The Great Gospel of John
Volume 8
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and His adversaries
- Chapter 212 -
The food miracle of the Lord.
We still were all sitting together at our table, and when Roklus with his brothers found us like that, he was very glad. But he thought that I had spoken many words of salvation and life during the time that he was with the Pharisees.
2
I said: "Dear friend and even brother, do not be afraid about that, for I only have related to My disciples how and what you have discussed, completely according to My will, with the Pharisees, with the sick, with the chiefs and finally with the innkeeper and again with the sick. You really were a reliable working tool for Me against My enemies, and because you were loyal to Me in what is small, I will also set you over greater things.
3
But come now and sit again with your brothers at My side, for the midday meal will be served immediately - a meal that I have ordered Myself out of My inexhaustible storeroom, and so also the wine from My cellar. Because you and your brothers have become for Me, the Lord, very competent workers for My fields and vineyards, so you should be served by Me in the best way on this day, in this time."
4
At these words our innkeeper came into the dining hall and said somehow embarrassed to Me: "Lord and Master, when I helpfully asked You before what kind of midday meal I had to prepare for You, You mercifully said that I did not have to worry about that this afternoon, for this time You would prepare a midday meal Yourself. However, we have waited for You for more than 1 hour in the kitchen in vain and have done nothing for this table. But now it should be time to put the food on the table and nothing has been prepared yet. What should I do now?"
5
I said: "O friend, how useless are your worries. Do you think that I, just as you men, need a full storeroom, a kitchen and a cellar that is richly provided with full wine pitchers? Look, now I am among My friends, who have well recognized Me and who also have done a good work in My name. And by the power of My word and their faith in Me they have done great signs. Therefore I want now also to perform a deed of wonder for them. In the kitchen there is indeed nothing that is ready for us, but just look now at the tables."
6
When I had said that, all the plates that still remained there since the morning meal were full of the best food, consisting of fishes of the most noble kind, well-prepared meat of calf and lamb, all kinds of sweet fruits and very good bread. And so also all carafes were filled to the brim with the best of wine that strengthens the heart and revives the inward parts.
7
When the innkeeper saw that, he beat his hands on his chest and said: "O Lord and Master. Whoever sees that and would still not believe that in You resides God's Spirit and His might, power and authority in all its fullness, must be struck in his soul and mind with a thousandfold blindness.
8
It is true that everything is a wonder, arising from Your might and wisdom, and Heaven and this Earth are full of Your works, however the fact that these are wonders is not catching our attention so much because already since our birth we are used to a repeated originating, existing and then its decay, but this sudden coming into existence of such food that otherwise can only be prepared by human hands, and also of the wine, coming completely from nothing, is something sky-high different.
9
For if a tree grows up gradually out of a grain of seed, becomes big and strong and starts to bear fruits, then all kinds of means can be seen as a cause that is the result of those means. But what are the means here? There is no tree here at which these different fruits were grown and were ripened by the light and the warmth of the sun. On which field was this grain reaped to make this delicious bread? In which water were these fishes caught, where were the lambs and the calf slaughtered, and at which fire were they prepared so well, and in which vineyard was this wine grown?
10
Everything came suddenly into existence, only by the endless power of Your will. And this is now exactly what brings me to utter amazement, more precisely because You, who are unmistakably the initial Creator of all things in Heaven and on Earth, have made, according to my experience, everything to exist only progressively and in an unchangeable order by which one thing comes from the other, but here it was one moment, and that which was nothing before became suddenly that which fills now the dining tables, and this before our amazed eyes and hearts. O Lord and Master in Your Spirit already since eternity, would it then also not be possible for You to call a whole world to a perfect existence, and to let also all the other things exist at the same moment by which men would be spared all the work and effort and a lot of worries?"
11
I said: "O yes, friend, that I certainly could do if it would be useful for men to fall back into complete laziness and thus also to soon sink into all matter and its judgment. But since I want that man, in this worldly life for the testing of the free will, would acquire through all kinds of activities, more and more experience, and resulting from that, the knowledge, and would know God and himself, then the world itself and everything that is in and on it must come into existence and must exist as it came into existence and as it exists.
12
Look, this is very briefly the reason why I let everything on the material worlds to exist as well as to decay progressively, for the material worlds with everything that is in, on and above them, are not created to exist eternally, but only the souls of men who come from the judgment of matter and who make themselves strong in man for the imperishable, eternal life, and in this manner they also become stronger in My Spirit in all love for Me.
13
But if I make here among My spiritual now almost perfected disciples and friends a little exception of My initial eternal order, then through that not one soul will be brought to a destructive laziness and lasting inactivity, and by this I have shown to you all that with God everything is possible.
14
But come and sit now also with us and eat and drink. After eating we still will find some time to have a good discussion about this and that."
15
Then the innkeeper went to sit at our table, ate and drank well with us, and could not find the words to commend and praise the good quality of the food, and also all the others did the same.