7 Easter May 29, 2022
Acts 16:16-34 Psalm 97
Revelation 22:12-14,16-17,20-21 John 17:20-26
Topography is a geographical term. But the word topic, is a rhetorical term, referring to common themes of use for argument and dialogue. Each word is related to a Greek word, "topos", meaning place.
One of Aristotle's works in logic was called The Topics, or commonplaces that are used in arguments to derive the conclusions of the arguments.
The Bible is a book of topography and topics. It is a geography of the outer world and the inner world because language is an inner attribute comprising each person's effort to sew together what is inside us with what is outside. We use language to name the outer world of our landscape, our geographical topography; we use language to name our interior geography, things like soul, emotions, thinking, memory, volition, heart, and spirit. The Bible provides a series of topics from which our major faith conclusions are drawn.
What is the main conclusion of the New Testament? The Jesus who died, rose into an ascended state, is now known as the Risen Christ nature within humanity. What is the whole point of the New Testament? To get people to realize the Risen Christ nature within themselves.
Today's Bible readings gives us topics in various presentations to point to the main conclusion.
The geography of Jesus Christ is this: He was born, he ministered in word and deed and demonstration and friendship, he died, he continued to be known in various ways by his followers who explained such as appearances until such appearances ceased and his absence was explained by his departure in an ascension. He took a spiritual elevator to an exalted space, and in our modern day, we must confess this exalted space to be an inner space, because we no longer hold to a three-tiered universe of netherworld, flat earth, domed sky with an opening to the highest heaven.
How did the writer of John's Gospel understand Christ as exalted to the highest inner space? He understood that Christ was an intercessor asking that everyone could come to a union with the Great One of heaven and know themselves as child of God, one with the heavenly parent who is the condition of the creation of everything.
The topic is the presentation of the prayer of Christ for us to come to know our family oneness with God our heavenly parent. This is not a Jesus wanting to be God's only child; it is the Risen Christ begging that God might help everyone realize their divine family origin by accessing their spiritual oneness with God.
Another topic is the result of the conclusion about experiencing the Risen Christ nature. It gave Paul and Silas the ability to resist the interior lies that controlled others; and they could people whisper just like Jesus had people whispered. What happens to those who realize their Risen Christ natures? The uncanny. Prison doors are opened, and they know not how; the earthquake seem to cause their release. And their release was for the purpose of passing on the realization of the Christ nature to their jailor and his family. The realization of the Risen Christ nature creates for us the sense of the uncanny, the marvelous, the bafflement, and the awe; the sense of our being really small because of God's greatness. We can experience the sense of wonder of us being touched by that greatness, and known in events of seeming providential care.
Realizing the divine presence made the Psalmist a poet. Poets speak in exaggeration; that's what mystical experience does. Poetry is a response to the Sublime. And the sense of the sublime is a topic which points to the conclusion of the realized Risen Christ nature.
And for some, the awareness of the sublime Risen Christ nature came in the inscrutable and fluid and plastic imagery like the writings of the Revelation of St. John the Divine. Do you know how you can offend an artist, a poet, writer, or a painter? By being very sure that you really know what they meant in their artistic presentation. Artists and paints and writers can be very glad that their works are appreciated and even forgiving when people presume to know exactly what they meant. I am very tired of people who think that they know exactly what John the Divine wrote about or exactly what the Bible means. Why? The meanings of the Bible are not yet finished, just like the meaning of any work of art is never arrived at. Let us not offend the Bible by presuming we know precisely what the words mean. It is a book of artistic presentation of language to inspire us in the art of living well. It is not a book of dogma to presume that we know so well, that we want to force our meanings on everyone else.
Lots of people who think they know what the Book of Revelation is about speak over and over again about the Second Coming. I don't think the word "second" is ever used to refer to the coming of Christ, because the comings of Christ are more than two. Just last week we read about how Christ was leaving the disciples but was coming to them again soon in the Advocate Holy Spirit.
While some people are just waiting for the "big one," the big coming, I believe the witness of John the Divine to you and me is found in one word that should always be on our lips and in our hearts.
That word: "Come!" Come Lord Jesus! Come again, now, and later. Come Lord Jesus in these Eucharistic gifts. Come within the gathered people. Come within the crazy terror of gun slayings aftermaths and come within the lingering dreadful war in Ukraine.
What is in this word "come?" It is a request from hearts won by the hospitality of Christ, and it is being converted to being hospitable? And what do hospitable people say? Come!
Come, Lord Jesus. Amen
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