Part 8
in the church of Jesus Christ only. Peace with God makes the will to
peace on earth a reality. Without this will and without the working
of Christ's peace, it is impossible to stand up against all the powers
of the world. Only peace of heart in the unity of the church sets
people free from obviously prevailing unpeace. Where inner peace
is granted, it creates outer peace.
Through the working together of all powers, the harmony of
united hearts calls forth peace's maximum achievements, possible
only in the church of Jesus Christ. "Without peace of heart, nothing
great will be achieved." Only when the heart finds peace in the center
of this gathering and uniting can it gain the impetus to go out far
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and wide from this one united whole. Without peace of heart, all our
efforts are bound to work against each other; every good influence
will be counteracted by its opposite. For this reason, no one should
approach the question of nonviolence until he has truly decided to
take up God's peace: the peace of the church, found in the gospel
of Jesus Christ and given in the power of his Holy Spirit.
Peace means the greatest power possible, a gathering centered in
God. Pestalozzi has described this basic requisite for all education
with these words:
Faith in God is the source of peace in life, peace in life is the source of inner order, inner order is the source of an undistracted use of our powers, order in the employment of our powers becomes in turn the source of the growth and develop ment of our powers toward wisdom.
Powers grow in the harmony of working together. Peace has a divine
wisdom that gives shape to a fruitful life, ordered in brotherly
community. As long as we are still separate, we cannot experience
this harmony. Separation from God is the cause of unpeace; it
brings disaster. The hopeless opposition it puts up consumes life: to
oppose an inner calling means death. Sin, as separation, is our ruin.
In fact its very nature is opposition to God, without whom we
cannot live.
Peace of heart is founded on unity with God. There is no peace
when we are far from him. The soul must become quiet, wanting to
receive the hidden influence of God in silence. Only then can the
strength of inner peace grow, ready for deeds. Only when all our
attention is concentrated on God can warmth-giving energy come
over us. Without it, we sink into cold and darkness. Tersteegen
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emphasized that an active life must be subordinated to inner quiet
so that the soul never gives out more than it takes in.* Those who
lead an active and fruitful life need time in which all they are and
do becomes silent – then God can speak and act in the depths of the
soul. It is in the very center of our spirit that the words of peace
must have an effect. Outside in the clamor of our work, we can all
too often fail to hear them.
The words of the great peace bringer, Jesus, that the heavily
laden soul shall find rest with him, with the further counsel to pray
in secret, have led many to take on the character of "those who are
quiet in the land" (Ps. 35:20). Some groups call themselves "the
silent ones" or "those who have achieved peace and quiet in this
life." Yet there often creeps in a much too human tendency to
ignore the basic will of Jesus: that inner gathering should become
the source of strength for action. To sink spinelessly into a dumb
stillness means being lost to the life to which Jesus has called us.
Even Augustine was not always free of the old danger of ascetic
detachment and withdrawal from life.** The way to joy as he saw
it was that the soul and all its powers of imagination become so
silent that the soul itself is swept away and engulfed in its own
oblivion.
Self-examination before God never dulls or stupefies: it brings
about the liveliest concentration of all energies. It is a regenerating
bath, clarifying judgment and strengthening character. God is
personal and holy will. There is nothing of a gloomy, all-engulfing
abyss about him. The God who redeems us is not the dark morass of
our subconscious or the depths of our own soul, which is nothing
but the fathomless mirror of our own self and all our experiences,
*Gerhard Tersteegen, –.
**Augustine, a.d. –.
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good and bad. It is God, the wholly other power of the divine, who
wants to illuminate this night so that like the prodigal son we
awake and long for the nearness of God – the exposure of hidden
darkness and the breaking in of light.
We must emerge from the tranquillity of indifference, passing
through dumb despair to the holy calm of inner peace. Hildebert of
Tours has expressed it in the following words:
There is a threefold silence. The first comes from ignorance of misery, the second from despair of salvation, and the third from the feeling of life-energy rewon.
Before the law came into the world, we did not recognize our sickness; therefore we were silent and did not ask for help.
When the law was given, it exposed the festering wounds; the silence was broken immediately; the sick sought help in the works of the law. But all their seeking in this direction was in vain; tired and faint, groaning and sighing, they fell silent again.
Now at long last the almighty word of the Father has bro ken the silence once more. Because the Father has spoken peace and promised grace, the sick come to him from all directions and urgently beg him, the physician of the soul, to save them.
Once perfect health is restored, however, they will have nothing more to ask for. Then the third, the holy silence begins, which shall know no end.*
Nevertheless the third silence of worship (as the active peace of the
kingdom of God) is productive quiet, coming from creative life-
energy. It leads to undreamed-of power and influence, obstructed
in every way before. Whoever has gone through the depths of
misery knows the cause of the sickness that takes away all strength
and paralyzes activity. As David describes it: "There is no peace in
*Hildebert of Tours, –.
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my bones because of my sin!" But he is permitted to find healing.
God has paved the way even for the most burdened.
Over this world of sharp inner contrasts and conflicting storms,
the colorful rainbow of his peace is spanned. His mystery is that he
reveals his heart as the will for love. Through this he transforms
the clouds of judgment into unveiled light. Without the storms of
judgment, the sun's rainbow cannot be formed. Only one can bring
it, who is himself without darkness, but who has nevertheless taken
the clouds of judgment upon his own life of light so that in it we
may see the rainbow of peace.
Jesus is our peace. He has brought us complete reconciliation and
union with God. His death is the gospel of peace, for he brings
death to the sins through which we were excluded from unity. The
gift of grace has set peace over and against division. Whoever
receives Christ as his conciliator has peace with God. Through his
cross, what had hindered us and removed us from God's influence
has been swept away. Through the indwelling Christ, the heart
submits to the rulership of God. It has won through to unity in the
will of God. Whoever is one with God has peace. God is peace. The
son of his atonement is therefore called the lord of peace; and as
the king of joy, he is also called the king of peace.
