The “Cosmic Our Father” and the Lord’s Prayer

On September 20, 1913, on the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone for the first Goetheanum, Rudolf Steiner spoke of a fifth gospel, and gave “as a first revelation of the fifth gospel . . . the primeval macrocosmic world-prayer which is connected with the Moon and Jupiter, even as the four gospels are connected with the Earth.” The prayer sounds thus:

AUM, amen!
The evils prevail,
Witness of unleashing of egohood,
Incurred through others, selfhood-guilt,
Experience it in daily bread
In which heaven’s will does not prevail
Since man departed from your kingdom
And forgot your names, You fathers in the heavens.

In lectures later that year Rudolf Steiner spoke further about this prayer. On October 5 and 6 in Oslo he told how these words were experienced by Jesus of Nazareth in an event some years before the baptism, spoken by a voice out of the spiritual world. Steiner told further how then later the Christ Jesus transformed these words into what we know as the Lord’s Prayer.

In what way can we imagine the words of this “macrocosmic Our Father” as a prayer? By far the greatest number of prayers to be found in the Bible are in the psalms of David. There are prayers of supplication, prayers of thanks, and also prayers of praise. Something of each of these is contained in the Cosmic Our Father, but in mirror form. The words do imply a supplication that is not fully expressed. Rather than thanks, we can hear the statement of a condition where all hope is lost. And praise is replaced by a sense of loss.

Whose voice can we imagine speaking the words? The situation that called them forth was described by Rudolf Steiner as arising from Jesus’s experience of compassion for the God-forsaken people in the neighborhood of Judea. He characterized the voice as “the transformed voice of the Bath-Kol”, that voice which was the last remnant of what had been the spiritual inspiration of the Hebrew prophets. But what we can understand further of the nature of the voice derives from the words themselves.

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The Lord’s Prayer and the Human Form

In his lectures on the structure of the Lord’s Prayer Rudolf Steiner spoke above all about the nature of petitional prayers, and pointed out that the archetypal prayer consist of Christ’s words “not my will but thy will be done.” As these were introductory lectures, he recapitulated the description of the human being from the point of view of Anthroposophy: the physical body, the etheric or life body, the astral or soul body, and the ego; and the higher aspects of the human being which result from his work on the lower members: the spirit-self as transformed astral body, the life-spirit as transformed etheric body, and the spirit-man as transformed physical body. He then showed how the sentences of the Lord’s Prayer each express the needs of one member of the human being:

  • “Give us this day our daily bread” addresses the needs of the physical body;
  • “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” addresses the needs of the etheric body;
  • “Lead us not into temptation” addresses the needs of the astral body;
  • “Deliver us from the evil” addresses the needs of the ego;
  • The earlier three sentences “Hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; the will be done” address the needs of those parts of the human being which will come to full expression in the future, and which Rudolf Steiner called the spirit-self, the life spirit, and the spirit-man.

We may also find insight into another aspect of the human being through the Lord’s Prayer, and this is the mystery of the human form. Let us observe how the archetype of the human form comes to expression through the Lord’s Prayer.

We begin with the words “Our father, who art in the heavens”, and consider what form arises from these words. If we focus on that our father is in the heavens, we can imagine to begin with the sky arching over us. To this picture we can then add the sun by day, or imagine the stars shining at night. The overall shape is that of a dome filled with light. And this is an image which corresponds to the shape of the human head, which is also a dome. Rudolf Steiner has again and again pointed out how the head is formed as an image of the heavens. And we begin our embryological development as a sphere—we are “all head”; we are a copy of the universe. In this way we can see the human form begin to arise when we contemplate the opening of the Lord’s Prayer.

Now we continue with the words, “hallowed be thy name.” What, as Shakespeare asked, is in a name? I know that for me the first image that arises when I hear the name of a friend is the friend’s face. I do not think of the friend’s head—that is part of the friend’s universal humanity. Through the form of the face I recognize my friend as an individual, as unlike any other. With the words “hallowed be thy name” we contemplate the countenance of the universal, archetypal human being, whose image we carry in ourselves. To look upon this image has not always been possible. When Moses asked to look on God’s countenance, he was told, “No man can look upon my countenance and live.” We can see this aspect of our father represented in the sun, which will make us blind if we look at it too long.

