth as the life-giving Sun of Divine Human love. So, in the words of the poet:

Let us be like

…falling stars in the day sky.

Let no one know of our sublime beauty

As we hold hands with God

And burn

Into a sacred existence …

That surpasses

Every description of …love.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Hafiz, “The Day Sky”, in The Subject Tonight is Love, by Daniel Ladinsky, p. 24.

3rd Holy Night 2009, Freedom and Submission

Holy Nights

John 21: 15-25

After they had had held their meal together, Jesus said to Simon Peter: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than the others here?

Peter answered, “Lord you know that I am your friend”.

Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”

And he said to him again, a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?

Peter answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I am devoted to you.”

Jesus said to him, “Shepherd my young sheep.”

He asked him a third time, “Simon, Son of John, Are you my friend?”

Peter was heartbroken that he could say to him the third time, ‘Are you my friend’, and he answered, “Lord, you know all things; therefore you know that I am devoted to you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. Amen the truth I say to you, when you were younger you girded yourself and walked wherever you wished. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and Another will gird you and lead you where you do not wish to go.”

He told him this to indicate the kind of death by which he would bring the divine to revelation. Then he said to him, “Follow me.”

But Peter, turning, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved, following him. He was the one who had leaned upon his breast at the supper and had asked, “Lord, who is it who betrays you?”  When Peter now saw him, his asked, “Lord, what of this man, what is his task?”

Jesus said to him: If is my will that he remain until my coming, that does not affect your path. Follow me…”

From this day the story spread among the brethren that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until my coming, that does not affect your path.”

This is the disciple who here bears witness to these things and who has written all this. And we know that his testimony is true. There are also many other things that  Jesus did. If they were to be written down one by one, I do not think that the world itself could contain the books that would have to be written. 

Holy Nights

December 27, 2009

John 21:15-25

  

“When you were younger, you girded yourself and walked wherever you wished. But when you are old you will stretch out your hands and another will gird you and lead you where you do not wish to go.” John 21:18

These words of Christ to Peter sum up an archetypal pattern in human lives:

Tree of Life

there are periods when we are called upon to exercise an active will; and there are other times when we are subject to greater forces of destiny, beyond our control. These two poles, active self will, and being subject to outside forces, are two strands that run through our entire lives. It is our human task to find a balance and meaning between these strands—to exercise our freedom to choose and to do where we can, and to accept the greater forces of destiny where we must.

Today’s reading is taken from an episode that occurs after Christ’s life, death and resurrection. His own life and death are an archetypal image of how we can work with the two strands. In the beginning and middle of His life, he worked tirelessly at His mission of teaching and healing. He worked and prayed to His Father, in order to manifest His Father’s light and love on the earth.  And when the time came for Him to be subject unto death, He again asks for His Father’s help. Christ, the Son of God, asks in humble surrender—not my will, but Thine be done. Matthew 26:42, Luke 22:42

His entire life, both in the outwardly active times, and in times of submission, was centered on bringing the divine, the Father’s will, into revelation on earth.

This is indeed the true purpose of our human lives—to bring the Glory of God, the Father’s radiant good will in the heights, down into revelation on the earth. We pray this in the lines that Christ taught us to pray—Your will be done on earth as it is in the heavens. Matthew 6:10 Our uniting with the will of the Father is what cleanses our own will of its potential egotism. Receiving our will from the divine realms ensures that it is good will, will devoted to the good of the earth and mankind. Uniting our will with the Christ’s will, devoted to supporting others, is what brings peace onto the earth.