​Mark was not a disciple of Jesus; he was the nephew of Simon Peter. Jesus sent out the Apostles and instructed them to spread the Gospel.

What was this “Gospel”? There were no books of scripture. Jesus spoke with his disciples and his deeds were an expression of his mission. Ultimately, his death on the cross and his resurrection are the Deed for which the Christ incarnated into a human being.

Mark will have heard the stories told by the apostles and listened to them spreading the Gospel. In his later years, when he sat down to write his book of the Gospel, Mark had come to realise that the Holy Spirit that had descended upon Jesus in the River Jordan and remained united with him, expressed itself in the ministry of Jesus through the mighty spiritual beings that the ancients had identified in the twelve constellations that represent the path in space traversed by the sun, the Zodiac. Mark was not a journalist, nor a historian, writing an account of the life of Jesus. The Gospel Mark wrote is an inspired account of the meaning of the Incarnation and the Deed of Death and Resurrection expressed in the light of the influences of the mighty beings through which the sun passes, that the Lord of the Sun, Christ, let shine in his actions.

Therefore, we can read the Gospel of Mark in this light and recognise the three years of Jesus from the Baptism to the Crucifixion in the influences of the constellations of the Zodiac.

During May we read those words and deeds that reflect the influences of Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius in the first cycle through the Zodiac. Thereafter we read how there is an elevation in the influence in the second cycle as we read the words and deeds influenced by Capricorn and Aquarius.

How can we approach writings that have been inspired by the spiritual world in an age when our thinking occurs in our heads and is analytical?

Richard Goodall gave a very appropriate image. In the Book of Genesis (chapter 32: 22–32) Jacob wrestles with an angel all night. Jacob refuses to release the angel until he knows his name. Jacob called the name of the place Peniel (Penuel), "for I have seen God face-to-face, and my soul survives." When we struggle with the Gospel and take that with which we have struggled into the night, we will, bit by bit, “see God face-to-face” as the spiritual world reveals in night consciousness the meaning of that with which we struggle.

Therefore, this article is not going to provide answers or interpretations to the struggle that the Gospel Study group engaged in. We may have gleaned a little insight into the Gospel as written by Mark, but it is only the very beginnings of an understanding, and each person walked away with something different as suits his or her soul’s yearning.

by John-Peter Gernaat
We read what Luke has written in his Gospel and in the Act of the Apostles. In his gospel (Luke 24: 50-53) Luke write:

And he led them out to near Bethany and raised his hands and blessed them. And while he was blessing them, he vanished from their sight. And they returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the Temple, giving praise to God.

Why were the Apostles filled with joy at the Ascension of the Risen One? Where had he gone?

In the Acts of the Apostles (1:  9-11):

And as he said this he was lifted up before their eyes, a cloud received him and they saw him no longer. And while they still directed their gaze upwards after him into heaven, see, suddenly two men in white garments stood by them and said, “You men of Galilee, why do you stand there looking up to heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up before you into heaven, will come again, revealed in the same kind of way as you have seen him pass in the heavenly sphere.

What is this realm of the clouds? It is a place between the earth and the sky, an in-between place.

We have begun our journey into a deeper understanding of the Ascension with these two passages and with these questions. We have been considering where the in-between space exists in life, what it is and how we access it.

Christ incarnated at a point in time where the death of the soul had become a reality. The soul of human beings could not overcome the forces of death.

On Easter Sunday a new physical constitution without any mineral content comes into being. Christianity is the religion of the body – the redemption of the physical body from the mineral into a pure spiritualised physical body.

Holy Monday presents an image of a new reality. The Fig Tree is representative of an old path of initiation. The Fig Tree occurs throughout the Gospels. In John’s Gospel when Philip introduced Nathaneal to Jesus, Jesus says to Nathaneal, “I saw you under the Fig Tree before Philip called you”. Luke tells of Zacchaeus who climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see Jesus. The donkey and the colt of a donkey are tied in the place of the Fig Tree where the disciples untie them on Palm Sunday. On Holy Monday Jesus curses the Fig Tree and says that it will no longer bear fruit for humanity.

