The Great Gospel of John
Volume 9
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord on the way from Essaea to Jericho
- Chapter 3 -
The healing of the sick Helena.
Then the innkeeper continued to speak to his house staff that was present now: "Now we have convinced ourselves that the to us still unknown servant of the one true God has done a real miracle to let us know the one true God, and He also gave me other proofs that are not less wonderful, and from which I have concluded that He must be an extremely wondrous Man, because He is aware of the most hidden and secretly kept arrangements and circumstances of our house, even more accurately than we ourselves.
2
So He also knows of the sickness of our dearest daughter Helena which is incurable up till now, and He also promised me that He would heal her if I would remove all the dead idols - great and small - from the house and would then adhere with my whole family to the one, true God and give Him all the honor. However, I still did not dare to violate the dead idols myself out of fear that I first would be betrayed by someone and then would be punished by the priests and courts of law, but I said to this wonderful servant of the one true God: 'You remove them from the house, with witnesses, then we cannot be responsible for it'. And look, this He has done in one moment, and thus all our numerous idols in the house have been totally destroyed in a most wonderful way. We all are witnesses of that and cannot be called to account by the priests and still less by a Roman court of law for that, which you all will be able to realize as well as I do.
3
But now that this Man let such unexpected things suddenly happen before our eyes today, let now also our daughter be healed and let the one, only true God be made known and shown to all of us, so that we all can give the honor only to Him and act and live according to His will."
4
All those who were present agreed on that, and the innkeeper with his wife and his children turned now to Me and asked Me to, if that would be possible, heal their sick daughter.
5
And I said: "Since you and your whole family are believing, it also will be done according to your belief. Go now to the room of your daughter and convince yourself if she is already healed. Then bring her here, so that also she can taste this wine of life and would come to know the One who has healed her."
6
After I had said that, they all left hastily the dining room to see if Helena was already healed. When they came to her, they saw that she was completely healthy, and she related that a fire streamed through her and that the fever and all pain and all her former weakness had suddenly left her. This produced a great rejoicing. The daughter left then also immediately her sickbed, dressed herself and was brought with shouts of joy to Me.
7
When she was told that I was the One who had healed her, she knelled at My feet and moistened them with her tears of gratefulness. Also all the others thanked Me for the miraculous healing of Helena.
8
And I said to her: "Stand up, daughter, and drink some wine from the carafe that stands next to you, so that you will be strengthened in your whole body and in your soul."
9
Then Helena stood up easily, took humbly the carafe and drunk out the wine, which strengthened her, and of which she could not stop praising and commending its good taste.
10
When she was strengthened, they all asked Me again to make known and also show to them the one true God, if that would be possible.
11
I said: "Then listen to what I briefly will say to you now.
12
There is almost no Greek, living and doing business in the Jewish land, who is not familiar with the teaching of Moses and the other prophets. The God now who was proclaimed to the Jews, the God who spoke on the Mount Sinai with Moses and who spoke through him and his brother Aaron amidst thunder and lightning, and later also always through the mouth of the prophets and many other wise men, whose more than holy name is Jehovah, is the one, only true, eternal living, most wise, more than good and supremely powerful God, who created out of Himself, the sky, with the sun, the moon and all the stars, and this Earth with all that is in it, on it and above it.
13
Believe in this God, keep His commandments that you know, and love Him above all by keeping His commandments. But love also your fellowmen as each one of you loves himself, that means: do for them everything of which you reasonably want that they would also do for you, then the one, only true God will always be merciful to you and will gladly hear your prayers.
14
Then He will not reveal Himself as a faraway and deaf God to you, but as an always close Father who loves you above all and who will never leave your prayers unheard.
15
This is all that the one, only true God wants - who is also the only true Father of all men. Whoever will do that, will not only be blessed already on this Earth more and more, but will, after the falling away of the body, also receive the eternal life of his soul, and will eternally be there where the Father is, and be more and more happy. Now do you know who the only true God is?"
16
All of them said: "Yes, if He is the One - and we are not doubting this anymore - then we know Him from the Scriptures that are well known to us. We always have liked the teaching of Moses, but because we all too often had to discover that this teaching was observed in a total opposite way, namely by the prominent priests, and because the only true God did not do anything bad to them as punishment for the crimes that they commit to their fellowmen, we thought: what truth can there be in a teaching when the prominent representatives of it and the so-called servants of God are not believing it in the least, which can be seen all too clearly from all their actions.
17
That one should love his fellowman as himself is the first thing that can be concluded from the laws of Moses. However, you should see how the prominent representatives of the teaching of Moses love their fellowmen. One must be stricken with the deepest of blindness if he does not notice that exactly these representatives of the teaching do not believe in it in the least. Because the truth of a real belief should become evident from the actions according to the teaching, and more precisely from those who are representing and spreading the teaching. But when they are showing by their actions before the eyes of everyone, and without any shyness or fear for an only true God, that they believe nothing, then how can we strangers join their teaching?
18
Look, mighty, true servant and priest of the one, only true God, this has always been the reason why we doubted the truth and the realness of the teaching of Moses just as we doubted our polytheism. For the sake of the people and their laws we finally took part in everything, but we ourselves did no more believe in any God - but we believed in the all-controlling powers of nature that we came to know more closely by our scientists.
19
But now, as a result of Your deeds and words, the situation has greatly changed for all of us, and we doubtlessly believe now in the one, only true God of the Jews, who has given such an unheard-of really godly power, because You have of course done always His will.
20
We will adhere simply and solely to the teaching of Moses and never to its representatives in Jerusalem. Yesterday, late in the evening, a couple of those kind of chiefs came from Essaea to us and talked seriously against their own temple establishment and greatly praised the great power and wisdom of the Essenes, and we thought by ourselves: 'If you yourselves are already criticizing so much yourselves, then what must we strangers think about you?' But still, we liked them because they confessed the truth. They continued their way again early this morning. Now as far as the teaching is concerned it is quite clear to us, but there is still one point, and that is Your last promise.
21
You also promised to show us the only true God, which certainly will be possible for You, just like all the other things. Now that You already have made us so happy while we did not ask You for it by letting us know the one, only true God through deed and word, we ask You now also to make our happiness complete by showing us the only true, one God. We are all asking You this very explicitly."