When his gospel of peace reaches the heart, God in his over
whelming light exposes everything that has hindered harmony and
made it impossible. Inner gathering is possible only when all sources
of division have been rendered powerless. The essence of all inner divi
sion, the hindrance to peace, is separation and resistance. Sin is
enmity and disbelief. Serving peace has one goal: to establish the
obedience of faith so that everything trying to hinder and destroy
unity with God is abolished.
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How inner peace overcomes division is shown clearly in first-hand
accounts. August Hermann Francke* was a man whose inner peace
brought forth a creative power of love effective up to the present
day. At one time, in great fear, disbelief, and despair, he had called
on the God he did not know. His prayer was answered so suddenly
that peace flooded his heart. It was like a river inundating the land
before anyone has time to realize that the dike has broken.
In the twinkling of an eye, all my doubts were gone; I was as sured in my heart of the grace of God in Christ Jesus; I could call God not only "God" but also "my father." At once all the sad ness and unrest of my heart was taken away; I was suddenly overwhelmed by such a flood of joy that I praised God with a full heart for showing me such great grace. When I got up, I was in a completely different frame of mind from when I knelt down. For I had bent my knees in great distress and doubt, but I got up in great certainty and unspeakable joy.*
Research into religious experience has confirmed that peace is in
evitably preceded by turmoil and doubt. The first thing that drives
the conscience toward peace is the agony of a bad conscience, a
consciousness of sin that grips the soul. At the same time, the des
perate longing for purity and perfection, for harmony and commu
nity with God, drives the heart on to peace, like a storm before the
calm.
A burdened conscience may not always be ascribed to obvious
offenses that give generally accepted morals a slap in the face.
Rather it is the depressing conviction of an allpervading dishar
mony and bondage to guilt that has its origin in separation from
God. The whole of life today is "sinfulness;" it lacks entirely the joy
of peace, the strength of justice, and the uniting works of God.
*August Hermann Francke, –
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Starbuck made a collection from numerous accounts of such
experiences.* He says that essentially the inner turmoil preceding
the state of peace is a despairing consciousness of sin combined
with the striving toward a new and better life. A crushing sense of
doubt and alienation from God leads to pessimism and sadness, to
deep-seated fear and helplessness. The more we give way to
intellectual doubt, the more effort we make to resist the conscious
ness of guilt and the greater grows the agony. Fear, doubt, and a
sense of sin and depression are the throes of the coming birth.
This new birth is the narrow gate to the kingdom of peace. Inner
peace is seized hold of as liberation, freedom from the gloom of
sin, and redemption from the curse. In this birth, we come into the
new world and see the kingdom of God. The more keenly we feel
the contrast between our weakness and helplessness on the one
hand and the power and glory on the other as the contrast between
us and God, the more powerfully does what is new show itself.
God's cause takes the place of us and our misery. The peace of the
coming kingdom brings with it forgiveness for division and sin, and
harmony with God's power of love. All energies formerly squan
dered by the will are from now on directed toward God and his
kingdom in a new and unknown clarity. In war we felt more the
blessings of peace: so peace of heart depends on the intensity of its
contrast to sin, disharmony, feebleness, and disruptedness. Life can
arise only in this tension between our torn and feeble state and the
energy of God's peace.
It was for this reason Paul was told: "Let my grace be enough for
you, for my strength is powerful in the weak," and Luther said:
†Edwin Diller Starbuck, –.
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God is a God of those who are poor, wretched, troubled, oppressed, despairing, and indeed brought low in everything. In such, God can carry out his right and proper work, which is to raise the lowly, feed the hungry, give light to the blind, comfort the poor and miserable, justify the sinners, quicken the dead, and save the damned and despairing.
It is God's nature to show his superior power just where darkness
and weakness have destroyed the last hope. "Where sin became
mighty, grace became mightier by far." It is God's will that our own
strength is broken. Our strength, in its morbid self-love and within
its own narrow confines, is bound to exhaust itself utterly. The end
of all our own is the beginning of the other: the birth of faith
begins. Faith presses on to God's love, to the future of his kingdom.
From faith, love arises as love to God and Christ put into practice:
joy in God's creation and in other people, joyful and confident ex
pectation of God's kingdom, unity with the church of Jesus Christ,
and the life of God's new creation. Utterly new and unexpected,
this life comes over the believers as Jesus' words being surprisingly
fulfilled: to give up oneself means to win life. A new life, God's
true life, replaces the former selfish and ungenuine life. Those who
love their life lose it; those who hate their life receive true life.
The new life is an undivided whole – perfection that exists in
God alone. The previous life let two irreconcilably opposed egos
exist side by side: the "I" as it is and the "I" as it is meant to be.
Through peace of heart, an undivided will dedicated to the new
life, allows the holy "shall be" to triumph over the unholy "is."
"God will be born in us only when all the bound and captive powers
of our soul become entirely free, when all our plans and ideas are
silenced, and when our conscience ceases to punish us." All plans
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and ideas disappear into the inner imperative of the holy "thou
shalt," and the soul experiences unity and freedom. The peace of
Christmas depends on this freedom of obedience. The ground of
obedience bears peace. Mary believed. She obeyed. The Spirit
came. Christ was born.
Mary listened to God's word and treasured it in her heart. The
word given to the prophets had said, "If you had listened to my
commandments, your peace would have been like a river." The
flood of the spirit penetrates to the depths. The riverbed is saturated
deep into hidden ground. Though the level of the water may rise or
fall, in the deepest depths there is abundance. The peace of God
penetrates into the depths. Without these depths, all religious
exercises and Christian forms are nothing but a delusion: mists but
no river. Action begins in the inmost heart and then penetrates far
into all areas of life. The water Jesus gives is from a well of depth.
The inmost depths are decisive; Jesus exposes the heart. He
directs his glance to what is going on there. He lays his finger on it,
for he sees things as they really are. "He knew well what was in
us." He made this clear: what rules in our heart gains control over
our life. "A good person brings forth good from the goodness
stored in the heart; a bad one brings forth evil from the evil stored
in his or her heart." "What fills the heart, the mouth speaks of." As
the heart, so is the deed: peace of heart brings about a life of peace.
