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Looking for a Refuge

Looking for a Refuge  (Rev. 12)

A desert is usually a place of loneliness and hardship, a wilderness.  Rarely is there water, rarely a sign of life.  In early Christianity, the so-called desert fathers lived as monks in the desert for many years, sometimes for the rest of their life.  They had to fight a lonely battle with themselves.  The enemy—no robbers and looters, for there was nothing to rob or loot—was the army of demons they were confronted with.

Although in our time we don’t normally live in such lonely places, our cities often have the nature of deserts: a dead world, built up of stone.  In these modern deserts everyone is thrown back onto himself—in our time more than ever.  “Everyone for himself…” is the part of the old saying that we hear around us in every possible version.  Strangely enough the second part of the saying is usually lacking: “…and God for us all.”

There is no other way—we all have to find our own individual path through the desert.  But loneliness is not only inevitable; it is also necessary in order to form a strong, autonomous I.  Our desert is the world in which we live.  The dragon in our desert is the inhumanity with which we are confronted day in day out.  Is there a place of refuge, or do we only have to stand up until we fall?  Can we, like the woman in the desert, develop wings to flee to a safe place?

Our wings are made by the strength of our prayer.  Recently, a well known physician expressed this idea in everyday language with the words: “The most powerful medicine against depression is prayer: it lifts up the soul.”  Indeed, every true prayer, every real meditation, gives wings to the soul, so that we can find a spot where we can take shelter—a spot that was prepared for us by God.

This does not mean that it frees us from the opposing power, on the contrary.  But every true prayer brings us to a place where the Spirit assists us, helping us to remain upright in our lifelong struggle—lonely, but not alone.

 

–Rev. Bastiaan Baan, October 18, 2020

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The Armor of God

The Armor of God (Eph.6:10-20)

In a world full of conflicts and crises, peace has become a concept that usually no longer corresponds with hard reality.  In war zones, peace has often become a distant promise, an illusion.  In its stead, an expression has developed that is closer to the sobering truth: “armed peace,” a term we use for the condition in which peace is maintained, if need be, with force.

If we want to hold our own in a world full of violence we will have to arm ourselves.  In the past century, the fine dreams of pacifism pretty much went up in smoke.  They are no longer of our time.  Instead, the battle for survival has become a daily reality.  In social and political life we speak of competition and power.  In our personal life we need assertiveness and preparedness.  What else can we do to avoid being tread underfoot?

Armed peace—perhaps we need to take a second look at this expression.  In our search for rest and security we usually cling to outer certainties to protect ourselves from violence.  Those certainties have fallen away.

Peace in a violent world is only possible when we arm ourselves spiritually—with the shield of Faith, the helm of Healing, the sword of the Spirit.  Only those who fight with these weapons truly know what armed peace really is.

For whoever remains incorruptibly true to the Spirit, is also protected by the Spirit.

–Rev. Bastiaan Baan, October 11, 2020

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The Wedding Garment

The Wedding Garment (Matt.22:1-14)

In our time, many people are living in the illusion that they can step into heaven just as they have lived on earth—straight up to God to tell him that things are not right on earth, and that He has to do something to put them in order.

Long ago, there was a time when people said when fate had struck: “The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away.  Praised be the Name of the Lord!”  Thereafter it became quiet, and people began to have doubts about the omnipotence of God.  And now?  It is only a relatively short time ago that people dared to ask: “Where is God in all those places where life has turned into hell?  Why doesn’t He show His omnipotence?”  In all questions of this sort sounds a still or loud reproach.  We do not want to change ourselves; God has to do it for us.

When we want to ask God a question, we cannot simply stay the way we are.  In the words of Christ: “…whoever does not take up the Kingdom of God in himself like a child, he will not find access to it” (Mk.10:15). When we want to enter His realm, we have to leave behind all that binds us to the dying earth existence: our possessions, our affairs, our everyday habits, our judgments and prejudices.  We have to become like new-born children.  We can stand before God only when we take our shoes off our feet, when we put away our outer confidence, when we want to receive the white garment of His pure life from His hands.  Then we are ready to enter the wedding hall and stand eye to eye before Him.

–Rev. Bastiaan Baan 10/4/2020

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Stand Up!

STAND UP (Lk.7:11-17)

Wherever we go or stay, we are everywhere surrounded by the dying earth existence.  Nearly a hundred years ago, when The Christian Community was founded, this expression, which sounds in our Creed, was virtually unknown.  Admittedly, death was very much present in the war that preceded the founding of The Christian Community, but a dying earth existence…?  At the time, probably no one could grasp the scope of this expression.

In our time, we all know in fact from our own experience what these words signify, even though there continue to be people who deny a crisis.  Wait but a few decades, and no one will be able to deny anymore that we are surrounded by the dying earth existence.

Not only is the earth around us dying, but also the earth we take into ourselves.  Everything we take in—food, drink, air, sense impressions, thoughts—has to die completely to be able to serve us.  We human beings are the cause of countless forms of death on earth.