The Fig Tree represents a specific stream of spiritual training that opened up the initiate to an atavistic clairvoyance in which pictures of the world of spirit were made available to the initiate from outside. These visions were given to the specially prepared initiate with the help of a hierophant.

This stream of initiation is being superseded by the deed and sacrifice of Christ. Within a few days the Risen One will enter the Inner Room and breathe the Holy Spirit into the disciples. At this stage only John is aware of the Holy Spirit. The other ten will experience the Holy Spirit in the sound like the rush of wind and the tongues of fire that enter into those sitting in the circle at Pentecost.

The new seed planted by Christ into the human constitution only begins to germinate in the fourteenth century. Jesus says that the new way is through Faith. Faith is not a blind belief, but a trust born out of knowledge. Knowledge comes through an inner path of opening up to the world of spirit and experiencing something thereby. In order to become receptive to the world of spirit we must offer our availability to the Spiritual World.

The Sacrament of Consultation begins with the idea of an offering. We are called upon to offer our thinking to the Divine. The effectiveness of the thinking that precedes the sacrament and can be offered up will clarify for us what it is that we are offering.

Holy Tuesday represents a battle between the traditional ways of being and a new way of thinking. It is control through an outer law versus a new freedom that arises through inner morality. This battle that begins on Holy Tuesday is still being waged today. Human beings generally have still not developed their inner life to the extent that their actions are driven solely by an inner morality. Much of human activity is still driven by our subconscious without the control of the ‘I’-constitution.

Jesus counters the accusations that are levelled at him by making it clear that he has no will but the will of the Father. He tries to raise the consciousness of his accusers to this higher will.

The second aspect of the Sacrament of Consultation is our will. The counter-flow to our offering is the in streaming of our highest will. We connect with our pre-birth will of incarnation in full consciousness through the Sacrament of Consultation.

We learn through Holy Tuesday that it is precarious to be ahead of the times. The Christian Community and the work of Anthroposophy are to lead humanity forward. This is only achieved when we work harder on ourselves. It is not possible to change the current paradigm through rationality. But through how we are in our being we can influence the world around us. This comes about through our inner work. People want to live comfortably. Outer rules and convenience create comfort. We need to be prepared to offer up what holds us back in order to do the work that will take us forward. Nothing new comes without sacrifice.

Holy Wednesday is a day of calm that ends in a meal. There is turmoil at the meal. A careful reading of John’s Gospel suggests that Christ was busy in the first weeks after the Baptism and in the last weeks before the final entry into Jerusalem. In between there seems to have been very little outwardly occurring in the life of Jesus. Most of the time was spent in prayer.

We are citizens of two worlds. One world places outer demands on us and the other world we do not really know. This is the Spiritual World. Most of our activity in life is not related to where humanity is going. We need to find active restfulness in our lives if we wish to connect with the spiritual world. When we achieve this connection we may feel backed in our normal activity. Without this backing from the world of spirit we feel alone and the result is anxiety, stress and even burnout.

We can identify each of the people present at the meal at the end of the day within us. Lazarus who had recently been raised from the tomb and who was transformed on a spiritual level. Mary, the woman who had had demons driven from her, and had been healed on an astral level. Martha, the woman who had suffered from an issue of blood, who had been healed on an etheric level. Judas, who acts out of physical drives. Martha is frenetic in her preparation and Judas is frenetic in his condemnation. Mary transforms her energy into a deep reverence and performs an act that she does not comprehend herself.

Someone must lead in the development of humanity, but in taking humanity forward they will be left behind in helping everyone catch up. The first will be last and the last first. This is a law in the development of humanity. We must learn to be servants to those it is given us to help.

