The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit by Ralph Waldo Trine online

VIII IF WE SEEK THE ESSENCE OF HIS REVELATION, AND THE PURPOSE OF HIS LIFE

page 3 of 9 | page 1 | table of contents

In Oriental countries where sandals are worn that cover merely the soles of the feet, it was, it is the custom of the host to offer his guest who comes water with which to wash his feet. There is no reason why this simple incident of humble service, or rather this symbolic act of humble service, could not be taken and made an essential condition of salvation by any council that saw fit to make it such. Things just as strange as this have happened; though any thinking man or woman _today_ would deem it essentially foolish.

It is an example of how the spirit of a beautiful act could be misrepresented to the people. For if you will look at them again, Jesus' words are very explicit: "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me." But hear Jesus' own comment as given in John: "So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." It is a means to an end and not an end in itself. The spirit that it typifies is essential; but not the act itself.

The same could be rightly said of the Lord's Supper. It is an observance that can be made of great value, one very dear and valuable to many people. But it cannot, if Jesus is to be our authority, and if correctly reported, be by any means made a fundamental, an essential of salvation. From the rebuke administered by Jesus to his disciples in a number of cases where they were prone to drag down his meanings by their purely material interpretations, we should be saved from this.

You will recall his teaching one day when he spoke of himself as the bread of life that a man may eat thereof and not die. Some of his Jewish hearers taking his words in a material sense and arguing in regard to them one with another said: "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Hearing them Jesus reaffirming his statement said: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves.... For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." His disciples, likewise, prone here as so often to make a literal and material interpretation of his statements, said one to another: "This is a hard saying; who can hear him?" Or according to our idiom--who can understand him? Jesus asked them squarely if what he had just said caused them to stumble, and in order to be sure that they might not miss his real meaning and therefore teaching, said: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, _they_ are spirit, and _they_ are life."

Try as we will, we cannot get away from the fact that it was the words of truth that Jesus brought that were ever uppermost in his mind. He said, Follow me, not some one else, nor something else that would claim to represent me. And follow me merely because I lead you to the Father.

Next

self help sanctum is created and compiled by abracad - contact: info@twinisles.com