THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN
VOLUME 5
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Beyond the Jordan at the Sea of Galilee. Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 19
- Chapter 252 -
The passage of the Lord and His followers to the opposite lakeshore.
And I said, "All of you get ready for a journey; I want and must today leave here, and indeed completely from Galilee to the land which lies beyond the Jordan and borders on the Jewish lands! (Matt. 19:1) We have not been there yet, and there is a large number there of very curious people, and we will there make a good business even today."
2
Peter said, "Lord, we have to travel there by ship which is full of that grasshopper vermin; in order to clean it, two hard-working people would need half a day for such a task!"
3
I said, "There you have spoken truly, two workers would need to work even a whole day; but I will be faster through with such a task! Let us now just go out onto the sea, and the ship will already be cleaned!"
4
And when we came down to our ships on the lake, behold, it was quite clean, and there was no trace of a grasshopper to be found anywhere!
5
When the disciples saw this, they were very amazed about it, and Peter said, "You are truly a greatest master in all things; even the grasshoppers have to bend to obey Your will! Should we now immediately board the ship and sail away; or should we first consume an afternoon meal with some wine, since the journey is quite far?"
6
I said, "What need do we have of all of that? Until now we have never suffered hunger wherever we were, and so we will also neither have to suffer hunger nor thirst in the land where we will now go to. In your house you have in any case arranged everything, and so let us board the ship! Stretch out the sailcloth, then release the ship from the block, and someone sit at the rudder by himself! I will have a good wind come and we will soon be at the right place where I want to go."
7
But Peter still asked Me whether he should not take a couple of his deck hands with him to the far harbor on the other side for the sake of the care and maintenance of the ship.
8
And I said, "Yes, do that; for we will not come back here again so soon!"
9
Then Peter called two of his deck hands. They brought the ship immediately into order; the wind also began to get up and we sailed away almost with the speed of an arrow.
10
When we had thus surfed across the far surface of the water with the true speed of a storm and this was only moved by very small waves despite the strong and powerful wind, this occurred to the two boys of Peter's and they asked him where they should find the cause. For as very experienced old fishermen and sailors they had never experienced such a thing.
11
But Peter said to them, "How can you now ask such a thing! Have you then already forgotten all the things that the great master of Nazareth as our Messiah can do?!"
12
Then the boys said, "We already knew that he performs great miracles; but we didn't know that even the wind and the sea obey him! He must truly be a great prophet, as great as Moses and as great as Elijah!"
13
And Peter said, "Endlessly more than Moses and Elijah! But now do not ask any further, but instead pay attention to the ship; at the correct time you will all gain experience more about the divinity of the Lord! We are now soon coming to the delta of the Jordan, and there it is necessary to pay attention so that we do not go out into the current, from which it is difficult to get out without a good counter-wind."
14
At this both of them grabbed the oars cheerfully and as fast as an arrow we were across the somewhat dangerous part and had soon reached the bank after barely an hour's journey.
15
There was a village where we stepped onto the bank, and the village was inhabited mostly by fishermen, mainly consisting of Jews, but around a third was also inhabited by Greeks, who were trading all sorts of things. When we came to the bank and set feet on the same, there were many people there, since several Pharisees from Jerusalem were present and collecting their tithe in this place. That the people ran up to us and some of the better ones among the many people also soon asked who we were, what we would do here, and whether we would like to buy some things, goes without saying.
16
But Peter took courage and said to the curious ones, "Let us first find accommodation, then you will learn soon enough who we actually are, and what we want in this place!"