Thank you to Rev. Paul Corman who is visiting the US for offering this contemplation:

The Easter Epistle and Insert

Easter Sunday this year has come and gone, but the Easter season will continue for 40 days until Ascension.  In these 6 weeks we will hear in the Act of Consecration of Man, the Easter Epistle.  Taking into account what we have heard during Passiontide, we will notice that the motifs continue to transform into the main motifs of Easter.  The “locations” of the transforming activity have remained the same: the heart, blood, the breath, and consciousness.  It is the effects that have changed.

Before in Passiontide, the heart was empty and burning; now it is the tomb that is empty and the heart that is full.

Before, we lived in the cold earthly house, forsaken of the spirit; now we feel the warmth that transforms the beat of the heart into rejoicing and healing power.

Before, it was loss and abandonment that we felt; now we feel fulfillment and the comfort of the spirit.

Before, what touched our consciousness was waiting and a ray of sadness from a tomb of hope that penetrated our gaze; now we experience the vanquisher of death, joy and grace.

It may seem obvious that, with Easter, sadness leaves and jubilation and joy take over our experience.  This is what we feel and celebrate, especially with children.  However, if our celebration takes place mostly in the emotional realm, very soon the worries of life and daily chores will demand most of our attention and the deeper meaning of Easter will fade into the background.  The truth is that Easter has to be the center of our Christian life all year long.  It is to give “flavor” and “color” to all the other festivals and, indeed, to everything we experience throughout the year. This aspect of Easter is seen even more strongly in the prayer inserted in the middle of the Act of Consecration during the festive seasons.  The Easter insert advises us that the Easter resurrection is not only for us humans; it says that jubilation and delight live “in the air around the Earth” and that the breath of the Earth lives in the sun, radiating the power of the spirit. Easter re-unites the spiritual forces of the Earth with those of the Sun through the Christ.  Christ’s deed of Easter brought something of unification back into the universe, something which since the fall had been separated. But even more than that, the human being is inserted into the universal fabric in a way that was never before possible.  Truly, from Easter Sunday onwards, everything is different.  It will, however, take time until human beings become aware of this fact in such a way that from our consciousness, we transform our behavior.  The insert goes on to explain that Christ has entered the pulse of our lives from where he can transform our souls.  First of all, it speaks of the devoted soul.  Devote comes from the Latin “devotus”, given to, offered to, consecrated to.  The prefix “de” means “from top to bottom”, that is, completely, and the word “vote” comes from the Latin verb “vovere”, to consecrate, to dedicate, to offer, but also has to do with another Latin verb “votare”, to make vows, offerings, to promise, to express a desire.  We have several words that come from these verbs: vote, devote, devotion, devout and vow.  The word “devoted”, then, encompasses the religious, social and political fields, revealing the relationship of the religious underpinnings in other areas of life.  Imagine how different the world might be, if we would feel more this undercurrent reality of our voting in an election or when committing ourselves to an impulse or a project, and when taking vows in marriage.

The insert then presents some extraordinary images to make even more vivid what happened with the resurrection: what in strength has risen “from the chains of death”, what in light has been born again in “the life of Christ”, “what heals the self” in the depths of the soul.  It speaks of the human constitution and the transformation of its constituent members, by the forces of the resurrection: “the soul that was dead, lives; the self that was dark, shines, the spirit that was closed springs open and “abounds”.  But, for me, the most striking thing is what follows.  The human soul that was a tomb has been opened and now forms an altar.  Christ as a priest celebrating the offering on this altar, which is illuminated not by candles, but by “the spirit-light of man”.  And again, the insert broadens our view of space and time to the utmost, saying that Christ celebrates this offering at the altar of the human soul “to the worlds afar, to the earth near, now and beyond all cycles of time.”

Could there be more beautiful, more encouraging, more hopeful images, that at the same time reveal our participation in and responsibility for Christ’s work and goals?  In this brief attempt to present the epistle and the Easter insert, we can discover enough material to continue thinking about and contemplating the deeper meaning of Easter, during the 40 days until Ascension, and, indeed, for the rest of our lives.

 

–Rev. Paul Corman, April 2021

It is with deep gratitude that we announce this to be the last of Reverend Baan’s weekly contemplations. His offerings have been a deep nourishment for our souls through a challenging year.    

