Good Friday 2022, The Godhead Is My Sap

Holy Week, Good Friday

John 19:1-15 

Tissot

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him scourged.
The soldiers braided a crown of thorns, put it on his head, 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!" [or, 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 the courthouse and said to Jesus,

Tissot

"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. It 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 15, 2022

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, 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. 

The body 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 true underlying body of the human form, imbued with superabundant vitality, 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 blueprint of the human being as an image and likeness of the Creator – for all humankind 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, subject to death. This corrupted and corruptible body has been passed down to all of 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, they would 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 (John 12:23-24, Madsen rendering). 

In restoring the original blueprint in God's
image and likeness, Christ also became our new ancestor. For, like the single wheat seed that swells and grows and ultimately forms multiple seeds for a 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 will 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 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 God's 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.

Boos-Hamburger

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.*

 

 See locations 

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* Angelus Silesius, The Cherubinic Wanderer, p. 43

4th Passiontide 2022, Build the Body

  

4^th Passiontide (Palm Sunday)

Matthew 21:1-11 

Hippolyte Flandrin

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 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 from 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! [or, 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 10, 2020

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. Our donkey is strong, 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 as a living symbol of the final phase of His earthly life. He is choosing the human body as His final battleground. His triumphal entry into Jerusalem foretells the fully accomplished entry of His spirit into the body of Jesus. Today 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 suffering, even into the death that the body offers. Rejoicing will be more appropriate days later when the body has been transformed at the Last Supper into the new form of bread and wine; when His suffering has borne fruit; when death has been overthrown because He has wrested the human spirit from the death of matter.

 At the Last Supper and its iterations, He wields the power to make bread and wine into His immortal 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, we can, bit by bit, build the new body that is not subject to death, the Christ-body that comes to life in us, through us, in our offering. 

 https://www.thechristiancommunity.org/location-search/

3rd Passiontide 2022, In Death Life Begins

 3^rd 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. 

Ninetta Sombart

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. 

When they heard this, their conscience began to stir within them, and they went out, one after the other, starting 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; whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but have the light in which there is life."

 3^rd Passiontide Sunday

April 3, 2022

John 8:1-12 

The light and warmth of the sun can be absorbed or reflected. A dark object absorbs the warmth. A light, polished surface stays cooler because it mirrors light back. 

Our minds and hearts can also absorb or reflect. We can listen, absorb, take in. When what we take in enters not just our minds but our hearts, they can become warm. In so doing, we ourselves are likely to be transformed. The genius of the language says that our hearts melt. 

And we can also listen and reflect back. Usually, we reflect back our own soul's reaction. We reflect our ego's rush to judgment. An immediate judgment may be a kind of self-protection coming from the soul's defensive armoring. Being too quick to deflect with our thinking, we bypass absorbing into our heart what is said and possibly being transformed. 

Deborah Harris

In this gospel reading, Christ shows Himself to be someone whose heart and mind work together in a healing way. He does not reflexively reject the woman because she broke the law. He takes her into His great heart, the warmth of His broad understanding of the ways of human behavior, of social interaction, of karma. He then reflects back to her not judgment but rather gives her the strength of His warm understanding and His encouragement to do better. He absorbs her life into His. He carries her in the light of His life. 

The poet Nelly Sachs wrote, 

How long have we forgotten to listen!

He planted us once to listen

Like lyme grass by the eternal sea ....

Although we have business

that leads us far

From his light….

We must not sell our ears….

Press, oh press in the day of destruction

The listening ear to the earth,

And you will hear, through your sleep,

You will hear,

How in death

Life begins.* 

The deeds of each one of us are written into the earth. But the earth has become Christ's body. He absorbs all of our deeds. He carries us in His great heart. He gives us the encouragement and the strength to do better so that we can walk in the light of His life. 

 www.thechristiancommunity.org

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*Nelly Sachs (1891-1970), “How Long Have We Forgotten to Listen!” in Women in Praise of the Sacred, Jane Hirschfield. 

2nd Passiontide 2022, Skill They Can Learn

 2^nd Passiontide

John 6:1-15 

After this, Jesus crossed to the far shore

Woloschina

of the Sea of Galilee near Tiberius, and a great crowd of people followed him because they had seen the signs of the Spirit he had performed on those who were ill. 

Then Jesus went up on the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Feast was near.

When Jesus raised his eyes to the world of the Spirit and beheld how crowds of people were coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread that all these people may eat?" He asked this to test his understanding and presence of mind, for he himself knew what he was going to do. 

Philip answered him, "200 denarii [or, seven months wages] would not buy enough bread for them each to have only a little." 

Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, "A boy is here with five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are these among so many?" 

Jesus said, "Let the people sit down in groups." There was plenty of green grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them. Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and gave to those seated, likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted. 

Now when they were satisfied, he said to his disciples, "Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost." So, they gathered them, and they filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. 

