Easter Sunday 2012, Breath is Resurrection

Wolfhugel

Easter Sunday

Mark 16: 1-18

And when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint Him. And very early on the first day of the week, they went to the tomb just as the sun was rising. And they said to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?”

And looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back—and it was very large. And they went into the tomb. There they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clad in a white robe; and they were beside themselves with amazement. And he said to them, “Do not be startled; you seek Jesus of Nazareth the Crucified One. He is risen; He is not here; see, there is the place where they laid Him [his body]. But go, and say to his disciples and Peter “He will lead you to Galilee. There you will see Him as He promised you.”

            And they went out and fled from the tomb in great haste, for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and being awestruck, they were unable to say anything to anyone about what they had experienced.

When He had risen early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene from whom He had driven out seven demons. And she went and told those who had walked with Him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, their hearts could not grasp it.

After this He appeared in another form to two of them on the way as

He Qi

they were walking over the fields. And they went back and told the rest, but they could not open their hearts to their words either.

Afterwards He appeared to the eleven themselves as they were celebrating the meal. He reproached them for their lack of openness and for their hardness of heart, because they had not wanted to believe those who had seen Him, the Risen One.

And He said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the new message from the realm of the angels to the whole of creation. Whoever unites his heart with it  [believes] and is immersed in me [baptized] will attain the salvation. But whoever closes himself against it does not let the power of selflessness into his heart [does not let the power of My Self into his heart] will meet his downfall. And spiritual powers [these signs] will stand by those who unite themselves with it and will attend their path [believe]: Through the power of my being [in my name] they will drive out demons; they will speak a new language; serpents they will make upright, and poisons they are given to drink will not harm them. They will lay their hands on the sick, and give healing forces to them.

Easter Sunday

April 8, 2012

Mark 16:1-18

The heart is a house with many chambers and many doors. With each beat, doors open and doors close, letting in enlivened blood from the breath, and sending the spent to be renewed. Our heart is also the place where our souls and spirits reside. And the soul’s chambers also have doors.

Three days after his death, Christ appears in various unfamiliar ways to those who love Him. To the women at the tomb, He is a young man in white; to Mary Magdalene He seems to be a gardener until He calls her by name. The two on the way to Emmaus don’t recognize Him until He breaks bread. ‘Did our hearts not burn within us as he was speaking?’ they say. Yet even some of his devoted followers cannot open the soul door of their hearts to the possibility that He lives. When finally they all experience Him together, He chides them for their close-heartedness.

Collot d' Herbois

Christ is the being of Love. He says to them, to us—whoever unites his heart with the new message of Life, whoever is immersed in Me, in Love, will be healed of the rift between God and the human.

Our hearts are the key. They are the place where Love would dwell. The Sunday Service for the Children says that although Christ died, He, Love, becomes alive in the hearts of those who make room for Him there.

Every Easter His love is renewed in us. His warmth changes our heartbeat into jubilating, healing power. ‘See’, He says, ‘Here I am. I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door [of the heart] I will come in and share the holy meal with them and they with me.’ Rev 3:20 So rejoice and open. As the poet says:

Every breath is a resurrection.

…We're reborn in all the sacred parts

Of our own bodies:

the heart

… the brain

Releases its shower

Of sparks,

and the tear

Embarks on its pilgrimage

Down the cheek to meet

The smiling mouth.[1]

---

[1] ~ Gregory Orr ~ “Resurrection”, in Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved

Easter 2014, Beauty by Beauty

Easter Sunday

Mark 16: 1-18

And when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint Him. And very early on the first day of the week, they went to the tomb just as the sun was rising. And they said to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?”

And looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back—and it was very large. And they went into the tomb. There they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clad in a white robe; and they were beside themselves with amazement. And he said to them, “Do not be startled; you seek Jesus of Nazareth the Crucified One. He is risen; He is not here; see, there is the place where they laid Him [his body]. But go, and say to his disciples and Peter “He will lead you to Galilee. There you will see Him as He promised you.”

            And they went out and fled from the tomb in great haste, for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and being awestruck, they were unable to say anything to anyone about what they had experienced.

When He had risen early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene from whom He had driven out seven demons. And she went and told those who had walked with Him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, their hearts could not grasp it.

