In the darkest night of the year, when earth sleeps most soundly in Boreas’ cold embrace, when material activities are at the very lowest ebb, a wave of spiritual energy carries upon its crest the divine creative “Word from Heaven” to a mystic birth at Christmas; and as a luminous cloud the spiritual impulse broods over the world that “knew it not,” for it “shines in the darkness” of winter when nature is paralyzed and speechless.
This divine creative “Word” has a message and a mission. It was born to “save the world,” and “to give its life for the world.” It must of necessity sacrifice its life in order to accomplish the rejuvenation of nature. Gradually it buries itself in the earth and commences to infuse its own vital energy into the millions of seeds which lie dormant in the ground. It whispers “the word of life” into the ears of beast and bird, until the gospel or good news has been preached to every creature. The sacrifice is fully consummated by the time the sun crosses its Easter(n) node at the spring equinox. Then the divine creative Word expires. It dies upon the cross at Easter in a mystical sense, while uttering a last triumphant cry, “It has been accomplished” (consummatum est).
But as an echo returns to us many times repeated, so also the celestial song of life is re-echoed from the earth. The whole creation takes up the anthem. A legion-tongued chorus repeats it over and over. The little seeds in the bosom of Mother Earth commence to germinate; they burst and sprout in all directions, and soon a wonderful mosaic of life, a velvety green carpet embroidered with multicolored flowers, replaces the shroud of immaculate wintry white. From the furred and feathered tribes “the word of life” re-echoes as a song of love, impelling them to mate. Generation and multiplication are the watchwords everywhere—the Spirit has risen to more abundant life.
Thus, mystically, we may note the annual birth, death, and resurrection of the Savior as the ebb and flow of a spiritual impulse which culminates at the winter solstice, Christmas, and has egress from the earth shortly after Easter when the “word” “ascends to Heaven” on Whitsunday. But it will not remain there forever. We are taught that “thence it shall return,” “at the judgment.” Thus when the sun descends below the equator through the sign of the scales in October, when the fruits of the year are harvested, weighed, and assorted according to their kind, the descent of the spirit of the new year has its inception. This descent culminates in birth at Christmas.
Man is a miniature of nature. What happens on a large scale in the life of a planet like our earth, takes place on a smaller scale in the course of human events. A planet is the body of a wonderfully great and exalted Being, one of the Seven Spirits before the Throne (of the parent sun). Man is also a spirit and “made in their likeness.” As a planet revolves in its cyclic path around the sun whence it emanated, so also the human spirit moves in an orbit around its central source—God. Planetary orbits, being ellipses, have points of closest approach to and extreme deviation from their solar centers. Likewise the orbit of the human spirit is elliptical. We are closest to God when our cyclic journey carries us into the celestial sphere of activity—heaven, and we are farthest removed from Him during earth life. These changes are necessary to our soul growth. As the festivals of the year mark the recurring events of importance in the life of a Great Spirit, so our births and deaths are events of periodical recurrence. It is as impossible for the human spirit to remain perpetually in heaven or upon earth as it is for a planet to stand still in its orbit. The same immutable law of periodicity which determines the unbroken sequence of the seasons, the alternation of day and night, the tidal ebb and flow, governs also the progression of the human spirit, both in heaven and upon earth.
From realms of celestial light where we live in freedom, untrammeled by limitations of time and space, where we vibrate in tune with infinite harmony of the spheres, we descend to birth in the physical world where our spiritual sight is obscured by the mortal coil which binds us to this limited phase of our existence. We live here awhile; we die and ascend to heaven, to be reborn and to die again. Each earth life is a chapter in a serial life story, extremely humble in its beginnings, but increasing in interest and importance as we ascend to higher and higher stations of human responsibility. No limit is conceivable, for in essence we are divine and must therefore have the infinite possibilities of God dormant within. When we have learned all that this world has to teach us, a wider orbit, a larger sphere of superhuman usefulness, will give scope to our greater capabilities.
“Build thee more stately mansions, O my Soul.
As the swift seasons roll,
Leave thy low vaulted past;
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,