Sermon 10: Hebrews 12

Sermon 10: Hebrews 12

 Call to Worship from Psalm 23: 

“Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

We all are familiar with the rod and staff of the shepherd. We have all been beaten, from time to time, away from a temptation that might have spelled ruin for us; although we kicked at the pricks while we were in the throes of the beating, when it was over we knew that we had been blessed, and we knew that the pain of the beating was much less severe than the pain we would have endured if we had not been beaten away from temptation. We accept the discipline of the rod because we know it is for our own good.

The first 13 verses of Hebrews 12 are all about the disciplines to which Christian devotees are subjected by the Father. The idea is that the sufferings of the present moment are visited on us not by a vengeful God, but by a God Who trains us to be strong by testing our ability to remain faithful. We know that what doesn’t kill us does not necessarily make us stronger, but God’s promise to test us to the limit, but not past the limit, of our endurance, strengthens our spiritual muscles like nothing else.

God Disciplines His Sons

“1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run, with perseverance, the race marked out for us. 

2 Let us fix our eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 

3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. 

4 In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 

5 And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 

6 because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son." 

This is a paraphrase of 

Proverbs 3:5-12:

“5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart

    and lean not on your own understanding;

6 

in all your ways submit to him,

    and he will make your paths straight.

7 

Do not be wise in your own eyes;

    fear the Lord and shun evil.

8 

This will bring health to your body

    and nourishment to your bones.

9 

Honor the Lord with your wealth,

    with the firstfruits of all your crops;

10 

then your barns will be filled to overflowing,

    and your vats will brim over with new wine.

11 

My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline,

    and do not resent his rebuke,

12 

because the Lord disciplines those he loves,

    as a father the son he delights in.”

The next section argues strenuously that the hardships visited on us by the Father have meaning and purpose. We are encouraged to have hope in the future redemption of all our Earthly sufferings in Heavenly bliss.

“7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 

8 If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 

9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! 

10 Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. 

11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. 

12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 

13 "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.”

[Sidebar: We have heard from C.S. Lewis about how both virtue and sin work backwards and forwards in time, either blessing or cursing out acts depending on whether they brought us closer to, or farther away from, God. A similar perspective is expressed in A Twentieth Century Testimony by Thomas Nelson]: 

“As an old man looking back on his life, the late Malcolm Muggeridge observed,

“Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, everything I have learned, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness. If it ever were to be possible to eliminate affliction from our earthly existence, the result would not be to make life delectable, but to make it too banal and trivial to be endurable.

I have a favorite passage from C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters that deals with strengthening spiritual muscles:

“You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs-- to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot 'tempt' to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

To obey out of Faith is, as George MacDonald said last week, is an act both of unparalleled difficulty and of unequaled greatness:

“I assert that faith is simply the greatest work that man can do. Taking it in its simplest, original development, it is the highest effort of the whole human intellect, imagination, will, in the highest direction. Never does the human nature put forth itself in such power, with such effort, with such energy as to have faith in God. I say it is the highest, and sometimes the most difficult, work that a man can do.”

Back to Hebrews 12:14-21, which is all about enacting grace in the world of men. Here there is a lot of moral preaching, which we would expect of a disciple of Paul, and there is a lot of historical precedent thrown in, as usual, to reinforce the arguments: 

Warning Against Refusing God

“14 Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. 

15 See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. 

16 See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. 

17 Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears. 

18 You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; 

19 to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, 

20 because they could not bear what was commanded: "If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned." 

21 The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, "I am trembling with fear." 

The sentence, “You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire,” expresses the same idea as the tabernacle created in Heaven, out of the Word, which is the realization of the vague shadow we experience in this life, but which the next life will reveal in glory.

The phrase, “that no further word be spoken to them” expresses the ecstatic state of mind, where the devotee has learned that enough is enough--that no further word should be spoken, means that, at the spiritual level, verbal structures no longer serve the intellect—higher mind must take over—a mind state where words can no longer signify the verbal referent; in this mind state, object has become subject, literal consciousness has become self-consciousness.

Continuing in this higher mind state, the author gives us, in the next section a vividly ecstatic description of the New Jerusalem, as it ushers in an age of spirit that enlivens mundane existence with a “consuming fire.” The sheer beauty of the poetry of this section is humbling and elevating; the metaphorical significance is staggering. 

“22 But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, 

23 to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, 

24 to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. 

25 See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? 

26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens." 

27 The words "once more" indicate the removing of what can be shaken--that is, created things--so that what cannot be shaken may remain. 

28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, 

29 for our "God is a consuming fire."

The author’s description of the coming down of the Heavenly Jerusalem, sounds like the spaceship from Close Encounters of the Third Kind roaring down to Earth, shaking the ground with incalculable power. It is a scene filled with angel light and grandiose evocations of cosmic majesty. The image of the consuming fire of spirit reminds us that the Spirit of God is like the wind—wind and fire, twin consequents of raging energy, the energy of absolute BEING.

