THE MARRIAGE AT CANA

THE MARRIAGE AT CANA

Jesus liked to go to weddings. For the man of the people who very seldom gives way to lavishness and happiness, who never eats and drinks as much as he would like, the day of his wedding is the most remarkable of all his life, a rich passage of generous joy in his long, drab, commonplace existence. Wealthy people who can have banquets every evening, mod­erns who gulp down in a day what would have sufficed for a week to the poor man of olden times, no longer feel the solemn joyfulness of that day. But the poor man in the old days, the workingman, the countryman, the Oriental who lived all the year round on barley-bread, dried figs and a few fish and eggs, and only on great days killed a lamb or a kid, the man accustomed to stretch himself, to calculate closely, to dispense with many things, to be satisfied with what is strictly necessary, saw in weddings the truest and greatest festival of his life. The other festivals, those of the people and those of the Church, were the same for everybody, and they are repeated every twelfth month; but a wedding was his very own festival and only came once for him in all the phase of his years.

Then all the delights and splendors of the world were cen­tered on the bride and groom, to make the day unfor­gettable for them. Torches went at night to meet the groom with singers, dancers and musicians. The house was filled with abundance, all sorts of meats cooked in all sorts of ways; wine-skins of wine leaning against the walls, vases of lotions for the friends; light, music, perfumes, joy, dancing; noth­ing was lacking for the gratification of the senses. On that one day all the things which are the daily privilege of princes and rich men triumphed in the poor man's house.

Jesus was pleased by this innocent joy, and touched by the exultation of those simple souls, snatched for those few hours from the gloomy, meagre poverty of their everyday life. In weddings He saw more than a mere festival. Marriage is the highest effort of the youth of man to conquer chance with love, with the union of two affections, with the joining of two loving youths. It is the affirmation of a double faith in life, in the continuity and stability of life. The man who marries is a hostage in the hands of human society. Making himself the head of a new society and father of a new generation, he frees himself while he professes to bind himself. Marriage is a promise of happiness, and an acceptance of suffering. Illusion and conscience have their part in it. In the shadow of tragedy, which sends over the future a trembling hope of joy, is the heroic and holy greatness of marriage, which cannot be dis­pensed with, and yet, in the light of selfish reason, should not be accepted. Who has ever seen, except in this case, a con­demnation so eagerly longed for?

For Jesus marriage has a still deeper meaning: it is the beginning of something eternal. Marriage was performed by God Himself and created by Him for Adam and Eve in the beginning. Whom God hath joined, man cannot put asunder. When hearts have been united and bodies joined, no law nor sword can sever them. In this our human life, changeable, short-lived, evasive, failing, frail, there is only one thing that ought to last forever till death and beyond death, —marriage, the only link of eternity in the perishable chain.

Jesus often speaks of weddings and banquets. Among the most beautiful parables is that of the King who sent out in­vitations to the wedding of his son, that other of the Virgins who wait by night for the arrival of the bridegroom's friend; and that of the Lord who prepared a banquet. Christ com­pares Himself to a bridegroom feasted by His friends when He answers those who are scandalized because His disciples eat and drink. (See article on the Jewish Wedding.)

He did not despise wine, and when with His Twelve, He drinks that wine which is His blood, He thinks of the new wine of the Kingdom. It is not surprising therefore that He should have accepted the invitation to the wedding at Cana. Everyone knows the miracle He wrought that day. Six jars of water were changed by Jesus into wine, and into wine better than that which had been drunk. Old rationalists say that this was a present of wine kept hidden until then, a surprise of Jesus at the end of the meal, in honor of the bride and groom. And six hundred quarts of wine, they add, are a fine present, showing the liberality of the Master.

These Voltairian vermin have not noticed that only John, the man of allegories, the philosophizer, tells of the Marriage at Cana. It was not a sleight-of-hand trick, but a true change, performed with the power of Spirit over matter, revealing Him as the Creator, and at the same time it is one of those Parables in fact, instead of in words, a Parable told by actual deeds.

But whoever does not stop at the literal meaning of the story, sees that the water turned into wine symbolizes the new epoch which begins with the Gospel. Before the Annun­ciation and the vigil in the desert, water was enough; the world was left to sorrow. But now the joyful tidings are come, the Kingdom is at hand, happiness is near. Men are about to pass from sadness to joy, from the widowhood of the old law to the new marriage with the new law. The Bridegroom is with us. Now is no time for sadness, but for enthusiasm. There will be no more fasting but rejoicings; no more water but wine.

