Holy Night! Exultant singing in jubilant gratitude once streamed throughout all the spheres of Creation when the Son of God Jesus was born in the stable in Bethlehem; and shepherds in the fields, from whose spiritual eyes the bandage was removed during this joyous upheaval of the Cosmos, so that they could bear witness to this unfathomable happening and call people’s attention to it, fell upon their knees fearfully because they were overwhelmed by what was so new and incomprehensible to them.
It was fear on the part of the shepherds, who for this purpose were temporarily made clairvoyant and also clairaudient. Fear of the greatness of the happening, of the Omnipotence of God thus made manifest! For this reason, the herald from the Luminous Heights first spoke to them reassuringly: do not be afraid!
These are the words you will always find whenever a herald from the Luminous Heights speaks to human beings, for it is fear that earthmen unfailingly first feel upon seeing and hearing heralds from on high, caused by the pressure of the power, to which they are also opened to a small extent in such moments. But only to the smallest part thereof; for anything more would surely crush and burn them.
And yet there should be joy, not fear, as soon as the spirit of man strives for the Luminous Heights.
This did not manifest to all mankind during the Holy Night! Except for the Star which became physically visible, nobody on earth saw this luminous herald and the luminous hosts surrounding him. No one saw and heard but the few shepherds chosen for this purpose!
And such great revelations can never take place here on earth but through a few who are chosen for the purpose! Remember this always; for the lawfulness in Creation cannot be set aside on your account. Therefore, do not build up any fantastic figments of your imagination about various happenings, which can never be as you imagine them to be. These are tacit demands, which never issue from genuine conviction, but are a sign of hidden unbelief and spiritual indolence, which has not absorbed my Word of the Message in such a manner as It demands in order to be able to come alive in the human spirit.
In those days people believed the shepherds, at least for a short period of time. Today such people are only derided, considered eccentric, if not impostors wishing to obtain earthly benefits thereby, because mankind has sunk far too low to still be able to accept calls from the Luminous Heights as genuine, especially when they themselves cannot hear or see anything.
Man, do you really believe that on account of your great downfall God will now overthrow the perfect Laws in Creation just to serve you, to bridge over your faults Himself, and to compensate for your spiritual indolence? The Perfection of His Laws in Creation is and always will remain inviolable, immutable; for they bear the Holy Will of God! Thus the great revelations which you expect cannot possibly ever take place on earth except in that form which you have already known for a long time, and which you accept as long as they lie in the distant past.
A so-called good Christian would, without any hesitation, label that person a blasphemer and great sinner who would dare to assert that the announcement to the shepherds of the birth of the Son of God Jesus is a fairy tale.
Yet the same good Christian rejects with zealous indignation the announcements of the present time, although these are given in the same way through persons divinely gifted for this; and without hesitation he calls the bearers blasphemers too, at best maybe dreamers or sickly, often misguided.
But reflect for yourselves, where is there any sound thinking, where strict logic, and where justice!
These opinions of strict believers, as they like to call themselves, are one-sided and abnormally restricted. In most cases, however, it is indolence of their spirit and human conceit which always results from such indolence on the part of the spiritually weak, who with effort cling desperately, at least for the sake of appearances, to a point of some former happening that they once learned about, but never really experienced inwardly, while being quite incapable of making spiritual progress, and therefore rejecting all new revelations.
Who of all the believers has even the slightest idea of the Sublimity of God which is contained in the happening that took place quietly during that Holy Night through the birth of the Son of God. Who can begin to conceive the Grace which was thus granted as a gift to the earth!
There was jubilation in the spheres at that time, today there is sorrow. Only on earth many seek to give pleasure to themselves or others.
But all this is not as it should be if the recognition or, for that matter, the true conception of God were astir within the human spirit.
Could they but vaguely sense the reality, all men would experience the same as did the shepherds; indeed, the very Greatness of the happening would not possibly permit it to be otherwise: they would immediately fall upon their knees... out of fear. For with the beginning of an intuitive sensing, fear would first of all have to arise powerfully and force man down, since together with intuitively sensing God, the great guilt with which man has burdened himself on earth also becomes evident, merely through the indifferent manner in which he accepts God’s blessings without really doing anything in return in the service of God!
How strange that every man who for once really wishes to truly experience the Christmas Festival will try to recall his childhood!
This clearly is enough evidence of the fact that as an adult he is not capable of experiencing the Christmas Festival with his intuitive perception! This proves that he has lost something that he possessed as a child! Why doesn’t this make people wonder!
Again it is spiritual indolence which prevents them from earnestly considering these matters. “That is for children” they think, and adults have no time for it! They have more serious matters to think about.
More serious matters! By this they only mean the pursuit of earthly things, that is, for work of the intellect! The intellect quickly subdues memories in order not to lose its primacy once the intuitive perception is given the chance to express itself!
