St. Johnstide

Lamb of God

John 1: 19-34

This is the testimony of John, when the Jewish leaders sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” Freely and openly he made confession. He confessed, “I am not the Christ [the Anointed].”

Then they asked him, “Who are you then? Are you Elijah?” And he said, “No, I am not.”

“Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.”

Then they said, “Who are you? What answer are we to give to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?”

He said in the words of the prophet Isaiah, “I am the voice of one crying in the loneliness: Prepare the way for the Lord [so that the Lord may enter into the inmost soul [self].”

And those who had been sent by the Pharisees asked him, “Why do you baptize if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”

John answered them, “I baptize with water. But someone is standing in your midst whom you do not know, who comes after me although he was before me. I am not worthy even to untie the strap of his sandals.”

This took place in Bethany near the mouth of the Jordan where John was baptizing.

The next day he [John] sees Jesus coming to him, and says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes upon himself the burden of the sin of the world. He it is of whom I said: ‘After me comes one who was before me, for he is greater than I  [for he is ahead of me].’ [After me comes one who was (generated) before me, for he is the prototype.] Even I did not know him; but for this I have come, and have baptized with water, so that human souls in Israel might become able to experience the revelation of his being.”

And John testified: “I saw how the Spirit descended upon him as a dove from the heavens and remained united with him. I did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend, so that it remains united with him, he it is who baptizes with the [breath of the] Holy [Healing] Spirit [and with fire].’ And I saw this, and so I testify that this is God’s Son.”

John and the Lamb of God

St. Johnstide

July 5, 2015

John 1: 19-34

In the ancient world view, the four primal states of being were arranged in ascending order. First was the solid state, called earth. Then came the fluid state – water; then invisible ‘thin air’ and finally radiant warmth, called fire. Fire evaporates water; water quenches fire. Air mediates between them. The elements exist within us as the solidity of bone, the flow of blood, the breath of air and our constant warmth.

John baptized with water. It was a ritual of purification. By being immersed in water, people had a glimpse of the flow of their lives. They recognized their failings and errors. It stirred them to change their ways. John indicates that Christ will bring with Him another kind of baptism – an immersion in the airy breath of a healing spirit, and the warmth of a purifying fire.

Were the element of a water baptism to prevail in our lives, we would likely drown in the enormity of our sins. But Christ brings with Him the means to overcome. He will help us carry the burden. And He will bring us the breath of His healing, comforting spirit, which breathes peace into our souls. And with it He kindles in us the fire of enthusiasm, which ignites our will to bring about the good. John the Baptist announces this with his health-bearing, guilt conscious fiery words.

Thus will all our elements, all our states of being, be brought into harmony. We will water the solid body of earth with our tears of remorse; and we will breathe in Christ’s peace, kindling in our spirits the purifying fire of love, a creative fountain of being. As the poet Rumi says:

The voice of the fire says:

“I am not fire, I am fountainhead,

Come into me and don’t mind the sparks.”

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1st St. Johnstide 2015, Think Differently

St. John’s

Mark 1, 1-11

This is the beginning of the new word from the realm of the angels, sounding forth through Jesus Christ. Fulfilled is the word of the prophet Isaiah:

Behold, I send my angel before your face.

wiki commons

He is to prepare your way.

Hear the voice of one calling in the loneliness of the human soul

Prepare the way for the Lord within the soul,

Make his paths straight, so that he may find entrance into Man’s innermost being!

Thus did John the Baptist appear in the loneliness of the desert. He proclaimed Baptism, the way of a change of heart and mind, for the acknowledgement of sin. And they went out to him from all of Judea and Jerusalem and received baptism from him in the river Jordan and recognized and confessed their failings.

John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist. Fruits and wild honey were his food. And he proclaimed:

               

‘After me comes one who is mightier than I. I am not even worthy to bend down before Him and to undo the straps of His sandals. I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the fire of the Holy [healing] Spirit.’

In those days it happened: Jesus of Nazareth came to Galilee, and was baptized in the Jordan by John.

