Friday, April 18, 2014

Good Friday 2012, Wrestle Death

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!”


Dottori
Good Friday
April 6, 2012
John 19

The awful stillness of Good Friday begs the question: Was Christ truly overcome on the cross? What really happened?

The outer fire of His will showed itself so masterfully at the beginning of the week, in the cleansing of the temple and the intense discussions with the Pharisees and Saducees. Now that will-fire goes deeper. He pursues, on both higher and deeper planes the demonic powers. He fights against the Luciferic powers, those glittering beings of deceptive light who want to estrange us from the earth, while we live on earth. He fights against the satanic powers who want to harden us and to fetter us to dead matter. They would thus rob us of a connection with the earth and with our loved ones after death—for it is only a spiritual connection, a living heart connection with the earthly that survives in the afterlife. In the stillness of Good Friday, Christ is following the satanic powers into their hiding place in order to overcome them there.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, he wrestled with a death that would have been premature. With the mightiest force of prayer ever known on earth, He wrestled to remain in the body. Christ was victorious and death is repulsed.

And on the cross He wills to remain still united with the earth when He goes through death. He wrestles to enter still more deeply into the world of earthly matter, which is His body. He will not abandon this last remnant to the Prince of this World. And when the earth quakes, all the demons of the earth seem to storm forward to help the satanic death power to victory.

However, death cannot strip Christ of the sovereignty of His spirit. It cannot strip Him of His authority over all earth existence. When Christ says, ‘It is finished’, He is referring to the complete conquest over death. The Christ, in dying, goes directly into the earth. The blood streams from His wounds and his soul, in love, goes with it into the body of the earth. The body that hangs on the cross begins to radiate light, like a gilded figure on a black cross. The radiant Sun of Christ weaves a ray of Easter into the darkness of Good Friday.

With His burial, His body goes into the earth as well. The earth receives the body and blood of Christ, the great communion. It is the medicine for the spiritualizing of all material existence—the medicine that makes whole.

Goethe hints at the amazing power of this event:

Smoothly and lightly the golden seed by the furrow is cover'd;
Yet will a deeper one, friend, cover thy bones at the last.
Joyously plough'd and sow'd! Here food all living is budding,
E'en from the side of the tomb Hope will not vanish away.[1]






[1] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “To The Husbandman”
See Holy Week, a Spiritual Guide from Palm Sunday to Easter, by Emil Bock.


4th Passiontide Palm Sunday 2008, Remain Unused

4th Passiontide
Hippolyte Flanders
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.”


4th Passiontide, Palm Sunday
Van Gogh
March 16, 2008
Matthew 21: 1-11


In today’s Gospel reading, we are presented with a somewhat odd picture: the king, entering His city of peace, riding on two beasts of burden, a donkey and her young one. This is certainly was an event that happened at the gate of Jerusalem two thousand years ago. But it is still happening.

For one could say that the beast of burden represents the human physical body. It is the vehicle for the conveyance of our human spirit on earth. It is the bearer of the burdens of our destiny. But out of this beast of burden, another is already coming forth, a younger one, created by our current life, in preparation for our life in the future.

We can invite Christ to ride with us; we can make our bodies the vehicle of conveyance for His Spirit, as well as our own. We can place ourselves at the King’s disposal.

There is a terrible Holy Week paradox in this: for the King is riding toward His sacrificial death. We are carrying Him there. But beyond this, death will be transformed; there will be resurrection. And the young one in us will be strengthened, able to carry more of His Spirit in the future. We too will eventually become sacrificial Kings.

As Rilke says:

All will come again into its strength:
…people as strong
and varied as the land….
no belittling of death,
but only longing for what belongs to us
and serving earth, lest we remain unused.[1]





[1] Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours, Barrows and Macy, p. 121.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

4th Passiontide Palm Sunday 2009, Ashes of Your Life

4th Passiontide
John August Swanson
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.”