John 3:8:

“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”

“So is every one that is born of the Spirit”, so is every one born out of a consuming fire that ever consumes and re-creates itself. The spirit, though discarnate, invisible, is nevertheless pulsing with life, life that comes from consciousness, the consciousness of BEING. I want to emphasize this point—that I am equating Spirit with Fire—as mutually dependent entities; that is to say, the airy wind of Spirit is what is left after the Fire burns away all that is not spiritual—thus, Spirit comes from Fire which destroys the dross, and retains the eternal.

The following is taken from an online article; in particular notice how “the consuming fire” is portrayed as the Wrath of God, and then remember that we have been in a “no pain no gain” mode, when it comes to dealing with the daily trials of life, which God has seen fit to burden us with—the point being, the fiercer the cleansing fire, the more perfect the cleansing:

“Question: "What does it mean that God is a consuming fire?"

Answer: God is first identified as a “consuming fire” in Deuteronomy 4:24 and 9:3. The writer to the Hebrews reiterates, warning the Hebrews to worship God with reverence and awe “for our God is a consuming fire.” There is nothing mysterious about the Hebrew and Greek words translated “consuming fire.” They mean exactly that—a fire that utterly consumes or destroys. How, then, can a loving and merciful God also be a consuming fire that utterly destroys? 

In both Deuteronomy passages in which God is called a consuming fire, Moses is speaking first to warn the Israelites against idolatry (Deuteronomy 4:23-25) because God is a “jealous God” and will not share His glory with worthless idols. Idolatry provokes Him to a righteous anger which is justified when His holiness is disrespected. In Deuteronomy 9:3, Moses again refers to God as a consuming (or devouring) fire who would go ahead of the Israelites into the Promised Land, destroying and subduing their enemies before them. Here again we see God’s wrath against those who oppose Him depicted as fire that utterly consumes and destroys anything in His path. 

There are several incidents in which God’s wrath, judgment, holiness or power are displayed by fire from heaven. Aaron’s sons Abihu and Nahab were destroyed by fire when they offered a profane sacrifice, “strange fire,” in the tabernacle, a sign of their disregard for the utter holiness of God and the need to honor Him in solemn and holy fear. The confrontation between Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel is another example of consuming fire from God. The prophets of Baal called upon their god all day long to rain fire from heaven to no avail. Then Elijah built an altar of stones, dug a ditch around it, put the sacrifice on the top of wood and called for water to be poured over his sacrifice three times. Elijah called upon God, and God sent fire down from heaven, completely consuming the sacrifice, the wood, and the stones and licked up the water in the ditch. Then His anger turned against the false prophets, and they were all killed. When prophesying the destruction of the Assyrians, who resisted the true and living God and warred against His people, Isaiah refers to the tongue of the Lord as a consuming fire and His “arm coming down with raging anger and consuming fire” (Isaiah 30:27-30).

God’s holiness is the reason for His being a consuming fire, and it burns up anything unholy. The holiness of God is that part of His nature that most separates Him from sinful man. The godless, Isaiah writes, tremble before Him: “Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?" Isaiah answers this by saying that only the righteous can withstand the consuming fire of God’s wrath against sin, because sin is an offense to God’s holiness. But Isaiah also assures us that no amount of our own righteousness is sufficient (Isaiah 64:6).

Fortunately, God has provided the righteousness we need by sending Jesus Christ to die on the cross for the sins of all who would ever believe in Him. In that one act, Christ mitigates God’s wrath, exchanging His perfect righteousness for our sin. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). All the wrath of God was poured out on Jesus, so that those who belong to Him would not have to suffer the same fate as the Assyrians. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31), but we need not fear the consuming fire of God’s wrath if we are covered by the purifying blood of Christ.”

This next selection, taken from the “God’s Character” website, is quite interesting in the way it probes into the meaning of the word “Fire”.

“Our God is a Consuming Fire

“CHRISTIAN BELIEFS ABOUT THE FATE OF THE WICKED FALL INTO TWO BROAD CATEGORIES:

• 1. A literal burning hell in which the sinner is punished for all of eternity. This view is associated with the belief that the soul is immortal.
• 2. Less common is the belief that the suffering of the wicked lasts only for a period of time. This view is referred to as “annihilationism”. In this model, God is typically described as destroying (or annihilating) them after a brief period of conscious suffering by fire.

In this paper, I will try to express another way of understanding the fire that is described in the book of Revelation and elsewhere in scripture. Although this is not a view held by many, I hope that the reader will briefly consider another possibility – perhaps one that will harmonize these words of Jesus on the subject of fire:

Luke 12:49:

“I came to set the earth on fire and how I wish it were already kindled.”  

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Does the fate of the wicked really matter that much to our understanding of God and the plan of salvation? After all, if we are rejoicing with God and our friends in heaven, why should we be concerned about a multitude of rebels who are suffering in pain? I heard a sermon recently in which the pastor pointed to the verse in Revelation that describes “the sea of glass mixed with fire” (Revelation 22:4). His interpretation was that those in heaven will always be able to look down and to see what should have been our fate: “Look what God would have done to me were it not for the death of Jesus!”

