All parents know what it is like when a child says; me, me! No daddy, I want to do it myself! You go away!
And this universal parental experience, points to something that we all know; human souls strive for independence. And this is good. We begin by wanting to pour our own glass of water, then tying our own shoes, learning to drive and moving out of the house. Attaining real and healthy independence is one of the most valued qualities in our time.
And yet, if we look with different eyes, we can see that every single living being is entirely dependent on the sun. The tree can only grow with light. Winds and clouds only move with the suns warmth. The apparent independence of the planet earth herself is only possible because she has a certain relationship with the sun.
And this natural truth points us to one of the great spiritual truths for the human soul; that the culmination of healthy independence is also the discovery of our true dependence; That our hearts deepest call is not to mere self-sufficiency, it is the discovery of how truly dependent we are on the spiritual sun of Christ.
Dear friends, the mark of a true Christian today is to independently come to the awareness: I can do nothing by myself. The mark of a true Christian today is to feel and experience that without the life giving presence of the Christ Jesus, our souls would wither and die.
And this is why we see in our gospel today that the ones who have overcome and completed the evolution of the earth, the ones who have come through the great suffering, these individuals have become so dependent on the life giving blood of the lamb that it has soaked through their garments. We see that the individuals who have overcome have joined the elders and the hierarchies continually praising HIM upon which we all depend: the father ground of the world.