After this He appeared in another form to two of them on the way as they were walking over the fields. And they went back and told the rest, but they could not open their hearts to their words either.

Afterwards He appeared to the eleven themselves as they were celebrating the meal. He reproached them for their lack of openness and for their hardness of heart, because they had not wanted to believe those who had seen Him, the Risen One.

And He said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the new message from the realm of the angels to the whole of creation. Whoever unites his heart with it  [believes] and is immersed in me [baptized] will attain the salvation. But whoever closes himself against it does not let the power of selflessness into his heart [does not let the power of My Self into his heart] will meet his downfall. And spiritual powers [these signs] will stand by those who unite themselves with it and will attend their path [believe]: Through the power of my being [in my name] they will drive out demons; they will speak a new language; serpents they will make upright, and poisons they are given to drink will not harm them. They will lay their hands on the sick, and give healing forces to them.

Easter Sunday

April 20, 2014

Mark 16; 1-18

Today the world begins anew. The old ways have died. Some of them may even have been beloved, and we still grieve their passing. Yet the new ways are rising. We may not yet be able to see where they are leading.  At first, in the brightness of dawn, their forms are difficult to make out; for at dawn, a path is often covered in mist, still partially hidden in darkness. But over time the new path will reveal itself; the goal will appear more and more distinct, more and more real. And with courage and joy we will step forth on the journey, the journey towards our true humanity.

For what Christ has given to us this day is—ourselves. He has given us back the possibility to become what the Father intended us to be: designed in His image, according to His beauteous likeness. Now, over lifetimes we can walk the path toward the goal of our true being.  Today we can begin again. In the words of the poet:

The red dawn now is rearranging the earth

Grunewald

Thought by thought

Beauty by beauty

Each sunrise a link in the ladder

Thought by thought

Beauty by beauty

The ladder the backbone

Of shimmering deity

Thought by thought

Beauty by beauty

Child stirring in the web of your mother

Do not be afraid

Old man turning to walk through the door

Do not be afraid[1]

---

[1] Joy Harjo,  “MORNING SONG”, from How We became Human

Easter 2013, Part of the Process

Easter Sunday

Mark 16: 1-18

He Qi

And when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint Him. And very early on the first day of the week, they went to the tomb just as the sun was rising. And they said to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?”

And looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back—and it was very large. And they went into the tomb. There they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clad in a white robe; and they were beside themselves with amazement. And he said to them, “Do not be startled; you seek Jesus of Nazareth the Crucified One. He is risen; He is not here; see, there is the place where they laid Him [his body]. But go, and say to his disciples and Peter “He will lead you to Galilee. There you will see Him as He promised you.”

            And they went out and fled from the tomb in great haste, for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and being awestruck, they were unable to say anything to anyone about what they had experienced.

When He had risen early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene from whom He had driven out seven demons. And she went and told those who had walked with Him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, their hearts could not grasp it.

After this He appeared in another form to two of them on the way as

He Qi

they were walking over the fields. And they went back and told the rest, but they could not open their hearts to their words either.

Afterwards He appeared to the eleven themselves as they were celebrating the meal. He reproached them for their lack of openness and for their hardness of heart, because they had not wanted to believe those who had seen Him, the Risen One.

And He said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the new message from the realm of the angels to the whole of creation. Whoever unites his heart with it  [believes] and is immersed in me [baptized] will attain the salvation. But whoever closes himself against it does not let the power of selflessness into his heart [does not let the power of My Self into his heart] will meet his downfall. And spiritual powers [these signs] will stand by those who unite themselves with it and will attend their path [believe]: Through the power of my being [in my name] they will drive out demons; they will speak a new language; serpents they will make upright, and poisons they are given to drink will not harm them. They will lay their hands on the sick, and give healing forces to them.

Easter

March 31, 2013

Gruenewald

Mark 16: 1-18

A few weeks ago the bowl of the crescent new moon could be seen in the western sky. The faint outlines of the old moon could be seen in its arms. Night by night its cup slowly filled with light until it became full of the reflected light of the sun. For us in the north, in the days to come, the sunlight will continue to increase.

Christ, the great Sun-Being, came to earth and settled into the body of Jesus.  There He shone for three years. And then He died. Jesus body became the dark of the moon, when earth, moon and sun are aligned. And He irradiated death with the light of life.

