Christ's Grace: The Magic Mirror

Emil Bock: "The third step is eventually to learn to allow the power of a higher world to stream into our whole will nature. Then Grace is no longer something we passively pray for; it gains entry into us as a new force through our commitment to the will of Christ. How was it for the firstborn of the new vision, for Paul who beheld Christ outside Damascus? Henceforth he could say: 'Not I, but Christ in me.' From this time on, Christ in him was the world-overcoming power that caused him to be active among humanity of that time and allowed effects to be called forth like no other man could bring forth. Yet, it was not he with human power but Chrtist who worked through him. Not until our will contributes to our relationship with Christ does it turn into the organ of sight. This signifies that something higher now reaches into us. Then, Christ is in us; it is really he who illuminates our eye from within in order to behold the light, a light that in turn is he. He bears our higher being into us. This brings about forces of the will that allow the scales to fall away from our eyes.

In the First Letter of John (3:3) it says: 'We are God's children and it does not yet appear what we shall be. As yet, our higher being hovers over us. But we know that when it appears we shall be like Him, for we shall see him as he is.' Our higher being within us turns into an eye, and we behold Christ who is within us, but who is not merely in us but rather is a whole sphere. And it is as if we were looking into a mirror, into an unheard-of mirror of Grace, in which we are allowed to behold not our earthly being, but our higher nature, which in everyday life is darkened by sin. We behold in this mirror what we are to become one day and what as yet has not appeared. Christ himself is this magical mirror. Paul describes this in the Second Letter to the Corinthians: 'In us is mirrored the Lord's Glory [the Lord's form of light] with unveiled face. And we shall be glorified [meaning, permeated by light] by this light-form from one degree of Glory to another.' This vision is imminent for humanity and we may steadily ascend into this new Christmas Mystery."



Source: The Rhythm of the Christian Year, pp. 16-17