And at the same time as he rose up again out of the water, he beheld how the spheres of the heavens were torn open, and the spirit of God descended upon him like a dove.

And a voice sounded from the world of the spirit:

‘You are my son, the beloved —in you is my revelation.’ [‘Today I have conceived (begotten) you.’ Luke 3:22]

St. John’s

June 24, 28, 2015

Mark 1, 1-11

Annual plants sprout and grow and grow, laddering out green leaf after green leaf. Then at a certain point, the activity compresses and finally comes to a standstill. What comes next is a transformation into something entirely different – a different form, color, scent, nectar and pollen – the blossom.  The perfume and pollen rise up. This in turn attracts bees and butterflies. It is as though the blossom has grown into a life beyond itself. Carried by the air, warmed by the sun and infused with the stars, the pollen descends and returns to the plant. It brings with the image, the archetype of next year’s plant, freshly created by the angels. This image is then bound to the newly forming seed. This is the gesture of summer: transformation, opening, encountering forces from above, the blessing of new life.

Christ’s baptism in the Jordan partakes of this great living summer process. The soul of Jesus had been broken open in sorrowing compassion for the state of humankind. He comes to the Jordan to offer himself – his bodily form, his compassionate soul, the fragrance and sweetness of his moral nature. The heavens open and the Holy, healing Spirit of the Father’s love descends into him. He has been made fruitful from above. The freshly created archetype of the true human being has created seeds of new life in him.

We know that we are needy of healing here on earth. In the Act of Consecration of Man , aware of our separation from the world of the divine, we open our hearts and minds. We offer our noblest and purest thoughts, the yearning of our hearts, our willingness. We hope that as the fragrance of our offering ascends, something, Someone will approach us from the other side. We hope that the grace of the Father’s love will descend upon us, enter into us. We hope to be made fruitful, that the seeds of real love will begin to form within us. For our deepest yearning is to be enkindled from above, united with our true nature.

John the Baptist reminds us that we must change. We must turn ourselves around inwardly. Think differently. Then the living light of the Christ-Sun can enkindle and ripen in us.

4th June Trinity 2015, Lifting our Hands

June Trinity

John 11: 17-44

When Jesus got [to Bethany] there, he found that he [Lazarus] had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away. Many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him. But Mary remained within. And Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha answered, “I know that he will rise again in the great resurrection at the end of time.”

Then Jesus said to her, “I AM the resurrection and the life. Whoever fills himself with my power through faith, he will live even when he dies; and whoever takes me into himself as his life, he is set free from the might of death in all earthly cycles of time. Do you feel the truth of these words?” And she said, “Yes Lord. With my heart I have recognized that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

When she had said this she went and called her sister Mary and said to her privately, “The Master is here and is asking for you.” Jesus had not yet entered the town. He had stayed in the place where Martha had met him.

When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out, they followed her. They thought she was going to the tomb to weep there. But Mary came to the place where Jesus was, and when she saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been there, this brother of mine would not have died. “

When Jesus saw how she and the Jews coming with her were weeping, he aroused himself in spirit and, deeply moved within himself, he asked, “Where have you laid him?” They answered, “Come, Lord, and see.” 

Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him.” But some of them said, “Could not he who restored the sight of the blind man keep this man from dying?” And again Jesus, deeply moved within himself went up to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it. And Jesus said, “Take away the stone!”

Then said Martha, the sister of him whose life had reached completion, “Lord, there will be an odor [he has already begun to decompose], for this is the fourth day.” But Jesus said, “Did I not say to you that if you had faith, you would see the revelation of God?”

Then they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes to the spirit and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me; but because of the people standing here I say it, so that their hearts may know that you have sent me. Then he called with a loud voice: “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out, his feet and hands bound with strips of linen, his face covered with a veil. And Jesus said, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

June Trinity

June 21, 2015

John 11: 17-44

Every morning we waken from sleep and rise from our beds.  If we are laid low with the flu, or by soul events, eventually we recover and our spirits rise again. This is the power of resurrection, of rising and ascent, working subtly and unconsciously in us. It is a power we take for granted.

