The Childhood of Jesus
The Gospel of James
Biographical Gospel of the Lord
- Chapter 170 -
Great Thoughts Other Than Love Are Vain
AFTER THIS MEAL, during which Jonathan wept many tears of joy and also of remorse, Jonathan asked Joseph,
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'Joseph, my old childhood friend, oh tell me truly how incomparably happy you must really be when you consider the greatness of your calling?
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What do you feel when you look at the little Child and the living faith of your heart tells you: See, the little Child is God Jehovah Zebaoth,
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who talked with Adam, with Enoch, with Noah, with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob -
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who delivered our fathers from this land's hard bondage through Moses, and Himself gave the Law in the desert
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and for forty years fed the many people in the desert where nothing grows than only an occasional bush of thorns or a thistle,
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who spoke through the mouth of the saints and prophets?
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'Oh Joseph, say, oh tell me, what do you feel in the presence of Him who laid the foundations of heaven and earth?
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Yes, who created the angels and made the first pair of human beings and gave them life with His living breath!
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Tell me, when you think that over, is it possible for you to speak?
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Does the beholding of the Child not bind your tongue to such an extent that you must remain silent in too great reverence for Him who always was?'
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And Joseph answered Jonathan: 'You do right that you ask me thus;
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but just consider for yourself - what shall I do? It is after all like that, and I must bear the Most High just as if He were something low - otherwise I could not possibly continue.
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'See, God is after all God, and we are His creatures! He is everything, and we are all nothing!
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This relationship is arithmetically correct - now can you even in your loftiest thoughts change anything in this relationship?
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So you see, your questions are vain! Even if I had a heart as big as the earth and a head as big as the sky, and then would entertain thoughts and feelings before which all the angels would quake,
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say, what service would I thereby render Him who carries the whole infinity in His right hand like I carry a grain of sand?
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Would I thereby be more of a human being and God the less God?
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'So you see, your question is vain! I can only love the little Child with all my strength and render Him the necessary service which He requires of me!
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All other dealing in great thoughts I lay aside because I well know my greatest and loftiest thought to be an utter, vain nothing compared to God's greatness!'
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This answer gave Jonathan thoughts of quite a different nature, and he afterwards asked Joseph no more such questions.