Why Do We Celebrate June 19th? | Rev. Steven P. Gunther

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our family service here at the Burnathen Cathedral.

My name is Reverend Stephen Gunther, and I'm on the pastoral staff here at the Burnathen Church.

And this morning we're talking about why we in the New Church celebrate June 19th.

And I'll begin our service this morning with our readings from the Lord's Word, both in the sacred scripture and in the teachings for the New Church.

Our first reading comes from the book of Revelation, a portion of chapter 22.

And behold, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to everyone according to his work.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

Blessed are those who do his commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city.

I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these things in the churches.

I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright and morning star, and the spirit and the bride say, Come, and let him who hears say come, and let him who thirsts come.

Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.

Turning now to the teachings for the new church, we read from the work Apocalypse Revealed, number 956.

Let him who hears say come symbolically means that anyone who hears about the Lord's coming and about the new heaven and new church, thus about the Lord's kingdom, and so has some knowledge of these, should pray for the Lord to come.

Let him who thirsts say come symbolically means that any one who longs for the Lord's kingdom and truths at that time should pray for the Lord to come with light.

Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely, symbolically means that whoever is moved by love to learn truths and assimilate them into himself will receive them from the Lord apart from any endeavors of his own.

To desire symbolizes love, because whatever a person desires from the heart is something he loves, and whatever he loves is something he desires from the heart.

The water of life symbolizes divine truths obtained from the Lord through the Word, and to obtain them freely means symbolically, apart from any endeavors of his own.

Something similar to the symbolic meaning in this verse is that of the wish contained in the Lord's Prayer, Your kingdom come, your will be done, as in heaven, so upon the earth.

The Lord's kingdom is the church that is united with heaven.

So it is that we are now told, let him who hears say come, and let him who thirsts come.

And finally, from the work, the true Christian religion, number seven hundred and ninety-one.

After this work was finished, the Lord called together his twelve disciples who followed him in the world, and the next day he sent them forth into the whole spiritual world to preach the gospel that the Lord God Jesus Christ reigns, whose kingdom shall be for ever and ever, according to the prediction of Daniel and in the revelation, and also that they are blessed who come unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.

This took place on the nineteenth day of June in the year seventeen seventy.

This is meant by these words of the Lord He shall send his angels, and they shall gather together his elect from one end of the heavens to the other.

Amen.

Here end our lessons.

Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.

So just a couple days ago, we held a big celebration for New Church Day, which took place on June 19th.

This is something that we do every year here.

We have a big celebration to celebrate this important day.

We have a big picnic on the cathedral grounds, and then we put on a pageant where we act out scenes from the book of Revelation.

And I know growing up, I always loved June 19th, but I didn't always know exactly what it was that we were celebrating or why we were celebrating on June 19th.

I had been told that it was the church's birthday, but I wasn't quite sure what that meant.

And I knew that it was a it was a holiday that was specific to the new church.

It was something special about our church that we celebrate on this day.

And so this morning I want to take some time and think about what is so important about June 19th and why do we celebrate on that special day.

And so, in order to understand why we celebrate on June 19th and why that's such a special day for us, we have to understand part of what makes the new church special in the world.

What makes the new church different from other churches?

Because in a lot of ways, the new church is just like a lot of other Christian churches.

We read from the Word, we learn from the stories in the Old Testament of the children of Israel wandering through the wilderness, and people like Moses and King David and King Solomon, and we read the Psalms and all those beautiful things contained in there.

And we read from the New Testament, we read stories of Jesus in his life in this world and his ministry, the things that he taught, and the miracles that he performed and the amazing things that he did.

And we worship the Lord.

We worship Jesus as God.

But what's so different about the new church?

Well, in a lot of ways, the thing that makes the new church so different are these books here.

Let's see if I can do this without spilling any books off of here.

But in the new church, we have all of these books that we read.

And these books contain all of the teachings of the new church.

And maybe you've heard these books called a couple of different things.

Maybe you've heard them called the writings.

Maybe you've heard us refer to them as the heavenly doctrines.

Maybe you've heard them called the teachings for the new church.

But whatever we call them, what makes us different from other churches, what's special about the new church is that we have all of these special teachings that are contained in all of these books.

And we call them these different names, and all of these names are right.

None of these are really incorrect.

We call them the writings because they are the theological writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg.

A man wrote these things in the 1700s so that we could have them.

But in the new church, we also believe that this wasn't just Swedenborg who wrote these things, but really these are teachings that were given to us by the Lord.