Remember the words of the steward to the Bridegroom, "Every man at the beginning hath set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but Thou hast kept the good wine until now." (John 2:10) Such was the old usage, the usage of the Jews of old times and of the heathen. But Jesus meant to overturn this old Greek tribal usage also. The men of old gave the good and then the poor; He, after the good wine, gives better. Sour, non-ripened wine, the poor qual­ity which was drunk at the beginning, symbolizes the wine of the old law, the wine that has turned sour and can no longer be drunk. Christ's wine, finer and stronger, which cheers the heart and warms the blood, is the new wine of the Kingdom, wine intended for the marriage of Heaven and earth, wine which gives that divine intoxication which will be called later, "the foolishness of God." (1 Cor. 1:25)

The marriage of Cana, which in John is the first miracle is an allegory of the evangelical revolution.

LAZARUS AWAKENED

LAZARUS AWAKENED

Lazarus and Jesus loved each other. More than once Jesus had eaten in his house at Bethany with him and his sisters. Now one day Lazarus fell ill, and sent word of it to Jesus. And Jesus answered, "This sickness is not unto death." (John 11:4) Two days went by. But on the third day He said to His disciples, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." (John 11:11) He was near to Bethany when Martha came to meet Him as if to reproach Him.

"Lord, if Thou hadst been here my brother had not died." (John 11:21) And a little later Mary too said, "Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." (John 11:32) Their repeated reproach touched Jesus, not because He feared He had come too late, but because He was always saddened by the lack of faith even of those dearest to Him.

"And be said, where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. . . . Jesus therefore again groan­ing in Himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone." (John 11:34-39)

Martha, the housekeeper, the practical, concrete character, interrupted, "Lord, by this time he stinks: for he hath been dead four days." (Vs. 39) But Jesus did not heed her, "Take away the stone." And the stone was rolled away. Jesus made a short prayer, His face lifted towards the sky, drew near to the bole and called His friend in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth." (John 11:43)

And Lazarus came forth, stumbling, for his hands and feet were shrouded and his face covered with a napkin.

"Loose him, and let him go." (Vs. 44)

And all four, followed by the Twelve and by a throng of thunderstruck Jews, returned to the house. Lazarus' eyes grew accustomed again to the light. He walked on his feet, although with pain, and used his hands. Martha, moving rapidly, got together the best dinner she could in the confusion after four days of demoralized sorrow—and the man come back to life after death ate with his sister and his friends. Mary could scarcely swallow a mouthful of food, nor take her eyes from the conqueror of death, who, having wiped the tears from His eyes, broke His bread and drank His wine as if this day were like any other day.

These are the resurrections narrated by the Evangelists, and from their account we can draw some observations which will allow us to dispense with learned, that is to say with unsuit­able, commentaries. In all His life, Jesus raised from the dead only three persons, and this He did, not to make a show of His power and to strike the imagination of the people, but only because He was touched by the sorrow of those who loved the dead, to console a mother, a father, and two sisters. Two of these resurrections were public; one that of the daughter of Jairus, was accomplished in the presence of very few, and Jesus asked those few to say nothing about it.

Another point, and the most important; in all these three eases Jesus spoke to the dead person as if he were not dead but only asleep. He had no time to say anything about the condition of the son of the widow, because that decision was taken too rapidly, but even to him, He said, as to a child, idly oversleeping, "Young man, I say unto thee, arise." (Luke 7:14) When they told Him that the daughter of Jairus was dead, He an­swered, "Weep not, she is not dead but sleepeth." (Luke 8:52) When they confirmed the news of the death of Lazarus, He insisted, "He is not dead but sleepeth." (John 11:11) He made no claim to bring back from the dead, only to awaken. Death for Him was only a sleep, a deeper sleep than the common sleep of everyday, a sleep only to be broken by a superhuman love. This love was for the survivors more than for the dead; it was the love of one whose tears flow at the sight of others' tears - compassion.