4th Passiontide, Palm Sunday
April 8, 2009
Matthew 21: 1 – 11

In many parts of the world, Passion Plays are still performed. The drama of Holy Week is enacted, sometimes with whole villages participating.

Holy Week itself is a kind of cosmic drama. Each event, each gesture, each word has deep significance. Christ’s entry into Jerusalem is at the same time the entry into Holy Week.

The scene is staged by Christ himself. As the all-knowing director of the drama, He sends His disciples to fetch the props: two donkeys, a mother and her foal. The prophet Zechariah had already given part of the script:

Hippolyte Flanders
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem.
Behold your King is coming to you.
He is just and endowed with salvation
Humble and mounted on a donkey
Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey! Zechariah 9:9

The people too, are familiar with the script. And when they see Him entering Jerusalem on a donkey, they know immediately, or think they know, what this means: their new king is entering his capital city, now lying under Roman occupation. And they play their part, shouting in triumph the words of David’s hymn. (Psalm 143)

We, too, in hindsight, know the script. And we know, as does the Director and true Author of the script, that a profound irony is being enacted. The people’s expectation of an earthly king will not be fulfilled. By the end of the week, enraged and disappointed, they will be calling for His execution.

Yet an even deeper current of meaning flows just beneath, and above the surface of the narrative. Something unexpected will happen. After three days His death will be transformed into a kingdom of Life. Rather than an earthly king of a particular people, He will become the regent of all human souls. The shattering of illusions, even death itself, cannot end what is here beginning. In the words of the poet:
William Holman Hunt

Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out

someone has written
something new
in the ashes
of your life.

You are not leaving, you are arriving.[1]





[1] David Whyte, “The Journey”, in The House of Belonging.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

4th Passiontide Palm Sunday 2010, Our Future Humanity


4th 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:

‘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.”

4th Passiontide 
Palm Sunday
March 28, 2010
Matthew 21: 1-11

It is amazing how clearly one can sometimes see from far away. The crowds on Palm Sunday see Christ as a prophet. But the prophet Zechariah, seeing him from a distance of five hundred years says:

 'See, your king comes to you,
   gentle and riding on a donkey,
      on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9, Matthew 21:5)

He sees Christ in three dimensions.


First of all Christ is regal, a king, coming in majesty. This is a description of the radiant spirit of Christ who is Lord and King over all.

He is nonetheless gentle. This is a description of His soul, a soul that has been purified of all egotism.

And He rides on a double beast of burden. This is a picture of His body, both the physical body into which He descended, and the new resurrection body that will be born of it at Easter.

Memmo
And so the far-seeing prophet presents us with a kind of true symbolism, a realistic picture of Christ. He is majestic but gentle. He is willing to ride the beast of burden that is our physical nature in order to become, in the words of John the Baptist, the one who bears the sins of the world. Christ Jesus is the image of the human being made divine.

He is the picture of our future humanity. One day we too will be majestically in command of ourselves. We will be gentle with others. We will be willing to ride and guide the body, which bears the burden of our karma, and the karma of the world.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

4th Passiontide Palm Sunday 2011, Timeless Life

4th 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:

‘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.”

4th Passiontide
Corrine Vonaesch
April 17, 2011
Matthew 21: 1-11

There is a strong element of paradox about today’s reading. On the one hand, in all humility and seriousness, Christ mounts the donkey and rides in stately calm into the city. The donkey is often the symbol for the physical body. In so doing, He is making manifest how He has joined Himself with mankind’s physical nature. He rides the body with both kingly majesty and with gentleness. By taking on an earthly body, He has also agreed to ride along with the body toward mortality, towards death, towards the astounding death of the ever-creative God.

The crowds cheer ecstatically. They are unconscious of the deeper meaning; they greet the entry of the great prophet, the heir to David’s throne. While Christ continues to contract more and more fully into the body of Jesus, the crowds expand, beside themselves with joy.