And so that's why we sometimes might call them the heavenly doctrines.

And what that means is doctrine means teachings.

And specifically, it's teachings that tell us about the Lord, about who he is, and about his word and how we can understand him in his word.

And a lot of what's contained in these books are these teachings about who the Lord is, about who we are, about the process of spiritual growth that we go through from the moment we're born until the moment that we pass away.

And they tell us about the internal meaning of the Lord's word.

These books help us be able to go to the Lord in the Old Testament and the New Testament and to know what He's talking about and see how those stories relate to our lives.

And it took Swedenborg a long time to write all of these.

There's over 20 books here that he wrote.

It took him over a couple of decades to write these things.

And where June 19th comes into all of this is all the way over here.

At the end here, these red books, this is the work, The True Christian Religion.

And that was the last work that Swedenborg wrote and published.

So when we believe that the Lord gave us all of these books as a divine revelation of truth from heaven, then we get to the true Christian religion, and this brings up the very end of this revelation.

And when Swedenborg finished writing that book, this new revelation was complete.

All of these teachings the Lord wanted to give us were done, and they were available for the human race.

And so Swedenborg added a note at the end of the true Christian religion, and that's what we read this morning.

And that note says that at the completion of this work, when he finished writing the true Christian religion, the Lord gathered together his twelve disciples who had followed him in the world, and he sent them throughout the entire spiritual world to preach the gospel or spread the good news that the Lord God Jesus Christ reigns, and his kingdom shall be forever and ever.

And it says that this took place on the 19th day of June in the year 1770.

And so that's where we get this celebration on June 19th, because it's the day that Swedenborg finished writing the last of these books.

The day that we were, that this new revelation from the Lord was complete.

And the Lord celebrated that by gathering together his disciples and sending them out throughout the spiritual world.

And the message that he had them send is a message that the Lord God Jesus Christ reigns.

And so I want to think for a second, what does that mean?

That the Lord God Jesus Christ reigns?

What does it mean for someone to reign?

And it's not talking about rain falling from the sky.

This is a word that we use when we think about kings.

Kings reigning over their kingdom, the way that they rule over their kingdom.

It means that the Lord is in charge, that the Lord is overseeing the whole world.

But on a personal level, the message that it sends for all of us is that the Lord can reign in our lives.

That we can invite the Lord into our minds and into our hearts.

And we can commit ourselves to following Him and say, Lord, I don't want to just do what I want to do in my life.

I want to do what you want for me.

I want to live the life that you want for me.

And the life that the Lord wants for all of us is a life of happiness, a life of peace, a life of joy and meaning, both in this life and the next.

And that's why he gives us these teachings.

And so that message that the Lord God Jesus Christ reigns is an invitation to all of us to say, the Lord can reign in our lives.

We can invite him in, and he can show us the pathway that leads to heaven.

He can help us make the right decisions when we don't know what to do in our lives.

He can show us the things that we need to learn to be able to grow into better versions of ourselves.

And so that's what it means to say the Lord God Jesus Christ reigns.

And another reading that I gave this morning was from the book of Revelation.

And the whole book of Revelation is full of this beautiful imagery that in its internal meaning is really talking about the establishment of the new church.

It's talking about the Lord giving us these teachings.

The book tells us about all the ways that people had forgotten who the Lord really was.

They had forgotten or lost sight of the things that He wanted for all of us, the ways that He wanted us to live.

And it tells prophecies of how the Lord was going to come and reveal these truths to us so that we could then know Him and follow Him and live the life that He wants for us.

And so, at the very end of the book of Revelation, one of the it's the last chapter of the entire word.

And anyone who desires, let them take of the water of life freely.

What a beautiful message.

And what the Lord is saying there is He's saying that anyone who desires to live a good life, anyone who wants to love the Lord and love their neighbor, anyone who wants to grow into a better version of themselves, he's saying there's nothing stopping us anymore.

He has given us all of the teachings, he has shown us the recipe for heavenly life.

And now we can go to the Lord in his word and we can find him there.

That's what he means by the water of life.

The water of life are the teachings that he has given us that can lead us in our lives.

So the message of June 19th, the message that we celebrate every year with this picnic and this pageant and all of this wonderful stuff, is the message that the Lord has come, that he can reign in our lives, that he can show us the pathway that leads to happiness in heaven.

And if we want to, if we desire that, if we want the Lord in our lives, if we want to live a happy life, if we want to have good relationships with the people around us, that the Lord has given us everything we need, and we can take of the water of life freely.

Amen.