TALITHA QUMI

TALITHA QUMI

"The dead shall arise!" (Psa. 88:10) This is one of the signs which are to suffice for John the Baptist in prison. To the good sister, to the hard-working Martha, Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth, and believeth in me, shall never die." (John 11:25) The resurrection is a rebirth in faith, immortality is the permanent affirmation of this faith.*

The Evangelists know three resurrections, historical events narrated with a sober but explicit statement of the evidence. Jesus raised up three who were dead: a young lad, a little girl, and a friend. (Matt. 9:18; Luke 7:12; John 11:14)*

He was entering Nain, "the beautiful" set on a little hill some miles from Nazareth, and met a funeral procession. They were carrying to the grave the young son of a widow. She had lost her husband a short time before; this son alone had been left to her; now they were carrying away the son in turn for burial. Jesus saw the mother walking among the women, weeping with the amazed and smothered grief of mothers which is so profoundly moving. She had only two men in all the world who loved her; the first one was dead, the second was now dead; one after the other, both of them disappeared. She was left alone, a woman alone without a man. Without a husband, without a son, without a help, a prop, a comfort. Gone the love that was a memory of youth, gone the love that was hope for declining years. Gone both those poor, simple loves. A husband can console his wife for the loss of their son; a son can make up for the loss of a husband. If only one had been left! Now her lips were never to know another kiss.

Jesus had compassion on this mother; her grief was like an accusation. "Weep not," (Luke 7:13) he said.

He went to the side of the lifeless and touched him. The boy was lying there stretched out, wrapped in his shroud, but with his face uncovered, set in the stern paleness of the dead. The bearers halted; all were silent; even the mother, startled, was quiet.

"Young man, I say unto thee, Arise." (Luke 7:14) And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And He delivered him to his mother. He "delivered" him because he was now hers. Jesus had taken him from the land of death to give him back to her who could not live without him, that a mother might cease from weeping.

Another day as he was returning from Gadara, a father fell at His feet. His only little daughter lay at the point of death. The man's name was Jairus, and although he was a leader at the Synagogue he believed in Jesus. They went along to­gether. When they were half-way, a servant met them, saying, "Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master." (Mark 5:35) But when Jesus heard it, He answered him, saying, "Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole." (Mark 5:36) And when He came into the house He suffered no man to go in, except Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother of the maiden. And all wept, and bewailed her: but He said, "Weep not; she is not dead, but sleeps." (Mark 5:39) And they laughed Him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. And He put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, "Maid, arise." (Mark 5:41) And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway: and He com­manded to give her meat. She was not a visible spirit, a ghost, but a living body, awakened a little weak, ready for a new day after feverish dreams.

In the New Testament it was this of which the Apostle Paul spoke to his people as "the hope and resurrection of the dead” (Acts 23:6, Acts 24:21, Acts 26:6-8). Our Lord referred to the same event as a special resurrection in which only those would participate who are "sons of God, being sons of the resurrection" (Luke 20:35-36, ASV); and in another place He speaks of it as "the resurrection of the just" (Luke 14:14). To have a part in this resurrection was  so great a prize, according to the Apostle Paul, that he could afford to lose everything in its attainment; and actually count the loss as nothing (Phil. 3:8-11). In the light of this well-attested Biblical doctrine, it would be passing strange if nothing were said about it in the Apocalypse which is pre-eminently the New Testament book of the coming Kingdom.

“But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage” (Luke 20:35)

THE ANSWER TO JOHN

THE ANSWER TO JOHN

Jesus heals the sick, but He is in no way like a wizard or an exorcist. He has no recourse to chants, to charms, to smoke, veils and mystery. He does not call to His aid the powers of Heaven or Hell. For Him a word is enough, a strong cry, a gentle accent, a caress. His will is enough, and the faith of the petitioner. To them all He puts the question, "Dost thou believe I can do this?" and when the cure is ac­complished, "Go, thy faith hath made thee whole." (Matt. 9:22) For Jesus the miracle is the union of two wills for good, the living con­tact between the faith of the healer and the faith of the one healed. "Verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence, to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamore tree, Be thou plucked up by the root and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you." (Matt. 17:20; Luke 16:7) Those who have no faith, not even as much as the thousandth part of a grain of mustard seed, swear that no man has this power, and that Jesus is an impostor.

