Sermon: 25th Sept '21

The Youth of Nain

Gospel Reading: Luke 7: 11-17

Dear Community of Christians,

The raising of the dead is a challenge to our modern consciousness.

In fact, near-death experiences show us today medicine can do extraordinary things for people who are at the threshold of death. Thereby people have experienced a glimpse of another world than our physical realm.

Without exception people explained this glimpse has changed their whole life regarding the fact of a spiritual world’s existence. Is this the modern way of initiation to a higher consciousness, that overcomes the intellectual thinking, which is bound to the physical world?

Certainly, we can say that the abyss between the world of life and the world of death no longer seems insurmountable. Especially through those who have died and returned through medical intervention and thanks to those who have clairvoyant skills and share them with the world.

Is the revival of the Youth of Nain the old way of initiation, where the master guides the human being to insights in the spiritual world? The death has shocked those around him and especially Christ himself. Or could the death of the Youth be a sign that the wealth of his past lives are no longer sufficient to fulfil his future tasks for the world and Christ recognized it?

No treasure of wisdom gained on earth is lost, that is a spiritual law. But is this wisdom powerful enough to be effective in the future? We know from our own experience that we have acquired certain skills, but sometimes we have to recognize that further insights and impulses have to be added if we want to continue to do justice to our tasks.

How much more must this apply to an individuality that is raised to new life by Christ? We can also see the awakening of the young man of Nain as a sign for the future, also for our time. Our personal intellectual wealth needs a spiritual initiation, spiritual impulses, if we do not want to sink into the darkness of materialism. The successes of materialistic thinking and mechanized medicine, achieved incredible things, but at the same time show us their finite reach, in that the human being is degraded to a machine.

Near-death experiences make possible the reception of new spiritual impulses and such experiences are a gift, not arising from our own efforts. 

Our modern intellectual thinking comes to a threshold of death, but cannot cross over it. The dead intellectual thinking is plagued with doubt, or even denials of anything more.

But by cultivating a living thinking and courageous attitude that includes an awareness of the spiritual world we can prepare to step consciously over the threshold of death. This path of consciously crossing the threshold is a path of modern initiation.

Rev. Ute Koenig