With the words, “Thy kingdom come”, we approach the realm of the human rhythmic system, and to some extent, the metabolic system. Here is a kingdom with its provinces and its governing laws. The laws are ones that we fortunately do not have to administer consciously; when our consciousness does reach into this kingdom, it is usually because something is not quite right in it. Let us imagine how the harmony of our Father’s kingdom is reflected in the orderly rhythmic movements of the planets. In a similar way our body’s organs work in a harmonious relationship with each other, which can largely be expressed through laws of rhythm. As long as we live according to harmonious rhythms of day, week, month, and year, we can expect to live in good health. Illness is often the result of living “out of rhythm.”

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Working With the Angels

Address given at Delegates Conference*
Chicago, Nov. 4, 2005

There are three characteristics of angels that are frequently pictured in artistic renderings. The first characteristic is that angels have wings. We think of the earthly creatures that have wings, the birds: they inhabit a sphere above the earth, the air regions. They live in a world of light and uplift, not limited by earthly gravity.

Picturing angels as having wings is an artistic way of saying that angels too are not bound to the earthly. They are limitless; they live in expanses. They live with the world of eternity at their backs.

In Ezekiel 10:12 there is a mighty description of great angelic beings covered in eyes. Therefore angels’ wings are pictured as having eyes on them. Eyes convey consciousness. They take things in, into a consciousness that is broader, brighter, clearer, purer, and more transparent than human consciousness. Eyes also shine forth; the gaze of an angel radiates love and recognition.

A third artistic motif used in picturing angels is as a musician. A good piece of music opens up heaven for us. In music, spiritual creative forces permeate space, harmonizing souls, ensouling and spiritualizing community; tuning souls to one another.

These three motifs, wings, eyes and musician, can help us understand the relationship between the human and the angelic realms.

There are nine ranks, or choirs of angel above the human realm. The third group of three, the angels, the archangels and the Primal Powers or Archai, are the three choirs we want to look at today.

Angels

The lowest of these choirs, the angels, are the ones closest to the human realm. Angels are intimately connected with individual human beings. We each have an angel assigned to us, a guardian angel, who accompanies us along our paths through lifetimes. Their ‘wings’ give them the overview that it is not possible for us to have. The angel’s ‘eyes’, angelic consciousness, sees, takes in, and remembers everything for us. The angel can remember what we have been and who we want to be. Angelic consciousness is, like that of a chess player, able to anticipate the results of our moves. Our angel is the carrier of our higher self. Angels listen to our thoughts. To become aware of one’s angel is to feel oneself to be watched, seen and recognized. Our angel’s eyes radiate love, recognition.

The Angel in You
Rose Auslander

The angel in you
Rejoices over
Your light
Weeps over your darkness

Out of his wings whisper
Words of love
Poems, tender affection.
He watches over
Your path

Direct your step
Angelwards.

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Apocalypse 1: The Writer1

The Revelation to John, the last book of the New Testament, belongs to those four centuries around the birth of Christ, two before and two after, which many people experienced “an open door” in heaven. It’s the time that apocalypse, revelation was rife, that many “apocalypses” have been written. Most of them could remind us of our own dreams – pictures following each other, often without a “logical” sequence, without beginning or end. One of them stands out: this book which made it into the Bible, even when quite some people didn’t like it at all and wondered why it had been taken into the canon of the Bible. Luther, the German reformer, must have said that his spirit could not find itself at ease in it.

Introduction

In the first three verses, John states that God gave this revelation to Jesus Christ, to show his servants what must soon take place. In order to give this revelation, he sent his angel to his servant John, that he would witness to the contents: to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, “even to all that he saw”. Then John adds a blessing, the first of seven “beatitudes” found in the Revelation, blessing those who read aloud, who hear and who keep what is written in this book, “for the time is near”.

