The Christian Community in North America

Easter

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

April 5, 2021/0 Comments/by CCNA

Blog, Homilies

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

March 29, 2021/1 Comment/by CCNA

Blog, Homilies

I Do Not Condemn You Either (John 8:1-12)

I Do Not Condemn You Either (John 8:1-12)

Wherever we go or stand, everything and everyone demands a judgment of us—good or bad, for or against, yes or no. We even ask it of children: What do you think? From childhood on we have to have an opinion on everything.

Our judgments make it hard for us to observe with an open mind, let alone to find the truth. The harder we become in our judgments, the more we lose sight of reality. Hard judgments eventually become prejudices. And prejudices become unbending points of view. Whoever once takes such a standpoint, in the end he can’t make another step; he keeps himself imprisoned in a world of his own laws. In a world where differences are becoming ever greater, we tend to fall back on the Old-Testament judgment of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Only when we combat our superficial sympathies and antipathies do we begin to see the other—not the way we think he ought to be, but as he really is. Then only does the other feel seen and recognized: he has the right to be.

The story of the woman who committed adultery in John 8 speaks volumes about our deeply rooted inclination to judge and condemn. True, a thin layer of civilization keeps us from actually stoning such a person, but with our judgment on the guilt of others we stone them no less effectively.
And Christ? He was the only one who did things differently. He went to places on the earth where not only the shadow of guilt prevailed, but also the darkness of condemnation. It just is the way it is—sinners are stoned, literally or figuratively. He alone could say: “Whoever among you is free of sin, let him throw the first stone at her.”

He alone, the only one who is without sin, has the Old-Testament right to stone her—and He does not do it. Instead, He takes what is unbearable in our sin in His hand and writes it with his finger into the earth. That is another expression of the classic words: “See, the Lamb of God who takes the sin of the world upon himself.”

And when we want to find His light, the light of the world, there is no other way than to follow Him through the darkness of guilt. Without this darkness we are not able to recognize His light. And without His light we are not able to overcome our darkness.

-Rev. Bastiaan Baan, March 21, 2021

March 22, 2021/0 Comments/by CCNA

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