The Great Gospel of John
Volume 9
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord in Cana
- Chapter 106 -
The dream of the little girl.
When the fishes were eaten, the spokesman said to the innkeeper: "O dear friend, you have now given us a real strengthening for our body, but it will not be easy to pay you."
2
The innkeeper said: "My dear congeners, you should not worry about that, and when you will return home, it will also be taken care of that you will not have to go with empty bags on your return journey. So be cheerful and have no fear or unnecessary worries."
3
The 12 year old girl who was now also strengthened with food and drink, took also courage to speak and said to her father: "Listen, father, 3 days ago, when we were also fortunate to find a friend of people with the innkeeper of an inn, I had a predictive dream. However, as usual you said that dreams of children are meaningless, but in that dream I saw this room, and also that we were accepted in this inn in an extremely friendly way. But I saw in my dream still a lot more, which you, when I wanted to tell you, did not want to hear, and after which you ordered me to be silent, but I have the feeling now that my dream will completely come true."
4
Then the father said to his daughter: "Well then, what more have you dreamed which will come true here? Now I give you permission to tell us your dream completely."
5
Then the girl said: "I will not relate the dream completely but only the main thing, and this is the following: in my dream I also saw that big table and the same men sitting around it. And look, One of them was now precisely the new King of Heaven for whom we have undertaken our trip. I also could point Him out to you, but I have now heard a voice in myself that commanded me not to do so, and I have to obey that voice. But because everything in my dream comes true here, it might also come true that we will find here the One whom we want to find most of all."
6
The father was very surprised and said: "My dear child, there could be something true about your dream, but it would be very daring to believe the story of your dream immediately and unconditionally because this is something which is very important and holy. We have to proceed critically and carefully. Thus I will go again to that very wise Man with whom I spoke before and who is obviously a prophet. It will be faster to hear from Him more about the King of Heaven of all the Jews. I asked Him already before to describe that holy King. If He will give that to me, it will not be too difficult to trace Him up and also to recognize Him."
7
Now also the woman said to her husband: "Listen, my husband, the innocent and pure mind of a child is often closer to God than ours, which has become impure by many passions, and so he sees and recognizes God's presence before ours. With their sharp eyes, children are often much more capable in searching and finding than we the elderly. But you are in many things too severe and to critical, and I have experienced already several times that in the course of time you admitted that something was true and good which we have told you already since the beginning that it was true and good. Who knows, the same may happen to you also this time."
8
The man said: "This time I would like that you are right. But now the 2 of us men will go to that wise Man and will ask once more to give a personal description of that great King to whom all power in Heaven and on this whole Earth is given."
9
After this conversation that was always softly spoken, so that we would not hear anything, the 2 men stood up, went again with great respect to Me and asked Me for a personal description of the great King.
10
With a friendly face I said to the married man: "Although you have spoken softly about the King, and made an opinion about the dream of your daughter, I still could hear every syllable very well. You would like to hear from Me a personal description of the King, because you think that by that, when you will meet the King somewhere, you will recognize Him immediately to give Him the honor.
11
But I say to you: for those who truly want to know Him, the new King of the Jews has to be recognized especially in the spirit and in all truth, and then they soon will also easily recognize Him personally. But your daughter wanted to describe to you from her dream that she had 3 days ago not far from Damascus, how the King personally looks like. Why actually did you not want to listen to that?"
12
The man said: "Dear, very wise Friend, because with me, as well as with my parents and grandparents, always the wise education principle was practiced that children should surely hear what is good and true, but that they only should speak when something was asked to them, so that they would not become thoughtless chatterers, because to think a lot and to act accordingly is wiser than much chattering and by that to do little. That is why I did not want that dream to be related by my child to me immediately so that she can practice and strengthen herself in patience and self-denial, which is especially needed with the female sex who are hardly capable to control their tongue."
13
I said: "Although you are right in this, but because your little daughter has already an extremely silent character, you well could have made a little exception on your fixed rule, because children who are so virtuously well educated are usually much closer to the inner truth of life than grown-up people who have cramped their brains by their tireless investigation of worldly wisdom, after which they finally cannot see the forest between the trees anymore. This is also very much the case with you, for you did not want to dishonor the old name of your tribe - which is not a reproach - but you certainly will also have noticed that a too sharpened knife will always become more quickly blunt than a knife that, although a little more blunt but that is still sharpened well enough. But no matter how, let now your little daughter come here and let her find among us the One whom she has recognized as the new King of the Jews."
14
The man, as well as his brother-in-law became completely shy and said: "O best, incomprehensible and extremely wise Friend, is that holy great King perhaps really one of you?"
15
I said: "That will soon be apparent, but do now what I have advised you to do."
16
After these words the man went away and brought his little daughter to Me.