The Christian Community in North America

Judgment

Many people, perhaps even all of us, have a deeply rooted tendency to judge other people by their outer appearance. When we walk through a city, we look all the time either with sympathy or antipathy at people and pass judgments. We haven’t even really seen them, spoken with them, met them, and we have our judgments ready, read off their clothes, their outer get-up, facial expression—all those fleeting impressions that can’t really tell us anything essential.

Imagine how God looks at these people. What does He see? The proverb says: For God all human beings are equal. That is almost unimaginable for us. His love is not limited to a little bunch of favorites. Every creature bears a precious treasure, even if it is hidden far away or perhaps even buried. In spite of this, every human being can dig up this hidden treasure and bring it to light. For God it makes no difference whether it is a gift from rich talents or from deep poverty. Even when I think: I have nothing—I can still offer Him the present moment.

We try to do that at the altar: to be totally present, from moment to moment. And although we never completely succeed in this, God sees our efforts. For each single moment can become a royal gift for Him, offered from our pure thinking, our loving heart, our willing devotion.

That is why for God all human beings are equal, because in each of us slumbers a hidden king with a hidden treasure.

–Rev. Bastiaan Baan, January 16, 2025

January 21, 2025/0 Comments/by CCNA

Blog, Homilies

John 21: 21-23

John 21: 21-23

When Peter saw him [John], he said to Jesus: “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!” The saying spread abroad among the brethren that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?” (RSV)

These words are among the most enigmatic expressions in the New Testament—the last words John quotes from the life of the Risen Christ: “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?”

The fact that this sentence has caused misunderstandings and riddles is evident from the rumor that since then goes around among the disciples: “This disciple was not to die.” No one has understood what Christ meant with these words. The evangelist is silent about it. Strangely, he merely repeats what the Risen One said.

Perhaps a tip of the veil that lies over these words is lifted when we recognize that this simple little word remain is one of the key words in the Gospel of John. From the beginning to the end, the word remain sounds again and again, forty times.[*] This is in contrast with the other Gospels, where this word is used only sparingly, mostly in the everyday sense of a stay in a city, a house, or by a lake.

But from the first time this word sounds in the John Gospel, something different from the physical world is indicated. The Spirit, which descended on Jesus at the Baptism in the Jordan, remained on him (John 1:32). Whereas the prophets of the Old Testament were at unexpected moments sometimes inspired, Jesus made no single step in His life without inspiration from the Spirit of God.

Again and again, seemingly monotonously, Christ speaks about the lasting connection between Him and us: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.” […] Abide in my love.” (John 15: 4, 9)

And now, at the end of the whole Gospel, there is one disciple who remains, John, who has experienced the highest form of love, agape. The others, even though their names may be great, such as Peter, the rock, or James and the other John, the Sons of Thunder, they are changeable just like us—wavering, then believing again; afraid, then foolhardy again.

But John, who remains united with Christ forever, in his Gospel wants to unite himself with the living and the dead—in order to enable us to share in God’s love, which to the end of the world remains.

[*] In the English Bible the word abide is also used in the same meaning.

–Rev. Bastiaan Baan

January 2, 2025/0 Comments/by CCNA

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Advent

When we become familiar with the Consecration of the Human Being we will sooner or later discover contradictions that cannot immediately be reconciled. Perhaps that is because our human world cannot so easily be reconciled with the divine world. Between these two worlds there is an abyss that has to be bridged.

Now, how can you as “unworthy creature,” as the words sound in the Offertory, “worthily fulfill the Consecration of the Human Being”? In the world of logic these two exclude each other: you are either worthy or unworthy, but not both at the same time.

Even more of a riddle is the contradiction that comes to light at the time of Advent. The service speaks then about hopeful expectation. Expectation is the key word in the weeks before Christmas; four times does this word sound in the epistle and insert of the service.

And in the same weeks the apocalyptic Gospel reading speaks of “fear and expectation of what is breaking in upon the whole earth.” (Luke 21:26) Fear, helplessness, oppression, despair—in many different ways Christ lets us know that we, all of humanity, have to go through the eye of the needle. The initiation of humanity is another name for this path. All ways to the future go through the eye of the needle, across the threshold.

On a very small scale, as a prelude to this future, in the Consecration of the Human Being we cross the threshold every time, in order then to come back again to the here and now. And there, past the threshold, past all fearful expectation of what shall happen to us, a world is awaiting us in which all our hopeful expectation finds its purpose.

-Rev. Bastiaan Baan, December 1, 2024

December 2, 2024/0 Comments/by CCNA

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