The Wednesday meal and the anointing of the feet belong to the stillness. It is the sustenance of the stillness that sustains us. In the Sacrament of Consultation the third aspect is peacefulness of soul.

Maundy Thursday is filled with significance. Jesus sends his disciples to find a man carrying water. In the tradition of the Jews it was the women who carried water. It was only in the Essene tradition where men carried water. The Upper Room where the meal is prepared is steeped in history. This room is on Mount Zion, the place where Melchizedek prepared the offering of bread and wine that he presented to Abraham. Melchizedek was the priest of the Sun Mysteries. These Sun Mysteries continued underground until they were able to surface again in the stream of humanity in the offering of Christ at the Last Supper.

Because the Last Supper occurred within the Essene Order we know that no alcoholic wine was served. The Essene Order were about the purification of their astral nature. Directly across the road was the house of the Chief Priest who was himself preparing for the Passover.

The traditional of the Pascal lamb began in Egypt when the Israelites were instructed to slaughter a lamb and use the blood to mark their doorpost of their house. There were further instructed to prepare the meal of lamb’s meat and bread, but there was no time to leaven the bread. No bone of the lamb was to be broken. They were to eat standing up with staff in hand ready to depart. The Angel of Death would pass over each house marked with the blood of the lamb but in every other house the first born – the one who would carry forward the line of succession – was killed.

This meal was prophetic for the Christ who becomes the Pascal Lamb for humanity and takes on the task of disempowering the Angel of Death that would kill the first-born, the ‘I’-constitution, of human beings.

After the meal Jesus fulfils the prophetic meal of Melchizedek.

The Fall took effect in our warmth constitution. The offering of animal blood was a surrogate for the warmth of human beings. This warmth is offered as penance to the Spiritual World. The blood of the goat becomes the scapegoat for the warmth of the human being that is offered in sacrifice to the Spiritual World.

The second meal, the offering of Melchizedek, lays a seed into the human being that germinated in the 14th century which will enable us to make the offering out of our souls. Christ constitutes the making whole of the human being in the four parts of this meal.

The washing of the feet of the disciples was a sacramental process of what Christ’s earthly life and Resurrection is about. Before the meal of the Bread and Wine love lived in the constitution of the human being, it lived in the blood. It was not an awareness but rather a fact that a Greek loved all Greeks, etc. With the meal of Bread and Wine a new spiritual love can arise in human beings that transcends blood ties. This action is an expression of the essence of the gospel.

The Logos, the creator of all life on earth, humbles Himself to wash the feet of His creation. His body becomes the earth. We walk on the body of Christ.

Christ is able to redeem the mineral element of the human being because no bone in his body is broken – no bone of the Pascal Lamb is broken. No spirit could penetrate that deeply into earthly matter before. His offering.
Christ pours his etheric substance into the physical substance of the bread and the wine to transubstantiate these physical substances into the substances of his body and his blood. This pouring out of his etheric forces is the beginning of his death process. The transubstantiation.

Passover is on Friday; the Last Supper is on Thursday night. John presents it as the night before Passover. On the night of Passover, no one left the house as the Angel of Death roamed outside. Judas is the first to leave the house to cross the road to the house of the Chief Priest to betray Jesus. He walks in the realm of the Angel of Death.  Jesus also, then leaves the house to do battle with the realm of death. Jesus has already begun to pour out his etheric and formative forces.

The Communion, the fourth part of the Act of Consecration of Man, is the discourse in which Christ reveals to his disciples His relationship to the Father.

In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus battles to hold his physical body together. It is only with the help of the angelic world that he is able to accomplish this. This help is symbolised by the youth fleeing from the Garden. These beings offer up etheric forces to Jesus. The blood that flows from Jesus during his prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane is his shedding his old physical constitution as Christ penetrates into the deepest aspects of the physical constitution to spiritualise it.

Maundy Thursday is the revelation of the spiritual world of God.

