The Great Gospel of John
Volume 8
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and His adversaries
- Chapter 50 -
The gratefulness of the Romans to Mary of Magdalon.
When we still were enjoying ourselves for awhile on that hill, we all saw Mary of Magdalon coming to the inn of Lazarus, and she immediately took information from his servants about Me. They told her however that she had to wait until I would be back. When she soon could clearly see us on the hill, she did not allow them to stop her and ran quickly to us.
2
When she came near to the place where we were, Agricola came to meet her, greeted her friendly and took her then to us where the other Romans also greeted her in a very friendly way.
3
She (Mary of Magdalon) said however: "I really do not know for what reason such an honor is granted to me. I am only a sinner and deserve it to be deeply despised by all the people, but the fact that I am worthy of any honor, and especially of such highly ranked lords as you are, is quite above my understanding. I only came to this place to thank the Lord of my life because He delivered me of the evil spirits of the flesh, but I did not come here to let myself be honored."
4
Agricola said: "Listen, dear Mary of Magdalon. All of us, who have come here from Rome have a lot to be grateful about to you, for if you had not shown us about 8 days ago the way to here and had not lead us to this place, we might not have had the eternal invaluable happiness to know personally the Lord of all life and of everything, to recognize Him as the only true God and to learn to love Him above all. Look, that is the only reason why we are so grateful to you and will also remain so from now on. Therefore, do not be too surprised that we are meeting you with such great gratitude. For we consider this to be our duty because you have given us such an invaluable great happiness.
5
For we have a good law of state according to which the one who has received a great and true happiness by someone, has to remain extremely grateful to that person for the rest of his life in attitude, words and deeds, even if the person by whose action a great happiness fell to another person, did not know that he would bring happiness to his fellowman. This gratitude should also be extended to the descendants of the person who was the cause of the happiness.
6
However, what are material earthly possessions that a person can receive from another compared to the pure spiritual possessions, which we have received here? By this we have found the only true God, and through Him ourselves who were lost, and the true life of our souls. And this is infinitely much more than when you had given us all treasures of the world. And that is why we are forever indebted a great gratitude to you because you are the person who made this mostly possible.
7
If you would be poor in earthly possessions we would royally reward you, but since you are already richly provided with the goods of this Earth, we cannot express our gratitude in any other way except by our friendly, well-meant and unfeigned words as they came out of our hearts, and I suppose that you will not reject such gratitude that we owe you?"
8
Now Mary of Magdalon said also in a kind voice: "It certainly is very nice and kind of you noble Romans that you want to be and remain grateful to me for the fact that I gave you by coincidence - really unintentionally - such an endless great happiness, which is easy to understand, but nevertheless, for this reason I deserve no gratitude because all that was the will of the Lord, and I was only His dumb and blind instrument. Thus, you only owe gratitude and honor to Him."
9
Agricola said again: "Oh dear, lovely Mary of Magdalon. We also know that we only owe all our gratitude to Him, but we reason like this: if we truly and completely want to prove our gratitude to the Lord for the infinite great mercy that He has now given us so extremely abundantly, then we still may not look disdainful upon the instrument that He used for our sanctification, but we must also honor it because of the Lord. And only in this respect we are honoring you also, apart from the question if you were a seeing or only a blind instrument in the almighty hand of the Lord for this our very great happiness of life, and I am of the opinion that also this will be taken into account in the future. For if we would not want to greet the instrument of the Lord with a thankful heart, what would happen to true neighborly love, which we - according to the teaching of the Lord - even owe to our enemies, and even more so to those by whom the Lord gave us such great gifts of mercy?
10
Look, you who are now our very lovely and unforgettable friend, I am right in this and I will not allow anybody to dispute it, and now not in the least by you whom the Lord had chosen to be our leading star for happiness and who we therefore owe honor and true love. Therefore, allow me that which is my good right."
11
Mary of Magdalon said: "Yes, yes, in that respect, high lord, you are completely right, but I myself will glorify and praise the Lord, my only love, forever, for He made me - a great sinner - a blind and dumb instrument. For if I had known that He was up here, I would not have brought you here because I, who am a too great sinner, would not have dared to come close to the Lord since I am all too deeply convinced about the truth of His teaching and of His holy godly Being, and can also perceive that a sinner, as I was, can never be or become worth to come near to His very holy personality.
12
But firstly I did not know that the Lord was staying here with His faithful disciples. However, I knew that this inn is one of the best of all Jerusalem. And because strangers usually visit this place, I have brought you here when you held me up in a street in the city and asked me for a good inn. Therefore, humanly speaking, I only can claim your gratitude, which is due to me as guide to a good inn. But for the fact that you have received here the highest grace from the Lord, I really do not deserve any gratitude since it impossibly could have been my intention to give this here to you. Indeed, I could not have known that you would receive such a grace here. Therefore, give all thanks and all honor to the Lord, and so, do not think about me. This is even my urgent request to you."
13
Then I said: "Listen, My Mary. You have now spoken very well and truly and you are completely right where it concerns you, but also the Romans are right where it concerns them. When you are giving Me all honor and thanks, you show that you are completely filled with the true spirit of humility, for which reason also all your sins are forgiven. But also the Romans are showing that they are permeated with the right spirit of neighborly love, and are therefore not committing a sin against Me if out of gratitude they are keeping you in mind, even if you were only a blind instrument of My love and My will.
14
But by this opportunity I say to you all: it is true that you should not look for gratitude and honor from the people to whom you have done something good in My name, just as I also am not looking for it from the people, for He who lives in Me, is My supreme honor. But if the people will put you to shame for the highest good deeds of life given in My name and will treat you with ingratitude, then I will hold it against them as if they had done this to Me. For he who does not honor the true disciple who I have awakened, and is not grateful to him in My name, he also does not honor Me, the Lord and Master, and he also is not grateful to Me for the grace that was given to him.
15
For if I awaken disciples and prophets, then this does not only happen for the sake of those disciples and prophets, but for the sake of all men, and therefore the disciples and prophets should be valued also as that for what they are called be Me. Thus, whoever will accept with love and true gratitude a disciple or a prophet in My name, I will also accredit it to him as if he had accepted Me, and therefore he also will once receive the reward of a disciple or a prophet. And their reward will certainly not be small.
16
But woe to the false disciples and prophets who will let themselves be honored by the people, just like the Pharisees and high priests, and will even demand it lawfully from the people. Truly, those will be regarded as thieves and robbers and will once be made ashamed before the eyes of all the angels. The more honor they will demand in this world for themselves, the more of the worst shame they will once have to expect.
17
Also this you all have to remember well - and this you also can easily do - for if you look in the right light at My command of true and pure neighborly love, you very easily will understand that every real and true human being is hurt most of all by the stinking pride of his fellowman.