In a week’s time, the tables will be turned. Death and descent into the underworld will be followed by Christ’s joyous expansion of life into Death’s realm; death will become life; and the people’s unfounded earthly hopes will trickle away in disappointment, disbelief and into hatred.

The point is that things are not always as they first appear. There are false conclusions—here comes our earthly king who will overthrow the Roman occupiers! There are seeming impossibilities: a shameful torture and criminal execution of an innocent man is really an act of redemption, which, to this day, is an act of unimaginable proportions. Death has become filled with life, life’s benevolent companion.

The poet says:


As timely as a river
God's timeless life passes
Into this world. It passes
Through bodies, giving life,
And past them, giving death.
The secret fish leaps up
Into the light and is
Again darkened. The sun
Comes from the dark, it lights
The always passing river,
Shines on the great-branched tree,
And goes. Longing and dark,
We are completely filled
With breath of love, in us
Forever incomplete.[1]






[1] Wendell Berry, in Given

Monday, April 14, 2014

4th Passiontide Palm Sunday 2012, Spirit Sun


4th Passiontide
Durer
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.”

4th Passiontide, Palm Sunday
April 1, 2012
Matthew 21: 1-20

Spring—new birth in nature; sunrise; the tender wonders of youth and love. In these our souls rejoice.

Yet these are not the whole story, for every spring has its corresponding autumn. Every sunrise has its sunset. Every birth moves toward inevitably toward a death. Together these create a necessary balance, the whole of reality.

The crowd rejoices as they perceive the sparks scintillating from the God of the Sun. They feel the surge of spring; in an ecstasy of joy, they lay before Him the branches of the sun-tree, the palm.

Yet Christ moves through their wild joy in calm solemnity. He is moving resolutely toward His own autumn; for the sun of his human life is about to set.

Yet His death will reverse the old pattern. His death will bring about a new birth; the birth of a new kind of sun; a sun that shines steadily, a spirit sun that never sets. He rises on a Sunday to become the first born from the realm of the dead. (Rev. 1:5) He is the bright star that shines in the morning. (Rev.22:16)

It is our heart’s deepest desire to find the spirit sun here on earth; to find and follow the light that shines in the darkness in solemn joy; to find the Christ light in our daylight.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

Sunday, April 13, 2014

4th Passiontide, Palm Sunday 2014, Kingdom of the Dead

4th Passiontide

Palm Sunday
Matthew 21: 1-11
Entry into the City, John August Swanson

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.”

4th Passiontide, Palm Sunday
April 13, 2014
Matthew 21: 1-11

Kingdom of the Dead, Peter Callesen
We are entering Holy Week. The altar and vestments are black. In this week Christ battles the forces of duality, the forces of black and white. These are the false polarities of either /or, the black and white, yes/no of dead binary thinking. Good or bad. Heaven or Hell. By the end of the week he will enter into the Place of the Skull. He will die, and rise again.

Christ exists in the living world of flow, of change and transformation. He operates in the changing subtleties of the grayscale, in the nuances of color. His opponents ask Him questions designed to entrap Him. He gives them answers from outside of their framework, answers from the flowing world of a greater reality.

Today we still battle with the kind of deadness that our brain-bound intellect so easily falls into. We still tend to manifest one or the other of the ill-making polarities in the way we think, thus closing ourselves off from greater possibilities. Nevertheless, we strain to open our thoughts in reverence. We struggle to warm our hearts in empathy. We strive to act according to the inspiration of our conscience, our higher self.

In those moments when we manage reverence of  thought, when we generate heart’s love, when we do deeds of conscience, in those moments Christ can operate in the world. In such moments Christ is in us.  It is he that thinks in us, suffers in us, dies and rises in us. As Rilke says,

To work with Things in the indescribable
relationship is not too hard for us;
the pattern grows more intricate and subtle,
Take your practiced powers and stretch them out
until they span the chasm between two
contradictions ... For the god
wants to know himself in you.[1]







[1] Rainer Maria Rilke, in Ahead of All Parting, ed. and translated by Steven Mitchell