The Great Gospel of John
Volume 7
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord on the Mount of Olives. (cont.) Gospel of John, Chapter 8
- Chapter 12 -
The meal at the inn.
When we arrived at the top, all the slaves were standing in proper order and greeted Me from a distance, saying: "Hail to you, dear, good Father; since you rescued us and have freed us from our hard bonds! You have given us new and very beautiful clothes, so that we are looked upon with delight, and you have fed us with very good food and strengthening and sweet tasting drinks! O you good, loving Father, come, come, so that we can thank you with our love!"
2
When I was close to them, they crowded around Me and kissed and embraced Me.
3
But the disciples cautioned them, not to crowd around Me with such intensity.
4
But I said to the disciples: "Leave them their most innocent joy; verily, I say to you: Who doesn't love Me like one of these true children here, shall not come to me! Since who is not drawn by the Father (in Me), will not come to the Son (the wisdom in God). But they are drawn by the Father, and therefore they crowd around Me like this. They do not know yet who I am, but they have recognised the Father in Me so much better than you up to this hour. How do you like that?"
5
The disciples kept quite, but felt it strongly, that they haven't accepted Me in their hearts with such love as these children from the otherwise so cold north.
6
After these children have embraced and thanked Me for everything, they retreated very orderly and we went into the house and sat at the tables in the same order as the previous day, except that four poor people sat according to the good will of Agrikola, at the table of the Romans. The slave traders with Hibram sat alongside the seven Pharisees, and after everything was ordered, the food was brought in consisting of plenty wine and bread, so that the slave traders could not conceal their amazement over such a rich meal. Raphael sat alongside Me, in order to be quick at hand, should I require his services.
7
The four poor people were, for easily understandable reasons, dressed in very poor and badly worn clothes, and Lazarus, sitting also alongside Me, was very sympathetic about it.
8
Therefore he said to Me (Lazarus): "Lord, I have many clothes at home! How about it, if I send someone to Bethany to get some clothes for these poor people? Perhaps also sister Maria could come and find a lot of joy here!"
9
I said: "Friend, your concern about the poor is very dear to Me, and therefore I have come to stay in your house; but this time I shall look after them, just as I have provided before for the children who are joyful outside! The two sisters are very much occupied with the many strangers and are needed in your house; but when I leave from here, I shall anyhow first come to you in Bethany and see and speak to your sisters. You will soon see these four poor people in better clothes, namely Roman clothes. But let them first strengthen their inner body and their limbs, - thereupon their outer body will also be looked after! - Are you satisfied with that?"
10
Said Lazarus: "Lord, completely; since only what You want and arrange is good and perfectly right! But now let's eat and drink, and after we have been strengthened, we can talk about many different things."
11
All ate and drank with joy and could not praise enough the good and friendly service and the good tasting food as well as the pleasant, heart cheering wine. The slave traders were completely overjoyed and conceded that during all their earlier travels to even the more southerly countries, they never have tasted such exceptionally good wine.
12
One of the Pharisees at the same table added to this: "Yes, yes, my dear faraway friends, in the house of the father very often the ill-bred children live better than somewhere else far away from the fatherly house!"
13
Said Hibram: "How should we understand this?"
14
Said the of course completely converted Pharisee, pointing towards Me: "See, there sits the eternal most true Father among us. His ill-bred children, who are we, all the people of this world! Those, who come to Him, recognise Him and love Him, are His better children, and through His wisdom and through His almighty will He provides for them in every aspect, that they already live well on this earth, but even better after this physical life in the realm of the everlasting spirits, who never die, but live for ever. And see, this is what I meant, that even the ill-bred children are nowhere better off than in the house of their true Father! - Do you understand this?"
15
Said Hibram: "Yes, yes, I understand this now, and you have spoken perfectly good and true; but this man is actually God, and as such He is to too elevated to be a Father of us wicked people! I would even regard it as very presumptuous to call Him Father!"
16
Said the Pharisee: "You are of course not altogether wrong; but He Himself teaches us this and threatens everybody, who does not believe this in his soul, with exclusion from a most blessed, eternal life and shows us, that He alone is the Creator and most true Father of all mankind, and therefore we must believe this, but also to live on this earth according to His most holy will announced to us, so that thereby we can become worthy, to be His children. If He Himself teaches us this, then we must accept it with great love and gratitude and do what He teaches us, Since He alone knows, where we stand, and to what purpose He called us into existence."
17
With this very good teaching our slave traders were completely satisfied and continued eating and drinking and conversed with the Pharisees, as good as their tongues allowed them to. But with time they understood each other increasingly better, since one of the Pharisees was quite knowledgeable about the primeval Hebrew language, which the descendants of the northern part of India were using to give their thoughts space and form in a less spoiled way.