An old legend tells that, after Adam was expelled from Paradise, at each footstep the grass withered under his feet.  In a certain sense, this legend has become reality.

Despite our leading role in this death process, through Christ—so says our Creed—we attain the re-enlivening of the dying earth existence.  Does that happen exclusively through Christ?  Or are there ways in which we can help Him renew life?  Christ bears and orders the life of the world.  How can we help Him bear and order?

Look into the world through the eyes of Christ—and the world appears in a new light.

Hear Him speak before you say a word—and your words will have wings.

Take Him into your thinking—and your thoughts will become more lucid.

Ask Him to go with you—and your feet will be guided.

And even though we are bound hand and foot to the dying earth existence, He will speak to us, even when we die: Stand up!

 

–Rev. Bastiaan Baan September 27, 2020

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Michaelmas Sophia Festival 2020

The Christian Community in Melbourne Australia  is hosting a Michaelmas festival of 4 presentations in October.

There is no set fee for the online festival, but donations are welcome. For more information click here.

To register:

thechristiancommunitymelbourne@gmail.com

 

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The Light Source of the Body (Matthew 6)

Our eyes have the capacity of adjusting themselves to darkness.  When we come out of sunlight into a dark tunnel or cave, we are at first disoriented. Or when we walk at night from a lighted street into a dark wood, we may perhaps be frightened by the darkness.  But if we do not lose patience we notice that our eyes gradually become used to the darkness, and that we begin to recognize the world around us.  This is actually the best way to overcome fear of darkness—walk step by step into a dark space; wait until you become familiar with the darkness, and you begin to see.

This is not only true in the physical world, but also a spiritual reality.  Every day we are confronted with a world of dark, horrific events.  As a rule, we don’t want to see them at all.  We turn away and try to force ourselves to look at the light side of life.  In our current western world there is even an aversion to every sort of darkness.  We turn away from the sick, the dying, the hungry, the refugees, the criminals.  We don’t want to see the dark side of life.  Or are we perhaps afraid of it?

When Christ spoke of the eye as the light source of the body, He was not telling a parable, but a daily truth.  It is not the bad world that makes us bad.  It is not the darkness outside us that darkens us inwardly.  But it is the way we look into the world that brings us darkness or light.

The question is not: What do I see?

But: How do I see?

Am I looking into the world with fear, with abhorrence, or even with hatred?

Or can I look into that same world with compassion and love, in spite of all the darkness?

This subtle way of looking not only illumines and relieves ourselves, but will eventually also illumine and relieve the darkness of the world around us.

A mother who had lost her two children wrote after a long period of rebelliousness, mourning and depression:

When I

concentrated

and full of love

look at the darkness

then I see

light.

 

–Rev. Bastiaan Baan, September 20, 2020

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The Ten Lepers Cleansed

The Ten Lepers Cleansed (Lk.17:11-19)

The better part of our lives as adults consists of duties.  We have little choice: we have hardly finished our work, or when the next duty is already awaiting us.  Many people do little more than move from one duty to another all their lives.  And when a person scrupulously fulfills all those duties and tasks he is praised for his diligence.

No matter how diligent such a person is, he misses something that is indispensable.  We only become truly human when we add to all we MUST do something we WANT to do, without anyone telling us to do it.

When the ten leprous men had been cleansed of their illness by Jesus, they were told to go and show themselves to the priests.  That was the commandment in the law.

But one of them goes beyond the duty and does something of his own accord: he comes back to give thanks.  No one has told him to do so.  And it is certainly not just a formality he observes, for he falls prostrate at the feet of Jesus and thanks Him from the bottom of his heart.  You can’t bow down deeper than that.  You can’t be more convincing in your thankfulness.

All who fulfill their duty are cleansed.  But are they also healed?  Only this one human being, who gives thanks with heart and soul, hears the redeeming words from Jesus: “Your faith has made you well.” (RSV—Greek sesōken, saved)

And we, when we receive His medicine that makes whole, the Sacrament, are we then able to give thanks to Him with heart and soul?

 

-Rev. Bastiaan Baan, September 13, 2020

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Sending the Seventy

Sending the Seventy (Lk.10:1-20)

During His life on earth, Christ often sent helpers ahead to each town and place where He would Himself come.  They are called disciples (literally followers) and apostles (from apostello, to send off).

Why was that necessary?

Would it not have been much simpler if He had done everything by Himself?  Everything these helpers did—healing, driving out demons, making peace—He also did Himself, and He did it very differently from his followers.  Only of Christ was it said that He healed with power, with exousia.  The disciples could not work without His help.  But He—why would He not be able to help without helpers?

The Bible is full of the longing for the Almighty, for the moment when Christ shows His full powers.  In the Apocalypse this moment is proclaimed by a mighty voice in heaven that calls: “Now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ.” (Rev.12:10). In chapter 19:6 this empowerment is confirmed with the words: “Alleluia: For the Lord God omnipotent has become king.”   Up to that moment kingship had been in other hands.  One day the prince of this world will have to yield the kingship to the rightful Lord.  But we are not yet there.

