Christmas III, Day, December 25, 2014, Feed, Guide, Nourish

Christmas III

John 21: 15-25

Now is proclaimed the end of the entire gospel according to John in the 21st chapter:

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.

Christmas III, Day

December 25, 2014

John 21: 15-25

Christ came to earth as the seed of a new kind of human being. This new kind of human being is to rise in freedom above the compulsions of fear. It grows in the light of Truth. It perceives that the meaning of our existence on earth is to learn how to love.

Three times before the crucifixion, Peter had denied any relationship to Christ, the Being of Love. And after the resurrection, he is given the chance to redeem himself:  three times Christ asks him, ‘Do you love me?’ Peter is given instructions about the path of love: nourish and guide what is developing within those who are on the path of love. Feed my little ones; guide, shepherd the growing ones; feed the grown. Keep their evolving souls alive.

This is the task of the Peter who exists in all of us. Loving God means finding ways to support God’s growth within our fellow human beings; feeding and supporting their spirits, their soul, perhaps even their bodies. And we do so by being guided and fed by the one who called himself, whom we call, the Good Shepherd. For as the poet says:

Who shall keep thy sheep,

Lord, and lose not one?

Who save one shall keep,

Lest the shepherds sleep?

Who beside the Son?

…

The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be?

My God, no hymn for Thee?

My soul's a shepherd too; a flock it feeds

Of thoughts, and words, and deeds.

The pasture is Thy words; the streams, Thy grace

Enriching all the place.

Shepherd and flock shall sing, and all my powers

Out-sing the daylight hours.

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Christmas II, Dawn, December 25, 2014, Sun Sings

Christmas II

Luke 2: 1-20

Now is proclaimed the [middle of the Gospel[s], according to Luke in the second chapter.

Now it came to pass in those days that a proclamation went out from Caesar Augustus that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone set out to be enrolled, each to the town of his ancestors.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he belonged to the house and lineage of David. He went to be enrolled with Mary his betrothed. And Mary was with child. And it came to pass that while they were there, the time was fulfilled for her to be delivered. And she bore her son, her first-born. And she wrapped him in linen and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Blake

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks in the night. And an angel of the Lord came upon them [appeared before them] and the light of the revelation of God shone about them. And great fear came upon them [they felt the fear of fears].

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for I announce to you a great joy, which shall be for all men on earth: today is born unto you the Bringer of Healing, in the city of David,  Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign for you: you will find a little child wrapped in linen, lying in a manger.”

And suddenly around the angel was the fullness of the heavenly angelic hosts: their song of praise sounded forth to the highest:

God’s Spirit reveals itself in the heights

And brings peace to men of earth

In whose hearts good will dwells!

And as the angels withdrew from them into the heavens, the shepherds said to one another:

“Let us go to Bethlehem to see the fulfillment of the Word that has happened here, which the Lord let be proclaimed.”

And they came hastening, and found both Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in the manger. And when they had seen, they made known the Word that was spoken to them concerning this child. [or, When they saw that, they understood what had been told them concerning this child.] And all who heard it were astonished about what the shepherds said.

But Mary treasured [preserved] all these words, pondering them [turning them over] in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God to everyone for everything they had heard and seen, which was just as it had been announced to them.

Bonnell

Christmas II, Dawn

December 25, 2014

Luke 2: 1-20

At certain times of the year, especially in spring, birds create a choral symphony in the dark before dawn. It is as if they want to announce to the world the arrival of a new day, the arrival of the light. When the sun actually rises, their song of praise falls silent. In the silence, if we could but hear, the Sun itself, the dwelling place of high choirs of angels, begins to sing. If we could but hear, we would perceive how the light-filled singing Word calls forth the plants, the animals, ourselves.

The angels sang to the shepherds at night, before dawn. They sang to announce the dawning of the light of the world. The shepherds’ hearts were perceptive. They heard the singing of the angelic chorus. They looked for the light that was dawning, the light of love that they found shining from the Child’s eyes. And their own words of praise ignited in their hearts and poured forth from their lips.

Vladimir Borovikovsy

Love, healing light-filled love, has been born to us. One day the true light will have dawned upon all of humanity. And all shall see and praise, as the poet says:

But the sun is one,

And the sun's name Right;

And when light is none

Saving of the sun,

All men shall have light.

All shall see and be

Parcel of the morn;

Ay, though blind were we,

None shall choose but see

When that day is born[1]

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[1] Christmas Antiphones by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Christmas I, Midnight, December 25, 2014, The Rescuer

Christmas I, Midnight

December 25, 2014

Matthew 1: 1 -25

[Now is proclaimed the beginning of the whole Gospel, according to Matthew in the first chapter.]

This is the book of the new creation, which has happened through Jesus Christ [or, the generation of Jesus Christ], a son of David, who is a son of Abraham.

….

From Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David to the deportation to Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the exile in Babylon to Christ are fourteen generations.

The birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way: Mary, his mother, was betrothed to Joseph. But before they were aware of having come together, she conceived a child by the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph however, her husband, who was an upright man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, was considering whether he should quietly set her free [or, decided to consider all this a mystery.] As he was pondering this, behold the angel of the Lord appeared before him in a dream and said to him:

 “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because that which is to be born of her is conceived out of the power of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall give him the name Jesus, that is, the Bringer of Healing, for he it will be who will heal his own of their error and guilt. “

All this took place so that the word of the Lord, spoken by the mouth of the prophet, might be fulfilled:

“A virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and they will call his name Immanuel, that is, God in our midst.”

               

Now when Joseph rose from his sleep he did as the angel of the Lord directed him, and he took Mary to himself as his wife, and he knew her not until she bore her son, and he gave him the name Jesus. 

Christmas I, Midnight

Dec 25, 2014

Time is turning. Midnight is becoming the early morning of a new day. Its actual dawn is yet to come. But it is on the way.

This reading from the beginning of all the gospels is a kind of preamble. In the dream time, an angel announces to Joseph the striking of a new hour, a new day. The angel announces what will soon be the arrival of Jesus, whose name means help or rescuer. He will become the bearer of the Son of God. And he will rescue humankind from their error and guilt.

The greater new day is again approaching. The Light of the World is drawing near. We can sense His healing in our praying. The poet said:

Thou whose birth on earth

Wilfried Ogilvie, In the Beginning

Angels sang to men,

While thy stars made mirth,

Saviour, at thy birth,

This day born again;

As this night was bright

With thy cradle-ray,

Very light of light,

Turn the wild world's night

To thy perfect day.

Thou whose face gives grace

As the sun's doth heat,

Let thy sunbright face

Lighten time and space

Here beneath thy feet.

Bid our peace increase,

Thou that madest morn;

Bid oppressions cease;

Bid the night be peace;

Bid the day be born.[1]

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[1] Christmas Antiphones by Algernon Charles Swinburne

4th Advent 2014, Yes

1 Thessalonians, 5, 1-8, 23, 24

About time spans and right moments, dear brothers, I have no need to write to you. You know very well yourselves that the Breaking of the Day of Christ comes like a thief in the night. When people say, ‘Now peace reigns, and all stands secure, then suddenly catastrophe breaks upon them, like the birth pangs of a woman with child, and there will be no escape for them.

Christ the Divine Physician

You, however, dear brothers, are not to remain in darkness, so that the breaking of day will not surprise you like a thief. For you are sons of light and sons of the day. Our being is not filled with night and darkness. So let us not sleep like the others, but rather cultivate an alert and sober state of mind. 

Those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who are drunk are likewise of nightly nature. But since we belong to the brightness of day, let us be sober, clothed with the breastplate of faith and love, our head armed [protected] with the hope of healing….May God himself, however, the source of all Peace, hallow and heal your whole being. May your complete and undivided being, Spirit, Soul, and Body, remain pure and unclouded at the coming in the spirit of Jesus Christ, our Lord. You may trust in him who calls you. He it is who also lets you reach the goal.

4^th Advent

December 21, 2014

1 Thessalonians, 5, 1-8, 23, 24

You may have had the experience window shopping: you see the reflection of others in the glass; and you may have a particular experience of someone; perhaps one arouses a bit critical. And suddenly you are shocked to realize that you are looking at yourself.

At this season of the year we may be inclined think that somehow our deepest desires will be fulfilled; that we will be surrounded by the warmth and love of family and friends; that we will be contented. And so we may be surprised or even shocked that we may at the same time feel ourselves to be intensely alone, isolated and unfulfilled. And one of the uncomfortable revelations comes from catching an objective glimpse of ourselves.

What comes to our aid is our own objectivity. We can be helped by shedding light on the untruthfulness of our own illusions and delusions, on our own deceptive egotism. And we can set our sights instead on the image of the Coming One. The One who was present at the creation of the human being, who walked the paradisal garden amid the freshness of creation, He who is our higher self and our true being, He is drawing near. He is willing to enter into our tarnished circumstances. He is willing to enter the fallen domain of the heart, just as He once was born into degraded surroundings on earth. For he came, he continues to come, to hallow and to heal. The poet says:

Let the stable still astonish.

Straw–dirt floor, dull eyes,

Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;

Crumbling, crooked walls;

No bed to carry that pain,

And then, the child,

Rag-wrapped, laid to cry

In a trough.

Who would have chosen this?

Who would have said: “Yes,

Let the God of all the heavens and earth

Be born here, in this place?

Who but the same God

Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms

Of our hearts

And says, “Yes,

Let the God of Heaven and Earth

Be born here –

In this place.[1]

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[1] Leslie Leyland Fields, “Let the Stable Still Astonish”

Two Marys, December 18, 2014

In the Gospels we have two descriptions of the Mother of God. The feeling-tone of each is different. The one is described in Luke; she is the one to whom the angelic messenger announces the coming of God’s son through the inseminating power of the Holy Spirit. She is humble and open, experiencing an other-worldly event.

The Mother in Matthew’s Gospel receives royal gifts. She must flee to Egypt to save her little Son from Herod’s persecution. In John’s Gospel she stands under the cross. Mother’s innocence has become bitter experience. But she also partakes in her Son’s subsequent rise from death.

