Our campaign is rooted in our spiritual transformation throughout the years. Each candle represents a different season of our spiritual and biblical calendar.
Galilee: beginning in January with the Baptism of Jesus, followed Jesus in planting the seeds of the Kingdom. We are guided by healing and then by the exorcism of the demons of the Empire which have invaded our people. We are sent out with the 12 and the 72 and then taught the lesson of abundance in what we have by the feeding of the 5,000. The season concludes with the transfiguration, as Jesus communes with his ancestors to prepare himself for the march on Jerusalem that is to come.
Jerusalem: called for us to bear witness, confronting hypocrisy and injustice, as the seeds began to break ground. We internalize the lessons of rejecting the hypocrisy of wealth, of status and of the law as we organize our confrontation with the broken law. Then we relive the passion and feel the crucifixion and betrayal in our own struggle.
Resurrection: represented the renewal and unity and hope as “the seed became the corn”, explaining that the seed of Jesus was now the body of Christ among the believers, healing us of the betrayals and crucifixions we had suffered. The gospels were in many respects a preparation for a people that would soon be in diaspora – again – this time with the prophesied destruction of the temple. Jesus had given them the means of grace to renew annually their faith in small groups. Then in seven resurrection appearances, he reminded them of these basic means of grace: Baptism, Reconciliation (confession and atonement), Communion, Prayer, Abundance, Assurance and Commission. Thus in the season of Resurrection, we not only are guided in rebuilding our movement but we are guided in the practices of our church which serve to renew our faith and unite us as a people of God.
Pentecost: as new leaders came forward in the Holy Spirit to carry on the movement, charged with bearing witness to God’s law in open confrontation with hypocritical laws enforced by government. The confrontation between God’s Law and man’s law confirmed us in the commitment to sanctuary and “popular power”, independent of any political party.
Kingdom: following the scripture in the letter from James, a time in which we “grew in the Lord”, were strengthened by adversity and disciplined ourselves to the Way of the Kingdom. In addition to James, we revisited the Gospels scriptures of the farmer who watched and guarded the growing of the seeds to a crop, preparing for the Harvest.
Harvest: when we recognized the changes in ourselves and in our situation which the year of faith and struggle had produced. Often Harvest time coincided with a march on Washington and we drew on the scripture from the Book of Revelations, as John told his seven churches that they would survive the oppression of the Empire.
Assembly: seven weeks to assemble the seeds of the harvest, the people we had gathered, the lessons we had learned, to prepare for next year’s planting.