Dear Community of Christians,

in a few weeks the soil will be ready for the farmer. Then they can sow and nurture the first seeds to grow plants for our daily bread. Without healthy soil for a successful harvest, we would starve. 

We don’t live by bread alone. Man lives by every Word that comes from the mouth of God.

And the Word of God, the seed, falls in the ground of the human soul. The question is, do we have a clear understanding of what the Word of God means? I think we have to widen our thinking.

Can it be that a poem moves and opens our heart like a Word of God? Or the sunrise, and the sunset with all their incredible colors? What about a beautiful landscape? Or a loving word from a person?

It can be a daily struggle to be open for all that comes from the outside, into our hearts like a seed.  Yet we can easily overlook the beauty of a landscape. We can fail to recognize the loving word in a poem, or the helpful word of another person. Because our soul ground has become frozen.

We have to be aware, there are two different powers working in our soul. Those who want to prepare our soul-ground for the Word of God, and those who work always against it.

They will battle as long as there is no master who carefully cultivates the soul for the seed. In principle, the master knows exactly how to prepare, but if he is weak, or lazy, the counterforces freeze the ground of the soul. The master has to awaken to the importance of his will, and what he has to do to strengthen it. The fruits from the seed of this inner labor depend on mastering the soil of the soul. This ripening of the will is for ourselves, and for mankind as a whole.   

Gospel Reading: Matthew 8: 1-13

Dear Community of Christians,

Illness is impressed continuously into our consciousness these days. If we are not affected ourselves, we experience images of sick people in the media, in bed or in hospitals. We are talking about diseases that affect the physical human being.

Today we also try to look beyond the purely physical sickness, and talk about the need to strengthen the immune system, the working life forces in our body. But aren’t our physical illnesses very much related to our whole personal constitution?

Very often our constitution is too weak to resist illnesses. Our will forces are often not strong enough to change something in our life towards health.

We can be sure that Jesus Christ, when he met sick people, felt a deep compassion for them. But he never healed only the physically sick. In every human being he saw their whole soul-spiritual constitution, the deeper dis-ease beyond the physical suffering.

In Jesus Christ's encounters with sick people, his most essential question is: “do you wish to become healthy”? With this he raises the question of the willpower of the sick person.

In our Gospel from today, Jesus Christ did not raise this question. It was clear. He already recognized the openness and the will forces of the Roman officer. The officer made a big step to cross the strong ethnic threshold. He even took a further step. He didn’t ask for healing for himself, but for someone he was deeply connected with.
We know from testimony of very sick people in an unconscious state, that they recognized the power of those who have prayed for them with love. Who have not left their bedside and stayed with them unconditionally. The sick experienced this healing power that supported their recovery.

This is what we are asked, to truly see and love the person in their whole constitution. Though this may be a difficult task, we carry them towards wholeness.

​Dear Community of Christians,

The story of Job in the Old Testament can still have a useful meaning for us today. Job was a man who was totally devoted to God. Additionally, he was a happy and rich man. He lived in the comfort zone. Then the Tempter got the freedom from the Lord to tempt Job. This theme of testing a pious person and their connection with the spiritual world has been taken up many times in literature.

Consider this possibility:  that the development of earth and man depends on man's connection to God, and that we can add to the primordial forces of creation. The future shaping of the whole Cosmos depends on these World Creative Forces.

In this process of temptation Job lost everything. First his possessions, then he loses his children, and then he suffers from a disease that covers his body with sores. His wife tells him to curse God and his friends are convinced that he must have sinned to experience all this. Actually, it is an experience of Grace. Christ's light radiates into Job's soul, who after all his suffering concludes: I know that my Redeemer lives.

In the midst of our crisis, as we are deprived of the basics of freedoms, we can also ask ourselves, are the losses inflicted on us perhaps necessary tests? Do we get tempted and tested at this time where we are comfortable, and can these tests allow us to progress further on the spiritual path? If we honestly reflect, we may see we live in a comfort zone that prevents further spiritual development. It is a question that can only be answered individually. Then one has to direct their own life steps along the path lit with this new insight.

Gospel Reading: Matthew 2:1-15

Dear Community of Christians,

It was the star that guided the three Kings on their path. The star was the sign for the kings to find the right way towards their destiny. We, the people of our time, think of this guiding star as a historical occurrence. We have to go on our way alone, without the guiding star. 

Actually, we are guided by a star, our own light filled star, yet, it doesn’t brightly shine as an outer visible light. If we look on the path of our destiny, we can see how many times we were perfectly guided. Sometimes it was a difficult path, and sometimes it is just the right one. Only in retrospect we recognize its guidance. Without this directing impulse of the star, we would never fulfill the task of our destiny. These tasks we have sought out as heavenly guides before our earthly life, and decided to follow. We have grasped this decision pre-natally. 

