lS' consurrexistis cum Christo, qum sursum sunt, qucerite, ubi Christus est in dexter a dei sedens etc. (Col. 3|). St Paul says : ‘ If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above and set not your affections on the things on earth.’ Then he goes on to say, ‘ ye are dead, and your life is hid in Christ with God in heaven.’ Thirdly, there are the women seeking our Lord at the sepulchre. There they found an angel ‘ whose countenance was like lightning and his raiment white as snow,’ and he asked the women, ‘ Whom seek ye ? If ye seek Jesus who was crucified, he is not here.’ For God is not in any place. Of God’s lowest all creatures are full and his highest is nowhere. They answered him not, for they were disappointed at finding the angel and not God. God is not here or there, not in time or place.
St Paul says : ‘ If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things that are above.’ His first word expresses doubt. Some people rise by practising one virtue not another. Some, ignoble by nature, covet riches. Others, of a noble kind, care nothing for possessions but are bent on honour. One master says the virtues all hang upon each other. Though a person lean to the uses of one virtue rather than another they stand and fall together. Some people rise up all at once and yet rise not with Christ. That which is his rises once for all. On the other hand, we do find some who rise with Christ for good and all, but it will need a man of many parts to know in Christ the true resurrection. The masters say that with true resurrection there is no more death. Now there was never virtue so outstanding but someone might be found to have acquired it, and that by natural means, for natural powers work many signs and wonders, all the outward works found in the saints being found too in the heathen. And that is why he speaks of being ‘ risen with Christ,’ because he is on high, above the reach of any creature. What we have to do is to make the whole ascent.
There are three signs of our having risen altogether. The first : we seek those things that are above. The second : our affections are set on the things above. The third : we set not our affections on the things that are on earth. St Paul says : ‘ Seek those things that are above.’ But where and in what way ? King David tells us to ‘ seek the face of God.’ What is common to a number must needs come from above. Above the lire itself there are the fire-givers like the heavens and the sun. Our best doctors teach that heaven is the locus of all things, and though it has itself no place, no natural place, yet it makes room for all things. My soul is undivided ; also, it is entire in each member. Where my eye sees my ear does not hear ; where my ear hears my eye sees not. My bodily hearing and sight are engineered in the mind. Light gives my eye a sense of colour which is lacking to the soul by reason of its being a defect. All the outward senses are alive to, if the spirit is to take it in, must be raised up by the angel : he imprints it in the upper portion of the soul.
The above designs and produces the below, so our doctors say. Even so St James asserts that ‘ Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from above.’ One who is risen to the full with Christ is known by his seeking for God above time. He seeks God above time who seeks him timeless. ‘ Seek those things that are above,’ he says. Where shall we look ? ‘ Where Christ is sitting on the right hand of his Father.’ Where is Christ sitting ? He is sitting nowhere ; he is nowhere. If ye seek him anywhere ye shall not find him. A master has said that he who sees anything does not see God. Now Christ means anointed ; the anointed of the Holy Ghost. Sitting, theologians say, symbolises rest and implies timelessness. Turning and changing lead nowhere : stopping we progress.
‘ I am God, I change not,’ saith the Lord. ‘ Christ sitteth on the right hand of his Father.’ The best gift of God, that is his right hand. With natural man, he starts his work with his right hand. Christ says, ‘ I am the door.’ The first outburst and the first effusion God runs out in is his fusion into his Son, a process which in turn reduces him to Father. I said on one occasion that the door was the Holy Ghost : there he is poured out in blessings into all creatures. According to one master, the heavens receive from God direct. Another one says. No ; God is spirit, pure light, and anything receiving straight from God must itself be spirit and pure light. The master denies that it is possible, in the first eruption, the first escape of God, that any corporal thing should
Meister Eckhar
take it in : it must be either light or abstract mind. The heavens transcend time and are the cause of time. One philosopher maintains that the heavens are too lofty in their nature to stoop to be the cause of time. It is not in their nature that they are the cause of time : it is in their revolution that, timeless, they give rise to time, i.e. in the defection of the heavens. My looks are not my nature, they are accidents of nature ; our soul is far above them, out of sight in God. And hence I say, not only above time but hid in God. That is what heaven means. Everything mortal spells deficiency : rise and fall, growth and decay. King David sings, ‘ A thousand years in God’s sight are as a day that is past ’ : for all the future and the })ast yonder are in the now. May we find this now. So help us God. Amen.