Is it better to be the first or the last?

For 18 years I have pondered the meaning of some words spoken to me by my spiritual mentor a few months before he passed over :“the last shall be the first.” He knew his Bible inside out and gave me the foundation for my own exploration. After almost 33 years of esoteric Bible study, I know that we cannot be definitive about what a Bible text means. It is only when we see the life in these ancient words, and apply them from various perspectives, that they truly speak to us. Often it is not the word itself that speaks but the silence after the word if we pause long enough to hear it.

During the 2014-15 Christmas period I had the opportunity to contemplate the text: “So the last will be first, and the first last.” Because these words are etched in my soul I have always pondered them but they never really came to life for me. It was as if they were waiting for the right moment to reveal something of themselves. No doubt with the help of the angelic realms, which draw near through the Christmas period, I was able to dance with these words as I wrote my weekly Reflections.

This is what I wrote in response to the parable in Matthew 20:1-16 where the labourers who only worked for an hour were paid as much as the labourers who worked all day in the hot sun. http://esotericconnection.com/reflections/

“If we think of a plant that grows to maturity, say a tomato plant; the last thing to develop on this plant is the tomato, and the tomato is the first thing to die. The plant from which it grew is the first, and it is the last to die when the season is over. If we ask what is the most valuable part of this process we could say that it is the fruit, the “last which will be first”. If so, could we say that the tomato is more valuable even though it has only been working for the shortest time?

A further thought is that it is only when the plant produces the tomato that we can identify the type of plant, or the breed of tomato. This means that we only fully understand this plant when we look at the last thing, not the first thing.” Who is Jesus : What is Christ? (to be published in Vol 4 later in 2015)

The story continued in Mark 10 where Jesus said, “but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mk 10:43-45

In response to the text I reflected on prior to this, verse 31, I wrote: “Then Jesus utters one of the greatest esoteric secrets: “But many that are first will be last, and the last first.” Mk 10:31 When can the last be the first? When it is a seed! We are the seeds of the future; we are the seeds to eternal life. Christmas is all about the seed being born that will carry us into the future when we will be gods.”

It occurs to me that if we want to be first, and this world encourages that, then we live in a finite world, which essentially points to only living one life. To get in touch with the reality of repeated lives and our eternal, infinite being, our I Am, we must see the value of bringing up the rear. Is the seed more important than the fruit? I know which one I would rather eat but, as we know, you can’t have one without the other. We exist in cycles and the growth cycle of a plant is a great metaphor for the processes of life, both for this life and for repeated lives. I wrote about this in the Revelation series when I contemplated the Seven Churches.

In conclusion, I think that we can be seeds in some situations and fruit in others. Whether we are first or last is of no consequence – unless we do not value “the last”. Accepting each stage as valuable in the scheme of things is the task that lies ahead of us.

Image by http://patthorne.co.uk/