Christ asks each one of us: “And you—what can you do to help me?  Will you go before me and prepare the way?  Wherever you go, you can become my helper.  And if you go before me and prepare the way, I will go with you in silence and bless your weak, imperfect efforts—until one day the time of my omnipotence has come.”

-Rev. Bastiaan Baan, September 6, 2020

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Healing the Deaf Mute (Mark 7: 31-37)

Healing the Deaf-Mute (Mark 7: 31-37)

Illness is a good reason to see a doctor and ask for help.  Obviously, you don’t see a doctor if you show no signs of illness or weakness.  Following the same logic, many people do not feel the need to go to the altar and receive the healing medicine, either in the form of bread and wine or as spiritual communion.*  You might perhaps think: Why should I receive any medicine when I am not sick?  Or why should I go to the Act of Consecration of Man?  Why should I be consecrated?  There is nothing wrong with me!

As long as we look with earthly concepts at earthly human beings, there is indeed nothing wrong.  We can only be grateful when we are not sick or weak, blind or deaf.  But for the spiritual world we are sick, blind and deaf.  We have no eyes to see and no ears to hear.  In our daily life we even act as if there exists no spiritual world!

In the Act of Consecration we become conscious of our heavenly helpers.  Without them we would have no existence, no life, no consciousness.  That is why at the altar sound the words:

He moves in us through all existence.

Our life is His creating life.

Our beholding be drenched with His spirit light.

Only by looking up to the world above us do we begin to realize what we are lacking, no matter how healthy we are.  In the awareness of our human shortcomings we become beggars for the spirit and ask the Savior to heal us of our blindness, our deafness, our weakness.  When we receive the healing medicine He can speak the redeeming word:

Ephphatha – Be opened!

Because of the Act of Consecration we begin to lead a listening life.  We begin to understand the signs of the Lord of Destiny, so that our life becomes more and more a reflection of His creating life.

–Rev. Bastiaan Baan, August 30, 2020

* In classical theology a distinction is made between sacramental and spiritual communion (communio sacramentalis and communio spiritualis).  St. Francis of Sales wrote: “When you cannot actually participate in the Eucharist, then at least do it in your heart and spirit by uniting yourself in ardent longing with the life-giving body of the Savior.”

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Filled with the Holy Spirit

“Filled with the Holy Spirit”

In a recent article we looked at John the Baptist, how he appears in the prologue of the gospel of John. We observed that the Greek word that speaks of the creation of the world through the Logos is the same as the one that speaks of John’s appearance: egeneto – there came into being all things, and there came into being also John. Since the beginning there is a deep connection between the becoming of the world and the becoming of John. All development, from the very beginning and through all past epochs, is present in John: He is the culmination of mankind. Thus, we have seen him carrying the past within him. But we can see him also in the opposite way, and this view is just as true. The first chapter of the gospel of Luke tells us about John’s father, Zechariah, who, as the priest of the year, brings the incense offering in the temple. In the rising smoke appears to him the angel of the Lord who announces to Zechariah the birth of his son and says that he, the son, “will be great before the Lord.” (Verse 15) The gospel seems to imply the nature of this greatness, that in John the dimension of the divine and the dimension of the human are united: “Even from his mother’s womb, will he be filled with the Holy Spirit.” (Verse 15)

When we attempt to contemplate something of the essence of the Trinity we can describe the following aspects: The Father-God is the power which is the foundation of all existence, since the very beginning he is the Ground that bears all being. – Of Christ the Creed speaks that “he is the Son born in eternity.” He goes forth from the Father at all times, he is always young, as the light radiating from the sun is always young. – Thus, we can view the Father-God as working from out of the past and the Son-God as coming to us into the present. – And the Holy Spirit? The Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov spoke of the Holy Spirit as “the idea of humanity”. This idea is not an abstract theory, but a living, a spiritual being, Solovyov identified the idea of humanity with the Holy Spirit who goes forth from the weaving between the Father and the Son. And this “idea of humanity” – don’t we long for it to become reality in the world? Do we even know what humanity is? We know what it means to be “human-all-too-human”. But humanity? One thing can become clear to us: All creatures of nature – stone, plant, animal – have developed to their perfection. It would be absurd to expect a crystal or a butterfly or a rose to become more perfect than they are. And this is what sets the human being apart from other earthly beings: that the human being has not reached the state of perfection, that, unlike the beings of nature, he can become more human, more “he himself”. The realization of the “idea of humanity” is our future. And how can this realization happen? Through “history”! We go through all historical epochs, with their ordeals and challenges, failures and achievements, so that we become what we are meant to be. “For the sake of the far exalted goal, the human being goes through history.” (Rudolf Frieling). History is the path toward the realization of the idea of humanity. The one who, at the turning point of time, appears as John the Baptist “will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb”. He is the bearer of the “idea of humanity”. Working out of the power of the Holy Spirit he is the enlightening genius on the way to the exalted goal.

 

Rev.  Erk Ludwig

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