On Easter morning the three women arrive at the tomb to see, not an empty corpse, but an angel. The angel tells them that Christ Jesus, whom they love, has gone ahead of them to the beautiful life-saturated land around the sea of Galilee. 

He is not Here, Peter Callesen. 

In Christ, with His death, a new crescent moon has been born. He holds the old moon, the old earth, in his arms. His light will gradually grow until it is full.

We are a part of this process. The new crescent moon of our souls has been born again. Christ has once again entered our rejoicing pulse of life. Gradually, cycle after cycle, our souls will fill with the loving light of the Christ Sun. The sun of Christ’s light will be reflected in us. And one day, when all is aligned, humanity will have become a new order of angels. And we will be the ones to say to the kingdoms of earth: He is risen; he walks before you, leading you into life.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Picture above: “He is not there.” by paper artist Peter Callesen, after the Risen One by Gruenewald (above). Notice how the cut-out of his body appears on the frame. http://www.petercallesen.com/

4th Passiontide, Palm Sunday 2007, Brother Donkey

4^th Passiontide

Memmo

Palm Sunday

Matthew 21: 1-11

And they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage by the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus sent two disciples ahead and said to them, “Go to the village which you see before you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there and her foal with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will let you take them right away.”

This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:

‘Say to the daughter of Zion,

Behold, your king comes to you in majesty.

Gentle is He, and He rides on a donkey and on a foal of the beast of burden.’

The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the foal, placed their garments on them, and Jesus sat on them.

           

Many out of the large crowd spread their clothes on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of them and followed Him shouted:

Hosanna to the Son of David!

Blessed is he who comes in the Name and Power of the Lord!

Hosannah in the highest! [Sing to Him in the highest heights!]

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is he?” The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

4^th Passiontide Sunday

Palm Sunday

April 1, 2007

Matthew 21: 1-11

This mysterious picture – Christ Jesus asks for a donkey and its foal to be brought to Him. Upon them He will ride into Jerusalem, the city of peace. Why donkeys? Why two?

Francis of Assisi famously called his body Brother Donkey. The donkeys of our bodies are the earthly means of conveyance for our souls and spirits. By nature, the donkey is stubborn and willful. For most of us, if the body decides to go somewhere, say, into illness, it is about all we can do to hang on for the ride.

Christ chooses donkeys as His means of conveyance to picture the final phase of His incarnation. He is choosing the human body as the instrument of His final battleground. His triumphal entry into Jerusalem foretells His full entry into the body of Jesus. He rides the donkey of the physical nature, both the old body, and the new immortal one he will inhabit at His resurrection. The people sense this; but their jubilation is premature. These two ‘donkeys’ are carrying Him where He wants to go – deeper into the body, into the suffering, even into the death that the body offers. Rejoicing will be appropriate days later when the body has been transformed at the Last Supper into a new form; when His suffering has borne fruit; when death has been overthrown because He has wrested human immortality from the death of matter.

Shuplyak

His body has become transformed. At the Last Supper and its iterations He wields the power to make bread and wine into His body and blood, so that He can feed us His own immortality. With His help, we too can make our sufferings fruitful. Through our connection with Him, bit by bit, we can build the new body that is not subject to death, the Christ-body that comes to life in us, through us, in our offering. 

www.thechristiancommunity.org

Good Friday 2014, The Null Point

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

April 18, 2014

John 19: 1-15

Christ is coming to the null point. In a few more hours, at the moment of His death, He will have completed his descent into the body of Jesus. He will have become fully and totally human As He is dying, He will descend into Jesus’s very bones. He will enter and take hold of the secret realm of life at the center of the bone marrow, the place where new blood, new life is generated. And He will take this powerful life-generating force with Him into the realm of death.

But meanwhile, he has allowed Himself to be made into an image, a picture of the mockery which human beings have made of humanity in their mistreatment of themselves and others. He is presented as a caricature of the worth and dignity once bestowed on human beings by the Creator. With sarcasm He has been wrapped in a cloak of royal purple; a hollow reed is the scepter; he wears a crown not of gold, but of thorns, glittering with the jewels of his own blood.