The view of a God who must torture his sinful children for all of eternity, “to satisfy justice” cannot help but contribute to our picture of who God is in character.

For example, imagine that you were told about a man that lives in your town. He is described to you as kind, gentle, and humble man. Stories are recounted of what he has done for the poor and the outcasts of society and you learn that he has even built a large home just for you on the back of his property, filled with the most wonderful things that you can imagine. After 15 minutes of glowing praise, you ask, “What would happen if I refused to like this man, despite his goodness? What would he do to me?” With some hesitancy the reply comes, “His sense of justice would demand that you be burned to death on the back lawn of his property.”

If that were the reality, would you still be impressed with the stories about the man’s kindness? Would you want to live in the house that he built for you or would you rather move as far away as possible? Would not all the stories about the man’s goodness and love become entirely swept away by the horror of what he does to his enemies?

Of course, some would say, “It doesn’t matter whether that offends you or not. All that matters is what the Bible says about the destruction of the wicked.” And, while I agree that the Bible is our inspired textbook for understanding this subject, my point for now is just to say that this subject contributes to our picture of God’s character perhaps more than any other. Since “eternal life is to know God” our passion must be to know His character as deeply as possible. What God does to His enemies is one critically important window into the character of God.

GOD HIMSELF IS THE FIRE

This passage in Revelation is, for many, the key text for an eternally burning hell:

“Revelation 14:9-11:

“A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: ‘If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name.” 

I believe that this passage is a wonderful opportunity to explain the reality of what happens to the wicked even though to many it would seem to make it very clear that the wicked are tortured forever and ever by burning sulfur. But first, a critical point to our understanding of what this fire is all about. The book of Revelation is not a stand alone book that we can understand independent of the previous 65 books of the Bible for this book is largely composed from the Old Testament. Large passages derive from the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel, and many others. In addition, the book of Revelation opens with the words that “this is the Revelation of Jesus Christ”. In other words, Revelation must be seen through the lens of Jesus Christ and a proper understanding of this book will reveal something very important to us about God. The book, with all its symbolism, is meant to clarify, not mystify, who God is in character.

With that in mind, it is important to understand that the imagery of Revelation 14 comes directly from Isaiah, chapter 34, which describes the destruction of Edom:

Isaiah 34:9-11:

“The rivers of Edom will turn into tar, and the soil will turn into sulfur. The whole country will burn like tar. It will burn day and night, and smoke will rise from it forever. The land will lie waste age after age, and no one will ever travel through it again. Owls and ravens will take over the land. The LORD will make it a barren waste again, as it was before the creation.”

Is the country of Edom still burning? Did God destroy Edom by fire? In fact, even to a person reading this passage during Isaiah’s time, would they assume that the land would burn forever and that smoke would ascend forever if owls and ravens will “take over the land”?

This is obviously a poetic description that Edom would be destroyed forever which should invite us to bring the same meaning to the passage in Revelation.

But, there is another very important clue in the Revelation 14 passage. Read very carefully:

Revelation 14:9-11:

“A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: ‘If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name.”

Notice that those who are experiencing torment are “in the presence of the holy angels and of the lamb.” There is obviously some symbolism involved here as Jesus is not actually a lamb, but are the angels and Jesus really standing in the fire with the wicked? That is what the passage would suggest.

Here, I believe is the key point! Jesus (who is God of course) IS the fire! Not a fire like the ones we ignite with matches of course, but yet the Bible again and again uses fire as the symbolic description of God’s immediate presence:

Daniel 4:24:

“Because the LORD your God is like a flaming fire.” 

Hebrews 12:29:

“For our God is a consuming fire.”

Isaiah 10:17:

“God, the light of Israel, will become a fire. Israel’s holy God will become a flame, which in a single day will burn up everything, even the thorns and thistles” 

As I will describe, the immediate presence of God is tortuous to some – but not because He is a literal fire that burns up flesh. God does not exude any hostility towards his rebellious children. This is rather describing a psychological discomfort that involves intense guilt and shame as sinful and selfish individuals enter into the presence of a God who is selfless love personified.

The presence of God.”

The desire of this author to paint the character of God as a pushover, and a Santa Claus, is very sweet, and shows a real love for Jesus, and yet the Merciful God idea only holds up for so long, before the starker realities of existence rear their ugly heads. We must possess some measure of accountability as free beings. God gives us choices to make every day, and when wrong choice upon wrong choice compound into ONE GREAT BIG CHOICE, the fire must consume us. What happens after that may be answered in Genesis, maybe not.

In summary, Hebrews 12  is about the disciplines that attend the acts of faith that constitute the Christian life, the hardships and the rewards; moreover we have revisited the idea that the spiritual life is analogous the life of the wind that “bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” We also examined the relationship of fire and wind, and have seen our absolute selves in the furnace of essential BEING.