The spirit of Jesus affects the inmost depths first and foremost: "Let
the peace of God reign in your hearts." "The peace of God will keep
your hearts and your minds. It surpasses all understanding. It keeps
and preserves you in Christ Jesus."
The word of peace penetrates to the depths. The living word
brings about living peace: "What I have said, I have told you so that
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in me you may have peace!" Through being kept in the heart, the
word becomes deed, which is the bedrock of the unity of peace.
Peace exists in Jesus because through his life and deeds community
with God is given. The life of Jesus leads us to the wellsprings of
inner strength and shows us the way this strength is overwhelmingly
at work right to the end of the world, to the final goal of all time.
Jesus hid himself from the multitudes on the secluded heath, on
the lonely mountain, and in the quiet boat. He loved the peace of
solitude for his communion with God. He loved to gather his
strength in God's quiet. He spent whole nights talking with God.
Contemplative quiet, however, was never Jesus' goal but the source
of living works and strength for his heavy task. Out of this quiet he
went to the people, he gathered thousands to him, and he
advanced to the big city. His mission goes out into all the world. His
love heals bodies and saves souls. His was a life of active love that
needed the power of gathered concentration in order to reach the
widest circles. In quiet before God, he gained the strength for each
advance right up to the last battle – his bitter death.
The peace of Jesus is altogether different from a mood of
impassive withdrawal. Without God we may try to force a false
peace of soul, a placid repose. The cool tranquillity of a selfishly
withdrawn life is far removed from the peace of God. God works a
different peace: one that comes from having a confident spirit and,
out of a full life, working for our ultimate calling – the all-embracing
kingdom! A God-conscious life becomes a source of rich activity.
When the heart is filled from its deepest depths, there is a
well-grounded certainty that the crucified one is the one and only
source of a peace that is both inmost and all-embracing. The
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crucified one rooted out sin, which allowed no peace to grow, and
he does the work of peace in creating perfect unity.
Like fresh water flowing hour after hour in a river, the peace of
God lives in the continuously renewed experience of Christ at work
within us. Christ wants to remain in us so that even in the greatest
need and distress we do the same works of peace as he did. Times
of severe storm and violent unrest, like cloudbursts and torrents of
rain that widen and deepen a riverbed, will serve to deepen and
strengthen peace. Need and misery shall lead us to that final state
of determination which the scriptures call repentance. Divine
sadness and fruitful remorse bring forth peace, the good fruit of
repentance. No sudden storm can change the character of peace.
Storms merely test and confirm it. There may be waves on the
surface of the water as if the current were flowing backward. But
the direction of the current does not change: the main body of
water goes forward unperturbed.
Peace strengthens. Courage that comes from peace is without
fear. God's plan of peace for us does not anticipate suffering with
out the courage of joy. Peace, as community with Christ, is a fruit
of the same spirit as joy and patience. The spiritual fruit of peace is
a love that builds up in brotherliness. Its power is the kingdom of
justice. "What is sown by peace becomes the fruit of justice." The
kingdom of God, according to the church both in this age and in
the ultimate future, is "justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit."
The kingdom of God in our hearts is the foundation of God's
rulership over the whole earth, over all worlds. The peace of the
church of Jesus Christ is commissioned as a forerunner of the peace
of the future and of all eternity. Francis of Assisi used to begin each
address and conversation with the greeting, "Peace be with you,"
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as did the Anabaptists of Reformation times. So today too we must
confront the unpeace of the whole world with the words of true
brotherhood. "We must proclaim peace. We must cherish it in our
own hearts. Through the life we share together with others, we
must see to it that everyone is led to concord and unity – to the
creative and openhearted justice of peace."
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Light and Fire
In every epoch of history there have been terrible calamities
and bitter injustices. Faced with the daily suffering of masses of
people, the spirit of humankind has proved throughout to be cold,
indifferent, and insensitive, no matter what appalling depths the
misery reaches. In times of crisis we need a new and shaking jolt to
see the darkness and coldness lowering over us. There is no salva
tion without judgment upon injustice and unrighteousness. Such
universal and persistent need as today's drives us to look for the
cause. The source of help can flow freely only when the debris is
cleared away.
Times of darkness call for faith in light from above. Before this
light, all darkness will retreat, just as morning triumphs over every
night. The ugliness and horror of darkness and its cold, murderous
spirits must penetrate our consciousness. In utter helplessness, we
must be on watch for the hour of redemption, for no human being
can bring liberation or relief. Help must come from the other world
if all life is not to sink into death's cold night. Under this crushing
burden of the nightmare of darkness, we need a glimpse of the fire
descending from above – the light that frees.
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The light of faith must outshine darkness and all-pervading cold.
Light triumphs over darkness, which is death. Death attacks life. When
love grows cold, injustice escalates beyond measure. Darkness hates
light, and, forced to retreat, it puts up the most violent resistance.
The brightness of awakening life is terrifyingly painful to all those who
have become strangers to strong light. Accustomed to the darkness all
around them, they find the blazing glory of light unbearable torture.
It burns in their eyes like fire. The victorious light becomes judgment.
The radiant flame of life, which demands love, judges the darkness of
unpeace and puts to flight the coldness of injustice.
A few days after Pascal's death, a sheet of paper was found in the
lining of his suit. The great philosopher had kept it with him
constantly for eight years, as a reminder of his deepest experience.
On this parchment, the shaking description of an overwhelming
enlightenment begins with the solitary word: fire.
Jesus brought flames of judgment and salvation. He wanted to
kindle a fire, and his greatest longing was for it to burn: "How I
wish it were already kindled!" (Luke 12:49) He brought glowing fire
to the earth. But the fire he hands over to darkened humankind is
not a sacrilegious theft, stolen by a second Prometheus from a jealous
deity as in Greek mythology. Jesus is the fiery rays of a divine heart
that pours out its fire constantly over all people. God is the giver
here, God himself. The torch of wrath became a dispenser of life.
The flames of judgment became one with the fire of life, alive in
the liberating and gathering light of love. Jesus knows what this
blazing fire meant to the fearful heart from the beginning of
history, what trembling and terror it brought upon erring humankind.
