“I am with you always, to the close of the age.” (Mt.28:20)

Many of us have had the experience of having to lose a beloved friend because he died.  Inevitably such a loss will open a wound that will not close for a long time.  We cannot simply forget the deceased and go back to our daily occupations as if nothing had happened.  There are many ways in our time, not only to keep the deceased in our memory, but also to let them appear to us as if they were still standing in the midst of life, by pictures, film, recordings, etc.  There exists extensive technology to evoke recollections of events from the past—or should we say mummify them?

However, just as inevitably the wound will be opened, sooner or later it will close again.  The memory pales.  What remains is a scar.  Life calls us back into the here and now.  Fortunately there exists not only recollection, but also forgetting.

What does that look like for the deceased?  Is there for him also something like remembering and forgetting?  It is not difficult to imagine that he, the longer he is away from us, will also in some way forget, because he has to live into a completely different world.  We even notice it—after years the deceased is no longer close to us, but far away.

Only one human being never left us since His death.  Although He died more than two thousand years ago, He is just as close to us as at that time.  He, and only He, then made us a promise for all time: “I am with you always, to the close of the age.”  He is always with us.

But we—are we also always with Him?

-Rev. Bastiaan Baan, May 31, 2026

/0 Comments/by
, ,

The Epistle of the Trinity

With the day of the Archangel Michael on September 29, a weeks-long hushed period comes to an end, a time without highlights, seemingly standing still between the great festivals of St. John and Michael.  Those who have experienced these ten weeks at the altar will be impressed with the always returning prayer to the Trinity.  Although this epistle disappears and is, in a certain sense, overwhelmed by the appeal to Michael, it also resounds, barely audibly, like under- and over-tones in music.  In due time, these words become the undercurrent of all our religious life.  It is as if the words of this epistle want to say:

Whatever may happen:

I am there.

I shall be there.

Always shall I be there.

 

Whatever befalls you,

In good and bad fortune,

In joy and sorrow,

Your life is My creating life.

 

No matter how dark the future will be,

Stronger than all darkness that will lame you

Is the light of the Spirit

That shines on everything and everyone.

 

That is the silent, strong undercurrent of infinite trust of God in human beings, which is with us always, from the cradle to the grave,

All our life,

All our lives.

 

-Rev. Bastiaan Baan, September 28, 2025

/1 Comment/by
, ,

“You are the Christ” (Mark 8:29)

Long ago, there was a time when it was necessary not just to recognize Christ in silence, but to also confess Him emphatically, as Peter was the first to do: “You are the Christ.”  Of course, because at that time there was almost no one who recognized the Son of God, Christ, in the Son of Man, Jesus.  In our time you cannot just pronounce that.  When you loudly start proclaiming that He is the Christ, no one wants to hear it.  On the contrary, you then just irritate others, or your words are blown away in the wind.

Confessing Christ—how do you do that in our world?

Actually, we constantly confess something without words as we go through the world.  Just look at the faces of the people around you: so much somberness, so much sorrow, so much annoyance, so much anger.  Just look at yourself when you are walking through the streets of a city.  Without sensing it ourselves, we spread and confess our moods, for our face, our posture, our footsteps speak volumes.  We leave our tracks non-stop, visible and invisible.  In the world in which we are living these days you don’t need to pronounce what you know and believe; without speaking a word, you can DO what you know and believe.

When we receive His peace at the altar, this gift can become our confession.  This peace is not only meant for us, but through us for the world.  That is the appeal of Christ after He has bestowed His peace on us: My peace is not of this world.  My peace wants to work in the world through you.  Are you ready to confess my peace?

Give me your hands, your head, your heart, your feet – and walk the way of peace with me.

– Rev. Bastiaan Baan, July 27, 2025

/0 Comments/by
, ,

“And He was transformed before them.” (Matthew 17:2)

“And He was transformed before them. His countenance shone like the sun, and His garments became shining white like light” (Matthew 17:2)

Every encounter with a human being leaves an impression of his or her outer appearance, mostly so clear that this outer image is etched into our memory.  Even when a person has died, this image stays with us; we still portray him the same way, whereas he has in reality left this form of existence behind long ago.  We do that with everyone who has died, even if they have laid their mortal sheath aside a century ago.  In reality, the dead are living in a very different world, in a very different appearance.  I think we would be surprised if we were allowed to see them in their actual appearance.  Would we still recognize them?

