Rising with Christ into the God who is nowhere

Consurrexistis cum Christo, quae sursum sunt, quaerite, ubi Christus est in dextera dei sedens etc. (Col. 3:1), 'If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.' St Paul says: 'If you 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, 'you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God in heaven.' Third, there are the women seeking our Lord at the tomb. There they found an angel whose face was like lightning and his clothing white as snow, and he asked the women, 'Whom do you seek? If you seek Jesus who was crucified, he is not here.' For God is not in any place. All creatures are full of God's lowest, and his highest is nowhere. They did not answer him, 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 you are risen with Christ, seek those things that are above.' His first word expresses doubt. Some people rise by practising one virtue and not another. Some, lowly by nature, covet riches. Others, of a nobler kind, care nothing for possessions but are set on honour. One master says the virtues all hang on each other. Though a person leans to the practice of one virtue rather than another, they stand and fall together. Some people rise up all at once and yet do not rise with Christ. What is his rises once for all. Yet we do find some who rise with Christ for good, but it takes a person of many parts to recognize in Christ the true resurrection. The masters say that with true resurrection there is no more death. Now there was never a virtue so outstanding that someone could not be found to have acquired it by natural means, for natural powers work many signs and wonders, and all the outward works found in the saints are found

SERMONS AND COLLATIONS

in the heathen too. 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 make the whole ascent.

There are three signs that we have risen altogether. The first: we seek those things that are above. The second: our affections are set on the things above. The third: we do not set 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 many things must come from above. Above the fire itself there are the givers of fire, like the heavens and the sun. Our best teachers say that heaven is the place of all things, and though it has no place of its own, no natural place, it still 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 does not see. My bodily hearing and sight are set up in the mind. Light gives my eye a sense of colour, which the soul lacks because of a defect. All that the outward senses take in, if the spirit is to receive it, must be raised up by the angel: he stamps it into the upper part of the soul.

What is above designs and produces what is below, so our teachers say. Even so St James says that 'Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from above.' One who is risen fully with Christ is known by seeking God above time. He seeks God above time who seeks him as being beyond time. '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 you seek him anywhere you will not find him. A master has said that one who sees anything does not see God. Now Christ means anointed, the anointed of the Holy Spirit. Sitting, theologians say, means rest and implies timelessness. Turning and changing lead nowhere: by stopping we progress.

'I am God, I do not change,' says the Lord. 'Christ sits on the right hand of his Father.' The best gift of God, that is his right hand. With natural man he begins his work with his right hand. Christ says, 'I am the door.' The first outburst and the first outpouring God runs out in is his pouring into his Son, a process which in turn makes him Father. I said once that the door was the Holy Spirit: there he is poured out in blessings into all creatures. According to one master, the heavens receive directly from God. Another says no, God is spirit, pure light, and anything that receives directly from God must itself be spirit and pure light. The master denies that it is possible, in the first outbreak, the first escape of God, for any physical thing to

MEISTER ECKHART

take it in: it must be either light or pure mind. The heavens are above time and are the cause of time. One philosopher holds that the heavens are too high in their nature to stoop to being the cause of time. It is not in their nature that they are the cause of time: it is in their turning that, being beyond time, they give rise to time, that is, in the falling away 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 so I say, above time and hidden in God besides. That is what heaven means. Everything mortal means 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 past there are in the now. May we find this now. So help us God. Amen.