Let us pray: Jesus, the most amazing thing is how the fire of your BEING is tempered by your love for inferior beings, and we stay protected from the fire until we are ready. Thanks for that. Amen.

On Death and the Passing of Toni

On Death and the Passing of Toni

Psalm 23:

“Yea though I walk through valley  of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil for thou art with me.”

Today we grieve not for Toni but for ourselves, as we face the future without her. We know that she has gone to a better place where there is no pain, no suffering, no restrictions, from whence she can look down on us, and continue to participate in our lives, although we may no longer distinctly participating in hers; we, lagging behind, must endure the transition from having Toni in our lives to NOT having Toni in our lives. 

So saying let us consider the SILVER CORD:

This Wikipedia article summarizes the concept of the silver cord:

“The silver cord in metaphysical studies and literature, also known as the sutratma or life thread of the antahkarana, refers to a life-giving linkage from the higher self (atma) down to the physical body. It also refers to an extended synthesis of this thread and a second (the consciousness thread, passing from the soul to the physical body) that connects the physical body to the etheric body, onwards to the astral body and finally to the mental body.

In other research, it is described as a strong, silver-colored, elastic cord which joins a person's physical body to its astral body (a manifestation of the physical body that is less distinct).

Alfred Ballabene observed that during his out-of-body experiences "glue-like strings" appear as the astral body tries to separate itself from the physical body. As the astral body moves further away from the tangible body, some of the strings break apart and clump into a specific and smaller region - preferably the head, breast, back, stomach, and the abdomen area - thus forming the silver cord.”

What this article does not mention is how we the living are attached to our loved ones by a similar cord. We know that all loved ones are connected to us by a silver cord, similar to the silver cord that binds the soul to the body.  As the liberated one is loosed from the body and the Earthly attachments are broken down, so are the ties that bound the liberated one to us—and when that separation is effected, we feel physical pain, as if a limb were amputated, and the wound is left open to the biting air.

In Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte describes this experience:

“I have a strange feeling with regard to you. As if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly knotted to a similar string in you. And if you were to leave I'm afraid that cord of communion would snap. And I have a notion that I'd take to bleeding inwardly.”

So, you see it is not Toni for whom we grieve but for ourselves, as we struggle to recover from the amputation of Toni from our immediate carnal consciousness.

The Bible has this to say about the silver cord:

Ecclesiastes 12: 6, 7

"Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."

Other comments on the silver cord are as follows:

From CORDS we read:

“Cords are made of astral and etheric energy and connect two people’s subtle bodies. They stretch between two people very much like an umbilical cord and transfer emotional energy and chi between the two. It does not matter how far away the other person is, as the cord is not a physical substance and distance is irrelevant, so it is still effective from the other side of the planet.”

From IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES IN THE TEACHINGS OF HEINDEL AND STEINER By Ger Westemberg, we read:

“The Silver cord, Heindel says, connects the spirit with the physical body, the vital body, the desire body and the mind, by means of the seed atoms located in the heart, the solar plexus, the liver and the frontal sinus. When this Silver cord breaks on its plane of fracture, situated in the apex of the heart, the heart stops beating. As soon as the panorama of the past life is etched on the desire body, the cord breaks on the point of the two sixes. The lower part of the vital body then returns again to the dense body; only then is one really dead.

Steiner, in his lecture of December 29, 1903, in Berlin says, “What connects the astral body with the physical body and its organs, and what leads them back again? There exists a kind of tie, a connection, which is a medium between physical and astral matter. And this they call kundalini fire. When you have a sleeping person, you still can follow the astral body in the astral. You have a shining band up to it, where the astral body is. When the astral body moves away, the kundalini fire in proportion grows more and more thin. These words imply that Steiner calls the Silver cord the spinal spirit fire.” 

From Death and Beyond, we read: “Only man himself is responsible for its condition, thus for its density and detachability. The more he chains himself to earthly things, the denser and heavier it becomes, and with it also the ethereal body; hence in certain cases such a man must feel not only the last earthly-physical pains, but also the disintegration of his physical cloak. But for those who bear within them the conviction of survival after death, physical death is birth into the Ethereal Realm. Just as at birth into the gross-material, the earthly, the navel cord is severed, so the silver cord is severed at birth into the ethereal, the beyond. Death need not be feared by anyone who bears within him the living firm volition for good, even if the resolution for it has arisen only just before his physical death. It will help him safely over the threshold, and on the other side helping hands will carefully guide him on to that recognition, which is still needed in order to ascend towards the Light.” Thus we see that the main problem with Toni’s ascent is that we, her loved ones, are denied, for a time the comfort of our spiritual connection with her. All we can do is wait for the pain of separation to heal, and then wait to be reunited in spirit with her, when our own personal silver cords break. Now a selection of thoughts on death from the Bible:

Ecclesiastes 7:1 A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth.