Good Friday: When on the cross the lance pierces the side of Christ and blood and water flows from the wound, these are new etheric forces that begin the process of the etherisation of the earth that in the future is to become a sun.

When Jesus is given the vinegar on the cross this jolts him into full consciousness to the awareness that the last of the physical has been fully penetrated by the Christ and he can now say: “It is complete”.

When the body is laid in the earth it immediately turns to ash and in the subsequent earthquakes the earth absorbs the body completely.

The laying of the seed of the physical body of Jesus, fully spiritualised by Christ, into the earth is the turning point of time in the trajectory of the earth away from the spirit to begin its return to the spirit.

Holy Saturday is possibly the most dramatic day of Holy Week, but nothing is said about it in scripture. We come to a full understanding by firstly understanding the incarnation of Christ.

The Baptism in the Jordan is the conception of Christ into the sphere of the earth. The gestation is the three year period between the Baptism and the Crucifixion during which the spiritual intact idea of the Human Being transforms the physical body of Jesus. Once this transformation is complete a completely new constitution comes into being that is spiritual. The death on the cross is the birth of Christ into the earth. The flow of the blood from the cross is the birth of Christ into the earth. This process is quite the opposite of our death. When we die our soul and spirit leave the earth. The Resurrection Body is the Phantom Body that replaces the physical human constitution of Jesus.

The moment that Christ has the experience of hunger, following the Baptism and the forty days in the wilderness, Christ becomes subject to the adversary forces that rule the world of earth. As the Christ makes whole (heals) the physical body of Jesus these forces of healing (making whole) become available to all of humanity. These are the healing deeds of Christ during the three years. The transubstantiation of the bread and the wine, as said above, are only possible because Christ streams his etheric forces into these substances. At this point the body of Jesus dies and it only through His will forces and spiritual assistance that He keeps the body going until the ultimate death on the cross. When the body is laid into the tomb it turns to ash which is taken into the earth during the earthquakes that follow.

For every impulse there is an opposite impulse that arises. This is the nature of the duality of earthly existence. Without light darkness does not exist.

In the evolution of the human being new faculties come into being. These faculties become available from the Godhead through the hierarchies. The development of the human being passes from one hierarchy to the next. As each faculty comes into being its polar opposite, that which can destroy it, also comes into being. It comes into being as a spiritual being but it will eventually materialise through warmth, air, water into mineral existence. All physical material substance is densified light.

Our continued development is possible only because of the earth. Here the polarities of the creative impulse exist. In a sense they are banished to the earth. Rudolf Steiner provides us with an understanding of the inner being of the earth. The mineral sheath is like the shell of an egg holding in the rest of the earth. The physical constitution of the earth is directly related to the constitution of the human being, but in a negative sense. It contains the polarities that came into existence as a result of the developing faculties (constitution) of the human being.

There are divine forces that work down into the human being and there are adversary forces that work up from within the earth into the human being. The human being is the meeting point of these divine and adversarial forces.

As we begin to awaken into our individuality we will choose with which of the forces we will align ourselves, the divine forces or the negative forces. Christ brings into the human being the impulse to awaken to our individuality.

We may consider each Christian-era century to have the quality of one year of development of a human being’s life. By the 21st century we are twenty one. We can reflect on the development of Christianity and see how it follows the development of a child. The first 300 years were the golden years. Thereafter Christianity became a state religion and became fixed and hardened. The development of a child recapitulates the development of the human being. It is the understanding of this process of development that sets Waldorf Education apart as it matches the development of the child’s path of recapitulation of human development.

We can look forward and realise that somewhere between the ages of 28 and 35 the human being breaks with the intentions that were set for them by their family, education and society and decides to do what is uniquely theirs. In the time before a life transition is reached the tools are made available. Thus, Anthroposophy and The Christian Community were given to humanity one hundred years before we can fully understand their use and can effectively begin to work with these tools.