He knows that there is no fire without consuming judgment over
withered and hardened life that is on its way to death.
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Flames of lightning from heaven and volcanic bursts from the
earth, forest giants burning like pillars of fire and fiery missiles
erupting from mountaintops, lightning that strikes with rolling
thunder, and the lava of earthquakes setting fire to everything in
its path – they all fill the creatures of the earth with shuddering
awe and make them shake with fear at the all-powerful might of
their deadly, blazing heat.
Before fire can show radiant warmth and protecting, uniting
power, the flames of its wrath must be revealed as consuming
judgment. The flames of God's heart have to be dreaded before
they disclose their ultimate purpose. The prophet could not help
trembling with fear lest he lose his sight in God's heavenly fire by
looking with impure eyes at the God of the shining hosts. God him
self says, "My face you cannot see. No one can see me and
live"(Exod. 33:20). We have fallen too deep into demonic darkness
to be able to bear the fiery light of the holy one, deadly to all the
powers of envy, all that serves death. Fire consumes. The light judges.
It brings death to what is dead. Dry wood feeds the fire. Death by
fire is not caused by rays from the blazing fire but by the nature of
death and darkness – opposition to light and enmity to life.
When your eyes are blinded by the sun,
Then blame your eyes,
Blame not the sun.
Our night-cold nature makes us unable to live in consuming fire. By
challenging this cold night, fire breaks in: God's fiery flames are the
answer, also to the call of faith. God descended upon the mountain of
Moses in fire. His word is never anything else than fire; his voice
flashes flames. Lightning flashes from his heart of burning fire. The
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Lord on his throne of flaming fire radiates fire from within. He is
clothed entirely in flames. His servants and messengers are rays of
flame – fire goes out from God. He speaks from the midst of it and
his mouth pours forth fire. He sends it down from heaven: devouring
fire goes before him. He comes in consuming fire: it is his very
nature. He rains down lightning and brimstone. His fury flashes out
as fire when his wrath begins. His spirit kindles judgment when he
calls for fire. Whoever waits upon God awaits judgment and fire, in
which the light of God's salvation shines out.
Jesus shines out in our darkness like the sun after the black tropical
night. Jesus is the light of the world; whoever loves him hungers
for his fire. Whoever knows him thirsts for his light, which outshines
all suns. Angelus Silesius declared, "You may have the light of the
sun; Jesus is the sun that illuminates my soul."*
It is impossible for us to visualize how far the sun is from the
earth it illuminates. Ninety-three million miles are beyond earthly
comprehension. What an effect this distant kingdom of fiery life
has! How blinding this light is so far from the earth! Against this
distant ball of light, our dazzlingly white magnesium flame appears
as black as ink. How can we grasp it that the light of Rigel is five
thousand times brighter than our sun, or that the rays of Capella
send out in one day as much light as the sun in a year? What effect
the proximity of such sun giants must have is more than we can
imagine in human dimensions. In the face of their living energy our
little sun dwindles to a candle. The whole universe, as we see it in
the heavens, is an endless ocean of light made up of many millions
of these mighty fixed star-suns. Night is to be found only in the
shadow made by the dark planets. If we were able to leave our
*Angelus Silesius (pseudonym for Johannes Scheffler), –.
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planet completely behind, we would be exposed to the inconceiv
able power of a divine sea of light.
In Jesus, a fiery light infinitely stronger than all suns put together
draws near to the earth. The footsteps of Jesus come near in
burning fire. His eyes are blazing flames. His countenance is
radiant with the supreme power of all suns. Seven lampstands of
golden fire surround him. Seven sun-stars are in his hand. His light
casts us to the ground; Paul fell at his feet as though dead. God,
however, gave him the resurrecting power of radiant life: he
entrusted to the apostle the glorious mystery of the church, the
mystery of the kingdom. He is the rising morning star. It shall
become clear to us through the nature of the sun-fire what effect
the sevenfold starlight of his church has, what power breaks in with
the morning light of the coming day of the sun. The spirit of unity
is the light of God descending from heaven, closely kin in its inmost
nature to the glory of all suns.
Therefore, if the mission of Jesus is to be understood, the nature
of the sun and of fire has to be understood. Our sun is a central fire
world from which our planet gets its life. The sun's force of attrac
tion gathers and holds together all the worlds that surround it. Its
heat keeps us from dying of cold. Its warmth awakens life in plants
and animals. Without its light, all life would perish in darkness. The
tiny fraction of light-energy our planet receives from the far dis
tant sun is enough to engender and maintain the boundless life we
know on the earth. Every manifestation of earth's power, each
breath of wind, the water-vapor cycle, the movements of deep-sea
fish, every beat of our heart is the work of the sun. What bracing
power it gives body and soul! Without it we fall prey to death.
We could call every organism of the earth a sunbeam come to
life. Light and warmth sustain all life. It is the energy of light that
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makes it possible for plants rooted in the earth to make food from
air and earth and to maintain life. Only through light can green
plant cells carry out this life-maintaining process. And no living
creature, no matter how accustomed to darkness, can live without
light or without the organisms belonging to the world of light. The
sun is the king and heart of the deep as well as of the heights. The
sun is the fire that gives life to all that lives.
It is not by chance that God's being and nature in Christ's radiant
glory is compared to the sun, to light, and to fire. What Paul states
as a fact – that God's invisible being has been perceptible in his works
since the creation of the world – can be seen first and foremost in the
light of the sun and in the blaze of fire. Here in the works of creation
this eternal power and divine greatness are recognizable with
particular force and clarity. From time immemorial, sun and fire have
appeared to man as uniquely significant images of divine powers.
Again and again, God the creator, the spirit of the shining, blazing
sun, and the controller of storms and lightning has been worshiped as
an all-inclusive oneness. In Egypt the god of the great eternal light
was the supreme deity, the creator of all things and the true god of
heaven. The light-giving god is the one who reveals and exposes
everything. The life-creating god of light is fire. It both awakens to
life and consumes all that is dead and cold. In India they say of him:
"Rays of light proclaim the fire-flashing sun as it rises in splendor
to give light to the universe. May the much-to-be desired light of
the divine sun awaken our spirit!" The eye of the sun appeared in
olden times as supremely beneficent, as the perceptive, good-
creating power.
