Second Easter Week, Stand It

1^st Sunday after Easter

John 20: 19-29

On the evening of the first day after the Sabbath, the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the authorities. Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you!”And while he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

Grunewald

Full of joy, the disciples recognized the Lord. And again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” And when he said this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit through which the world will receive healing. From now on, you shall work in human destinies with spiritual power so that they shall have the strength to wrest themselves free from the load of sin, and at the same time to bear the consequences of their offenses.”

Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not there with them when Jesus came. Later the disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he replied, “If I do not see in his hand the marks of the nails, and do not put my finger in the place where the nails were, and place my hand in his side, I cannot believe it.”

 

Rembrandt

Eight days later, the disciples were again gathered in the inner room, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Stretch out your finger and see my hands, and stretch out your hand and put it into my side. Be not rigid in your heart, but rather feel and trust in my power in your heart.”

Then Thomas said to him, “You are the Lord of my soul; you are the God whom I serve.” And Jesus said to him, “Have you found my power in yourself because you have seen me? Blessed are those who find my power in their hearts, even when their eye does not yet see me.”

2nd Easter Week, II

April 22, 2020

John 20:19-29

In today’s reading Christ offers healing and peace to his suffering disciples. “He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit through which the world will receive healing.” John 20:22 Madsen

Peace seems to have to do with a state of calm, equilibrium, and serenity. It is tranquil. Beyond simply not being ‘at war’, peace also has to do with harmony, accord, goodwill, and acceptance. In The Christian Community’s communion service, Christ says that he stands filled with peace toward the world. This is amazing if you think about it. How could He be at peace with all that is going on, with all the suffering and evil?

I think one of the key words here is ‘stand.’

Stephen Whatley

Christ is upright in His relationship to the world. He stands facing the world; he stands by it. He stands it. He doesn’t turn away from it. Instead, He radiates goodwill toward all of us. Always. That takes a deep capacity of endurance, which Christ Jesus earned the hard way.

Think of what He went through. Misunderstood, betrayed by his community, abandoned by his friends, persecuted, and though innocent, tortured and executed in a shameful manner, He nevertheless forgave, rose and continues to pour out the warmth of His love, His tranquility, His harmonious and harmonizing interaction with the world as it is. But He doesn’t stop there. He asks us what we, together with Him, can do to bring the world forward, to help it heal and evolve.

There is a spiritual law which says that anything that anyone accomplishes while in a body on earth is deposited in the spiritual treasure chest of humanity and is then available to all. Having inhabited Jesus’ body with all that He experienced in it, Christ’s love has already conquered that in the human constitution which leads to a lack of peace. He has conquered the human being’s natural egotism, aggression, our “against-ness,” the anger and fear and opposition that destroy our inner peace. He countered them with the peace that He generated through acceptance and, primarily through a deep love for humanity.

Stephen Whatley

Because Christ did so within the frame of a human body and soul, there is a peace-seed that has been planted deep within every human soul. No matter how rough the inner human terrain, how stormy the life, how full of the ‘weeds’ of worry, fear or anger, we can choose to cultivate this seed of peace in us, to nurture it, grow it in the warm light of His love. For as He says further in the service, He gives us His peace. Not as the world gives.

Christ’s peace is dynamic. It both calmly accepts things as they are and at the same time works to create healing solutions. Christ’s peace and love create unity; not sameness, but harmonizing the differences, like a chord of notes in music. We are all sundered, separated from the work of angels, from each other, from those who have died, even from Him. He waits for us to turn to Him, to ask for His peace. Praying the Lord’s Prayer is one way of asking.

If this sounds hard, it is because it is. The embodied Christ achieved what he did for humankind’s future. It will take us a while to catch up to Him. But meanwhile, He offers us His abiding love and support, His peace.

Rev. Cynthia Hindes

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1st Sunday after Easter, 2020, Open the Door

1^st Sunday after Easter
John 20: 19-29

On the evening of the first day after the Sabbath, the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the authorities. Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you!”And while he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

Full of joy, the disciples recognized the Lord. And again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” And when he said this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit through which the world will receive healing. From now on, you shall work in human destinies with spiritual power so that they shall have the strength to wrest themselves free from the load of sin, and at the same time to bear the consequences of their offenses.”

Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not there with them when Jesus came. Later the disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he replied, “If I do not see in his hand the marks of the nails, and do not put my finger in the place where the nails were, and place my hand in his side, I cannot believe it.”

Eight days later, the disciples were again gathered in the inner room, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Stretch out your finger and see my hands, and stretch out your hand and put it into my side. Be not rigid in your heart, but rather feel and trust in my power in your heart.”

Then Thomas said to him, “You are the Lord of my soul; you are the God whom I serve.” And Jesus said to him, “Have you found my power in yourself because you have seen me? Blessed are those who find my power in their hearts, even when their eye does not yet see me.”


1st Sunday after Easter
April 19, 2020
John 20: 19-29

A door presupposes a wall. The door frame, the threshold, is an opening in what is otherwise a barrier between one side and the other.  But the door itself can be opened or closed, even locked. It is a metaphor for choice: Open? Closed? When locked, it becomes like the wall itself – a barrier.

The disciples had kept the doors locked for fear of the authorities. The locked doors were also metaphors for the state of their hearts locked in fear. But Christ had said of Himself, “I AM the Door.” He himself became the entrance to the locked room, to their closed hearts. He enters the room, enters them, bringing with him a deep atmosphere of peace. And the disciples recognize and receive His healing spirit. Eight days later, he will show to Thomas other more intimate doorways. He will show him His own wounds, the doorways through which

Grunewald

He was assaulted. He accepted them, suffered them, so that in His descent into hell, they too could be transformed into doorways of light. Light, warmth, and life now radiate from His wounds, light that can germinate trust within human hearts, light for our path forward. And so the poet advises us:

Open the door of your heartaches.
And step through the door of your betrayal.
Pass through the hole that is left in your heart
Pass through because it is a door.
… Open the door.

Grunewald

….
Anything that needs us, or calls us to God is a door.
…Open the door.
….
Same old story - all strong souls all first go to hell
Before they do the healing of the world they came here for.

Open the door.*

* Clarissa Pinkola Estes, “Abre La Puerta, Open the Door”

Posted by Cynthia Hindes

Easter Sunday 2020, Light Seeds

Easter Sunday

Mark 16:1-18 (adapted from Madsen)

St. Albans

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.

Way to Emmaus, Albert Bloch

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.

Afterward, He appeared to the eleven themselves as they were celebrating the meal. He reproached them for their lack of openness and 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 salvation. But whoever closes himself against it [does not let the power of selflessness into his heart, or, 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 [believe] unite themselves with it and will attend their path: 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 12, 2020

Mark 16: 1-18

Grunewald

In the week before His death, Christ Jesus said “unless a kernel of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” John 12:24

At His crucifixion, the living power of Christ’s blood entered the earth to keep it alive. And His body was placed into a cave in the earth, the earth’s communion. He, the great Light-Seed, died into the earth.

On Holy Saturday, like a seed, he rooted himself firmly into the earth, descending to the dead.

On Easter morning, the first new shoots of His new Life broke forth from underground. New Life, capable of reproducing itself infinitely, began to grow.

This happens again every year.

Ninetta Sombart

At Ascension, He will open himself wide to the cosmos, while still remaining connected to the earth. And so this new Life will blossom again into the whole world. At Pentecost, His manifold light-seeds will fall into the hearts of those who love him.

And now, today, we rejoice because new Life is flashing forth from death. It is emerging from its apparent demise; it flares up from the ground of our hearts. The Light-Seed is quickening in the earth, in us. For today, as the poet says,

Every man, plant and creature in Existence,

Every woman, child, vein and note

Is a servant of our Beloved -

A harbinger of joy,

The harbinger of Light.*

---

*Hafiz, “Guardians of His Beauty”, in The Subject Tonight is Love -- versions by Daniel Ladinsky

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4th Passiontide, Palm Sunday 2020, New Body

4^th Passiontide (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:
 

Filipo Lippi

‘Say to the daughter of Zion,
Behold, your king comes to you in majesty.
Gentle is He, and He rides on a donkey and 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!
Hosanna 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.”