When we awaken the individuality, the forces from the centre of the earth will work to subdue this awakening.
The journey of Christ on Holy Saturday into the centre of the earth was to break the stranglehold of the forces within the earth on the development of the human being. This makes Holy Saturday the most dramatic day of Holy Week.

The human being lives at the meeting point of mighty spiritual forces from the centre of the earth which we can subdue by aligning ourselves with the being of Christ. It is in us that the forces of evil are transformed through the Christ forces. This transformation occurs in us through us allowing it, and aligning with the Christ-in-me.
The negative forces have a legitimate role to play and an illegitimate role. Michael does not slay the dragon but subdues it, he subdues the illegitimate role.

The possibility for the human being to awaken forces to withstand the negative forces of earth is the work of Christ on Holy Saturday in his descent into the earth.

The thoughts that we entertain will shape our existence. In our time the attention that we have to give is the most lucrative commodity in the cyber world that we possess.

We are only now beginning to understand the gospel. The definition of death is the place where the will of the Father is withdrawn. Therefore Jesus says that he can do nothing but the will of the Father. Resurrection can occur only through the presence of the will of the Father.

Easter Sunday is the eighth day. It is the octave that raises the events of Palm Sunday to a higher level in the Resurrection of Christ.

​On Sunday, 23 March Rev. Michaël Merle was release from his sending to Johannesburg. A letter from our Lenker, Rev. Oliver Steinrueck, was read before the Act of Consecration of Man announcing this releasing.

The service was followed by a celebratory tea. The table was laden with food and almost as soon as one platter was empty it was replaced by another.

Thomas Holtz gave a short speech expressing his gratitude for the work Michaël has done in the Johannesburg Community. He then opened the floor to everyone and heartfelt expressions of gratitude and warmth towards Michaël and his impact on so many lives was shared.

Michaël was presented with a card filled with greetings and well wishes, and a gift that Robyn de Klerk had meticulously sourced. In 2021 Michaël used images from an ancient manuscript to illustrate the embryology of the human being in the light of the creation described in Genesis in a module of the Africa Seminary. This manuscript is known as the Morgan Crusader Bible. A young man in Stafford Virginia is printing and hand-binding copies of old manuscripts and we have been able to source a copy of the Morgan Crusader Bible that arrived only days before the farewell.

​The Book of Revelation may be the most significant part of the New Testament because it is connected to the revelation of Jesus Christ; this is the revelation of Christ. The Gospels are the revelation of the Father through Jesus Christ. Remember the question asked by Philip at the Last Supper: “Show us the Father” to which Jesus replied: “Philip, how long have I been with you? If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” The Gospel writer Mark begins by telling us that John the Baptist hears the words, “This is my beloved son, in whom I shall be fully revealed.” The Book of Revelation is Jesus revealing what he has come to know, as a result of the Christ having fully incarnated in him, having risen from the dead and now a Spirit Human; revealing through the Christ in him what it will be for us to become a ‘son of man’, a future human spirit being.

The main revelation of Jesus the Christ is that we have to overcome. We will be faced with many challenges, natural and created by us. The Book of Revelation is always about the NOW. It is about the future and the past, but, importantly about now. We can use it to overcome the challenges we face in this current time, and how we are to become. We are always in the process of becoming.

It is therefore not unusual that the Book of Revelation has a set of beatitudes. We know the beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount given by Jesus as recorded by the Gospel writer Matthew. These nine beatitudes presented by Matthew, Rudolf Steiner tells us, correspond to the nine-fold human being – physical body, etheric body, astral body, sentient soul, mind or comprehension soul, consciousness soul, spirit self, life spirit, spirit human. Luke presents four beatitudes with four challenges that correspond to the four-fold human being – physical, etheric, astral, “I” – the human being here on the earth right now. Luke is about where we are on the eight-fold path on the earth. As we heard in the Gospel reading on Sunday, 23 March and considered in the sermon given on that day, Luke includes a another beatitude: an attitude of life (a way for us to achieve the expression of life in Christ) in chapter 11 verse 28 – it comes as a response from the Christ Jesus:” Blessed are those who hear my Word: the full expression of the divine, and keeping it in their hearts preserve it in themselves.”