Thessalonians 4:13-14

13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

Romans 14:8 For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

2 Corinthians 5:6-8 So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

John 14:1-4 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.”

John 10:27-29 “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”

Revelation 14:1

Compare13 Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.”

1 John 3:1-2 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

1 Corinthians 15:54-57 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now some thoughts on death from some more modern thinkers:

― William Shakespeare

“When he shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night

And pay no worship to the garish sun.” 

― Langston Hughes

“Life is for the living.

Death is for the dead.

Let life be like music. 

And death a note unsaid.” 

― Helen Keller

“Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.” 

― Kahlil Gibran

“For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.” 

― Dylan Thomas

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not; And death shall have no dominion.” 

From The Death of William Blake by Eric Wilson:

“And so, committed to the last of the flame consuming his, his joy outweighing the pain, he continued, as he lay on his deathbed, to sketch, driven to convert, for one final spell, his quick thoughts into lively lines. But his brain soon slowed, beginning its descent into the inevitable dimness, and his competent hand faltered. Now, he believed, was the hour. He would have to leave his configurations of heaven undone. He set his instruments aside, his now-dull pencil and his paper riddled with shades.

Faint, he turned toward those attending him, among whom was his wife Catherine, his faithful partner for forty-five years. He saw her crying. Maybe what happened next was a final surge of affection, or perhaps a desperate hope to make the moment stay. Whatever the reason, Blake's haze cleared. His mind revived. He recovered his pencil and paper, reports say, and exclaimed to her, "Stay, Kate! Keep just as you are—I will draw your portrait—for you have ever been an angel to me." This picture he did complete, though it is now lost.

Now finished and feeling the fatigue return, he again laid down his implements, now for good. He silently said farewell to his earthly exertions—all those pictures and poems, forged in visionary fury—and relaxed, ready for his flesh's demise. As his consciousness gently waned, he sang hymns of his own design, about the eternal bliss to which his spirit would soon rise. He expired at six o'clock, his lyrics still trilling in his head. Catherine remained calm. Perhaps she believed that her life would change but little; she had once said of her husband, "I have very little of Mr. Blake's company. He is always in Paradise.””

On the life to come, we read:

— William James

“Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. 

The best argument I know for an immortal life is the existence of a man who deserves one.”

1 Peter 5:10

“And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.”

2 Corinthians 4:17-18

“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

I will close with four more scriptures. I consider this last batch of quotes to be one long miraculous sentence conveying a central integrated concept:

Romans 8:18

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

1 Timothy 6:12 |

“Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”

Psalm 37:28 |

“For the Lord loves the just

and will not forsake his faithful ones.

Wrongdoers will be completely destroyed;

the offspring of the wicked will perish.”

1 Timothy 1:16 

“But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.”

Sermon 12, 2016 — The Divine Character of Music

Sermon 12, 2016 — The Divine Character of Music

Today, in honor of my dear student Cami, I am reprising sections of a few previous sermons on the subject of music, and the larger subject of divine forms in human expression; in addition I will recite a number of aphorisms about music by well-known authors. 

I begin with the premise that music is the expression of Divine Truth in a very special or should I say “specialized” sense

In 2015 I wrote:

“It is too bad that the word "muse" has come to have such lightweight connotations. Nowadays the "muse" is thought of as the offhand, faraway smile of a supine loiterer, lightly skimming the surface of his subconscious, dreaming, a blade of grass between his lips. The purpose of this article is to promote and underline the idea that the "muse" in music, far from being the mere tickling of the subconscious fancy, is the very voice of God whispering bright secrets in our ears. Music is power from on high; as such, music can advance the spiritual progress of all those involved in it, and create change in the physical world. 

Like any great and powerful truth, music is generally vulgarized by the mundane consciousness into a sonic bubblebath; sound waves that help us block out city sounds, massage our jangled nerves, entertain our houseplants, and make our cows give more milk. This physical aspect of music is also a potent tool of Satan as he uses it to elicit low-vibration responses from our defenseless, ignorant youngsters.

The misuse of something good, however, does not make it bad. Music is essentially good (even though many of its linguistic derivatives are very bad indeed) for a very particular reason: music, more than any other art, is heaven sent. Music is divine reality manifested in our physical world for the purpose of raising consciousness to a higher-than-mundane level. The goodness of music is good in ways we cannot understand or predict. If music is symbolic, or representational in any way, it is symbolic of itself, God's truth seeking to change us from children of the earth to children of God.

The truths expressed in painting, poetry, and dance, almost universally refer to physical realities. Pictures (even imaginary pictures, if they are seen with physical eyes), and words (even abstract words like soul and God, if they are understood with the lower, literal mind), must have material referents or they would not exist. The referential sources of the literal and graphic arts necessarily objectify our experience of those arts at a basic level. Since the referential source of music is not of this world, there is nothing to objectify; thus, music, at the outset is subjective, a quantum leap closer to the language of the soul than anything it is possible for the referential arts to express. 