Seeing the sign that he had done, the people said, "Truly, this is the prophet who is to come into the world." When Jesus became aware that they intended to come and make him king by force, he withdrew again to the mountain alone by himself.

2^nd Passiontide

March 27, 2022

John 6:26-35 

There are different kinds of thorns. One kind is a permanent woody part of the plant itself, such as the spurs on a citrus tree or hawthorne. Another is a removable part of the plant's skin—such as the prickle on a rose. It does not belong to the plant's deepest layers. Nevertheless, these prickles, like the stinger of a bee, can embed themselves and infect. 

In the Passiontide prayers from the altar, we ask God not to focus on 'the sting of evil' in our hearts. The deepest core of our hearts, made by God, is good. But our hearts have been stung by the thorn of the adversary and are infected with evil. We are acutely aware of our common illness, which inflames us and causes us to wound others. At times, we may feel our inner selves to be lying on the ground, sick unto death. Our hearts need to be healed of their infections. The goodness of our core needs to be strengthened and nourished. 

Christ, the divine Physician, came to nourish and strengthen our heart's core. He gives us the twelvefold bread from the stars, from his Father in the heavens, to nourish, strengthen and heal us. 

We stand in awe before the gift He offers us, the bread of Himself. We may be inclined to rush in, almost greedy for healing. We may want the whole loaf. But He says in the words of Rumi: 

Nibble at me.

Don't gulp me down.

How often is it you have a guest in your house

who can fix everything?*

 

To us, Catherine of Sienna adds:

A thorn has entered your foot. That is why you

weep at times at

night. 

There are some in this world

who can pull it

out. 

The skill that takes they have

learned from

Him. ** 

We take in the bread and wine to become strong, to be healed, so that the good in the depths of our hearts may endure. At the same time, we take it in not only for ourselves. We take it in so that we, in turn, can help in the healing of others.

 

 www.thechristiancommunity.org

* Rumi, "Nibble at Me," in Love Poems from God, Daniel Ladinsky, p.64

** Catherine of Sienna, "That Skill," in Love Poems from God, Daniel Ladinsky, p. 190.

1st Passiontide 2022, Go There Now

First Passiontide

Luke 11:14-36 

Ravenna

Jesus was driving out a demon from a man who was mute.
And it came to pass that as the demon left, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowd was amazed. However, some of them said, "He drives out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons." Others sought to test him by asking for a sign from heaven as proof of his spiritual power. 

Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, "Any kingdom divided against itself will be desolated, and house will fall against house. And you claim that I drive out demons by Beelzebub? Now, if Satan divides [were to divide] his powers within himself, how will [would] his kingdom be able to stand? You have not considered this when you claim that I drive out demons with the power of Beelzebub. If I drive out demons with the power of Beelzebub, with what power do your sons do it? Your sons will be your judges. But since, in fact, I encounter the demons with the authority of God's hand, it follows from this that the Kingdom of God has already come to you.               

"When a strong man in full armor guards his palace, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, the victor takes away the armor in which the man had trusted and divides it up as spoils. 

"Whoever does not unite with my being is against me, and whoever does not gather in inner composure with me [or, work for inner composure with me] scatters. 

"When an unclean spirit comes out of a person, it wanders through waterless places seeking a place to rest; and if it cannot find it, it says, 'I will return to the dwelling out of which I have come.' When it returns to this dwelling, it finds it cleaned and adorned. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more wicked than itself and enters and dwells in that person. And their final state is worse than the first." 

1^st Passiontide

March 20, 2022

Luke 11:14-35  

We all have a home, a space we live in. We may share it with others.
We may also invite guests for a visit. But it would be a strange situation if, at the end of the visit, the guest announced that they were planning to take up permanent residence and refused to leave. For we know that it should be our own choice whom we live with. 

Our body is also a kind of home, the home for our spirit. The deaf-mute’s spirit evidently suffered from one of those permanent guests who had decided to make his body its dwelling place. It had even succeeded in binding and gagging him. The Gospel identifies this “guest” as a demon. And Christ describes the nature of such beings: they need a human body in which to dwell; they are able to gain entrance if someone is not strong enough to protect themselves. And even if they succeed in ejecting the demon, it won’t give up; it will return— with reinforcements if necessary. 

For demons feed off of what the human being has inside—the precious light of human thoughts, the warmth of human feeling, their strength of will. Christ goes on to proclaim what it is that protects us from being invaded: the wisdom that acknowledges the existence of the Son of Man and the willingness to do the work necessary to invite Him in as a guest, to furnish Him a dwelling place in our inmost heart. 

The poet Tom Barrett says: 

Pause with us here a while.

Put your ear to the wall of your heart.

Listen for the whisper of knowing there.

Love will touch you if you are very still. …

 

If you had a temple in the secret spaces of your heart,

What would you worship there?

What would you bring to sacrifice?

What would be behind the curtain in the holy of holies?