Today’s reading tries to make clear to us where this power of rising comes from.  ‘I AM the resurrection and the life,’ says Christ. I AM the force of levity that overcomes all of life’s graves. I AM the power that lifts toward the sun. Then He asks the Martha in us, ‘Do you feel the truth of these words?’ For it is important that we become conscious of this Source of Rising, that we feel and know its truth. For Christ wants us to work with Him, consciously. He wants to extend to us His resurrection power, the power to overcome death, so that we in turn can extend it to the earth itself.

Shuplyak Oleg

He has raised human beings. He can raise the Lazarus in us, the part of us that is joined with Him in love. But to raise the earth, to elevate its being, Christ needs the cooperation of humanity. Together with Christ’s power of elevation, we can work consciously for the future of the earth.

In the Act of Consecration of Man we raise our thoughts and feelings toward the spirit. We raise substances of earth, bread, wine, water, to the divine, so that they can be permeated with divine life and transformed. The power of resurrection, of raising, of levity and ascent, has been given to us –Let the bread be…..let the wine be…. Christ in the lifting of our hands.

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3rd June Trinity, New Light and Sound

June Trinity

Crijn Hendricksz

John 3: 1-17

There was a man in the circle of the Pharisees, whose name was Nicodemus; he held high rank among the Jews. He came to Jesus in the night and said, “Master, we know that you are a high teacher of mankind, come to us from God, for no one can do such signs of the Spirit as you do unless God himself is working together with him in his deeds.”

Jesus answered and said to him, “The truth out of the spirit I say to you: whoever is not born anew from above cannot behold the kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born again when he is old? Can he return to his mother’s womb to be born again a second time?

Jesus answered, “the truth out of the spirit I say to you: whoever remains as he is, and does not come to a new birth out of the formative power of the water and out of the breath of the spirit [or, …and is not born anew out of the spiritual power of eternal becoming and out of being touched by the might of the spirit world] cannot enter into the kingdom of God. What is born out of earthly elements is of earthly nature. But what is born out of the breath of the spirit, is itself spirit. Do not wonder that I said to you that you must be born anew from above. The spirit wind blows where it will; you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from, or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born anew out of the breath of the spirit.

Nicodemus replied and said to him, “How can one attain this?”

Jesus answered, “You are a teacher of Israel and do not know? Amen, the truth I say to you: we speak of what we know, and we bear witness to what we have seen in the spirit, but none of you accepts our testimony. When I speak to you of earthly things and you do not believe them, how shall you believe when I want to speak to you of heavenly things? No one has ascended to the spiritual world who has not previously descended out of the spiritual world, that is, the Son of Man.

Just as Moses once lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who finds his power in their hearts can win a share in the higher life beyond time. God has so loved the world that he has given his only begotten Son. From now on, no one who fills himself with his power shall perish, for he will share in timeless, higher life. God did not send the Son into the world to condemn it, but in order that the world be saved [healed] through him, and not fall prey to ruin.”

June Trinity

June 14, 2015

John 3: 1-17

Each human being has two sets of parents. Our earthly parents made possible the birth of our physical body. At the same time a second set of parents are also at work. Mother Earth offers her great body to support, to nourish and sustain all her children. And our Spirit Father sends our eternal spirits into the earthly body, again and again. Yet, as the poet says, ‘our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.[1] We don’t remember the spiritual home from which we have come.

Christ’s conversation with Nicodemus tries to indicate that there is yet another layer to being born, another way, while we are still in bodies on earth. Our spirits can be touched by the power of development, touched by the might of the spiritual world. And this is the birth of a second Man in us. It is an awakening and a remembering. We awaken to the reality of our spiritual nature; we remember our spiritual home; we move on the breath of love.

When Nicodemus asks how to accomplish this, Christ foretells the deed that will make this possible for all human beings. He is lifted up on the cross, arms outstretched, embracing the whole world in love. He ascends to the place where the world is eternally created and sustained. He sends the living spirit of love and understanding to enlighten our thoughts.

