06. Finding Where Jesus Dwells (Jn 1:36-39)

READINGS

John Chapter 1:36-39
And looking at Jesus walking, he said, Behold, the Lamb of God! (37) And the two disciples heard him speaking, and they followed Jesus. (38) But having seen them following, Jesus said to them, What do you seek? And they said to Him, Rabbi (which being translated is called Teacher), where do You dwell? (39) He said to them, Come and see. They went and saw where He dwelt, and they remained with Him that day. And the hour was about the tenth.

Arcana Coelestia 9296 by Emanuel Swedenborg
[The] new will, which is formed from the good of innocence, is the dwelling-place by means of which the Lord comes in and resides with a person, rousing the person to will what is good, and from willing good to doing it. This influx is effective with a person to the extent that he refrains from evils. It gives him the ability to know, see into, reflect on, and have an understanding of truths and forms of good. The truths and forms of good occur on the level of both private and public life, and he receives that ability according to his delight in service. After this the Lord flows by way of that good into the truths the person knows from the teachings of the Church; He then summons from his memory the kinds of truths that may help him serve usefully in life, implanting those truths in the good and perfecting it. So it is that the good present with a person depends entirely on his service in life. If that service is rendered for his neighbour’s benefit, that is, for the good of fellow-citizen, country, Church, heaven, and for the Lord, then that good is the good of charity. But if his service in life is rendered solely for the sake of self and the world, then those first beginnings of a new will are closed. Below them a will is formed from the evils of self-love and love of the world, and arising from this an understanding from falsities. This will is closed above and open below, that is, it is closed in heaven’s direction and open in the world’s. All this shows in what way truths are planted in good and give it form. It also shows that when a person is governed by good he is in heaven with the Lord; for as stated above, the new will, where the good of charity resides, is the Lord’s dwelling-place and is therefore heaven with a person. And the new understanding extending from it is so to speak a tabernacle or booth through which people pass in and out.


SERMON

So we have seen that John or the literal sense of the Word introduces us to Jesus or the power of the Word to save us, that power being found in a deeper understanding of the Word, being its internal sense. The external aspect of the Word is for the external man and as such supports us to change our external behaviour – it is as we do this we can be introduced to its internal sense which is the Lord Himself, and this has the power to transform our very thoughts and affections from something orientated towards self to something focussed on and living in the life of heaven NOW. This can be seen when we understand that the salvation the Lord offers looks to save us from our self. Specifically He saves us from the loves of self and the world dominating our lives, that close our minds down to seeing the spiritual possibilities open to us when we live from the truths of the Word, for these truths offer us a life grounded in the true humanity we are created for, a life of love and compassion that flows from the Lord, through heaven into our minds. We have seen that the saving power of the Word is identified as “the Lamb of God” and how this statement reveals what the message of the Word is to us – that it teaches us what love to the Lord, and love to our neighbour is and that it is these heavenly loves active in our life that saves us. These two loves are really one and they are the innocence of heaven itself within us when we live from the Word. The Apostle John points out that these loves are really one in his epistle, where he states…

1Jn 4:20-21 If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar. For the one not loving his brother whom he has seen, how is he able to love God whom he has not seen? (21) And we have this commandment from Him, that the one who loves God also loves his brother.

To love the Lord is to be in the effort to live from our understanding of the Word for the Lord is the Word, and when we live from the Word, then we love the Lord, and it is in living from the Word that we learn how we are to love each other. These loves are from heaven, for anything of spiritual substance produced in us by means of the Word must be heavenly, and if heavenly then it must contain the Lord because the Lord Himself makes heaven, heaven. Loves from heaven look to what is spiritual, and so when they take form in us are able to bring a spiritual understanding and insight to every aspect of life. Thus they are able to transform, the most mundane and difficult aspects of life into something productive and meaningful. The spiritual life is a life that looks only to the good of another from a spiritual perspective and so in this sense never seeks to do harm, it is a state of life where we are conscious of our need of the Lord or Word for direction and guidance in all situations and circumstances we have to deal with on a daily basis. This love builds in us as we look to the Lord or the Word to have our evils removed, both on an individual and on a collective level of being together as a spiritual community. And it is because this love is focussed on promoting what is genuinely spiritual, and because it never looks to do any harm, that it is filled with the innocence of heaven, and so is called representatively a “lamb” or the “lamb of God” in the Word.

Behold, the Lamb of God – the love of heaven itself; Where? Here in the Word. Have we heard the Word’s message, are we able to appreciate this call to behold what our life as a spiritual community has the potential to become, the voice, the vision, the invitation, the possibilities that the Word proclaims are open for us. Are we inspired by what our lives might become if we commit to the spiritual work of our regeneration in conjunction with the Lord or Word? Are we able to get a fresh sense of our potential as a spiritual force for good within the communities we live our lives in? The Word offers us a quality of life we can’t even begin to imagine, it has the power to bind us into a spiritual community unlike anything seen or experienced before – the only limitations are those we place upon ourselves. What’s impossible for man is possible with the Lord, with the Lord, the Scripture declares, all things are possible – so lets not limit Him, let’s allow Him to really take hold of what is His own in our midst and raise us up into a living image of the heavenly potential that is available to us as a community committed to spiritual goals.

The main function of the written Word is to make the Lord God Jesus Christ visible in our midst; this is as true for us individually as it is for us collectively. A church is only a church in accordance with its understanding of the Word. In other words a church is a church to the degree that the principles of the Word are embodied and made alive in its members. When these principles of the Word become lived, they become fleshed out and present an expression of love to the Lord and our neighbour to the world around us, and when this love is expressed in a community of people so the Lord is made visible in that community. People who come into contact with such a community cannot but be touched in a profound way, they may not know what it is they have just come into contact with, but they know that whatever it is, it’s something they have searched for all their lives. The sense in the sphere of life that comes forth from a community of people fully engaged with spiritual teachings drawn from the Word of life and lived is something of heaven on earth. This potential to be something radically different from what the world offers is what the Word is designed to empower us to be, if we want it.