This is not to say that divine inspiration does not enter into the work of great painters, or that divine instruction transmitted through the scriptures does not influence us toward right action; but true divine understanding is not literal, it cannot be understood in words, and cannot be expressed in words. Understanding of divine knowledge comes through direct experience. Any other type of understanding is by analogy only, and is therefore a pale reflection of the reality. Hence, the main subject of this presentation is the experience of music; not what it says to us, but what it does to us.

Armstrong treats metaphor as "the being of the work of art; through metaphor it exists as the actual, incarnated being of . . . non-verbal affective life" (1971:xxi). He argues that affecting presences, as works or events witnessed, are "constituted, in a primordial and intransigent fashion, of basic cultural psychic conditions--not symbols of those conditions but specific enactments--presentations--of those very conditions . . . the affecting presence is not a 'semblance' but an actuality . . . in cultural terms it presents rather than represents" (1975:24). The media of such affecting presences are the minima of this presentational state, and metaphor is the mode of affecting existence, "a process by means of which the artist creates in various spatial and temporal media states of affective being" (1975:62).”

From a sermon given in 2012 I said:

“My life's deepest energies have been spent finding ways to transcend the problem of the abstract in art, to reveal high-level abstract concepts in the process of enlivening flesh and blood vessels, such that every note of musico/mathematical sense is also dignified by the transforming energy of the divine, raising it from a noisy, vainglorious cry of egotistical territoriality, into an incarnation of the Christ Consciousness; thus, music transduces spirit, through the flesh, into human form. It is the humanity of music that is truly spiritual, because it is the human that is illuminated with heavenly light. To be a great artist, it was necessary for me to learn that: it is my own humanity that dignifies my music, not the dignity of art that makes it human. Every piece is an anomaly, every person who hears it is an unique undying soul. . . .

The path of spirituality is a path toward the Eternal Moment. The miracle of music is the brand of eternal moment that I prefer. Music puts me in touch (I SAY TOUCH) with supernatural realities every day. Music is an alchemy of transformation, a process by which abstract ideas appearing, on the mental plane, are given form in the material world. Remember, I didn't always think this--I used to think music REPRESENTED something. I no longer think this; I now know that music is a channel through which divine intelligence manifests itself, and touches us, and moves us. . . .

The language of music and the language of prayer are quintessentially the same.”

In 2015 I contemplated the idea of divine forms in nature and in art. From Wikipedia I found some material on divine form:

Aristotelian forms

“Aristotle was the first to distinguish between matter (hyle) and form (morphe). For Aristotle, matter is the undifferentiated primal element: it is rather that from which things develop than a thing in itself. The development of particular things from this germinal matter consists in differentiation, the acquiring of particular forms of which the knowable universe consists (cf. Formal cause). The perfection of the form of a thing is its entelechy in virtue of which it attains its fullest realization of function (De anima, ii. 2). Thus the entelechy of the body is the soul. The origin of the differentiation process is to be sought in a prime mover, i.e. pure form entirely separate from all matter, eternal, unchangeable, operating not by its own activity but by the impulse which its own absolute existence excites in matter.”

Thus, natural forms come into existence through the impulse of the prime mover acting upon matter; so much more, then, must a work of art created consciously to the glory of God, act upon the soul. I love the sentence:

“pure form entirely separate from all matter, eternal, unchangeable, operating not by its own activity but by the impulse which its own absolute existence excites in matter.”

The idea of an "absolute existence" exciting activity in matter, is such vivid and resonant language, it makes me feel the impulse of the Father radiating through the very muscles of my body.

Commenting on this principle, Boethius, in his The Consolation of Philosophy (520-562 A.D), has improved the language of Aristotle by labeling this undifferentiated primal element, “the unchanging mind of God”:

“The engendering of all things, the whole advance of all changing natures, and every motion and progress in the world, draw their causes, their order, and their forms from the allotment of the unchanging mind of God, which lays manifold restrictions on all action from the calm fortress of its own directness. Such restrictions are called Providence when they can be seen to lie in the very simplicity of divine understanding; but they were called Fate in old times when they were viewed with reference to the objects which they moved or arranged. It will easily be understood that these two are very different if the mind examines the force of each. 

For Providence is the very divine reason which arranges all things, and rests with the supreme disposer of all; while Fate is that ordering which is a part of all changeable things, and by means of which Providence binds all things together in their own order. Providence embraces all things equally, however different they may be, even however infinite: when they are assigned to their own places, forms, and times, Fate sets them in an orderly motion; so that this development of the temporal order, unified in the intelligence of the mind of God, is Providence."

I find this to be a piercingly brilliant analysis of the surface quality of artworks we call “style”; Providence is the eternal voice, the angel tongue, and the sequential character of time, Fate, is the blood and brawn of a work of art. The true and the Not-True in the same package.