As we see in the Gospel of John, the “witness” comes forward with his testimony as John the Baptist did (see for instance 1:6-8 and 10:41-42), as well as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (see from chapter 11 and after 12:17: 19:35 and 21:20-24). That Gospel also knows well the importance of “keeping” the words of Christ (8:51, 14:15 and 15:10).

After having, as it were, legitimized himself as to the source and the revelation he is to be shown, in 1:4-8 John addresses his audience, the “seven churches in Asia”, in the area colonized by the Greeks where he had lived and worked for so long, giving them blessings from the One we would call God the Father (“who is and who was and who is to come”) and from the spirits before his throne, as well as from Jesus Christ in three manifestations: as faithful witness (of the Father), as first-born of the dead (himself, as the Son), ruler of kings on earth (in whom the Spirit has come into its own).

Then out of the revelation he has experienced, John breaks out in a glorification of him whom we know in three ways: the One who loves us, who has freed us by his blood from our sins, who will make us into self-reliant priests to his God and Father. And speaks of His Coming, with the clouds, so that every eye will see him, “every one who pierced him”; directly introducing the pictures of Cross and Lamb. As a kind of affirmation to what John has written, the voice of the Lord God comes through, of Him “who is and who was and who is to come”, Alpha and Omega, the Almighty.

Now John begins to speak for and out of himself (“I, John”), evoking shared martyrdom over years of “patient endurance” because of “the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (as he had already written). Having spent years of being exiled on the island of Patmos, lying before this part of the coast of Asia Minor, he exactly pinpoints the beginning of his revelation: the Lord’s Day – the day of divine service, when he “was in Spirit”, and received his task: to write what he sees in a book and send it to the seven churches in the seven cities named.

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Thoughts, September 16th 2001

In the autumn fruit trees stand ripe for harvest. The tree offers, sacrifices its own living substance to the earth in its fruit. It makes this sacrifice so that new life, new trees, more fruit can grow and develop. When cared for by humans, the fruit is harvested so that the tree’s abundant life can feed others.

This week we watched in horror as malignant forces harvested human lives. We struggle to make sense of such madness, for we know that human lives are not fruit for the taking.

In our proper horror, it is easy to overlook an important more hidden aspect: that, contrary to appearances from this side of the threshold, human life does not end in death.

Over and against the negative images we have seen, can be set another, more important image:

As bodies fall to earth, grand and gentle beings of light receive and carry the further life of every one of those souls. They are presented to Christ. He gathers them up and takes them home.

Now they are beginning to awaken to the real reasons why their lives on earth were harvested, how the event of their death fits into the pattern of their past and present life, how it fits into our lives, and how it will fit into the future life of the earth.

No one’s real life has been lost. The kernel, the seed, the best of each of those individuals has been gathered up by the good beings in the universe. This best will be sown again, will grow and blossom and nourish.

Their lives were sacrificed, offered; some unconsciously, others, like the rescue workers, with more conscious intent. But their offer only moves toward meaninglessness if we refuse to eat of the fruit they are holding out to us: that human life is actually unceasing; that death has another side-it is a birth into another realm. Death is illuminated by Christ. Death is mad to serve the formation of new life, the sprouting of new trees from the fruit of the old.

In the coming days and months, those us us here on earth can watch and care for that new life. The children who will be born in the near future will have experienced what lives in the souls now released by these events. As approaching souls and newly released souls mingle near the earth, those yet to be born will be inspired to take up the threads, the ideals, the guiding impulses of those whose lives were offered. These approaching souls, as well as those who have just crossed, will be filled with a drive toward true peace, true love, and true human freedom. Even now, we ourselves can feel the inspiring forces of those released.

Today, September 16, 79 years ago, the first Act of Consecration of Man was born. It crossed the threshold into the world of earth. It is a ritual which hallows death. It is a re-enactment of Christ’s sacrificing of himself. And it is the place where we are encouraged to practice dying by consciously offering the best fruits of our souls, here and now, from this side of the threshold. We practice giving back to God and his angels our best thoughts, our hearts’ love, our warmest devotion. We offer these gifts of ourselves so that they can cross the threshold into Christ’s arms, so that he can gather them up and transform them into the nourishment for the angels. With this nourishment the angels can in turn strengthen all of us human beings, on both sides of the threshold, for the times to come.