An ancient Brahmin prayer says: "Protected by divine power as
we gaze at the heavens above the regions of darkness, may we
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draw near to the deity, to the most radiant light." In his letter to
the Romans, the apostle Paul quite clearly appreciated this pagan
recognition of the nature of God; yet at the same time, with the
prophets of the Old Testament, he emphasized the other side, that
in those days this shining book of nature was never read outside
the ultimate revelation of light in Christ without dangerous errors –
that is, idolatrous misconstructions – being made. Sun and fire
were continually being changed from clear and obvious symbols of
God's nature to supposedly independent deities of sun and fire –
"lords over all the planet gods" or the dispensers of life itself. The
nature of the radiant God of heaven ought to be recognized
through his shining creations as infinitely transcending all created
things; yet erring humankind all too often exalts the light created
by God and makes an idol of it as the highest deity. In this way,
unhappy man brings stifling darkness toward the radiant, created
light. When we consider the religious significance of sun and fire,
therefore, we must keep pagan idolatry in mind just as much as the
dawning intimation of God.
From the earliest times, everything burning and blazing, every
thing shining and radiant has been seen as divine. Indeed, in many
cultures, the name for God originated from the word that stood
for radiant light. In the old Nordic tongue God is called "Bright
Heaven." Like the sun, the mighty spirit of the divine light of
heaven appears to all as the fire of the universe, dispensing life and
sustaining life with its power. Through the shining universe, a faint
perception of divine unity dawned on fallen human beings. As a
result, they became conscious of the light and unity that alone was
to awaken and create the highest form of life. They implored light
and fire to come from heaven. As the Native Americans chanted,
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"Great Spirit, come down! Fire and earth, smoke with me!"
From the very beginning, the human mind has associated that
which is creative and life-bringing, good and noble, with warmth
and light, radiance and brightness. Down through the ages, people
have always been conscious that the warmth of light and love's life
and vitality belong together. Light and beauty are one. But light
does not shine everywhere. The sun goes down. Night follows day.
Throughout the ages we have always known that the radiant, blazing
brightness of the good and powerful spirit of light has an opposite –
the evil, sinister spirit of cold and darkness. Everything that keeps back
the awakening life of spring is death-like winter. Everything that
opposes warmth is deadening cold. Everything that opposes unifying
love causes disintegration and death. Death threatens life. Between
light and darkness there is enmity and warfare to the end.
We are placed in a tremendous tension between life and death:
we are called to burning, life-giving light, but can we overcome or
conquer the freezing cold and deadly darkness? Will we survive in
the struggle against this very dangerous power, which constantly
besets us from within and without? The good spirit of light was
revealed from the very beginning as divine, as the leader and
champion of life. The evil spirit of darkness was from the very
beginning the enemy, the sinister demon of night and death.
Between the two stood the people God had created, struggling as
it were between heaven and hell. This struggle filled their life. Full of
alarm, they feared descending night as the cold threat of death and
hell. Rejoicing, they greeted the dawn of shining day as the approach
of glowing warmth, coming from the heavens and from life.
Light meant life and power. People saw the glorious morning sun
rise to course triumphant across the heavens. In the sun, in light,
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and in fire, they saw nothing soft or insipid, nothing weak or servile.
To them, the victorious power of light was armed with the radiant
arrows of the sun and the flashing weapon of lightning. To them,
the strong sun-hero of radiant morning and of bright springtime
was welded to a fiery unity with the thunder-god of storms and
threatening lightning. The light-god of the sun's power was for
them masculine and manly, like the thunder-god of storms and
lightning. Spring, when the sun is ascending, was for them a
youthful, courageous war-hero, who as a triumphant conqueror
overcomes the aging giant of mighty winter and leads in a new
time over the earth and all its inhabitants – the sunny time, the
longed-for time, the expected time! This time alone can awaken
strong, prolific, and abiding life.
For humankind, light was to triumph over darkness at the end of
time. The day was to dawn when the last springtime of all worlds
and ages would melt and abolish forever the whole present age of
wintertime – this cold, dark, dead, and numbing ice age of the
world of today. In early Christian times, Hermas, a prophet of the
church of Rome, wrote his book, The Shepherd, in which this
age-old enlightenment is given new meaning in the early Christian
sense. In the third parable he says, "The present world-age is
wintertime. The coming world-age is summertime." What facts lie
behind this prophetic language? It is important to get a picture of
what sun and fire are and have meant in nature from time imme
morial if we want to understand all the prophetic word has to say
about the sun-energy of God, about the light of Christ, about the
fire of the spirit, about the dawn of radiant day in the coming
kingdom, and about the living church with its fire of unity and its
power to shine out.
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Nothing can make the powerful significance of glowing fire
clearer to us than the very beginning when, cast out and still far
from God, people met fire for the first time. It came as a terror to
them. And yet the same fire was soon kindled as a campfire and as
a sacrificial altar fire. Adam was once master over fire, and light
shone in him. But what happened after this light was lost? How did
the first man, cast out into the darkness, experience fire? In a flash,
lightning would descend from heaven with a crack of thunder, and
a forest giant would be set ablaze. Everything would take flight.
Soon, however, people would gather round the felled and still
burning tree, encamp there to feed the fire as their own, and so
find protection for the community they craved.
Or it could be that the depths of the mountain would rumble.
The foundations of the earth would quake and crack. Enormous
pillars of fire would shoot up out of the smoking mountain. Volleys
of stones and showers of ashes would be hurled high into the air
and immediately spread far and wide over the land. Slowly a river
of glowing, blood-red substance would pour its way into the valley.
Trees or bushes would be caught by its fiery breath, and everything
would go up in flames. Gradually the surface of the red-hot lava
would grow pale. It would lie there like a gigantic snake, covering
the valley bed in a mound of heat. People would venture to draw
their camp nearer the slowly hardening lava. The nearer they came,
the warmer they would be, even in the middle of the cold tropical
night. Should a piece of dry wood touch this dangerous glowing
stream, the branch would burst into bright flames. Then fire would
be kindled, just as when the tree was struck by lightning. And as
people put more and more wood on the fire, the warmer and
brighter the flames.