He, Christ, is indeed the renewer of the world. Through our love for Him, we too can be reborn, here and now, out of the might and power of the good beings of the spiritual world.

…for many now can hear again

the word of angels: Do not fear!

New light and sound in us appear

for strengthened heart and wakened ear.[2]

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[1] William Wordsworth. 1770–1850, “ Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”

[2] Lent Song, German folk song, translation from Camphill

2nd June Trinity 2015, Cup of Solace

June Trinity
John 4, 1-26

At this time the Lord became aware that it was rumored among the Pharisees that Jesus was finding and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, though his disciples did.) Therefore he left Judea and went back again to Galilee.

Now he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the plot of land Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was also there. Jesus was weary with the journey, and he sat down by the well. It was about midday, the sixth hour.

Then a Samaritan woman came to draw water. And Jesus said to her, “Give me to drink.” For his disciples had gone into town to buy bread.

Then the Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a Samaritan woman?” For the Jews avoided all contact with the Samaritans.

Jesus answered her, “If you knew how the divine world now draws near to men, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me to drink’, you would ask him, and he would give you the water of life [the living water].

“Sir,” the woman said to him, “you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From where will you draw the living water? Are you greater than our Father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his flocks and herds?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water that I will give him, his thirst will be quenched for all time. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up as true life for eternity.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may never be thirsty again, and need never come here again to draw.”

He said to her, “Go call your husband and show him to me.”

“I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You have well said that you have no husband. Five husbands you have had, and he whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews say that only in Jerusalem is the place where one should worship.”

Jesus answered, “Believe me, o woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship a being you do not know; we worship what we do know. That is why salvation had to be prepared for among the Jews. But the hour is coming and has now come, when the true worshippers will worship the Father with the power of the spirit and in awareness [knowledge] of the truth.”

Then the woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming who is called Christ. When he comes, he will teach us all things.”

Jesus said to her, “I AM he who stands before you and speaks to you.”

  

June Trinity

June 7, 2015

John 4, 1-26

If someone were to ask us for a drink of water we would happily oblige. All of us share the basic experience of thirst, thirst for water, that most precious of life sustaining substances.

In life we also further thirst for more than just water; we thirst for knowledge; we thirst for love and relationship; we thirst for change and effectiveness.

Christ says to the woman at the well – I thirst. He, the God of Human Beings, empathizes with all our human thirsts, for He experiences them himself. And at the same time, his thirst is a request for something from us. I thirst – he says- for knowledge of you, for a relationship of love with you, to be an effective presence and power in your life. In exchange I will satisfy your thirst for eternal knowledge, for everlasting love and for the effectiveness of the divine in your life. Then you can become a fountain for your fellow human beings.

…Standing by your Beloved's side

Reaching out to comfort this world

With your cup of solace

Drawn from your vast reservoir of Truth.

 ….

Where there are bleeding men

Who are calling for a sacred drink,

A gentle word or touch from man

or God. [1]

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[1] Hafiz, ”Not With Wings”, in The Subject Tonight is Love - versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky

First June Trinity 2015, Expectation

June Trinity

John 17: 6-11

Father, I have revealed your name and your being to all human beings whom you have led through destiny to me. They were yours; they lived out of the powers that worked in folk and family, and now you have given them to me, and into my working that lives in the Self, and they have kept your word in their inmost being. Thus they have recognized how all the spiritual power that you have given me truly proceeds from you; for all the creative spiritual power that you have given me, I have brought to them.

They have taken it up into themselves and have recognized that in truth I come from you, and they have gained insight, and trust that I have been sent by you. I pray to you for them as individual human beings; they who are to live out of the power of the self, as individuals, I pray to you for them; not for mankind in general, but for the human beings which you have given me. For they belong to you, just as everything which is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine, and the light of my being can shine in them [I am revealed in them]. I no longer live in the outer world, but they live in this world.

