Russian Dolls

Sermon: 16th January 2021

Gospel Reading: Luke 2: 41 -52

Dear Community of Christians,

Who doesn't know about Russian dolls, where one can lift several small identical dolls out of each other? What a pleasure to take smaller ones, little by little, out of a slightly bigger one. This is a picture of the archetype of our humanity, the archetype of the members of our being as they interlock and make our life on earth possible. If, of course, one of those members of our being is not fully developed, they may not ‘fit together’. Life in a physical body becomes very difficult.

The Luke Jesus child radiated an incredible fullness of love and innocence into the world, but because of this innocence he was not equipped for practical life.

After returning from Egypt, the parents of the Matthew child also settled in Nazareth. Rudolf Steiner's spiritual science conveys to us that both children became very close friends.

The sacrificial power of the Matthew child grew out of this love-borne friendship.  He wanted to give the Luke child everything he could, his wisdom, his knowledge of the world, his forces of will, so that this Luke child could fulfil his earthly task.

Today, many children are born with their members of being fully integrated, like we see in the neatly stacked Russian dolls. But by no means all. In particular, these special children need our love and attention. For this is the goal of earthly life, that all people can prepare and purify the members of their organization so that our ‘I am’, our highest spiritual being, can sit at the centre of our being, much like the tiniest of the Russian dolls.

Rev. Ute Koenig