The Great Gospel of John
Volume 2
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
First journey of the Lord: Kis - landing place at Sibarah - Nazareth
- Chapter 40 -
Love towards the Lord.
Ask Peter and Nathanael: "But Lord, we have no tackle with us: what shall come of it? Should we hurry ahead and maybe borrow some from the fishers at sea?"
2
Say I: "There is no need of that, but something else - your memory which tends every moment to forget that I am the Lord, for Whom nothing is impossible! Hence keep our company and instead while fishing explain to old Josa and his family the power and authority of God also in man." To these My words the two then introvert, thinking about how they could be so blind as to regale Me with such worldly questions. Even Josa says to them that he can hardly think on how they could have asked Me that.
3
Says Nathanael: "Friend, like yourself we are still human and too set in the world for us not to come out with something really stupid from time to time, but we shall pull ourselves together in future. Have we not been fishers from our youth, and when hearing fish talk we easily step back into our old worries, forgetting the spiritual. But we are on track again.
4
Sarah also comes over, asking Me whether she could come along.
5
Say I: "But of course, it is for your sake that I am organising this work. You are My beloved, Why did you not take a seat by My side during the morning meal?"
6
Says Sarah, trembling with love: "Lord, I did not have the courage. Just think! The three supreme Roman commanders by Your side and I a poor maiden! Where was I to take the courage from?"
7
Say I: "Now, now, My darling, I have noticed only too well that you would rather have been with Me than anywhere else. Oh, I miss nothing that takes place in a person's heart and, therefore, I also love you so dearly.
8
But now tell Me, you My sweetest Sarah, how you like these two youths? Don't you think you could love one or the other more than I could? For, behold, in My form I am not as beautiful as those two."
9
Says Sarah: "But Lord, You my forever sole love, how can You think such a thing of me? I would not accept a whole heaven full of a thousand times more beautiful angels for one hair from Your head let alone one of the two for You as a whole, full of love in my heart. Although they are beautiful, I ask: Who gave them such beauty? It was You. And how could You have given them this beauty if it had not been in You first?
10
I tell You: You are for me all in all, and I shall never give You up, even if You gave me all the heavens full of the most glorious angels."
11
Say I: "So it is right, this is how I prefer it. Who loves Me must love Me fully and above all if he wants to be loved also by Me above all. Look, the two angels are no doubt very beautiful, but you are now also dearer to me than countless hosts of the purest angels, and so do firmly stick to Me. I tell you: Out of many you are a proper bride of Mine. - Do you understand this?"
12
Says Sarah: "Lord, this I do not understand. How could I be Your bride? Could I be to You what my mother is to my father? You are the Lord over heaven and earth and I am only one of Your created beings. How could it be possible for the lowest to unite with the very highest?"
13
Say I: "Behold, that is quite easy, and that for the quite simple reason that what to you seems to be the lowest has also gone forth from the highest and is thus also part of the highest.
14
I am a tree of life and you are its fruit. The fruit does appear to be smaller and less constant than the tree, but in its centre there lies a seed that is nourished and matured by the fruit. In the seed, however, there are again trees of the same kind themselves capable of bearing the same fruits again with living seeds like the one they have gone forth from.
15
From this you can easily see that the difference between Creator and created being is in a certain respect not so great as you imagine, for the created being is in and for itself the will of the Creator which is certainly good and worthy. If this will, gone forth from the Creator and underbthe Creator's own form endowed with an independent life, recognises itself in its free isolation as what it fundamentally is and acts accordingly, then it is equal to its Creator and in its small way fully that which the Creator is in His infinite way, If, however, the part-will, made independent by the Creator, does not recognise itself as what it is, it does not cease to be that, but is unable to reach the supreme goal until it has recognised itself as what it fundamentally is.
16
In order to make it easier for such made independent part-wills, called "men", to recognise themselves the Creator has at all times sent to men from the heavens revelations, laws and precepts and has now even come to the earth Himself in the flesh to help mankind with their task of recognising themselves and to give them more light to make it easier for them than it has so far been.
17
Now you will understand the relation of Creator to created beings and how you, as fully equal to Me, can be My bride and My wife bound forever through your great love for Me. - Do you now understand what I have revealed to you?"