This is what we have also done for centuries with the human being Jesus Christ.  We picture Him the way He lived on earth, the way He suffered and died on the cross.  Countless times He has been represented in that way, as a mortal human being of flesh and blood.  And then?

That is usually the end of our imagination.  In pictures of the risen Christ we mostly see helpless efforts to express the unimaginable in earthly forms and colors.

That is not necessary, for once in His life He showed Himself in his true, immortal form—during the Transfiguration on the mountain.  “And He was transformed before them. His countenance shone like the sun, and His garments became shining white like light.”  That is the immortal Christ who comes to appearance in the mortal human being Jesus for a moment.  Above the infinite loneliness of the Passion stands the infinite consolation of the Redeemer.

That which once came to appearance in Christ is a distant, promising future for us humans.  In the words of the Apostle Paul:

“… we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.” (1 Cor.15:52, RSV)

Maybe we should learn to view each human being in that way.  For behind the mask of our earthly personality hides another human being.  Once in a while we see a glimpse of this new human being in the sheen of the eyes, in a radiant face, or in a gesture of love.  At such moments we suddenly realize: This is the real you.

In our deepest essence, every human being longs to be known, to be revealed, to come to appearance—freed from the enchantment of our perishable existence.

-Rev. Bastiaan Baan, March 16, 2025

/4 Comments/by

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

/0 Comments/by
,

Death and Funeral Announcement

Rev. James Harrison Hindes


On April, 25th, 2024 at 1:30 pm MDT, Rev. Jim Hindes crossed the threshold peacefully at his home in Denver, Colorado.

Born June 23rd 1947 in Sand Diego, California, Rev. Jim Hindes was ordained into The Christian Community priesthood on February 22nd 1975 by one of the founding fathers, Rudolf Frieling. He has served congregations in England and Germany, as well as in New York City, western Massachusetts, Los Angeles, and, most recently the Denver congregation as its resident pastor for 20 years.

A vigil will be held at the Christian Community in Denver beginning, April 26.  The Christian Community Funeral will be held for the Rev. Jim Hindes on Tuesday, April 30 at 11:00 am at

Horan & McConaty Funeral Services
1091 S. Colorado Blvd, Denver, CO 80246
(303) 757-1238

The Act of Consecration for Rev. Jim Hindes will be celebrated on Saturday, May 4 at 10 am at the church in Denver.

 

/0 Comments/by
, ,

Good Friday

When we hear the story of the Last Supper we know already what will happen and what comes next: the martyrdom, His death, and resurrection.  Of course it was not that way for His disciples when He had the meal with them.  He was speaking in riddles to them.  He kept them guessing about the future.  Every event that followed was another riddle: Gethsemane, the sleep that overcame them, the capture, the flight.  None of them was able to stand by Him to the end.  Of course not, none of us would be able to maintain our footing in such circumstances.  How could a person at that time ever foresee that the last evening meal would not only be followed by the first morning meal of the Resurrected One, and that He from now on would give Himself, day in day out, in bread and wine, to every human being who hungers and thirsts for His presence?

At the end of His life on earth, Christ indicates with an unusual word that this end is the beginning of a completely new life.  Of all the disciples only John was present as witness when this last word sounded on the cross: “It is fulfilled.”  He is the only evangelist who wrote this word from the cross down.  What is so special in these words?

Christ here used an expression that originated in the old mysteries: tetelestai.  It means something like: the goal has been reached. (telete was the ancient word for initiation.  The place where the initiation took place was called in Eleusis: telesterion.)  The expression tetelestai is no finality, but an indication of a completely new life.  From then on the initiate stood on the other side of the threshold and was at home with the Gods.  From the other side he could order life on earth according to the hermetic principle: As above, so below.  The holy order of heaven had to be reflected in life on earth.

Where was Christ after He had spoken His last words?  He too crossed a threshold, but not to go to the Gods, but to the demons and the dead.  In the three days after His death He was not in heaven, not on earth, but “in the heart of the earth.” (Mat. 12:40)  There He brought light into the hopeless existence of death and the underworld.  There the germ of a new heaven and a new earth was planted.

Since His death and resurrection every death experience can become the germ of a new life.  For whoever dies in Christ walks with Christ through death into deathless life.

 

Rev. Bastiaan Baan, Good Friday 2024

/1 Comment/by