6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
7 Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
8 it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” 10 Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.” For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
Rev 19:6-10
We have arrived at chapter 19. There are twenty-two chapters in the Book of Revelation, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which also means one chapter for each major trump of the Tarot. The nineteenth tarot card is the Sun. The Sun is a symbol of celebration and joy, and that is the theme of chapter nineteen.
The marriage of the Lamb with the Bride is the marriage of Christ with the soul.
Christ descends into earthly incarnation in order to reverse the soul’s descent into matter. As we have seen, the soul over thousands and thousands of years became caught up with beings and forces which wanted to absorb the soul into the earth, so we would truly become part of the earth, and our spirit would disappear. Christ works to free us from these forces and energies. The more we work with the Christ forces and align ourselves with the purpose of Christ, the stronger our own soul forces become. Eventually the old soul consciousness, the city of Babylon, which tied us into the experience of the physical senses can be overthrown. The soul becomes free, and becomes cleansed and purified from the past.
It takes an enormous focus and devotion to purpose to achieve this freedom. We have been asleep, now we have to become awake, and stay awake. It is not easy to stay awake. Christ asked his disciples to do two things: “Watch and pray!” But they still fell asleep. The philosopher Colin Wilson wrote a book about the teaching of George Gurdjieff called, “The War Against Sleep”. Our two weapons in this war are the two instructions of Christ: we watch constantly, that is, we self-observe our thoughts and actions, and we pray, which means we constantly communicate with the spiritual forces of Christ. Eventually, the soul will again become pure. It returns to the pristine state it had when it first descended from the spiritual realms. It is ready to become the Bride of the Lamb.
In the old church, nuns were often known as Brides of Christ. This was a prefiguring of what our soul would become. There was still a lot of attachment to the world within convents and monasteries, and often they became hotbeds of jealousy, resentment and sexual frustration. It would be an evolutionary blind alley for us to strive for spiritual awakening by escaping from the world. The disciples of Christ did not abandon the world, they embraced it. Our soul becomes more and more what it really is by embracing the world and all our relationships, with love. When we achieve this, then the soul is the “Bride who has made herself ready.”
The marriage of the Lamb and the Bride is for most of us, still in our future. When the soul unites with Christ, then we are sealed to him forever. We enter into the greater light, and, as we have seen already, there is no limit to light. Light increases forever and ever.
The image
St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice C12
When I look at this ancient mosaic, I am struck by the diversity of characters. There are different men and women and of course, the four living beasts. We are united. The Latin engraving says, “Blessed is the one who is called to the wedding supper of the Lamb.”
In this consummation of our spiritual path, everything is united. In this unity however, we are still individual beings. We are not annihilated into a super nirvana where individuality vanishes. We are, however, greater. Much greater than our own conscious experience could ever indicate.
For today, let us be conscious of our spiritual greatness. Today, as we respond to the urging of Christ, “Watch and pray,” let us occasionally think, “I am greater than this!” Experience what it means to be “a feminine, receptive being.” Experience the gift of Christ.
...this is our unification with the Christ spirit. Have you noticed that the Christ Spirit is always indicated as masculine? And you and I as feminine? The interesting part of it is that as far as the heavens are concerned we are seen as feminine, receptive, fruitful beings. We can look at one another and say, ‘He is a man; she is a woman,’ but from the point of view of the heavens, as a totality we are feminine in nature. With the amalgamation with the Christ Spirit comes, of course, the harmonisation. Only then can it come about, both within self and as far as the Universe is concerned. This is what the marriage is all about.
Rev Mario Schoenmaker, The Book of Revelation, 1984 Lecture Series