The message from the world of the angels is always, first and foremost: Do not be afraid. Have no fear.

We may pray:

O Christ, you know
The souls and spirits
Whose deeds have woven
This country’s destiny.

May we who today
Are bearers of this destiny
Find the strength and the light
Of your servant Michael.

And our hearts be warmed
By your blessing, O Christ,
That our deeds may serve
Your work of world healing.

Christ answers: I am with you all days…

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Looking Westward

As my days in Toronto become numbered, I find that leaving is not easy, but I feel it is the right step to make. Last year during the retrospection of my life as a priest during the 25th anniversary celebration, I had the grace of what Rudolf Steiner described as “rising above oneself in retrospection.” I could look back and take hold of original impulses in a new way, to be able to go forward into a new phase of development. And it became clear that I had to let go of the life and web of connections that has grown up here like a tended garden, and be willing “to die and become.” This is a process difficult both for me and for the community.

This is an ash process, whereby offering becomes a way for enrichment.

The good that we have worked together will fall like ash fertilising a field to enrich the foundation for new growth, for receiving new impulses. It is not that the “old” is destroyed, and the ever sought-after new becomes sovereign like a novelty fashion. It is that the old becomes fixed in its forms, like in the forming of a salt, where the crystal captures a particular stage. And in order for new life to spring up, a dissolving or yielding or metamorphosing must take place.

Of these possibilities, the choice has been made for me to take up work in Vancouver, for someone new to come to Toronto. Although everyone recognises that this is an opportunity for renewal, it is not without effort. Some may even feel that in my leaving, an unspoken agreement is being unacknowledged. But the agreement of a priest must be a commitment to something more far-reaching than to a particular community: it is a commitment to the body of Christ in Christian Communities. And in that we are all ultimately affected by the health of the whole. We cannot rest in our achievements, the comfort of the known and loved, once our consciousness expands beyond our current scope.

I am going to a congregation that has existed many decades, founded by Verner Hegg, and where Werner Grimm has worked for a long time, and also Michael Kientzler. There is a church building there in Burnaby, similar to the church on Avenue Road. Many people debate whether or not the church should be located there near the downtown, or in North Vancouver, where most of the people live.

Vancouver itself looks out towards Vancouver Island, the Pacific, the Aleutian Islands, and the International Dateline where today becomes tomorrow… It is situated on the Pacific rim, which encircles an ocean floor unlike the other oceans of the earth. Under the other great oceans, a structure is evident in the ocean floor that expresses a deep and vital process of circulation. A ridge, like a backbone, directs the flow of the currents of water. The metabolism that takes place at the bottom of the Atlantic, for example, helps to keep the tectonic plates which carry the continents encircling the Atlantic healthy. But the Pacific ocean floor does not have this underlying structure. It is rough and torn, still scarred by the ancient wrenching free of matter that left the earth and eons ago formed the moon.

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The Revelation to John: Structure1

  • Introduction
    1:1-8

    1. 1:1-3 John’s Preface and the 1st Beatitude (reading and hearing this book
    2. 1:4-8 John greets the Seven Churches in Asia – Voice of the Lord God

  • Opening Vision
    1:9-3:22

    1. 1:9-20 I John (in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day) – Vision of One Like a Son of Man
    2. 2:1-3:22 The Seven Letters, to Ephesus – Smyrna – Pergamum – Thyatira – Sardis – Philadelphia – Laodicea

  • 1st Throne Vision
    4:1-7:8

    1. 24:1-11 The One Sitting on the Throne and the 24 Elders
    2. 5:1-14 The Lamb
    3. 6:1-8 The first four Seals: the Four Horsemen
    4. 6:9-11 The fifth Seal: the souls of Martyrs
    5. 6:12-17 The sixth seal: signs of heaven, doom on earth
    6. 7:1-8 Heavenly Interlude on earth: sealing of the 144,000 Servants of the Lord