And yet shining through the wreckage is still the glimmer of the One from the beginning, the One in whose image and likeness human beings were created, the Son of God. When Pilate senses this, he is unnerved. His wife had already warned him not to have anything to do with this innocent man.

Pilate, in recognizing Christ’s innocence, tries to do the right thing. But the great Cosmic Drama must play out to its bitter end—and into its new and unforeseen redemptive beginnings.  All the characters are parts of the human being: There are the disciples, fled in fear, the helpless weeping women. 

There are the mockers and spitters, the aggressive leaders, the well-meaning Roman governor, all of them aspects of our own human make-up. And in their midst, in willing powerlessness stands Christ Jesus, bruised and bloodied, yet still clear seeing: you would have no power over me were it not already given to you in the great script. You have your part to play.

Christ is an eternal being; therefore everywhere he was, everything he did, is still happening, eternally. It is still happening in the eternal moment of now. He is suffering, dying, rising; He is still to be found in a state of powerlessness. When we ourselves have been stripped and beaten by life, in our powerlessness is where He always abides. When we have come to the null point, there is where we can find Him.

Good Friday 2007, Seed of God

Good Friday Evening

April 6, 2007

John 19:1-15

At the end of a plant’s life, it forms the seed. This seed may be hardly distinguishable from a speck of dirt or a stone. Yet, although it is inert for a time, when it is buried in the earth, it reveals its inherent life. The seed swells and breaks apart. Its husk falls away, and from the heart of the seed, one shoot dives downward, rooting itself in the earth; a second sprout shoots upward toward light and air and warmth. In doing so, the form of the seed is transformed. The fact that it is alive makes it take on a different form.

Roerich

The corpse of Christ Jesus was like a seed in its husk. It was lowered into the earth. The husk of its material covering fell away like ash. The underlying true body of the human form, imbued with superabundant life, swelled like a seed. Partly anchored in the earth, partly rising heavenward, the life in Him became a new kind of life, an undying human life. He became at once the Old and the New: He restored the old original form of the human being as an image and likeness of the Creator – for all mankind had been corrupted by Adam and Eve’s succumbing to Lucifer’s temptation, and we all subsequently fell into a bodily form which is imbued with matter. This corrupted body has been passed down to us through the generations.

During Holy Week, before His death, Christ Jesus tried to explain what He was about to do. After he had raised Lazarus from the dead, some Greeks came and asked to see Him. In their spring rites, bury an effigy of their god, Adonis, a god of life, death, and rebirth. They would celebrate his rebirth as spring’s new vegetative growth.

And Jesus told them [the Greeks]: The hour has come for the Son of Man to be revealed in His spirit form. Yes, I tell you: Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth, it remains as it is. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his own soul will lose it; but whoever hates that in his own soul which belongs to the transient world will save it for true deathless life. Whoever would serve me must follow me on my path. Where I am, there also must be he who would serve me; and my Father will honor him who serves me. John 12: 23-26 (Madsen rendering)

In restoring the original image, Christ also became our new ancestor. For, like the single wheat seed that swells and grows and ultimately forms multiple seeds for new life, so too is Christ’s immortal human form, a body not weighed down by material substance, capable of producing multiple copies. For each of us, there is a copy of His immortal human form that He is waiting to give us. To the extent that we join ourselves to Him, choose to take Him in, join our lives to His Life, we ultimately receive a non-material bodily form which is a living copy of His immortal form, suffused with the timeless life of Him who carries and orders the life of the world.   

The path of Christ is the path of descent, of grounding and rooting in

Sombart

the earth; and at the same time an ascending one, of rising and growing toward the light and warmth of the Father. It is a path through death into the realm behind it, into the realm of abundant and overflowing Life. It is a realm where the original command, “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 9:7) is given a new meaning. For it is through His dying that He, and we, attain Life. And that life multiplies itself as ongoing life for the earth, and as immortal life for human beings. We pray that His body, and His enlivening blood be for us the abundant overflowing life that strengthens the forces that form us. An immortal spirit body is the gift that He, in his love for us, is literally dying to give us.

In the words of Angelus Silesius:

The Godhead is my sap; what in me greens and flowers

It is His healing Spirit who all the growth empowers.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Angelus Silesius, The Cherubinic Wanderer, p. 43

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.