The Great Gospel of John
Volume 2
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Second Journey of the Lord: Nazareth - Cave at Bethabara (First Feeding of the People) - Mountain of Prayer - Walking on the Sea of Galilee (Peter's test of faith) - By ship to Genneseret in the bay with the same name
- Chapter 96 -
The disciples upon the stormy sea.
It shall be understandable that this did not put the disciples into the best of dispositions, causing them to make all kinds of remarks and comments about Me, and even a Peter was saying: "Did He have nothing better for us this night than to offer us certain death by the waves? This truly is a bit strange of Him! I hardly dare rowing any further because a few yards further we are unto shallows, rocks and sandbanks, and I as a grey-haired seaman vouch for nothing further! Hence it will be better to stay on the high till morning!"
2
Says Thomas: "But I am anxious to know what His intention was with quite categorically dismissing us so suddenly to travel over here ahead of Him!"
3
Says Andrew: "So far as I know there is no ship upon the arid shore - question - How will He follow us? If He intends going by land it would take Him at least fourteen hours to get to the lower end of the sea over Sibarah where we intend landing; if however He wants to get there buy the upper part of the sea then it will take Him a two day journey, because there the sea is at its widest, with many sharp inlets and extensive marshes."
4
Says Judas Iscariot: "You know nothing, all of you! I have noticed long since that we have become tiresome to Him, but no favourable opportunity came for ridding Himself of us in an appropriate manner. And behold, the opportunity came and He got rid of us and we of Him! And we can go looking for Him with all the flares, yet hardly get to ever see Him again. Whether this is, between ourselves, praiseworthy of Him is another matter!"
5
Says John the darling: "No, this He shall not do eternally! There I have known Him long and well enough! This He would not do even as a mere human, let alone the Son of God, which He is surely without any further doubt, embodying God's Spirit in all fullness. That He did so is bound, like everything else that has happened so far, to have its most wise reason, and so this too will have its most wise reason. And I sense it animatedly that we shall shortly convince ourselves of it!
6
My God, if He Whom heaven and earth obey wanted us out of His way it would need only the feeblest breath from His mouth, and we would all be standing on the other end of the world, just as it was the case about three weeks or at the most a month ago upon the alps of Kis, which can still easily be seen from here, when it also required only one breath from His mouth, and we had a lightning-fast trip through the air and were with Him upon the heights a moment later! My dear brother Judas, just don't come to me with such absurd silly opinions about Him, because therewith you always shall only testify your faithlessness!"
7
Says Nathanael, who also was in the ship: "On the whole I share brother John's opinion, but I would add that notwithstanding all our scrupulousness we still may have sinned against Him somewhere or somehow and He may not have wished to tell us but to leave us to ourselves so that we should introspect more thoroughly. He is bound to come back to us once we have fully cleansed ourselves.
8
Of course I have by now examined my conscience with fearful deliberation, yet am unable to find what would seem as unrighteousness to me. Verily, a conscious sin would now do me a real favour, for it would pay to repent in sackcloth and ashes! Verily, I now envy a sinner. Far be it from me that I should like to become a sinner on that account, but my heart would feel more at ease. Oh, how sweet it must be to be a true penitent before God and men! But how can a righteous man put on the garment of stiff penitence without making himself laughable before God?"
9
Says Bartholomew: "Oh what strange ideas you have sometimes. To whom would it ever occur to extol a sinner as more blessed than a righteous man?"
10
Says John: "He is not altogether wrong. Of course here, a sinner from weakness and occasional ill-considered passion is to be understood rather than a cunning servant of hell; and there our brother Nathanael may not be altogether wrong!"
11
Says Jacob: "Yes, brethren! Our Nathanael is a man on whose wisdom we all of us together have nothing, for he knows how to fetch it from the depths. He is always the quiet one and of few words; but when he speaks, one has to hear him! For his words are portentous always."
12
Says Nathanael: "Now, now, brother Jacob, don't always praise me when I say something from time to time, for the Lord knows only too well how much there is to my wisdom; for if there was much to it then I too would have become a messenger of the Lord long since, like yourself; but as things are I am still only a student because the Lord is bound to know what I am still lacking. I do indeed have a poetic, but far from prophetic spirit; behold our young brother John here, he is a prophet already from the cradle; this the Lord knows and has therefore made him His secret scribe!"
13
Says John: "Oh, what rot! What would brother Matthew then have to be?"
14
Says Nathanael: "He is the Lord's public scribe - but only yourself His secret one!"
15
Says John: "Could be so. And if so, then the Lord wants it thus, and we must take it as the Lord gives it to us."
16
Growls Judas Iscariot: "Probably won't give you anything henceforth. The hour glass has already run out four times whilst we are still floating here between air and water, which is to say between life and death, and I still don't detect a conveyance following after us."
17
Says John: "Nor does this matter, since He did not specify a time when He would catch up with us."
18
Says Judas: "For this He will have His wise reason. We understand!"
19
Says John: "Friend, say to me honestly for once whether, after all that you have seen and heard with your very own eyes and ears and surely felt and perceived with all your senses, you still don't believe that our Lord, as surely as I am John, truly is God and that all power in the endless heavens and on this earth for creating, managing and reigning is totally subject to Him! I beg you, tell me honestly."