In all these apparently small facts the greatest things could be recognized if only the intellect would allow time for it. But it has the upper hand and fights to retain it with every form of cunning and malice. Actually it is not the intellect which fights but that which uses it as a tool and hides behind it: The Darkness!
Darkness does not want the Light to be found in memories. And how the spirit longs to find the Light, to draw new strength from it, can be recognized from the fact that with memories of the Holy Night of their childhood an undefined, almost painful longing also awakens, which is able to move many persons into a tender mood temporarily.
Such a tender mood could become the best soil for an awakening if it were used at once and with all one’s energy! But unfortunately adults only get lost in reveries whereby the rising power is wasted and lost. And in such reveries the opportunity also passes by without being able to bring any benefit or having been utilized.
Even if this causes many a person to shed a few tears, he feels ashamed of them and tries to hide them, pulling himself together with a physical jolt which often betrays unconscious defiance.
How much could people learn from all this. It is not without purpose that a feeling of melancholy weaves itself into the memories of childhood days. It is a subconscious sense of something lost, leaving a void, an inability still to feel intuitively like a child.
Surely you have often noticed how wonderful and refreshing is the mere quiet presence of anyone in whose eyes there shines a childlike radiance now and then.
The adult must not forget that childlike is not the same as childish. But you do not know why childlikeness has such an effect, what it really is! And why Jesus said: Become as little children!
In order to find out what it is to be childlike you must first realize that to be childlike is by no means tied to a child per se. No doubt you know children who lack real, beautiful childlikeness! Thus there are children who are not childlike! A malicious child can never have a childlike effect, nor can one who is badly behaved, or rather badly brought up!
This clearly proves that childlikeness and child are two different things, independent of each other.
That which is called childlike on earth is part of the manifestation of purity! Purity in its higher sense, not merely in the earthly human sense. The human being who lives in the ray of Divine Purity, who makes room for the ray of purity within himself, has thereby become childlike, be it while still a child or later as an adult.
Childlikeness is the result of inner purity, or the sign that such a human being has surrendered himself to purity which he serves. All these are merely different forms of expression, but in reality they are always the same thing.
Thus only a child that is pure within and an adult who cultivates purity within himself, can be childlike. That is why he has such a refreshing and vitalizing effect, and also inspires confidence!
And wherever there is true purity, genuine love can also enter; for Divine Love works in the Ray of Purity. The Ray of Purity is the path It treads. It could not possibly tread upon any other.
The Ray of Divine Love can never find Its way to him who has not absorbed the Ray of Purity!
Keep this in mind always, and as a Christmas gift for yourselves make the firm resolution to open yourselves to Divine Purity, so that at the Festival of the Radiant Star, which is the Festival of the Rose in the Divine Love, the Ray of Love can penetrate to you on the Path of Purity!
Then you will really have celebrated this Festival of Christmas as it should be celebrated according to the Will of God! Therewith you will offer true gratitude for God’s incomprehensible Grace, which He bestows on the earth ever again with the Holy Night!
Many worship services are held today to commemorate the birth of the Son of God. In your mind or in your memory make a quick visit to churches of all kinds, tune in to your intuitive perception, and you will turn away resolutely from the gatherings called Worship Services!
In the first moment man is surprised at the way I speak for he does not know what I wish to say thereby. But this is only because in the past he has never made the effort to reflect on the term “worship service”, and then to compare it with the events called worship services. You simply accepted it like so many things which have existed as customs for centuries.
And yet the expression “worship service” is so unambiguous that it simply cannot be used in the wrong sense, unless man ever again indifferently and unhesitatingly accepts and perpetuates the custom of centuries. What at present is called worship service is at best a prayer connected with human attempts at interpretation of those words which, taken as having been spoken by the Son of God, were written down only at a later time by human hands.
This fact cannot be altered, and no man can contradict such statements if he wishes to remain honest with himself and honest about the actual happening. Above all, if he does not remain too indolent to reflect on this thoroughly, and does not use empty slogans given him by others as excuses for himself.
And yet it is just the expression “worship service” which in its essence is so vital, and through itself speaks so clearly to men, that with only a little intuitive perception it could hardly be used for the purpose for which it is still used today, although man on earth deems himself very advanced.
Worship service must now become alive if the Word is to become reality with all that it contains. It must manifest itself in life. When I ask what you men understand by service, i.e. what it means to serve, not a single person will answer otherwise than with the words: To work! This lies clearly in the word “service”, and one cannot think of it as meaning anything else.
Worship service on earth also naturally is nothing other than to work in the sense of the Laws of God here on earth, to swing actively in them terrestrially. To transform the Will of God into deed on earth!
And this is lacking everywhere!
Who truly seeks to serve God in his earthly activity. Everyone only thinks of himself, and to some extent of those who are near to him on earth. But he believes he is serving God when he prays to Him!