We can be this, more so than we already are. The Lord has given us everything we need to be a light to the generation we are called to serve. But it will take a willingness to be open to whatever suggests itself as a way forward. It will certainly require courage to try new things, new ways of being and expressing our faith and love. We can’t escape the fact that as an organisation committed to spiritual objectives we have a collective responsibly to ensure that we are as effective as we possibly can be in creating opportunities for others to be supported in their spiritual journey. The call to repentance found in the Word and represented by John the Baptist is something we each individually need to take up, but its also a call to every spiritual community as well, for a spiritual community in the eyes of the Lord is a single person who is in as much need of continually being regenerated as any individual.

So we need to be prepared to respond to John’s message on different levels. What will it take for us to become a richer, fuller, more viable centre for spiritual life able to fulfil clear spiritual goals? Well first we need a clear sense of our collective purpose for being. We need to ask ourselves why we are here. What is our use or function and are we fulfilling this? As a spiritual organisation that is founded on the Word understood in the light of the Heavenly Doctrines we have one overarching reason for existing…to proclaim the Lord’s Second Advent through the opening of the spiritual sense of the Word. Why, because this is where the Lord is to be found for people. We preach the Word because the Word is the Lord, it is divine truth. By means of it He is able to give people like us new loves, new ways of seeing and being in the world and with others – through it people gain entrance into the life of heaven or a true sense of life and love now, its not just a future thing, its a living presence of the Divine in our midst, the Word lived that is able to save us from a life of separation from the Lord who is love itself. It is able to save all people from the destruction selfish living brings into their lives and the lives of those around them. If we can truly get hold of it, our’s is a real message of hope and salvation, for in our teachings we have the basis to offer a way of seeing the Word that no one else has, and the beauty of it is that this new understanding can bring about real, lasting, eternal transformations in peoples lives. Here is the light that is the life of every person coming into the world.

Most people who have reflected honestly on their lives want to be free from those recurring patterns of selfish behaviour that swamp them, and wreck havoc with their relationships. But it’s tragic that most don’t have the ideas or truths that can support them to find a new life. Friends the Word understood in the light of the Heavenly Doctrines and lived provides us with the way out of destructive states of life. Wouldn’t it be a powerful witness to be in a position as a spiritual community where we can bring a sense of purpose and meaning into the lives of others who are struggling with the same things many of us have struggled with as we have looked to live more meaningful life through following a spiritual path based on the truths and principles of the Word. We can be such a community – this is a very real possibility for us as we look to the future. But just as repentance on an individual level requires us to change our way of life, so the same is required of the collective person. As a collective person we have a way of being together, as a community we share a certain set of values, we do things as a group that is founded on traditions that have their roots in the past, and while traditions in and of themselves are neither good nor bad, traditions or collective ways of being should not be adhered to for their own sake, if they are its one sure way of becoming irrelevant. If we view ourselves as a spiritual community then by definition this means that we are not static but rather we are a dynamic community that is undergoing a constant transformation in our way of presenting ourselves as we look to accomplish our sense of calling to make our teachings available to as many people as we possibly can.

We need to develop a habit of asking ourselves hard questions. It’s healthy to evaluate what we do every now and again. To remain relevant we need to be willing to assess our activities against what we understand to be our purpose for being. And if we see areas that require adjustment in the light of our understanding of what the Word teaches, then we need to make the necessary adjustments so that we can remain effective in our functioning as a spiritual community with a responsibility to reach others. We are living in a time when old institutional forms are fast becoming obsolete, they no longer connect with people the way they once did – this is a fact we can’t escape. What does this mean for us as far as the way we are organised, or the forms we employ?

These things are simply external garments whose use is to give expression to what is deeper or more internal in a way that others outside of our community can connect with. But if the garments are tired, and are no longer able to fulfill their purpose they may be in need of changing, it maybe were are at a point when we need to rethink our externals that our internals might find a fresh more viable expression. Traditionally the new church as an organisation has adopted and adapted old church forms and these have served us well, but we need to begin asking ourselves are they really relevant, do they empower us to reach those of this current generation, because if they aren’t then how are we to survive into the future. To be a viable spiritual community we need to begin to think about finding new garments that are able to present the Word in a way that creates opportunities for people who don’t know the Lord to connect with Him in the Word in meaningful ways.

Joh 1:36-39 And looking at Jesus walking, he said, Behold, the Lamb of God! (37) And the two disciples heard him speaking, and they followed Jesus. (38) But having seen them following, Jesus said to them, What do you seek? And they said to Him, Rabbi (which being translated is called Teacher), where do You dwell? (39) He said to them, Come and see. They went and saw where He dwelt, and they remained with Him that day. And the hour was about the tenth.

John represents the old externals and Jesus the internal things of the Word or spiritual life and as John must be left behind if Jesus is to be followed so like these two disciples we must be prepared to let go of our John if we are to find where the Lord who on a collective level represents our potential as a spiritual community, where our true life is to be found. When we are truly prepared to let go of the old in order to find how we might reach others more effectively we will hear this question rising in our midst – What do you seek? It a question that arises from within as we look to live from the Word. And we will answer like every true disciple – where do you dwell? Or where is your abiding presence? to find where the Lord dwells is to be find our function and purpose as a spiritual community, to find our meaning in uses that are looking to the expansion of the Word’s message into the hearts and lives of all people, if this is what we are truly seeking then He will say “Come and see” and as we look to fulfill our purpose so we will see where it is the Lord is to be found, we will find our life.

Amen.

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