In the Gospels the miracles are called by three names: "Dunameis"—forces; "Terata"—marvels; "Semeis"—signs. They are signs for those who remember the prophecies of the Messiah; they are "marvels" for those who look for proofs that Christ is the Messiah; but for Jesus and in Jesus there are only "Dunameis," mighty works, victorious lightning-flashes from a superhuman power. The healings of Jesus are two-fold; they are healings not only of bodies but of souls, and it is soul-sickness which Jesus wishes especially to heal so that the Kingdom of Heaven may be founded also on the earth. All are to have perfect health so that they might give perfect worship.

Most sickness is two-fold, mental and physical, and lends itself with singular exactitude to metaphors and allegory. Jesus cured the maimed, the lame, the fevered, a man with the dropsy, a woman with an issue of blood. He healed also a sword-wound—Malchus' ear struck off by Peter on the night of Gethsemane—this only in order that His law . . . "do good to those who wrong you" . . . might be observed to the very last. But Jesus healed more often those possessed by devils, the paralytics, the lepers, the blind, and the deaf-mutes. The old name for mental diseases is possession by devils; even Professor Aristotle believed in possession by devils. It was believed that lunatics, epileptics, hysterical patients, were in­vaded by malign spirits. The contradictory and often merely verbal explanations of the modern medical field does not invalidate the fact that demoniacs, in many cases, are such in the real sense of the word. This learned and popular explanation lent itself admirably to that allegorical and figurative teaching of which Jesus was so fond. He wished to found the Kingdom of God and supplant the divided kingdoms of Satan. It was part of His mission to drive out demons. The difference between bodily disorders and actual malign obsessions was of no importance: between bodily infirmities and spiritual infirmities there is a parallelism of nomenclature, based on real sympathy. There is a likeness between the maniac and the epileptic, between the paralytic and the slothful, the vile and the leprous, the blind and he who cannot see the truth, the deaf and he who will not listen to the truth, the cured and the resurrected.

When John, shut up in prison, sent two disciples to ask Jesus if He were the awaited prophet, or whether they should await another, Jesus answered them, "Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached." (Luke 7:22) Jesus did not separate the gospel from miraculous cures. He asked John to verify His ministry by David’s own words which foretold this ministry. They are similar deeds; by that answer he meant that he had cured bodies in order that the souls might be better disposed to re­ceive the gospel which David also enjoyed.

Those who did not see the light of the sun can now see the light of truth; those who did not hear even the words of men can now hear the words of God; those who were possessed of Satan are freed from Satan; those who were foul and ulcerated are clean as children; those who could not move, who were strength less and shrunken, now follow my footsteps; those who were dead to the life of the soul have risen at a word from me . . . and the poor, after the Good News, are richer than the wealthy. These are my credentials, my letters proving my legitimacy.

Jesus, Healer and Liberator, is not what the bad faith of His modern enemies wish to imagine Him, in order to make golden once more their comfortable paganism and to protect it against self-discipline. "He is the God," they say, "of the sick, the weak, the dirty, the wretched, the strength less, and the servants." But all that Christ does is to give health, strength, purity, wealth, and liberty. He draws near to the sick precisely in order to drive away their sickness; to the weak to lift them out of their weakness; to the dirty in order to cleanse them; to slaves in order to free them. He does not love the sick only because they are sick: He loves health, just as the men of antiquity did, and He loves it so greatly that He longs to give it back to those who have lost it. Jesus is the prophet of happiness, the promiser of life, of life that is worthier to be lived. The miracles are only pledges of His promise of the Kingdom to come.* And there they perfectly worship in spirit and truth.

THE BLIND (SHALL) SEE

THE BLIND SEE

Men live under a curse which came from original sin in the garden by those who hid themselves when He came for the daily conversation with Truth from God Himself. Hiding and therefore no possible answers for the sorrow, strife and pain that was coming. So He makes their need so great that when He comes the next time they will find the answers that plague their souls. And those answers will come through the preaching of truth.

“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?”  (Rom. 10:13-14)

Men cannot live without three things, bread, health and hope. Deprived of everything else men can—raging and cursing—go on living. But if they have not at least these three, they hasten to summon Death, because without them life is like Death. It is death with suffering added, an aggra­vated, embittered, envenomed death, without even the anesthetic of insensibility. Hunger is the wasting away of the body; pain makes the body hateful; despair—not to expect anything better, a relief, an alleviation—takes the savor out of everything, takes away every reason to be, and every reason to act. There are men who do not kill themselves because suicide is an action.