The Book of Revelation presents us with seven beatitudes, corresponding to the physical, etheric, astral, “I”, spirit self, life spirit and spirit human of the human constitutional experience. This is the picture of how we will be in the future in our physical, ether and astral transformations through the work of the “I”.

In Matthew the first beatitude is: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” This is how we are in our earthly body where we are poor in spirit, rich in physical material reality. We lack our connection to the spirit while we are here on the earth. This is the current reality. In the Book of Revelation, the first beatitude is a different reality. These are not the full translation of the beatitudes, only the highlights. The first beatitude is about what we gain by having been in a physical body, what it means to have been in a physical body. It is to comprehend. This is something we can only come to by being human, we have to experience of life on earth. The spiritual world cannot teach us this because they lack the experience. The etheric becomes younger as our physical body becomes older because, in the spiritual world, after death, it will rest assured. It will rest in what it has come to know. The task of our astral in the future is to be conscious of our personal responsibility, this is the essence of the third beatitude. The fourth beatitude is about being part of the whole process, about being included and invited. This is the experience of the “I” in this earthly reality, it is invited into earth incarnation. Our higher “I” remains in the spiritual world where our “I” belongs while our earthly “I” incarnates because it has been invited.

The fifth beatitude, in summary, is: Blessed are those who experience the renewal of new life. This is spirit self experiencing life in a new way, in the future, while in an incarnation.

The sixth beatitude is: Blessed are those who are able to hold onto the inner live. We lose our inner life through earthly distractions on a daily basis.

The seventh beatitude is: Blessed are those who are made pure, who are freed from attachments and hence are ready for the next stage.

The first beatitude in chapter 1 verse 3, has a connection with the seventh beatitude in chapter 22 verse 14 – the physical body in the first beatitude transforms into spirit human in the last beatitude. The comprehension that is gained in the physical earthly incarnation allows us to wash our garment, connect to the Tree of Life and enter into the City.

The translation by Michaël Merle of the first beatitude:

​The translation by Michaël Merle of the last beatitude:

​The second beatitude in chapter 14 verse 13 translated by Michaël Merle:

​The sixth beatitude in chapter 22 verse 7 translated by Michaël Merle:

​The third beatitude in chapter 16 verse 15 and the fifth beatitude in chapter 20 verse 6.​

The translation by Michaël Merle of the fifth beatitude:

A full measure of space is 10 by 10 by 10 (a thousand years): a cube, the New Jerusalem. The first resurrection is what happens when we cross the threshold. If we can share in this crossing of the threshold the second death, three days later, will have no power over us. If we cannot rise in the crossing of the threshold the second death (when the etheric forces are fully dissipated, and one begins the journey of the soul detaching from earthly attachments) will be a heavy experience.

The translation by Michaël Merle of the third beatitude:

​The fourth beatitude in chapter 19 verse 9 translated by Michaël Merle:

​Christ is the bridegroom and we, the community of human beings, are the bride.

These are the beatitudes of the child to which we are giving birth, the future human being.
 
The verse that accompanied the study of the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ was given by the Venerable Bede as a meditation on Revelation 2:28:

Christ is the Morning Star
Who when the night of this world is past
Brings to his saints the promise of the light of life
And opens everlasting day.

​The Gospel of Mark is the first Gospel of the four that are contained in the New Testament to have been written down. There are scripture scholars who think that there were earlier written Gospel passages, written by others, which Mark may have used. This is because Mark was not one of the twelve disciples who lived intimately with Jesus, thus what he has written was told to him by others or written by others. Tradition is that Mark was a nephew of Simon Peter and Andrew and may well have received his picture of Jesus and his life directly from Peter. Mark is the shortest of the Gospels. A lot of Matthew’s Gospel appears to have been written almost verbatim from Mark.