Just think about where there is any real service to God in this? It is indeed anything but serving! Such is one part of today’s so-called worship service, which comprises prayer. On the other hand, the other part, the interpretation of the Word written by human hands, can only be looked upon as learning on the part of those who really make the effort of gaining an understanding of it. The indifferent and superficial ones are not taken into consideration anyway.
Not without reason do people speak of “visiting” or “attending” a worship service. These are the proper expressions, which speak for themselves!
Worship service, however, is to be performed by man himself and not by him standing apart from it. “Petitioning” is not serving, for when he petitions man usually wants something from God, God is to do something for him, which after all is far removed from the conception of “serving”. Thus petitioning and prayer have nothing to do with worship service.
This should be easily understood by every person. After all, there must be meaning in everything a person does on earth; he cannot misuse the language given to him as he pleases without causing harm to himself. That he acquired no knowledge about the power also inherent in the human word will not protect him.
It is his fault if he neglects this! He is then subject to the effects of a wrong use of words, which becomes a hindrance rather than a help to him. The independent weaving of all the Primordial Laws of Creation neither halts nor hesitates on account of men’s neglect, but everything which has been established in Creation proceeds on its course with the most unswerving precision.
This is what men never think about and therefore, to their detriment, do not heed. Even in the smallest and most inconspicuous of things there is always a corresponding effect.
The inherently wrong designation of the gatherings as: “worship service” has also contributed a great deal to the fact that genuine worship service was not carried out by men, since everyone believed that he had already done enough by attending such a worship service, which has never been true worship service. -
Call these meetings an hour of joint worship of God, which would at least come closer to its meaning, and to a certain degree also justify the institution of special hours for this purpose, although worship of God can also lie and be expressed in every look, in every thought and action.
Many a person will now probably think that this is not at all possible without appearing too artificial and contrived. But this is not so. The more the true worship of God breaks through the more natural will man become in all that he does, even in his simplest movements. He then swings in honest gratitude to his Creator and enjoys the blessings in the purest form.
Today, at the Festival of Holy Night, turn to any one of the earthly worship services.
Jubilant gratitude, supreme bliss, should vibrate in every word for the Grace which God once bestowed upon mankind. In so far as men can even appreciate this Grace at all; for the human spirit is incapable of grasping the real greatness of it in its entirety.
But for this you will seek everywhere in vain. The joyful swinging upward to the Luminous Heights is lacking! There is no trace of jubilant gratitude. Frequently there is even a noticeable pressure, which has its origin in disappointment and for which man has no explanation.
Only one thing can be found everywhere, something which renders or characterizes the nature of worship services in all confessions as if engraved with the sharpest chisel, or something which forces the audible manifestation of all that swings in the worship service: a woeful tone vibrates monotonously in the voices of all preachers, which in its constant repetition produces a wearying effect and spreads like a gray veil on souls falling asleep.
Yet, sometimes there is also a sound as of hidden lament over something lost! Or over something which has never been found! Go there yourselves and listen. You will find this peculiar and striking characteristic everywhere!
Men are not conscious of it but, to use the customary phrase: it just happens that way!
And there is truth in this. It happens without any intention on the part of the speaker, and plainly shows the nature in which everything swings. There is no sign of a joyful upward swinging, or of blazing fires bursting forth, rather it is like a dull, subdued smoldering unable to muster the strength to break through and swing upwards freely.
Wherever the speaker does not allow himself to be “carried away” by the dull, weak swinging of these worship services, when he remains untouched by it, which would be equivalent to a certain lukewarmness or to a deliberately standing aloof, there all words will seem unctuous, to be regarded in the same way as sounding brass, cold, without warmth, without conviction.
In both cases the ardor of conviction is lacking, as well as the power of victorious knowledge, which wants to tell of it to all his fellow-men in jubilant exultation!
When, as with the expression “worship service”, a misleading term is used for something the contents of which are different from what the term indicates, then this error will have consequences. The potential power is broken from the very outset by the use of a false designation and no real and uniform swinging can arise, since through this designation a different conception arose which is then not fulfilled. The way in which a worship service is held stands in contrast to that which the word “worship service” causes to arise as a picture in the innermost intuitive perception of every human spirit.
Go forth and learn and you will soon recognize where you are offered the true bread of life. Above all, make use of the joint gatherings as hours of solemn worship of God. Express Service to God, however, in the entire activity of your being, in life itself; for it is thus that you shall serve your Creator, thankful and jubilant for the grace of being allowed to exist!
Make everything you think and do into a service to God! Then it will bring you that peace which you long for. And even if people harass you severely, be it through envy, malice or base habits, you bear peace within yourselves forever, and this will finally help you to overcome all difficulties!
Take this as a Christmas gift in recognition of the unfathomable Divine Love which would not let you sink completely before the beginning of the Holy Judgment, which in all its severity brings help to those who open themselves to His Love in humility!