He who wishes to draw men to him must give them bread, health and hope. He must feed them, heal them and give them faith in a more beautiful life.

Jesus gives this faith. To those who followed Him into the wilderness and upon the mountains, He distributed material and spiritual bread. He was not willing to transform stones into loaves, but He made the real loaves of bread suffi­cient for thousands. And the stones which men carry in their breasts He changed into loving hearts.

And He did not reject the sick. Jesus is no self-tormentor, no self-torturer. He does not believe that pain is necessary to conquer evil. Evil is evil and must be driven away, but pain also is evil. Sorrow of the soul is enough for salvation: why should the body suffer also, needlessly? The old Jews thought of sickness as a punishment: Christians believe it above all as an aid to conversion.

But Jesus does not believe in vengeance taken on the inno­cent, and does not expect that true salvation can be won by ulcers. Render unto the body that which is the body's due, and unto the soul that which is the souls. He likes the friendly supper-table; He does not refuse good old wine; and He does not send away women who pour per­fumes on His head and on His feet. Jesus can fast many days; He can be satisfied with a bit of bread, with half of a broiled fish; and He can sleep on the ground with His head on a stone; but till it is unavoidable He does not seek out want, hunger and suffering. Health seems to Him a good thing and the innocent pleasure of dining with friends; a cup of wine drunk in good company, the fragrance of a vase of nard, seem good and acceptable to Him also when such things cause no suffering to others.

If a sick man accosts Him, He cures him. Jesus comes not to deny life, but to affirm it, to institute a happier and more perfect life. He does not purposely seek out the sick. His mission is to drive away spiritual suffering, to bring spiritual joy. But if, by the way, it happens to Him to drive out also suffering of the flesh, to quiet pain, to restore, along with the health of the soul, the health also of the body, He cannot refuse to do it. He shows Himself adverse to it, for the most part, because His aim is higher; and He would not wish to appear in the eyes of the people like a gipsy wizard, or like the worldly Messiah whom most men were expecting. But since He wishes to conquer evil, and there are men who know Him capable of conquering all evils, His love is forced to drive out also those of the body.

When, on the road trodden by men of health, there come towards Him groups of lepers, repellent, disfigured, horrible lepers, and when He sees that swollen lividness, the scaly skin showing through the torn clothes, that scabby, spotted, cracked skin, the withered, wrinkled skin which deforms the mouth, half-closes the eyes, and puffs up the hands; wretched, suffer­ing ghosts, shunned by everyone, separated from everyone, disgusting to everyone, who are thankful if they have a little bread, a saucer for their water, the roof of an old shed for a hiding-place; when painfully bringing out the words through their swollen, ulcerated lips they beg Him, for whom they know to be powerful in word and deed, beg Him, their only hope in their despair, for health, for a cure, for a miracle, how could Jesus shun them, as other men did, and ignore their prayer?

And the epileptics, who writhe in the dust, their faces twisted in a set spasm, the froth on their lips; those possessed of devils who howl among the ruined tombs, evil dogs of the night, miserable; the paralytics, trunks which have just enough feeling left to suffer, dead bodies inhabited by an imprisoned and sup­pliant soul; and the blind, the awful blind, shut up from their birth in the night—foretaste of the blackness of the tomb—stumbling in the midst of the fortunate men who go their way freely, the terrified blind, who walk with their heads held high, their eyes staring, as if the light could reach them from the depths of the infinite, the blind, for whom the world is only a series of more or less harsh surfaces, among which they grope; the blind, eternally alone, who know the sun only by its warmth, by the heat on their bodies! How could Jesus an­swer "No" to such wretchedness?

POWERFUL DEEDS - MIRACLES

POWERFUL DEEDS - MIRACLES

 

After He had given out the new law of the imitation of God, Jesus came down from the Mount.

One cannot always remain on the heights. The moment we arrive on the summit of a mountain we are anticipating to descend. Every ascent is a pledge of descent, a promise to come down again. He who has something to say must make himself heard; if he always speaks on the summits, few will stay with him; it is cold on the summits for those who are not all on fire; and his voice will reach few. He who has come to give, cannot ask men, weak lungs, tired hearts, nerveless legs, to follow him upward, hobbling along to the heights. He must follow them down to the plain, into their houses; he must stoop to them if he is to lift them up.

