The Great Gospel of John
Volume 10
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord on the way to Bethsaida
- Chapter 127 -
The spiritual omnipresence of the Lord and the guidance of His mercy.
When the disciples of John and also the Jerusalemites heard Me saying that, they took the fishes, ate them and discovered that the taste was very good. They soon finished the fishes completely and thanked Me for My words. They also said that despite the abundant light they had received from Me, still much of the old Pharisaic dirt was in them which they were not yet able to remove.
2
I said: "You will be able to remove all that old dirt in you when I soon will be no more bodily present in your midst. You are too much used to My personality and you know Me, and I am not an exceptional appearance to you anymore, but once I will be no more present among you in this visible and tangible body of Mine you will become very sad and only then you will realize more fully who I was, am and eternally will be.
3
Yet I will be personally with you, but only spiritually, not visible to your physical eyes but only to your heart by the real, true love for Me."
4
These words of Mine made My disciples to deeply think within themselves, but not one of them dared to ask Me anything further.
5
However, the innkeeper, who became already very enthusiastic after the good wine, said to Me: "O Lord and Master, I know very well that You will not stay with us with this more than holy body of Yours until the end of our earthly life, as You also did not bodily fill our storehouses and storerooms abundantly with bread, flour and other fruits and change the water into wine, but You did it only by the power of Your divine will. And since we are still in a very sinful state, we would feel much too unworthy to have Your personality always in our midst, but do not take away Your mercy, Your love and Your blessings, o Lord and Master.
6
We were gentiles, and we searched You - the one and only true God - in the books and Scriptures of the Jews, and we soon discovered that only the God of the Jews can be the only living One.
7
We took trust in Him, kept His commandments the best we could, and look, we soon realized that the God of the Jews clearly began to remember us. He gave us the idea of leaving our fishing business and to settle here in this loneliness.
8
We certainly did not find worldly treasures here, and not a crowd of people as this is the case in the cities where there is only business upon business and where deceit, lies and hypocrisy are committed and turn all people away from God the only Lord, and where people excite each other day and night, quarrel among each other and deceiving and persecuting one another. But we nevertheless found what we needed to stay alive, especially the peace in our mind, and also a good opportunity to become ever more acquainted with the one, only true God of the Jews, to always consciously keep His commandments and to raise our children according to His revealed order.
9
And because we did this, God visited us also personally in You, o Lord and Master, and gave us the reward of our good efforts, and He convinced us all very clearly that our efforts were not in vain.
10
Since You, o Lord and Master, were already so merciful to satisfy our ever greater longing for You and came to us personally at a time that we could not expect, we all hope now, with a firm faith, that according to Your holy Word You will never take away Your mercy, love and blessing, now that from now on we will keep Your well-known will much more faithfully than was the case up to now or could have been the case.
11
Although we also will be sad when You surely will leave us with Your holy personality, but we would be more sad if You also would take away Your mercy, which You certainly will not do if, through our ways and through our love for You and also for our fellowmen, we firmly will stay with You.
12
And do not let too great temptations come over us, o Lord, in which one of us could become weak in having faith in You and in the love for You. May Your holy will stay with us and always be active in us until the end of our days, and after that in the beyond and forever."
13
I said: "O, when someone will pray to Me as you are doing now, not only with the mouth but also in his heart, I will always fully answer his prayer. But now again something else.