  • 2nd Throne Vision
    7:9-11:14

    1. 7:9-12 Song of Those who Came Through; the Angels’ Song of Praise
    2. 7:131-17 Those in White Robes, explanation by one of the Elders
    3. 8:1 Opening the seventh Seal – Silence in heaven
    4. 8:2-5 The angel with the golden censer, the prayers of the saints
    5. 8:6-12 The first four Trumpets
    6. 8:13 Heavenly Interlude : the Eagle in Midheaven
    7. 9:1-12 The fifth Trumpet, being the first Woe
    8. 9:13-21 The sixth Trumpet, being the second Woe
    9. 10:1-11 Heavenly Interlude: the Strong Angel with the Book for the Seer (The seven Thunders)
    10. 11:1-14 The two Witnesses. Announcing the third Woe

  • 3rd Throne Vision
    11:15-13:18
    [The seven visions of the Dragon]

    1. 11:15-19 The seventh Trumpet: Hymn in heaven, the Elders giving thanks
    2. 12:1-6 First vision of the Dragon: The Cosmic Woman and the Birth of her Son
    3. 12:7-9 2nd Vision: Michael battling the Dragon
    4. 12:10-12 3rd Vision: Hymn of Victory in heaven
    5. 12:13-18 4th Vision: The Dragon battling on earth
    6. 13:1-10 5th Vision: The first Beast
    7. 13:1-14 6th Vision: The second Beast
    8. 13:15-18 7th Vision: The Mark of the Beast – the Number 666

  • 4th Throne Vision
    14:1-20
    [The seven visions of the Son of Man]

    1. 14:1-5 The Lamb on Mount Zion with the 144.000
    2. 14:6-7 The first Angel: the Eternal Gospel
    3. 14:8 The second Angel, announcing Judgment on Babylon
    4. 14:9-12 The third Angel, announcing Judgment on those who follow the Beast
    5. 14:13 2nd Beatitude (Those who die in the Lord)
    6. 14:14-16 The Son of Man reaping the earth with his sharp sickle
    7. 14:17-20 The Angel with the Sickle and the Angel with Power over Fire

  • 5th Throne Vision
    15:1-16:16
    [The seven angels with their bowls]

    1. 15:1-5 The Sea of Glass and the Song of Praise of those Who Conquered
    2. 15:6-8 The seven angels receive the seven golden Bowls
    3. 16:1-11 The first five Bowls of Wrath poured out
    4. 16:12-14 The sixth Bowl of Wrath poured out
    5. 16:15 3rd Beatitude (Warning to be awake and to keep one’s garments)
    6. 16:16 Assemblage at Armageddon

  • Interlude
    16:17-18:24
    [The seventh Bowl and the seven visions of doom]

    1. 16:17-21 The seventh Bowl of Wrath poured out
    2. 17:1-6 The World Harlot of Power
    3. 17:7-18 The Angel interpreting her Appearance
    4. 18:1-3 Woe on Babylon
    5. 18:4-8 Another Angel warning the Believers
    6. 18:9-20 Lament of Kings, Merchants and Seafarers
    7. 18:21-24 The Angel with the Millstone, symbol of destruction

  • 6th Throne Vision
    19:1-20:15
    [Seven Stages of Trial by Triumph and Judgement]

    1. 19:1-10 “Hallelujah” after Babylon’s Fall – 4th Beatitude (Those called to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb
    2. 19:11-16 The White Horseman triumphant
    3. 19:17-21 Triumph over the Beast and its Vassals
    4. 20:1-3 The Dragon chained
    5. 20:4-6 The Thousand Years – 5th Beatitude (The First Resurrection)
    6. 20:7-10 Satan’s Last Struggle and his Defeat
    7. 20:11-15 The Last Judgment

  • Final Vision
    21:1-22:7
    [New Jerusalem]