Jesus knew that exalted teaching on the heights would not suffice to spread the good news to all. He knew that men need less abstract words, picture-making words, narrated words, words almost as tangible as facts. And He knew that even these words would not be enough.

The simple, rustic, coarse, humble people who followed Jesus were men whose lives were based on material things, men who could only understand spiritual things slowly, with great effort, through material proofs, signs and material symbols. They could not understand a spiritual truth without its ma­terial incarnation; without evidence simple enough for them to weigh, evidence stated in the terms of the everyday world. An illustrative fable can lead men to moral revelation; a prodigy is to them confirmation of a new truth, of a contested mission. Preaching, made up of abstract sayings and clichés, and left these imaginative Orientals unsatisfied. Jesus had recourse to the marvelous and to poetry: he performed mira­cles and spoke in parables. For many moderns the miracles recounted by the Evangelists are a compelling reason for turn­ing away from Jesus and the Bible. Their shriveled brains cannot take in the miraculous; therefore, they reason the Gos­pel lies, and if it lies in so many places none of it can be be­lieved. It is out of the question that Jesus can ever have raised the dead: therefore, His words have no value.

The people who reason in this way reason hostile. They give to miracles a weight and a meaning much greater than that which Jesus gave them.* If they had read the four Gospels they would have seen that Jesus is always reluctant to perform miracles, that He does not feel this divine power of His is of supreme importance. Every time that He finds a fair reason for refusing, He refuses; if He yields, it is to reward the faith of the sorrowing man or woman who calls on Him; but the Gospels show that for Himself, for His own salvation, He never per­forms miracles. He performs no miracles in the wilderness with Satan, none at Nazareth when they wish to kill Him, none at Gethsemane when they come to arrest Him, nor on the cross when they challenge Him to save Himself. His power is only for others, to benefit His mortal brothers.

There are many who ask for a sign, a sign from Heaven, and a sign to persuade the unbelievers that His word is the true word: "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the Prophet Jonas." (Matt. 12:39) What is this sign? The writers of the gospel who wrote after the resurrection thought that Jonah emerging the third day from the whale symbolizes Jesus emerging the third day from the tomb, but the rest of what Jesus says shows that He meant something else. "The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the teaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here." (Matt. 12:41) Nineveh did not ask for signs and wonders: it was converted by the word alone. Men whom Jesus cannot convert by truths infinitely greater than those an­nounced by Jonah, are below the level of the men of Nineveh, idolaters, barbarians.* Faith must not rest on marvels and wonders alone, nevertheless let us remember that faith—though it is higher and more perfect when achieved without miracles—can by its very fervor accomplish miracles. Hardened hearts, locked shut against truth, are not converted even by the greatest miracles. "If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." (Luke 16:31) He was neglected and rejected by the cities which were the scenes of the greatest prodigies. "Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have re­pented long ago, in sack-cloth and ashes." (Matt. 11:21)

Jesus never held that miracles were His exclusive privilege. When they came to tell Him that some man was driving out Demons in His name, He answered, "Forbid him not." (Mark 9:39) This power was not denied to the disciples. "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have re­ceived, freely give." (Matt. 10:8)

Even charlatanically motivated wizards could perform wonders which seemed miracles. In His time a certain Simon was doing miracles in Samaria; even the disciples of the Pharisees performed miracles. But miracles are not enough to enter into the Kingdom. "Many shall say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Thy name and in Thy name cast out devils, and in Thy name do many mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity." (Matt. 7:22-23) It is not enough to cast out devils, if thou has not cast out the devil in thee, the devil of pride and greed.*

Even after His death men will see others perform miracles. "For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." (Matt. 24:24) I have put you on your guard: do not believe in these signs and these wonders until thou shalt see the Son of Man. The miracles of false prophets do not prove the truth of what they say.