Easter

On the first Easter morning, after three days, truth came to light.  No longer was Christ hidden in the heart of the earth, but He appeared as the Risen One in the light of day.  The first ones to see Him with their own eyes recognized their Lord and their God at first sight—the only one who could say of Himself: “I AM the truth.”  The doubters too, even doubting Thomas, had to believe.  Thus it went for forty days.  Truth had come to light.

What happened after that?  How can we, doubting Thomases and vacillating Pilates, discover truth?  Actually, the age-old question of Pilate has become a question of all of us: “What is truth?”  And Thomas’ unbelief is reflected in our saying: “Seeing is believing.”  These days we live in a world in which everything is pulled into doubt, in which nothing is as it seems, and in which our faith in human beings, in life, and in truth, is severely put to the test.  When that is about to happen, you have to fall back on incontestable truth.

Someone who had spent years in a concentration camp in Indonesia told me once how she had survived that hell.  Day after day, year after year, she had watched the sunrise.  That was the only certainty that gave a firm ground to her shaky existence.  For whatever is going on, whatever happens to us, each morning the sun appears and pursues its unwavering course through heaven.

The service at the altar is for human beings and angels what the sunrise is for the earth.  Christ Himself walks over the earth, from altar to altar, and fulfills the sacrament with the light of His Resurrection.  In the fulfillment of the altar service, in every true sacrament that is fulfilled on earth, we slowly gain the unshakable trust:

Whatever may happen in the world around us, the Christ-Sun rises each morning and fills the earth with His presence.

 

-Rev. Bastiaan Baan, Easter 2021

Palm Sunday

Behind every human being stands an unseen, unknown world. What we see and hear is but the person. In ancient Rome persona was the word for the mask through which an actor spoke on the stage. The word literally means: sound-through.

We are surrounded by masks, which usually speak in riddles—just as we do. Frequently, someone or something other than ourselves speaks through such a mask. Who is it that speaks through us when we want to enrich ourselves at the expense of others, or when we want to exercise power over other people? And who speaks through us when we dedicate ourselves to serve other people or a high ideal?

Whether we want to or not, with every word, every deed, every thought, we create or destroy, visibly or invisibly. Don’t look at the outside but listen for the “moral music” behind the words; try to catch the hidden language of the intention—and you will learn to recognize who is speaking through the per-sona.

Without realizing what they were shouting, on Palm Sunday people said the truth with the words “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Mt.21:9)

He came in the name of the Lord.

And we?

As long as we only come in our own name, in our own interest, we disturb something in the world around us. Today this is happening on a large scale with the earth. We are confronted with the destructive consequences of our egotism and greed.

Wherever we go or stand, we can bless and be blessed. You don’t need to shout it from the rooftops, like the crowd did on Palm Sunday. You can simply come, think, walk in the name of the Lord, without even mentioning His name.

And He will give His blessing—a blessing none of us can give out of ourselves.

–Rev. Bastiaan Baan, Palm Sunday March 28, 2021

Passiontide

When you listen carefully to the words of the Act of Consecration of Man you will eventually notice that a few times something is lacking.  Although in itself the text is perfect, it sounds as if some sentences are not complete.  The verb is lacking:

Christ in us

Christ in the lifting of our hands

Christ’s light in our daylight

These sentences move in a realm between possibility, wish, and full reality.  Is Christ fully in us?  Or is that a wish? A prayer? A promise?

The only thing we know for sure is that He is usually not in us, when we are busy with our everyday things.

Christ in the lifting of our hands—that does not happen all by itself just by lifting up our hands.

Christ’s light in our daylight—it has not yet appeared, but we, He and I together, have to make this possibility a reality.

At this time of year, we enter a world of darkness that shows us from all sides: Christ is not in us—on the contrary.  For now, we find ourselves in a state of isolation and deprivation, far from the light of Christ.  Passiontide is a time of disillusion, of painful diagnosis of our human shortcomings, in which we have to accept how poor we are, since we lost the spirit.

Ask the Savior for healing.

Pray for Christ’s light in our daylight.

Lift up your hands as a beggar for the Spirit—and He will stretch out His hands to you.

Ask, pray, seek—and it shall be given to you.

–Rev. Bastiaan Baan, March 14, 2021