Bernhard Eyb

At this time of the year we can picture the otherworldly Mother. If we could see her now, in winter, we would see the moon element spread out below the earth’s surface. From her human form, we see a heavenly Earth-Star, raying out into the cosmos from her head.  At her breast the sun’s rays, forming itself out of the clouds, condensing into the child, all in a rainbow-hued background. She is the woman formed out of the clouds, endowed with earthly forces under her feet, sun radiance in the middle, head crowned with stars—the woman of Rev. 12. She is arising out of the cosmos itself. In winter, when we ourselves are most strongly connected with the earth, we see the Mother arising in the cosmos, in the interplay between the earth and the stars.[1]

Summer Imagination, Margarete Woloschin

At the opposite time of the year (and in the opposite hemisphere now) another Mother can be seen. A sparkling silver blue rises from the depths of earth, bound up with human weakness and error. It gathers into the picture of Earth Mother in the depths. She is Mater, materie.  Above her is the flowing golden-red creative form of Uriel and the Spirit dove, the Spirit Father. Between them, between Spirit Father and Earth Mother, we behold the Son. In the summer we breathe ourselves out into the cosmos; but we strongly perceive the Father above and the Mother below. We are made aware of human error. [2]

As we move through the course of the year, we ourselves move between these two counter-poles—cosmic mother, earth mother. During the twelve days and holy nights of the Christmas season, from Christmas to Epiphany, we experience this polar movement in miniature, in the picture of the two Marys. The Christ, the Child reconciles these two poles. In Luke the Child is born in a cave in the earth, in midwinter (not in summer). Although he is in a cave in the earth, he and his mother are innocent and humble. We read his gospel story from the altar early Christmas morning.

On January 6, we read of the Matthew Mother in her regal queenly aspect. She receives royal gifts, moves forward through experience, grappling with Herod’s evil, fleeing to Egypt where the mysteries of death were understood.

Cordoba

In this movement between these two poles, the two mothers represent the overall movement of the human experience. It is a movement from humble innocence to earthly experience, being crowned with the earth-star and at the same time finding and maintaining (again) a connection to the starry cosmos. 

Mary represents the human soul, operating between the two poles and moving through them over and over again in the course of the years. 

She also represents a kind of aggregate of all human souls, a spiritual entity we could call the Soul of Man, as it evolves over time.  From humble innocence we are born out of the summer of stars, generated by the union of Sky Father and Earth Mother. Gradually the Soul of Man is evolving toward becoming a being radiant with experience, clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, crowned with the stars of earth winter.

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[1] Image from Rudolf Steiner, “The Christmas Imagination”, in The Four Seasons and the Archangels.

[2] Image from Rudolf Steiner, “The St. John’s Imagination”, in The Four Seasons and the Archangels.

3rd Advent 2014, Be Still

Simon Marmion

3rd Advent

1 Thessalonians 4, 13-18

We will not leave you in ignorance, dear brothers, about how it is with those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve like the others who have no hope.

As surely as our heart knows through faith that Jesus broke through death into resurrection, so sure may we also be that God will lead to the same goal those who have fallen asleep united with Christ.

This we announce to you as a word that comes from Christ: we who live, and are preserved as living till the time of the return of the Lord, will have no precedence over those who are asleep.

So will it once be: when the call resounds, the voice of the archangel thunders again, and the trumpets sound which are heard out of the world of the Spirit, then will Christ, our Lord, descend out of the spiritual heights. Then there will be awakened in the spirit first those who have died in Christ. And afterwards we who live and tread paths of earth will be taken up with them into the living world of the spirit, to an encounter with Christ in the realm of the soul. Then shall we be inseparably united with Him, the Risen One. With thoughts of this kind shall you mutually uphold, encourage and strengthen each other.  

  

3rd Advent

December  14, 2014

1 Thessalonians 4, 13-18

Helen Chamberlain

 At every sunset, the light disappears; but though we may fear the dark, we trust that it is only temporary, for we know that the sun will rise again in the morning. Every year we sense the growing darkness as we approach the longest night. And yet in confidence we celebrate the slow return of the Christ-Sun from the greater darkness of the year.

Christ was born on earth a long time ago. He died. Today he is coming to us again. The archangel is announcing His arrival. He is drawing near, and the mighty gates of heaven will open and we will approach Him in spirit-awareness. The light of Christ will be born within us, illuminating us from within.

In the inner and outer darkness of our times, we may feel both besieged and forsaken. Yet we may also cultivate fortitude and bravery in facing our inner and outer demands. Our fortitude and courage in our trials allow us to develop our presence of mind. We stay present; we neither flee nor rage. Rather we hold ourselves still and awake, so that we can remain standing when true spiritual reality breaks in upon us.

In Psalm 46 the Creator says:  “Be still, and know that I am… I will be honored among the nations, I will be honored in the earth.” Christ is the true power within us. Our personality has limited power over outer circumstances; yet outer circumstances have limited power over us. For He, Christ, is the true power in us, because He is our true being on the earth.