It’s interesting that the description of the dualistic nature of human reality has so many variously articulated opposites; we have “body and soul” “finite and infinite”, Aristotole gives us “matter and form”, Boethius gives us “fate and providence”, and, Martin Luther says, "essence implies a condition, while its expression implies action". How many ways are there to express this dualism, which seems to be deeply embedded in the PROCESS of human consciousness? Notice how our consciousness oscillates between two opposite states, just like the wave/particle behavior of photons described by the new particle physics. Notice, also, that the unchanging mind of God imposes “manifold restrictions on all action”. Here is made the first mention of form as a finite component present in an infinite process of becoming. 

I have read, many times, the following quote from C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra: 

"To those high creatures whose activity builds what we call nature, nothing is "natural." From their stations the essential arbitrariness (so to call it) of every actual creation is ceaselessly visible; for them there are no basic assumptions: all springs with the willful beauty of a jest or a tune from that miraculous moment of self-limitation wherein the Infinite, rejecting a myriad possibilities, throws out of Himself the positive elected invention."

So, no matter how much we focus on NATURAL FORMS, we always we come back to the idea of the infinite, incarnate in a finite material package. It must be that the INTERPLAY of divine forms and natural forms creates human expression. Indeed, it may well turn out that: CONSCIOUSNESS itself is a bi-product of the COMBINATION of corporeal and incorporeal elements. Perhaps this synthesis is not Pure Consciousness, but is responsible, merely, for EGO CONSCIOUSNESS. Then again, how we separate the Infinite Father, the Prime Mover, the God with No Name, from the Father of Creation, He who not only IS but DOES?

The discussion of Divine Forms yielded the following observations about the idiom in which Nature expresses Herself:

“(1) nature readily arranges itself into radiant polarities of compressed and rarefied components, and  

(2) organization into groups of like members is a very basic feature of material reality.

(1) natural systems like to arrange themselves into discrete levels of structure, thereby affirming that there is a vibratory threshold for each consciousness state, and that

(2) the acceleration of psychic events in changing dimensional frequencies is quite like the acceleration of an electron achieving escape velocity.”

Indeed, achieving escape velocity is the the name of the game when it comes to describing and experiencing the aesthetic response, or, as we have sometimes said, the “epiphany”. In my Doctoral Thesis I referred to this psychic reaction as “Recentering”, the moment when psychic material radically and instantaneously reorganizes itself to achieve a projected end condition. The moment of re-centering may be accompanied by a rush of wind, like electrons seeking a new pattern on the surface of the deep.

On this subject we read in Ezekial 3:12-14:

12 Then the spirit took me up, and I heard a voice of a great rushing, saying Blessed be the glory of the Lord from this place.

13 I heard also the noise of the wings of living creatures that touched one another, and the noise of wheels over against them, and a noise of a great rushing.

14 So the spirit lifted me up and took me away. . .

We read in Hebrews 4:12:

“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

Not to abandon a train of thought, but I now wish to read you some quotes about the spiritual dimension of music:

     

― Ludwig van Beethoven

“Music is ... A higher revelation than all Wisdom & Philosophy” 

― Johann Sebastian Bach

“Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul.” 

—Boethius

“I who once wrote songs with keen delight am now by sorrow driven to take up melancholy measures. Wounded Muses tell me what I must write, and elegiac verses bathe my face with real tears. Not even terror could drive from me these faithful companions of my long journey. Poetry, which was once the glory of my happy and flourishing youth, is still my comfort in this misery of my old age.”

On St Thomas Aquinas—by Basil Cole

“Aquinas used the notion of beauty to help understand that the creation of the world is shot through with beauty. [1] Looking at his commentary on Pseudo-Dionysius we discover that the reason for God's creative act is reduced to his beauty. [2] God wanted to make things like to himself who is Beauty per se. Hence the beauty of creation is spoken of in the following manner: "The beauty of the creature is nothing else than the likeness of the divine beauty participated in things"; [3] ". . . whence it is evident that from the divine beauty is derived the existence of all things." [4] So, it follows that each thing is beautiful in its own way. [5] Aquinas also says that this divine beauty gives unity, mutual adaptations, agreements in ideas and friendship. [6]

From another point of view, beauty of spirit consists in conversations and actions which are well formed and suffused with intelligence. [7] Therefore, from the point of view of morals and spirituality, the beauty of an entire life is founded upon the virtuous life which consists in the co-ordination of many human acts and emotions according to reason. [8] Because the instincts and emotions are brought under the order of reason, this inner activity of the human person, like a musician's, harmonizes, and sets in proportion the human life of the person. [9] On the other hand, immoderate pleasure sought for its own sake" . . . dulls the light of reason, from which comes all clarity and beauty of virtue." [10] 

But the life of virtue is not only suggested by good music, it also helps one for contemplation. What is contemplation? For Aquinas, it means many things from the point of view of thinking about and loving God. But looked at entirely from a natural perspective, it is "a simple gaze upon the truth." [11] In the same citation, he relies on Richard of St. Victor's notion that "contemplation is the soul's penetrating and easy gaze on things perceived." This definition is easily transferable from philosophy to all the arts of the beautiful including music. To listen to music is to contemplate something beautiful which is a structured truth of a made thing itself and may also (if allied with poetry) contain extra-musical truth either from faith or reason.”