    1. 21:1-4 A New Heaven and New Earth
    2. 21:5-8 God’s Promise
    3. 21:9-17 The Heavenly City, Lay-out and Measurements
    4. 21:18-21 The City’s Fundament, the twelve jewels and twelve gates
    5. 21:22-27 The Residents of the City
    6. 22:1-5 The River of the Water of Life and the Tree of Life
    7. 22:6-7 Christ’s Coming – 6th Beatitude (To keep the words of this book)

  • Conclusion
    22:8-21

    1. 22:8-9 I John (affirming) – the Angel
    2. 22:10-12 Voice of the Lord … “I am coming soon” – “Recompense”
    3. 22:13 Voice of the Lord God
    4. 22:14-15 7th Beatitude (Those with washed robes – Tree of Life and City)
    5. 22:16-17 I Jesus – Voice of the Lord : “I have sent” – “Come”
    6. 22:18-19 The Seer on the words of this prophecy
    7. 22:20-21 Voice of the Lord : “Surely I am coming soon” – Prayer and Blessing
  1. Here following Christoph Rau, in his article on the Structure of the Revelation to John, in Ich sah den Himmel aufgetan, pp 37-52 (ed. Johannes Lauten), Urachhaus, Stuttgart 2006.

  2. “After this” which means “After these things”, indicates a beginning after a longer interval in time. See for instance 4:1, 7:1, 7:9, 15:5, 18:1 and 19:1.

    Literature
    In Alfred Heidenreich, The Book of Revelation (Floris Books, Edinburgh, 1977) there has been posthumously published a series of lectures held by him in 1968, the year before his death in 1969, on the invitation of the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain. A translation of The Revelation to John by Heidenreich has been added. Rudolf Frieling, in the last chapter of his Christianity and Reincarnation (Floris Books, Edinburgh 1977, pp 90-117) describes “Human Evolution in the Apocalypse of John”, with the intention to see what it has to say about mankind’s Christian progress.

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Cosmic Lights

The universe offers us two kinds of cosmic light—the sun by day, and the stars by night. The one is all round and full, shining everywhere equally, with its great embracing light joining everything visible in its benevolent glow. The other is all distant sparkling points, individual, distinct, and separated in the cold darkness from one another.

When the Community of Christians was founded on the earth, these two kinds of light were brought into a new world-historical connection. For each of us is distinct, in our own space, with our own perspective, experiencing aloneness and the dark as we strive and suffer, regret and rejoice, learn and love. This is how we evolve, becoming ourselves and more enlightened on our path. But human history moves forward as well, through the destiny of communities to which everyone belongs by birth, by upbringing, by choice. And through communities, something greater than the individual can work, for better or for worse.

Eighty years ago, a free religious community, without rules or dogma, came into being, to be worthy of modern individuals and of the Spirit at work in our time in community-building ritual.

The Act of Consecration of Man, said Rudolf Steiner, is more real than anything in Nature. It will outlast everything material. As an eternal sun, it generates spiritual community, blessing and nurturing our common human essence, consecrating human beings on either side of the threshold in divine deed.

Our life weaves between these two forms of light—the sparkle of individual destiny and the destiny of the Christ-centered community, shining through, in, and around us. So may we together play a crucial benevolent role in the history of community life and world evolution.

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Easter Sunday

The magnificent meaning and significance of Easter is to overcome matter and death! Easter is also always mankind’s victory over heaviness and inertia.

And this is true even if we do it in a completely unconscious way. Whenever we try to overcome heaviness and inertia, we bring the spirit of Easter to the world.

Some families have begun an Easter tradition of walking to a spring to obtain Easter water. They start very early in the morning before sunrise. They have to agree beforehand to be absolutely quiet on their way until they scoop the water from the spring. Beginning this practice meant for all who took part in it, an overcoming of this sense of heaviness and inertia. They had to get up very early, at an unusual time, and hold back their usual flow of words. Both mean overcoming the pull of convenience.

But there are other situations where we try to overcome these feelings of inertia and paralysis. Every morning, when we get up, we need inner power to straighten ourselves up and overcome our body’s stiffness and affinity for gravity.

There is also an inner inertia when we have to do things we do not enjoy doing. Each and every one of us knows our own inertia. But when we have enough strength and do what is necessary, we can experience a wonderful sense of completion and support. Then we may get help from another side, perhaps what we asked for long time.