4th Passiontide
Palm Sunday
April 5, 2020
Matthew 21:1-11

The images and pictures of Holy Week reveal a secret. In mythology, the donkey is a symbol for the physical body – Brother Ass, as St. Francis called it.

Buongiorno

Currently, concern for the body dominates our consciousness. Many of us may feel ourselves submerged, overwhelmed within our bodies. Perhaps the body feels like a runaway donkey dragging our spirits along. Or perhaps, if we are ill, and especially as we get older, we may feel our body as a burden that we are coaxing or even dragging along behind us like an unwilling and stubborn animal.

Christ came to help human beings establish a new relationship with their physical nature. The image of Christ riding the donkey and its foal in majesty is a picture of our own future. We will gradually lovingly and gently master our bodily nature. It will carry us where we decide to go. And at the same time, through Christ, we will each develop a new body, a resurrection body. The gospel image of the new young foal alongside its mother even hints at the future development of this new kind of body.
 

Grunewald

Here at the beginning of Holy Week, Christ directs His body toward Jerusalem and its Temple. He directs it willingly and knowingly toward the place His own death. After today He will enter and leave Jerusalem every day on foot until late Thursday, when he will remain, entering into the body’s death process. And at the moment of death, His birthing of a new kind of body, the resurrection body, will begin.  Step by step we can accompany this process, for

Behold, your king comes to you in majesty.
Gentle He is,
and he rides on a donkey
and on a foal of the beast of burden. Matthew 21:5

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3rd Passiontide II, 2020, Containing Damage

Rembrandt

3rd Passiontide
John 8:1-12

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but as soon as day dawned, he was already in the Temple court, where the people flocked to him, and he sat down and began to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees led in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand in the middle, and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now, what do you say?” They said this only as a trap, in order finally to have a reason for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write something into the earth with his finger. When they kept on pressing him with questions, he stood up and said to them, “Whoever among you is without sin, let him cast the first stone at her.” And again, he bent down and wrote into the earth.
 

Dore

When they heard this, their conscience began to stir within them, and they went out, one after the other, beginning with the eldest. And only Jesus was left and the woman who stood in the middle. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one passed judgment on you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

Then Jesus declared, “Neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin.”

And Jesus began to speak to them again: “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness but have the light in which there is life.”

3^rd Passiontide
March 31, 2020
John 8, 1-12

A fruit-bearing tree goes through its stages. When the fruit is green, it may drop. When fruit is ripe, it will drop. When overripe, the fruit drops and spoils. We do not blame the tree for dropping its fruit. We do not pass judgment or punish the tree because of its overripe fruit spoils. The tree is bound to follow the natural course of events.
 

In a certain sense, our deeds exist in a kind of hidden natural realm, a realm that has its own lawfulness. Our sins, our errors, our failures are a bit like fruit. Some of them come from our greenness, our immaturity. Some of them come from our over-ripeness. It is as useless to pass judgment and dole out punishment as it is to stone a tree that has dropped its fruit. Punishment doesn’t change anything. What is needed is understanding, a kind of wisdom, and a desire to help.

When we understand where someone’s ‘sins’ come from, including our own; when we understand how the state of their inner nature, their weakness or misguided errors, led them to do what they did, then we can begin to let go of the need to accuse. We can let go of our demand for retribution. For just as fallen fruit contains a seed within it, so does our deed. The deed itself will, in time, call forth its own compensation.

All of our deeds, good and bad, contain within them the seed of their required compensation, the seed of their karmic balancing. Like the elders in the gospel story, we are not required to be the enforcers of others’ karma. The universe, as God created it will do that.