― Martin Luther

"I, Doctor Martin Luther, wish all lovers of the unshackled art of music grace and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ!

I truly desire that all Christians would love and regard as worthy the lovely gift of music, which is a precious, worthy, and costly treasure given to mankind by God.

The riches of music are so excellent and so precious that words fail me whenever I attempt to discuss and describe them.... In summa, next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. It controls our thoughts, minds, hearts, and spirits...

The devil, the originator of sorrowful anxieties and restless troubles, flees before the sound of music almost as much as before the Word of God....Music is a gift and grace of God, not an invention of men. Thus it drives out the devil and makes people cheerful. Then one forgets all wrath, impurity, and other devices.” 

― Henry David Thoreau

“When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.” 

― Friedrich Nietzsche

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” 

― Langston Hughes

“Life is for the living.

Death is for the dead.

Let life be like music. 

And death a note unsaid.” 

Joseph Campbell on The Grateful Dead:

“Rock music has never seemed that interesting to me,” he commented in a lecture shortly after the concert. But what the Dead did was profoundly inspiring: “when you see 8,000 kids all going up in the air together … Listen, this is powerful stuff!” What he saw reminded him of the Dionysian festivals, palpable proof of his theory that the ancient myths and rituals he studied still echoed today. “This is more than music,” he told his audience. “It turns something on in here [the heart]. And what it turns on is life energy. This is Dionysus talking through these kids.” Campbell's understanding of Dionysus was far deeper and more nuanced than the popular caricature of the happy, wine-soaked god, but his point was not to rehabilitate that older understanding. “It doesn't matter what the name of the god is, or whether it's a rock group or a clergy,” he concluded. “It's somehow hitting that chord of realization of the unity of God in you all.”

Rudolf Steiner—from Speech and Song:

“If we study the human organism as it stands before us here on earth, we know that it is through and through an image of the spiritual. Everything here — not only what man bears in himself, but also what surrounds him in external nature — is an image of the spiritual. Now when man expresses himself in speech or in song, he is really manifesting his whole nature — body, soul and spirit — not only outwardly but inwardly. In all that he brings forth by way of sound — whether the articulate sounds of speech or the musical notes of song — the full human being is in fact contained.”

― Aldous Huxley, Music at Night and Other Essays

“From pure sensation to the intuition of beauty, from pleasure and pain to love and the mystical ecstasy and death — all the things that are fundamental, all the things that, to the human spirit, are most profoundly significant, can only be experienced, not expressed. The rest is always and everywhere silence.

After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

In a different mode, or another plane of being, music is the equivalent of some of man’s most significant and most inexpressible experiences. By mysterious analogy it evokes in the mind of the listener, sometimes the phantom of these experiences, sometimes even the experiences themselves in their full force of life — it is a question of intensity; the phantom is dim, the reality, near and burning. Music may call up either; it is chance or providence which decides. The intermittences of the heart are subject to no known law.”

—William James

“We do, it is true, when we study the connection between a musical note and its outward cause, find the note simple and continuous while the cause is multiple and discrete. Somewhere, then, there is a transformation, reduction, or fusion. The question is, Where – in the nerve-world or in the mind-world?”

― Robert Browning

“Who hears music, feels his solitude

Peopled at once.” 

― John Keats

“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on.” 

― Leopold Stokowski

“A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.” 

― Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

“The music is not in the notes,

but in the silence between.” 

“The only truth is music.” 

― Jack Kerouac

― Elvis Costello

“Can a mere song change a people's minds? I doubt that it is so. But a song can infiltrate your heart and the heart may change your mind.” 

― Frank Zappa

“Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.” 

― Albert Schweitzer

“There are two means of refuge from the misery of life — music and cats.” 

The preceding presentation is meant to sensitize us to the potentials for spiritual experience through music—to emphasize the possibility of achieving a higher-dimensional consciousness through music.

I have contacted this higher dimension, routinely, through my music, and it is my music that I have always depended on to carry me to the end. The message I am getting in prayer lately is that I need to energize my spiritual organs of perception with a new and different kind of sensitivity. 

I cannot describe the actual technique of this energizing other than to say it involves opening my eyes and bolstering my faith through an act of will--of desire. But the bottom line is always Jesus--Jesus is the cavalry coming to the rescue, every single time. When I forget to call Him, or out of pride refuse to call Him, I fall into misery, doubt, and panic. When I just open my heart to Him, trust Him, adore Him, I am safe, serene, and free. There, in the meeting place between me and Jesus, is my joy. And this joy flows out of me in waves of song.

Let us pray: Jesus, we adore you in our petty ways, and fancy that we approach the mountaintop. To me the mountain seems still distant, but each day draws me closer, and with Your deliverance I sing out, with the angels, that one day this knowledge will be mine. Amen