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So people learned to combine their terrible fear of fire with a
reverent thankfulness, for here they encountered an element that
united the wrath of a destructive power with the loving gift of life.
In reverence they wanted to preserve it, so they fed and tended it.
They learned how to acquire and handle it. Soon they began to
carry it, glowing and glimmering, to kindle a blazing fire where
they wanted it, using tiny sticks. They carefully kept alive the
glowing embers borrowed from the destructive lightning or
volcano, carrying them to where it was cold and dark. They learned
to take care of the fire.
So they revered the spark of fire as something sacred, a truly holy
possession the deity had given to the human race alone. No animal
had an active part in this possession or took it along. No gathering
of animals tended the fire as people did. Only the frail community
of people was never without fire; only they were fire bearers. The
spark was never allowed to go out in their hands. "Fire guardian"
was their name. Their fire must never be forgotten. They passed it
on from hand to hand. As fire givers and fire borrowers, true to
their origin and goal, they proved to be communal beings. Fire
united them in mutual help. Even the total stranger was included in
this fellowship from the very beginning.
Tending the fire was basic for community. The radiation of light
and warmth generated a power to gather. The campfire meant that
community was formed and preserved. The most valuable heritage
of the people of old was the community fire passed on from
generation to generation. Everywhere, the flame remains the focal
point of all cravings for community. The flame creates community
as a way of life.
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The first light of God's image was lost when humankind fell. A
sign of the new humankind was that they fostered the flames
originating from those terrors of the heavens and of the abyss.
Then, after the loss of God's first peace, it dawned on them that
judgment by fire meant a gift of fire, that the wrath of the highest
powers bears within it new, loving grace. Service to the fire
became service to God; worshiping the lost God, people wanted to
keep the warm glow of fire alive through the sacrifice of wood.
They did not want its light to go out at any time. Their aim was to
gather the community and to keep it gathered. Food also, like life,
should be preserved from decay and death. Thus the community of
the tribe, of the nation, and of humankind was meant to come into
being from campfire, hearth fire, and altar fire. The light of
paradise had disappeared, unclouded community with God was
lost. Could the new communal fire light the way back to God?
Through fire, people very slowly gained more mastery over the
forces of nature – the mastery they had been called to in the lost
garden. They seemed to become more and more free, especially in
choosing and changing habitations. They felt increasingly independent
of the outward circumstances of country and climate. In the
community of the fire, they strove to press forward to the freedom
and mastery they had forfeited along with God's community of
light. A glowing light once more gathered them round a blazing
central point. It showed them a communal way through the
threatening night to freedom. It seemed to them that the
brightness of the flame would set them free from the cold's deadly
breath and from all the forces of nature that tried to tear them to
pieces and destroy them once they had lost the peace of God.
Set free from the fear of night and enslavement to nature, if only
to a small extent, people could venture slowly to take up their lost
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mastery over things and circumstances. So they learned to share
their food in community; they learned how to keep it edible for the
whole band. So they made a step forward from the campfire in the
open, on the bare ground, to the protected community hearth
made of two layers of stone set opposite each other, between
which the holy fire was to burn uninterruptedly for all. Here it was
to be kept alive for the tribe for always, an awe-inspiring mystery
of the hoped-for community.
Fear and terror had once led to a common flight from the pre
dictable fiery wrath of the deity; later, a common reverence bound
people to the flame. For they had experienced what the dangerous
fire gave the tribe: protection from freezing to death and from the
evil powers of night, conservation of life-energies and preservation
of food by seasoning with fire. But the gathering power of fire was
seen more and more as its most powerful element. The gift of life
and community, so much desired, was greater than the destruction
caused by lightning and fire-belching mountains that had once
driven people apart. What had once meant the terror of death and
separation became a power for life, a power that gathered.
This is how people tried to survive the awful horror of the ice
age. This is how they passed through those deadly ages that drove
much mightier animal species into distant parts or completely
exterminated them. Only like this could they (whose limbs were
unarmed) hold their own against the countless murderous creatures of
night, and withstand the spirits of darkness, feared most of all.
The fire gave protection; for this reason it was protected. As the
protective gathering point of the community, it became the focal
point of the human dwelling. Houses were created for the sake of
the fire. People first started to build houses in an effort to protect
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the flame. The sacred hearth fire is not without reason the very
essence of home life. In choosing a campsite, the only consideration
was to protect the flame, to find a shield for the hearth, not to find
or erect a sheltered hiding place. Once protected from the wind,
the blazing flames frightened away all dangers that threatened,
whereas no hiding place (however carefully chosen) could hold off
stealthy and evil powers.
To shelter the fireplace from storms and floods, walls were set up
under the cover of trees, or sometimes the fireplace was built in a
protecting cave. But in each case the shelter afforded by the
embryonic house was mainly for keeping the flame alive. Not the
house but the fire was the protection from freezing to death in the
ice-cold night and from being frightened to death by nocturnal
enemies. Not the people but the fire was what they tried to protect
with walls and roof. To protect it was a holy cause, the holiest
obligation. The dwelling house evolved as a sacred shelter for the
hearth.
The raised hearth was the token of a holy place, symbolizing the
great cause that held them together. It became a holy symbol of
sublime significance, an altar and a memorial. The word "altar" was
used for God's holy, blazing hearth of smoking sacrifice in the
temple, and the same word was used for the cooking fireplace in
every secular house – this was holy too. For primitive people, the
hearth of their daily dwelling was just as inviolable as the altar fire
in a temple. The reason is clear. Light and warmth, as gifts of the
deity, were always the power that gathered the community. Since
the very first community, the hearth needed reverent care as the
crystallization point of the common life.
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The raised fireplace was a symbol of greatest significance not
only for the living community but also for the dead. In the earliest
times of communal life, communities constantly moved from place
to place, and in the passage of time, the old leaders of the tribe
passed away one by one. Along the path taken by the tribe, holy
symbols arose as abiding memorials and permanently sacred places.