For all these reasons, Jesus abstained, as often as possible, from working miracles, but He could not always resist the pleadings of the sorrowful, and often His pity did not wait for the request. For a miracle is an attribute of faith, and His faith is infinite, and that of the believers very great. But often, as soon as the healing was complete, He asked the ones He had healed to keep it secret. "See thou tell no man; Go thy way." (Matt. 8:4) Those who do not listen to the truth of Christ, because they are troubled by the miracles, should remember the profound saying which was addressed to Thomas, "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed."  (John 20:29)

OUR FATHER

OUR FATHER

“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.” (Matt. 6:9-13).

The apostles asked Jesus for a prayer. He had told them to pray briefly and secretly, but they were not satisfied with any prayers recommended by the lukewarm, academic priests of the Temple. They wanted a prayer of their own which would be like a countersign among the fraternity of Christ. Jesus on the Mount taught for the first time the Paternoster, the only prayer which He ever taught. It is one of the simplest prayers in the world, the most profound which goes up from human homes to God, a prayer neither literary nor theological—neither bold nor submissive—the most beautiful of all prayers. But though the Lord's Prayer is simple, it is not always understood. The century-old, mechanical reiteration of tongues and lips, the formal ritual repetition, have made it almost a string of syllables from which the original meaning has been lost. Reading it over word for word today like a new text, which we read for the first time, it loses its ritual predictability, and freshens into its first meaning.

"Our Father"; for we have sprung from Thee and love Thee as sons; from Thee we shall receive no wrong.

"Which art in heaven"—in that which is opposed to the earth, in the opposite sphere from matter, in spirit and in that small but eternal part of the spirit which is our soul.

"Hallowed be Thy name"; let us not only adore Thee with words but be worthy of Thee, drawing nearer to Thee with greater love, because Thou art no longer the avenger, the Lord of Battles, but the Father who teaches the joyfulness of peace.

"Thy Kingdom come"—the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God, of the spirit of love, that of the Gospel.

"Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven"—may Thy law of goodness and of perfection rule both spirit and matter, both the visible and invisible universe.

"Give us this day our daily bread"; because our material body, necessary support of the spirit, needs every day a little material food to maintain it. We do not ask of Thee riches, dangerous burden, but only that small amount which permits us to live, to become more worthy of the promised life. Man does not live by bread alone, and yet without a morsel of bread the soul, living in the body, could not nourish itself on other things more precious than bread.

"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." Pardon us because we pardon others. Thou art our eternal and in­finite creditor. We can never pay our debt to Thee, but re­member that because of our weakness, it is more of an effort for us to forgive one single debt of a single one of our debtors than it is for Thee to sweep away the record of all that we owe Thee.

"Lead us not into temptation." We are weak, still snared in fleshliness in this world which at times seems so beautiful and calls us to all the delights of faithlessness. Help us that our struggling transformation may not be too difficult, and that our entry into the Kingdom may not be too long delayed.

"Deliver us from evil"—Thou Who art in Heaven, Who art spirit, Who has power over evil, over stubborn and hostile mat­ter which surrounds us everywhere, and from which it is hard to free ourselves, Thou enemy of Satan, negation of matter, help us! Our true greatness lies in this victory over evil, over evil which springs up constantly because it will not be truly conquered until all have conquered it. But this decisive vic­tory will be less distant if Thou help us with Thy alliance.

With this appeal for aid, the Lord's Prayer ends. In it are none of the tiresome flatteries of Oriental prayers, rituals of admiration and inflation which seem invented by a dog, adoring his master with his dog's soul, because his master permits him to exist and to eat? There are none of the difficult, complaining supplications of the Psalmist who asks God for every variety of aid, more often temporal than spirit­ual, laments if the harvest has not been good, if his fellow-citizens do not respect him, and calls down wounds and arrows on the enemies whom he cannot conquer himself. In the Lord's Prayer the only word of praise is the word "Father"; and that praise is a pledge, a testimony of love. From the Father we ask only for a little bread, and we ask in addition the same pardon that we give our enemies; and at the last a valid protection in our fight with evil, the enemy of all, the great wall which hinders our entry into the Kingdom.

He who says "Our Father" is not proud but neither is he humbled; he speaks to his Father with the intimate quiet ac­cent of confidence almost as from one equal to another. He is sure of his love and he knows that his Father needs no long speeches to know his desires. "Your Father," says Jesus, "knows what things ye have need of before ye ask Him." (Matt. 6:8) Thus the most beautiful of all the prayers is a daily calling to mind of all that we need if we are to become like God.