Our

Mariusz Lewandowski

deeds fall with their seeds literally into the earth itself. The earth is Christ’s body. He takes into Himself our fallen fruit, green, ripe, overripe. The great law of the universe says that all deeds call forth their compensation. So Christ does not, cannot remove the necessity of our compensating for our deeds in the future. But by taking on our sins, our propensity for evil driven by weakness, Christ sees to it that the damage to the earth and to ourselves is contained. He sees to it that we never lose the power to continue to grow and bear fruit, good fruit, no matter how rotten the things we have done.

A truly Christ-inspired attitude toward the sinner (ourselves included) is not to play judge and executioner, but rather to understand.  We need to understand that we all are flawed. We need to understand that the universe will provide the opportunity for balancing the deed in the future; to understand that it is far more helpful to work to overcome the causes of failures, errors, weaknesses in myself, for the sake of others. It is essential to strengthen myself and others through Christ so that like the woman in the Gospel, we can walk forward into the future in Christ’s light.
 
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Creator Said...

Bradi Barth

The universe only pretends to be made of matter. Secretly it is made of love. (Daniel Pinchbeck?)

Creator said, “I want to hide something from the humans until they are ready for it. It is the realization that they create their own reality.”
The eagle said, “Give it to me. I will take it to the moon.” Creator said, “No. One day they will go there and find it.”
The salmon said, “I will bury it on the bottom of the ocean.” Creator said, No, they will go there, too.”
The buffalo said, “I will bury it on the Great Plains.” Creator said, “They will cut into the skin of the earth and find it even there.”
Grandmother who lives in the breast of Mother Earth and who has no physical eyes but sees with spiritual eyes, said, “Put it inside of them.” And Creator said, “It is done.”
- Creation story from the Hopi Nation, Arizona

3rd Passiontide 2020, Time of Suffering

Rembrandt

3rd Passiontide
John 8: 1-12

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but as soon as day dawned, he was already in the Temple court, where the people flocked to him, and he sat down and began to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees led in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand in the middle, and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now, what do you say?” They said this only as a trap, in order finally to have a reason for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write something into the earth with his finger. When they kept on pressing him with questions, he stood up and said to them, “Whoever among you is without sin, let him cast the first stone at her.” And again, he bent down and wrote into the earth.

Breugel

When they heard this, their conscience began to stir within them, and they went out, one after the other, beginning with the eldest. And only Jesus was left and the woman who stood in the middle. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one passed judgment on you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

Then Jesus declared, “Neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin.”

And Jesus began to speak to them again: “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness but have the light in which there is life.”

3^rd Passiontide
March 29, 2020
John 8: 1-12

If someone adds something to food or drink to thin it out or to poison it, we say that it has been adulterated. It has been watered down or made harmful.

Over millennia, humanity's soul has been adulterated. The forces of humankind's adversary have inserted the thorn of evil, the sting into our hearts. It is a wound.

Bradi Barth

Because of this wounding, we have become weak. We are both 'watered down,' not fully potent, and at the same time capable of harm.

Christ came to the earth to experience what it is like being a human being in a body of flesh. He knows in depth the underlying human condition of weakness. And its capacity for evil. Yet in His empathy and compassion, He does not judge us. Instead, He seeks to give us strength, to heal us, to raise us.

Given the current world situation, we may now feel contracted in grief. Now is our time of suffering. Yet, like the woman in the gospel reading, we must realize that collectively we have brought this on ourselves. We all have succumbed at some point to self-centered desires and lack of compassion. However innocently, we have all contributed to evil.

And yet, as always, Christ stands in our midst, offering strength and healing to our souls and spirits. He gives us the opportunity to move beyond the self-centered desires, the restless pleasure-seeking, the judgmental anger, and self-pity. We have been adulterated. He offers us the strength to change our ways, become our better selves. Keep going, He says. Separate yourselves no longer from a right relationship to Me, to others, to the world.

In the words of the poet, we may say to Him:

My heart is so small

Fra Angelico

it's almost invisible.
How can You place
such big sorrows in it?

Yet He answers:

"Look, … your eyes are even smaller,
yet they behold the world."*

Eventually, with Him, we will rise and expand.
 
* Rumi, in Whispers of the Beloved, by Maryam & Azima Melita Kolin

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