If we actually think about our life situation, we must realize how many times, we are held back from meeting our destiny: from relevant people and important occurrences. Then we can clearly see, it is not the light of our guiding star that hinders us from fulfilling our destiny, these are real, other forces who want to guide us down another path, towards the forces that Herod was driven by. These forces which have driven him to become the murderer of many innocent souls, are still not overcome.

Today, they are once again allowed to have a stronger effect, to draw us away from heavenly light.  And that now remains the question, do we let this happen? Do we let ourselves be led away by these forces that seek to overwhelm us? Or can we call upon all the forces at our disposal, and turn our gaze upwards? Only from there can the starlight guide us along the path of destiny we have chosen.

Gospel Reading: Matthew 2: 1-15

Dear Community of Christians,

The festival of Epiphany has high importance, especially for the German city of Cologne. There is an old legend: After the Three Kings became bishops and later died, their bones were brought to Cologne. Some time after a Danish king came to Cologne and brought with him three crowns for the three kings. When he came back home, he had a dream. The three kings appeared to him in the dream and handed him 3 cups, the first of the cups contained gold, the second myrrh and the third contained frankincense.

​When the Danish king awoke, the Three Magi had disappeared, but the three cups had remained for him. Rudolf Steiner gives us an insight into this legend.  The dream was assistance for the Danish King to rise up into the spiritual world.  And thus, the symbolic substance of gold, frankincense and myrrh became known to him. We can also say that he could now recognize the symbolic power of the gifts. He could read the meaning of the images. These offerings are meant: Gold - self-knowledge, or we can even say Self-improvement; Then frankincense - self-piety, or even self-development; Myrrh – devotion, or also the preservation of the eternal in the self. 

If we visualize these qualities of the soul, then perhaps we can appreciate what a long way we have to go to become a true human being.  The 3 kings themselves were also on this path, yet they brought their offerings to the - one whom they foresaw would live these ‘gifts’ one day as an eternal example for mankind.

Gospel Reading: Luke 2:25-35

Dear Community of Christians,

Simeon the person who is entirely dedicated to the Good and the Prophetess Hannah were then like archetypes of Godparents for the Jesus child. When the child was brought to the temple, and were presented for the first time to the public, they were the representatives for mankind to reveal that he will be the ruler of “His” kingdom.

Actually, every child born into the world is king in its own little kingdom: The parents, the brothers and sisters, the relatives, they all form his small kingdom. Then the little space gradually expands with its friends, and later with its tasks and with its enemies. Besides its parents who are responsible for the physical well-being, it needs also the representatives of mankind, in form of two Godparents. If Godparents take the task seriously, then there is real responsibility involved. In the Christian Community the Godparents are called “guardian”, it is a matter of inner disposition to alertness of spiritually, to accompany the child, the youth, perhaps even the adult, to support them in their tasks for their kingdom.                                                                                                                                                                                                         
If we now consider that we all have the mission on earth, to bring our higher self, not our egoistic part, to birth, then we sense that is, and will be a very difficult occurrence. Can we once ask, are there also two beings that protect and accompany the process of becoming a true King in our own adult kingdom? Not an easy question to answer. But the two qualities of a healthy soul and a clear consciousness will be the best requirements we can think of. In this sense, we can feel responsible as our own guardian. 

Dear Community of Christians,
​
The poet Mörike once completed a poem for the New Year, calling out a hearty, holy welcome to the New Year. He describes the coming as something very tender, delicate, like a little angel which very carefully touches the earth.

Despite the old year, laden with heavy weights, one can still try to follow this image, of the tender, unencumbered beginning of a New Year. But in our individual souls, perhaps this lightness is not so readily found.  In our individual souls there are future desires and hopes weaving and swaying. What can we do to give more space for these wishes and hopes, so that the individual angels can grant us exactly what is right, what is necessary this year?

Our consciousness today is shaped in such a way that we are always exposed to the danger of no longer perceiving the work of the angels. With a childish attitude we could say: “I am grown up.” Certainly, we have to be independent and self-reliant, but this is this too much, we are too self-assured. This often makes the work of the angels difficult and then they have to do more to make us aware of where we are falling short. This is what we can bring to this New Year: to give space to our angel for their work.

To the New Year

by Eduard Mörike 

So quietly, lowly
Like angels that slowly
Aurorally wingèd
Set foot on the earth,
Thus morning drew nearer.
Welcome godfearing
With joy its appearing!
Its holy appearing,
Heart, welcome with mirth!
                           
In Him all beginning
Who reigns, ever spinning,
The moons', suns' and planets'
Celestial parade.
You, Father, you counsel!
Be guide and defense!
Lord, into Thy hands
Beginning and end,
The whole world be laid.

German (Deutsch) to English translation © 2004 by Bertram Kottmann