Mark decides what he considers to be gospel – good news or good word. Consider the Zarathustran ethic of Good Thought, Good Word and Good Deed; this is the Good Word. From a Buddhist perspective, this would be the Right Word (Correct Word or True Word). Mark has connected the idea of Gospel with “The Word”. If it is Good and True, then it can also be thought of as the Beautiful Word or the words that are composed beautifully. John begins his Gospel with “The Word” on a cosmic level. Mark confines himself to the period of “The Word” or “The Logos” in earthly incarnation. His Gospel, therefore, begins with the Baptism in the Jordan. He thus covers only the three years of the ministry of the Christ in Jesus of Nazareth. We must find in this Gospel each of the three years. As with the other Gospel writer, the three years are not linear, they are cyclical. Something is established in the first year that is expanded in the second year and expands further in the third year.

Therefore, in covering a year we cover the twelve signs of the Zodiac. Mark structures his Gospel thematically, as do the other Gospel writers. Therefore, there is no strict chronology to the stories in this Gospel. Mark is, nonetheless, it seems more historically accurate than the other Gospel writers. Luke, for example, is very clear that he has structured his Gospel to lay out a path, the eight-fold path, for the Friend of God: Theophilus. It is therefore necessary, in following the year as laid out by Mark, to know the constellation in which we begin. Mark has laid out his Gospel to cover eleven signs of the Zodiac and not twelve. One sign is not included in any of the three years. At the end Mark writes his conclusion in the light of the sign that he excluded from each year. It is the sign with which Mark’s Gospel is associated: the constellation of Leo, the winged lion.

There are four signs of the Zodiac that are associated with the four Gospels, that are also associated with the lamassu (sphinx), that make up the Cherubim and that make up the composite picture that is also reflected in the human being. They are the constellations of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius. These signs are associated with the four Gospels, and the depictions always have wings because they represent the spiritual qualities of the constellations. Matthew is associated with Aquarius, Luke with Taurus (connected with the larynx and the word and speech) and John is associated with Scorpio that then still had a strong association with the eagle.

Michaël shared his insight into the structure of Mark’s Gospel in that Mark follows seven signs of the Zodiac in each year that gives us a full span of the time of the year. These seven signs bring us to Leo, which he excludes. That leaves four signs which Mark uses to cover the four states of being – the physical, the etheric, the astral and the “I”-constitution. This provides the impression that in the course of each year something lands for the human being: for Jesus, the human being bearing the Christ, and for the human community, the twelve and for all of us. This cycle is repeated in each of the three years.

There are many qualities connected with each constellation and also some dark forces. Mark captures only the qualities of light. An example is Gemini which represents ‘the other’, ‘where two or more are gathered’, ‘community’, that in every human being is the masculine and the feminine, but this can also represent the false picture of myself: me and my double, me and a mirror image that is not really me.

The starting point for Mark is in the constellation in which Matthew and Luke place the birth of the child. Although Cancer is the constellation of the one arriving from the spiritual world, this birth, the birth of Jesus, has to take place in the constellation of death, in Capricorn. This is the tradition for Christmas from the beginning of Christian festivals. The birth of Jesus can be strongly experienced as a death out of the spiritual world and a birth on earth. Mark therefore begins in Capricorn.

The translation provided by Jon Madsen from Emil Bock provides a very clear picture of what this scriptural writing is about: “The new word from the realms of the angels sounds forth through Jesus Christ.” This is a good transliteration of the Greek ‘Evangelium’ which contains ‘ev’ meaning beautiful, and ‘angel’ which is a messenger from the realm of the spirit-world, a word from the realms of the angels. We have lost the noun ‘evangel’ in English and replaced it with the Anglo-Saxon word ‘gospel’. We still speak of Gospel writers as Evangelists!