On Easter Sunday morning, when the women were on their way to the tomb with their aromatic spices, they needed great strength and power to overcome their mourning and fear, for what they anticipated seeing at the tomb. And they said to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” And when they then looked at the large stone in front of the tomb, they saw that it had already been rolled to the side. The help was there when they needed it.

And the people who went to the spring on Easter morning may have experienced the joy of a wonderful sunrise, which they would never have seen, had they been asleep. Or they may have had a special encounter with an animal and heard noises that nature produces around us before they started their daily activities. All this happened, because they overcame the paralysis of convenience.

Perhaps, after a long silence, people use their words more carefully. And if they repeat such an experience, they may get an important thought and impulses for a question that they have lived with for a long time.

Easter is a wonderful celebration each year, but Easter can also be with us every day if we allow it and become aware of help from the spiritual side, once we overcome the weight of inertia.

April 22nd, 2006

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Temptation

Christ did his most significant work in the time between the temptation and the crucifixion, or better said – his sacrifice. Temptation and sacrifice belong together like night and day.

As adults, we know temptations very well. We struggle with it almost every day. Sometimes it is alcohol, sometimes it is caffeine, or chocolate, sometimes it is another drug. It has to do with our yearnings and cravings, and with the instability of our inner balance. We mistakenly believe we come to an inner balance through fulfilling our desires. The outside world stimulates these desires hundredfold in many different forms. Mostly we think we cannot do without them and our will is too weak to battle against them on a daily basis. We each have our very own individual temptations and problems that are caused by them.

Looking at society as a whole, temptation is present everywhere. It is bigger and perhaps more dangerous than we have recognised up to now. Many people have forgotten how to differentiate between fanatical faith and faith that you develop through the experience and effectiveness of the spiritual world in our daily life. It is a tragedy. Some young people think religion has brought so much deceit, distress and warfare for mankind that it cannot be trusted. And, on the other hand, temptation has become extremely materialistic. The power of the adversary is immense and hard to resist. Most people cannot recognise the daily effectiveness and protective power of the spiritual world. In our daily struggle it could arrive through their guardian angel, or through their already deceased loved ones.

But now, we have to pose the question: is there a chance to manage this limitless temptation, in the personal and also for society, so that it is not so overwhelming? Let us return for a moment to the beginning. I said that temptation is closely connected to sacrifice. But who likes sacrifice? In a short time, we will see – in our church [in Toronto] – the tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily by Goethe. The main theme in this story is sacrifice. The pictures point us towards a distant future. At that time it will never be night. Then we will always have day. It is important that each figure has their dealings in the tale in order that the sacrifice can work. So it is also important that we prepare the future now, otherwise one day society may collapse.

One way to get ready for the future is to practice small sacrifices. Can’t we try to give up something we desire intensely? For example, if we are totally addicted to chocolate, or alcohol, or other things, we could begin with that, only one time in the week. Perhaps one day we can learn how not to give in to another craving, perhaps a bigger one. Then one day, perhaps, we can resist a more intense temptation.

But how can society resist the temptation of having only materialistic thoughts without spiritual connection? Today, many people cannot distinguish between fananticism, and the fact, indeed the reality, that the spiritual world is continuously present. One can experience that when one is a little awake to it. Through the guidance of the spiritual world a new morality is arising for which each of us is responsible. Then we can hope that we will remind ourselves about the biggest sacrifice of and for all times, the mystery of Golgotha.

It is our hope that in the future, society will achieve the right form of harmony. But, harmony is only possible when the physical and the spiritual worlds mutually interact and influence each other. The physical world connects with the spiritual world and vice versa, when antithesis of day and night are cancelled. Of course it is something for the far future, but we have to prepare it now.

If we celebrate our daily service as a community, and give up our excessive desires, our materialistic thoughts and superfluous cravings, then we are already making possible the mutual penetration of both worlds. Our small sacrifice will build the foundation and show the way to reject temptation when it comes as a dark feeling and attacks our soul.

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