Wherever the holy community fires had burned, wherever a gathering
ground had been a place of sacrifice and religious union, earth and
stones would be piled up to make a mound, which kept on getting
higher and wider. The first memorials were marks of old fireplaces
consecrated to the eternal. They were rightly regarded as holy
graves by those who traveled by. In primitive times, a leader's tomb
was erected beside his beloved hearth – the place where he had
lived and worked in the midst of his people. The altar of a temple
and the hearth of a simple house were given the same veneration –
the tomb and the hearth also became one at this same fire. The
tomb became a place that was consecrated forever: the former
fireplace, beside which the dead had been active in life, was
preserved as a holy place by enclosing the hearth and the grave
within a circle of stones. Thus arose the "hill of worship" where
God and heathen gods were worshiped, as it says in the Bible.
With the living, it was the same as with the dead. The area around
the fire was enclosed more and more until a closed square was
created, housing the living in the same way as the stone circle
housed the dead. The vital center for the living as for the dead was
and always will be the hearth – the essence of the home and of
family life. The words for fence (Zaun in German), town (tun in Old
English), enclosure (tun in Old Norse), and fortress (dun in Old
Irish), with their common Nordic root, all point to the fire and the
buildings around it. Around the fire, the permanent center, arose
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the individual house, providing a roof for the hearth. And around
this hearth, the settlement grew up, its fences and walls protecting
the roofed dwellings: the fire is the secret at the heart of all
communal dwellings.
The hearth fire, then, was regarded as the power uniting the
communal household settled around it, just as earlier (as a camp
fire) it had gathered the nomadic tribe. And despite a tendency in
all people to limit their will to community to their own few kin, the
fire would stimulate friendship between tribes. The fire, as the
basis of hospitality, would pave the way for peace and unity
between strangers; and by freely borrowing and lending fire, even
enemy tribes became friendly. Carried from hearth to hearth and
from one people to another, fire would be given or received as a
token of peace and unity.
The service paid to the dead indicates the friendly relationships
between the living. The community of food, field, and fire among
these primitive people becomes clear in their service to the dead.
The dead were provided with food and fire in their graves, just as
in life they had practiced community of food and fire with the
living. Primitive people helped each other; in fact, the fields and
pastures consecrated by fire were managed collectively by the
whole tribe or village. The dead, too, like other members of the
tribe, had to be provided with earthly goods of the community.
They were not to be left cold and hungry to a dark grave. Therefore
they were given a share of the communal food or the harvest from
a piece of land that was dedicated to them.
Nothing that belonged by rights to the dead was to be kept back
for the living. From ancient times, therefore, when anyone died,
the fire shared to the last in living community was extinguished; it
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was to be surrendered completely as a consecrated gift. After the
fire had been put out on the deserted hearth, a new fire had to be
kindled. Still today, the Roman Catholic church extinguishes all the
old fires on Easter Saturday to commemorate Jesus' death and
lights the new flames on Easter morning so that every household
can light its fires, tapers, or Easter candles from it. When they gave
fire, primitive people testified to their faith that life continued for
the dead. Today too as the candles are relighted, the cry rings out:
"Christ is risen!"
Because of their faith in life after death, primitive people gave to
the dead what they held to be the best and the highest also for the
living. As the dead were given food and fire for a new and different
life, the living were given food and fire for every new undertaking
on earth. Fire-virgins were indispensable as an escort for every
move or new beginning. Like Germanic youths, the "sacred spring"
consecrated to the deity, Roman youths selected for the founding
of a new settlement were sent out from the parent stock on the
first of March. As the consecrated "spring" of the race, they had to
take the community fire with them when they were ready to leave,
while all home fires were extinguished. The holy tending of the fire
and the kindling of the new spark were entrusted to the fire-
virgins, who were not to be hindered in this priestly service by love
or childbearing. Later, chastity was still rigorously demanded for
the vestal virgins too and for the consecrated virgins who watched
the holy temple fire.
The continued protection and maintenance of the tribe settled
on home ground also depended on service to the holy fire.
Continuance of the race and continuance of the fire were regarded
as one and the same thing. When the tribe died out, the fire went
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out; as soon as the fire ceased to burn, the independence of the
people was lost. And should a traveling band lose its flame, they
would fetch a new spark from the old home hearth, not to be
indebted to strangers: Gretti the Strong swam through the stormy
waves of the fjord and brought the home fire back in his uplifted
hand. As Homer says in the Odyssey, "The seed of fire is fostered,
that it need not be kindled afar."
Through fire, the homeland was dedicated to the tribe and its
deity. Just as the flame of the land was held in holy community, so
from time immemorial the land, as "common land," was common
property with no individual possession – marked-out land held
communally by the "commonalty." For the Norwegians, "to
sanctify with fire" meant their taking over territory through their
communal flame. Where their fires burned was their homeland. The
home fire, like the land they had taken over, belonged to the whole
community of the tribe.
Like possessing the land in common, sharing the tribe's fire was a
religious matter. To be denied fire meant banishment from the
homeland. Fire could be refused only to someone exiled for
religious reasons, a punitive measure sanctioned by divine power –
as a ban. Left to be judged by the gods, they could no longer share
the necessities of life with their people; the fire needed was de
nied, the homeland forbidden. Therefore, to be exiled, this hardest
fate that could befall anyone, was called "being deprived of the
community of water and fire." As Herodotus reports about
Aristodemus of Sparta, no one spoke to those who were denied
fire. Similarly, according to Cornelian law, loss of Roman citizen
ship was pronounced by denying water and fire. Among Germanic
peoples also, no one was allowed to give outlaws fire or water; they
were cut off from the whole communal life of the people.
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Granting or refusing fire like this had a leveling effect. With
regard to women, the flame had an elevating effect too, raising
them to a status of equality or even to priestly dignity. All people
are equal before the fire. Women everywhere had the greatest
importance in giving or withholding this holy service, as with the
vestal virgins or the fire-bearing virgins of the Vikings and other
Germanic races, who were consecrated to the service of sacred
springtime. It was nearly always the woman who had to tend the
hearth fire, guard and foster it, carry it with her, and feed it with
ever-ready material.