My whole being is devoted to you. And I am coming to you.  Holy Father, you who give healing to the world, keep in your name and in your being all whom you have given to me, so that they may be one even as we also are one. 

Antonio de Pareda

June Trinity

John 17: 6-11

May 31, 2015

This reading is taken from Jesus’ conversation with his Father the night before He died. It is a summation of the inter-relatedness, the interweaving of the Father and the Son and us. Through this interweaving we can become those human beings filled with the healing Spirit, those out of whom the light of Christ shines. This particular reading is also read sacramentally two other times in a person’s life: it is read at the children’s Confirmation, when their individual souls and destines are born out of the family milieu. It is also read again just before death, at the Last Anointing. Jesus’ words thus can form the bookends of an individual human biography, if they so choose.

This reading also underscores once again the motifs of Pentecost: that each person’s individuality is to be preserved; that we are to live out of the power of our selfhood. And that our selfhood and our destiny, voluntarily connected to Christ, will lead us to the Father  and His unifying Spirit. As the poet John O’Donohue says:

May you recognize in your life the presence,

Power and light of your soul.

May you realize that you are never alone,

That your soul in its brightness and belonging

Connects you intimately with the rhythm of the universe.

May you have respect for your individuality and difference.

May you realize that the shape of your soul is unique,

That you have a special destiny here,

That behind the façade of your life

There is something beautiful and eternal happening.

May you learn to see your self

With the same delight,

Pride and expectation

With which God sees you in every moment.[1]

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[1] John O'Donohue, “A Blessing for Solitude” in To Bless the Space Between Us, p. 112

Whitsun III, Good Will

Pentecost, wiki commons

Pentecost

John 14: 23-31

Jesus replied, “He who truly loves me reveals my Spirit, and my Father will love him and we will come to him and prepare with him a dwelling in the everlasting [an eternal dwelling]. He who does not love me cannot reveal my Spirit. And the spirit power of the word that you hear is not from me; it is the speaking of the Father who sent me.

I have said this to you while I am still with you. But he who is called down, the health-bringing Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you everything and will awaken within you all that I have said to you.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid [have no fear].

You have heard how I said to you, ‘I am going away, and yet I am coming to you’. If you loved me you would rejoice because I am going to the Father[ly Ground of the World], for the Father is mightier than I am.

I have told you now, before it happens, so that when it happens you may find trust. I no longer have much to say to you, for soon the prince of this world is coming. Yet over me he has no power.

But the world shall see in this how I love the Father [Ground of the World] and how I act in accordance with the Father’s purpose, as it was entrusted to me. Arise, let us go on from here. [let us be on our way.]

Pentecost 

John 14: 23-31

May 26, 2015

On the Christmas altar we read in golden letters: Peace on earth to all of good will. What does it mean to be of good will? Perhaps its opposite can point us toward an understanding. Ill will broods darkness. It sends negativity into the heart space between two people.  It either pushes hard on the other, or else it retreats. It poisons the heart space with its destructive criticism and contempt. It binds with chains of hatred.

Good will, on the other hand, holds the other in positive regard. Good will keeps the heart space in common clean and clear. It neither pushes nor withdraws. It regards the will of another as a Holy of Holies, into which one can enter only by invitation, and with respect and reverence before their mystery. This kind of will is good because, like a candle flame, it radiates light and warmth in just the right degree. Good will allows the other to be and develop as he or she sees fit, at their own pace.

Christ says: He who loves me reveals my spirit. Good will arises because we love and recognize Christ, wherever he appears. He sacrificed his will to the Father for the sake of World Karma. He offered up his Life forces, his powers of metamorphosis and change, for the sake of humanity’s progress. At the same time, He does not force himself on us, or overwhelm us. He respects our freedom of choice. His radiant will offers light in the darkness, love amidst hatred, life over death.

We who love Him connect with Him, take His radiant will into our will. Perhaps we can manage it only for moments (we hope the right moment!) But eventually we will transform ourselves into those who reveal to our fellow human beings His Spirit of Love and Peace, streaming forth from our own willing hearts.