At this point Michaël gave the breakdown of the Gospel of Mark into the eleven signs of the zodiac for each year, beginning in Capricorn.

Whenever we encounter John the Baptist, we are in the constellation of Aquarius. John the Baptist uses the Aquarian Mystery for the Baptism to happen. Pisces is always the constellation of the Christ. Aries is the ram and the Lamb and is about making whole or healings. Taurus is the healing power of the Word. Gemini is about community, brotherhood and the calling of the twelve. Cancer is family, family relationships and the home. Virgo is the establishment of the kingdom. Virgo is about receptivity and is connected with the physical. Libra is restoring order and true balance and is connected with the etheric. Scorpio is healing connected to the number twelve and blood. In Mark’s Gospel it is the constellation of the astral (passion and desire) and is connected with the Passion. Sagittarius is the conditions of discipleship seen in year one in the sending out of the disciples like an arrow from a bow and is connected with the Ego (“I”-constitution).

When we are dealing with the idea of transubstantiation, the idea of communion, receiving the transubstantiated bread, receiving the bread which is the bread of life, connected to the meal – note the terminology – we are dealing with the powerful qualities of two constellations at work together. These two constellations are connected because they are opposite each other. It is the constellation of Pisces (which is the Christ) and the constellation of Virgo. In the constellation of Virgo there are five stars known as the ‘bread baskets’ or the ‘loaves’. Pisces is the constellation of the two fish. Pisces is also the constellation that is active at sunrise – the Christ forces in the rising sun of Resurrection every day. Virgo is the constellation whose qualities govern the evening where we receive everything to carry it through the night, like a woman bearing a child. This is the Piscean-Virgoan axis, which is why we can meditate in the morning and in the evening, and why we should not meditate in the middle of the day. The feeding of the multitudes is always in the evening in the sign of Virgo. The story of the feeding of the five thousand occurs in the Gospel of Mark in the sign of Pisces because it is Christ who is feeding the multitude. However, the feeding of the four thousand has no fish present in the feeding, only the five loaves with one extra loaf on either side: so, seven loaves.

In the second year, when Mark places his Gospel in the sign of Taurus, the healing power of the Word, he includes the themes from two other constellations while remaining in Taurus, he incorporates Gemini and Cancer. He incorporates the new brotherhood and new relationships.

In the third year, there is again an incorporation of other themes into a sign, in this case in the sign of Pisces. The themes come first. They are the themes of Elijah who is representative of Capricorn – overcoming death without resurrection by being taking up into heaven – and Moses who is a representative of Aquarius (because he was placed in a reed basket – a metaphor for a coffin, which is the literal word used in Exodus - and set upon the Nile). This is where we read the Transfiguration of the Christ. In the beginning of the third year the Christ is becoming stronger, and the year begins in the sign of the Christ, in Pisces. Aries in the third year is the healing of the transfigured Lamb of God. Taurus in the third year is about new community in conversation. Gemini in the third year is about future brotherhood. Cancer, in the third year, is about new ways and includes the ‘little revelation’ in preparation for the entry into Jerusalem. Without the healing of sight, it is not possible to see the Little Revelation. The forces of the “I” must be strong in order for Jesus to face death. This is represented by Sagittarius.

The burial, the resurrection and the appearance of the Risen One occur in the constellation of Leo – the lion rises with forces of warmth and fearlessness. The whole Zodiac is illumined in the light of Leo; the whole Gospel illumined in the light of Resurrection.

When we study the evolution of plants and animals as illumined by Rudolf Steiner, the evolution begins in Cancer – the entry into the Zodiac – and follows the precession of the sun to end in Leo. Leo is the constellation of the fulfilment of the evolution of plants and animals.

The study of the Gospel of Mark in this fashion is largely the work of Hermann Beckh, one of the founding priests of The Christian Community. Michaël shared many of his additional insights from his many years of study and prayer to help the group along the way.

​