Perhaps woman was also the first to bring fire to birth by
rubbing sticks, for it was in the process of work that the way to
rekindle the lost flame was discovered. In the process of making
tools or cutting wood to feed the fire, a new spark would fall into
the pile of wood dust and blaze up into a precious flame, the result
of heat and friction and the collection of fine particles of wood.
Work with fire-making materials was a holy function – a priestly
service. Fire was generated by rapidly twirling two sticks (called
the fire-father and fire-mother), so that, as the Edda says, "it could
be allowed to grow and immediately send messages far and wide."*
This kindling of fire practiced by men or women was from the very
beginning a sacred service. Among the American Indians, the priest
was called the "fire maker" just as the priestesses of Rome were
called the "fire-virgins."
The swastika (symbolizing both a wheel of fire and the turning
wheel of the sun) points to this kindling of flame, which from
remotest times was held to be holy. The swastika is an ancient sym
bol of fire sticks laid at right angles. The hooks at the ends of the
sticks suggest quick motion like a whirling wheel, showing the
*The Edda – a collection of old Icelandic poems.
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quick rotation that causes ignition. The spark is the result of the
motion. Thus in the Far East the swastika, as the fire-cross denoting
kindling in primitive times, became the symbol for cause and
effect. Rotary friction was recognized as the cause and fire as the
effect.
The fact that we find this fire-cross of two hooked sticks as early
as the new stone age proves that it had universal significance. As a
symbol of life and community, the kindling of fire by the twirling
of sticks is the common property of all peoples. As a symbol of fire-
kindling and of the sun-wheel, the swastika belongs to primeval
people. All descendants, without distinction of race or blood, have
a right to it. So it is not surprising that all the Aryan tribes as well
as the Phoenicians of Canaan preserved this sign of the life-giving
power of sunlight and fire-kindling. Fire, the kindling of fire, and the
community of fire belong also to the Jewish inhabitants of Canaan.
Among all peoples, the holy service of guarding and kindling the
consuming fire led to sacrifice by fire on the holy altar. So the
people of Israel worshiped Jahweh-Jehovah every morning and
evening through the ascending smoke of the incense offering and
the rising flames of the burnt offering. Offerings on the incense
altar become in the new covenant the fiery offering of intercession:
Jesus Christ, the High Priest, interceding for his people. At the same
time (through the pleading of Jesus and the Holy Spirit), they are
the fiery prayers rising from his saints, and as such are also de
scribed as daily offerings (Rev. 5:8).
The burnt offering on the fire altar was not only the most frequent
but also the most common and comprehensive sacrifice, the
complete sacrifice. Abraham for instance, the patriarch of Israel,
showed an unlimited readiness to sacrifice when he was prepared
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to give the only son of the promise as a sacrifice by fire. And even
before the patriarchs, Noah, saved from the annihilating flood, sent
up to heaven and to God's rainbow of peace a burnt offering of a
whole animal, a symbol of complete dedication. For this reason,
Paul spoke of the death of Jesus as the fire offering of the new
covenant, of his cross-gallows as the altar of burnt offering (Heb.
13:10–12). But John saw and heard those who had witnessed to
Christ with their blood – saw them under the altar, like the spirits
of the ancients under the hearth that was their grave and their
memorial (Rev. 6:9–11). In this baptism of blood, Jesus' question
was answered: "Can you be baptized with the same fire that comes
over me?" The blood baptism of the crucified one and the church's
martyrdom by death afterwards point to the complete sacrifice, as
if on the hearth of a burnt offering.
Among the people of Israel also, the flame of a sacrifice pointing
to the ultimate like this could be kindled only at the holy altar fire.
No "alien" fire was allowed on the altar. As among the most
ancient peoples, the fire blazing on Israel's table of burnt offering
was never to die out. As eternal fire, it was sanctified to God. The
stone hearth or stone table (which even at this time was occasionally
built up with earth and turf) was later at the time of the prophets
called "God's mountain" or "God's hearth" (Ezek. 43:12–15). As the
table for the fire, it was the altar of God.
In accordance with age-old custom, this altar, the place of sacrifice
and fire, was built of undressed stone even as late as the second
temple of Israel. Moses (like the earliest man) made a fire altar of
earth and surrounded it with twelve piles of stone as the Israelites'
court of sanctuary; Joshua (like later primitive men) made one of
undressed stone and surrounded it with the stones of the law. In
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the new covenant, commitment unto death must be offered, as it
were, on just such an ancient burnt-offering altar as Abel's, without
the artificial embellishment of human skill and its sham riches, in
the primal simplicity of humanity at its poorest and simplest. When
the apostle of Jesus proclaims him who was baptized by fire and
executed on a crude cross, his words have effect only if they have
no rhetorical skill or lofty wisdom (1 Cor. 1:17). Sacrifice by fire
demands utmost simplicity – the original genuineness.
To sum up, it was by that simple fire-altar in the temple court
that the prophet Isaiah recognized the full significance of the fire
of God: "God has a hearth in Jerusalem." "Jahweh has a fire in
Zion." "Jehovah will kindle a light-giving fire over all the dwellings
on his mountain so that in burning it may shine through the dark
night." "The light of Israel will be fire." "His spirit will judge and
will kindle a fire."
Like lightning from heaven, the fire of the Lord comes down to
strike where it will. When Elijah, the only remaining prophet of
Jehovah, confronted hundreds of false prophets who represented
the sun-god Baal and the moon-and-Venus goddess Astarte, he
ordered two altars to be prepared, one for the idols and the other
for Jahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. He built his of
twelve stones because it stood like Moses' for the hearth of the
twelve tribes, Jehovah's people. He poured water over it; for on
both altars, wood and a beast of sacrifice were to be laid, but no
fire of human making. The priests of Baal and Astarte were to call
on their gods, and Elijah was to call on his God to send lightning
and kindle fire: "The god who answers with fire, he is God!" Here
the battle between the fire-gods and the fire coming from God was
settled. The frantic calling of the priests of sun and moon got no
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