 

Go there now.*

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* Tom Barrett, “What’s in the Temple?” in Keeping in Touch

www.thechristiancommunity.org

 

6th Trinity I, Seeds of New Life

February Trinity I

(5^th Sunday before Easter)

Karl Heinrich Bloch

Matthew 17:1-9 

After six days, Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John, the brother of James, and led them together up a high mountain apart from the others. 

There, his appearance was transformed before them. His face shone as bright as the sun, and his garments became white, shining bright as the light. And behold, there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, conversing in the spirit with Jesus. 

And Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be in this place. If you wish, I will build here three shelters, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." 

While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and suddenly, they heard a voice from the cloud that said, "This is my son, whom I love. In him, I am revealed. Hear him." 

When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces to the ground in awe and terror. And Jesus approached them, and touching them, said, "Rise, and do not fear." And raising their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus. 

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, "Tell no one what you have seen until the Son of Man has risen from the dead."

 6^th Trinity I

March 13, 2022

Matthew 17:1-13 

Dandelions rise in leaves and blossom in the warmth of the sun.
The blossoms form seed globes, a miniature cosmos. The wind disperses the seeds so that they fall to the earth in a different place; so that the cycle of their living growth and development on earth can continue and spread in a new season. 

In the scene of the Transfiguration, Christ blossoms before the eyes of His three disciples. They begin to understand the cosmic, divine nature of Jesus, the Christ. They perceive how He converses with the two great luminaries of the Hebrew cosmos, Moses, the giver of the law, and Elijah, the prophet who gives voice to the divine. 

Peter responds in the traditional way of his forefathers by offering to build external shrines for these spiritual beings. But the voice of the Father intervenes—‘This is my Son; listen to Him; take his words into your heart.’ (Matthew 17:5) And the three disciples fall to the ground. 

Christ came to establish a new relationship between the beings of the spiritual world and human beings on earth. It is to be a relationship of conscious understanding, of conversation, rather than an adherence to the law and traditional procedure. So Jesus helps them up and continues to enlighten their understanding. 

He says to them that the being of Elijah, whom they had just seen conversing with Him, had indeed already returned to earth to prepare for the coming of the Messiah. He had been John the Baptist, who by then had already been put to death. And Christ predicts that He Himself soon would be. With John the Baptist, the
process of seeding this new relationship between heaven and earth began; human beings dwelling in the cosmos return again to earth. 

Christ in us creates in us a cosmic blossom; out of our lives, seeds fall to the earth to live and grow and blossom again. Thus do our human spirits blossom in God’s warmth and light; seeds of a new life are carried by the spirit-wind, to return again to the earth in a new place and time, to live and grow further in the light of God.

https://www.thechristiancommunity.org/blog-posts/

5th Trinity I, (6th Sunday Before Easter), Thaw The Holy

Trinity I

6^th Sunday before Easter (Sunday after Ash Wednesday)

Matthew 4:1-11 

Tissot

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the loneliness of the desert to experience
the tempting power of the adversary. 

After fasting forty days and nights, He felt for the first time hunger for earthly nourishment. Then the tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, let these stones become bread through the power of your word." 

Jesus answered, "It is written, 'The human being shall not live on bread alone; he lives by the creative power of every word that comes from the mouth of God." 

Tissot

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand
on the parapet of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.' " 

Jesus answered him, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." 

Tissot

Again a third time, the devil took him to a very elevated place and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. "All this I will give to you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me as your Lord." 

Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship
[pray to] God your Lord who guides you and serve him only.' " 

Then the adversary left him, and he beheld the angels again as they came to bring him nourishment.

5^th February Trinity

March 6, 2022

Matthew 4:1-11 

To inhabit a human body is to be subject to very basic needs: every infant first needs food, for to be in a body is to be hungry and to depend on others to supply nourishment.

Another need is for safety—the body reflexively protects itself against injury.

And a third need is for power, the ability to be effective. To fail to respond to a child’s cries is to sow seeds despair in its soul.

At his Baptism Christ entered into a human body for the first time. His spirit, like a child's, encounters the body’s basic needs, which in the hands of the Adversary become demands. But coming as He does from the heart of God, He counters the Adversary who plagues humankind from within. And because He did, we can. For Christ has become the medicine for the sickness of sin, our separation from God, that the adversary engenders in us. He makes us whole. He re-establishes for us our connection with God.

For it is God and his angels who satisfy our deepest hungers. It is God who protects us both from harm and from an inflated sense of self-importance. It is in aligning ourselves with God’s will, rather than merely our own self-will, that we achieve true power; for the power that lies in freedom from earthly compulsions creates true effectiveness. Christ gives us that power.

Tissot

As Teresa of Avila said,

…God is always there, if you feel wounded.  He kneels

over this earth like

a divine medic,

and His love thaws

the holy in us.*

 

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*St. Teresa of Avila, “When the Holy Thaws”, in Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West, versions by Daniel Ladinsky, p. 290.