They He said to them: When I sent you without purse and scrip and shoes, did you want for anything? But they said: Nothing." This, it would seem, was the rule of life for the actual preaching the Kingdom of God. But another condition is at hand. He is to be apprehended as a criminal and taken away from them. The kingdom shall for a brief time be suspended and the King shall be swept off by His enemies. And what about the disciples meantime? We shall see further on that He will send them into hiding with orders to go back to Galilee. must be disguised, they must suffer a sort of reversion into the common state of pilgrims sojourning at Jerusalem and returning to their homes. They must be provided with money; each must be ready with his own purse in case they should be scattered. They must carry weapons of defence from the robbers who infested the roads of Palestine. "Then said He unto them: But now he that hath a purse let him take it, and likewise a scrip; and he that hath not, let him sell his coat, and buy a sword. For I say to you, that this that is written must yet be fulfilled in Me: And with the wicked was He reckoned. For the things concerning Me have an end. But they said: Lord, behold here are two swords. And He said to them: It is enough." How sadly they must have recalled the peaceful days of their preaching with Jesus, their working of miracles in His name, every want joyfully supplied by the grateful people. Now all is to be changed. They are to be hunted like wolves, to fly from place to place, hardly getting the bare necessities of life even by paying for them, and obliged to fall back for a time on the natural right of self-defence. Such was the drift of His warning. But as usual they did not fully understand Him, and He quickly resumed His discourse, interrupted by His admonition to Peter and the incident of the swords.* CHAPTER XXXI. THE LAST DISCOURSE CONTINUED: "I AM THE WAY, John xiv. 1-15. As we go onward with the Master this discourse rises higher than even the Sermon on the Mount. It elevates the precepts of brotherly love therein given into the inner life of God. The maxims of human brotherhood are wholly divinized. Joy and peace are the emotions, trustfulness and faith and love the virtues, our Lord's divinity and His relation to the Father and the Spirit the dogmas of this most sublime Sermon, uttered by the Redeemer as He stood on the first ascent of the Mountain of God. As the heavenly promises dropped from the Master's lips, Thomas, the Doubter, gave Him occasion for plainer exposition. "And whither I go you know, and the way you know," said Jesus. He was going to His Father in Heaven through the terrible way of the Cross; they ought to have time, surely. But it was not so. Him: Lord, we know not whither Thou goest, and Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you, that I go to prepare a place for you. And if I shall go, and prepare a place for you: I will come again, and will take you to myself, that where I am, you also may be. known it by this. "Thomas saith to *Another interpretation of the expressions, "Here are two swords— it is enough," is that they meant this as an inventory of their armory wherewith to fight the Jews. Simple men! to dream of fighting the power of the high-priests backed by the legions of Rome with an army of a dozen peasants armed with two swords. According to this opinion our Saviour answered ironically, "It is enough." Or perhaps His answer "It is enough" meant words enough about that matter. how can we know the way?" Instead of answering by again affirming the Cross as the road to the crown, He bent kindly to their feeble comprehension; assuring them that faith in Him and love of Him was the gate to heaven and the key of that gate. "Jesus saith to him: I am the way and the truth and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by Me. If you had known Me, you would without doubt have known My Father also, and from henceforth you shall know Him, and you have seen Him." This was a most puzzling statement of the relation of Jesus to God-the Jehovah of the Jews-and Philip stumbled upon a question whose answer is one of the plainest of our Lord's teachings, that He is the very same God with the eternal Father. First He adverts to His Philip saith to him: Lord, shew us the Father, and it is enough for us. Jesus saith to him: So long a time have I been with you and have you not known me? Philip, he that seeth me, seeth the Father also How sayest thou, shew us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak to you, I speak not of myself. teaching: His words are so stamped But the Father who abideth in me, he doth the works. Believe you not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? Otherwise believe for the very works' sake. with power that they make the mind ready for a high claim; and second, the works of Jesus are those of one who is Lord and Master of all things, especially master of the secret of His own identity. The Wonderworker of the ages is the Truth-teller of the ages, and herein He makes Himself one with God the Father. "I am in the Father and the Father is in Me." Jesus then proceeds to explain the Apostles' share in His mission from the Father. It is the perpetuation in His Church of a miraculous faith. The Church takes His place on earth as wonder-worker after He goes to His Father, increasing in volume and efficacy the evidences of His divinity by the teaching of all truth and the working of all miracles. "Amen, amen, I say to you, he that believeth in Me, the works that I do, He also shall do, and greater than these shall he do, because I go to the Father." Jesus then adds the gift of prayer, again making Himself the equal of the Father in His statement of the motive for the efficacy of prayer. "And whatsoever you shall ask the Father in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you shall ask Me anything in My name, that will I do." Finally, as if to settle them down to a plain precept, yet an all-embracing one, He says, "If you love Me, keep My commandments." If they were mystified by His loftier teachings, here was something homely and on a level with their understanding. Love and obedience are the two sole requisites for the highest aspirations; the first is the substance of the spiritual life, and the other the test of our possessing it. CHAPTER XXXII. THE LAST DISCOURSE CONTINUED: JESUS DISCOURSES OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.-HOW THE FATHER AND THE SON AND THE SPIRIT dwell IN THE CHURCH AND IN THE SOUL OF EACH CHRISTIAN. John xiv. 16-31. POSSESSING obedience and love, the soul of man possesses God. And Jesus now teaches very explicitly how God is our Father. It is because His Son, who lives by the Father, lives in us by the Father's love, which is God the Spirit. Thus Jesus, who is the Divine Word, mediates through the Divine Spirit between man and the Heavenly Father, and in that manner effectuates the filiation of the soul with God. On this particular occasion the Apostles are especially And I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever. The Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, nor knoweth him: but you shall know him; because he shall abide with you, and shall be in you. I will meant as the recipients of God the Holy Ghost, obtained by their Advocate, Jesus the Son of God. The Divine Spirit is to comfort them with the assurance of the certain truth not leave you orphans: I will come to you. generating the Church's faith, as Yet a little while: and the world seeth me no more. But you see me: because I live, and you shall live. In that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. He that hath my com mandments, and keepeth them: he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me, shall be loved of my Father: and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him well as investing them and their successors with the gift of unerring teaching authority. This is high doctrine. But the last words of their Master were nearer the comprehension of the disciples: "He that loveth Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to Him." This gives to each believer a personal share of the treasure of divine influence promised to the Church. The Apostle St. Jude asked for instruction about the method or process of Christ's union with them. "Judas saith to him, not the Iscariot: Lord, how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself to us, and not to the world?" The answer of Jesus is most instructive. The first condition for obtaining the indwelling Divinity is simply love. The method of loving is to love, the process of loving is to love in other words, we begin to have God as our soul's Father and Brother and Spouse by the inspiration of love from on high. This inner love works outwardly and inwardly by obedience, the keeping of our Saviour's law-" he will keep My word." To the outward brotherhood, as well as to the inward conscience, this obedience is the test of our possessing the divine love; it is likewise the first fruit of love. But the imparting of this life of love is not a wholly spiritual act; it is both spiritual and external; it is visible and invisible; |