Jesus the miracle worker. Lazarus = John

  

The Gospel of John and the Other Three Gospels

Lecture 8

Rudolf Steiner, Stockholm

January 12, 1910

The legend of Judas indicates that an old descending spiritual current is joining forces with a new ascending one. Everything should become new from the moment when the Christ event made an impression on the naive soul, except for those who had ascended to a certain degree of initiation. The effect of the latter on those who had been initiated in the sense of the old schooling is made clear to us by the conversation with Nicodemus. By night - the trivial interpretation is not enough here; [but Nicodemus was] one of those who had come a certain way: through his clairvoyance he could come by night; through the power of clairvoyance Nicodemus stood before Christ Jesus by virtue of the gifts which Nicodemus already had. But Christ also had something to say to this Jewish initiate: that the old initiation was not enough and that something new had to come: If you are not born again of spirit and water. - If he does not experience a renewed opening of his spiritual senses, he cannot come to the spirit. — Not only the others, but you too must be born again.

For before, rebirth was not experienced as it would be in the future. The I clouded, it dawned in the old Egyptian initiation. Likewise, the one who came through ecstasy behind the veil of the sense world had to lose his I. Now man is to learn to find his way in the spiritual world without losing his I. Therefore Jesus says: He who is initiated in the same way as you, hears the spirit going there, but he does not know where it comes from. So Christ testifies that Nicodemus can perceive the spirit, but does not know where it comes from, because he cannot retain his ego. So something completely new had to come for the initiate as well.

This is the essential thing that confronts us in these first chapters of the Gospel of John. The modern man finds miracles in the gospel that do not follow [today's] natural laws. This view can only be held by someone who believes that the world has always looked the same as it does today. Our soul has lost clairvoyant gifts in order to conquer self-awareness in the time leading up to the ascent into future clairvoyance. Because people used to be clairvoyant, the soul could have a more direct and immediate effect on the soul. Today it can do so through the word. Those who develop through the methods of living themselves into spiritual worlds must, in order to be understood, seek and find receptivity in the other, and today this is found through the word.

This was not the case in ancient Persian and Egyptian times. A wish that one experienced had an effect on the soul of the other, and the soul had a stronger power over the body. By influencing through the will, namely through pictorial imagination, one could have a healing effect on the other person.

Therefore, when Christ appeared, people were not surprised that healing could take place through psychic influence. The most important thing for those around Him, including the unbelievers and the rulers in Palestine, was not that Christ worked miracles, but something else. What was it like in the old initiation? The dim old clairvoyance could work by looking; but it could not get to a point; not to the center of the I, because the I, the self-consciousness in this highest sense, had only come into the world through Christ. So: He saw into the I, the innermost part of the human spirit, from I to I, not [only] from soul to soul could He work.

At best, ancient clairvoyance was able to look into the soul of another if there was a blood relationship. The Christ looked into the other, the stranger. The conversation with the Samaritan woman is an example of this fact. How does she recognize that he is the one who is supposed to come? Not allegorical interpretations are the essence of such a story. She says: I believe him because he has seen my most intimate heart affairs, [because he] has penetrated into my very self.

What does it depend on? All ancient initiation was a popular initiation, so everything that was connected with the people was familiar. In Christ, we have the impulse that has gone beyond all barriers into the human being. The most individual is at the same time the most generally human. Christ went right into the most intimate part of the human being; his spiritual power was so strong because it went right into the ego. The others could heal the members of their own people. Christ heals the stranger, works beyond the barrier of the people. [Let us take as an example the] healing of the captain's son. Because the father has that impression of the soul that goes to the very core, this healing power works at a distance.

That which works in the innermost human being from incarnation to incarnation is what is connected with human well-being, with health and illness. Beyond the individual incarnation, that brings to expression in the body the moral qualities of the soul. He who only saw the soul could only grasp what was of a spiritual nature in the present incarnation, but not what concerned karma. Christ sees right into karma through the I and can say: Your sins are forgiven you. He does not only work in the feelings, but right into that center of the human being where karma lives itself out. That is an intensification.

One thing emerges from the stories of the Gospel of John: the Christ had to bring something to consciousness in order to be able to work anew. At the wedding at Cana, for example, it is the bond with His mother. Something else happens during the healing of the son of King Herod and the sick man of Bethesda. This is the bond that connects Him in His I with the I of every human being. This became conscious to Him in His conversation with the Samaritan woman.

The Gospel of John shows us in a powerful way how Christ grows. This is the artistically accomplished part of the structure of the Gospel of John. And now we see how John the Baptist speaks of Christ. He is supposed to say what kind of spirit lives in the Christ... He compares it to the spirit in the ancient initiations. This spirit has previously spoken “according to measure,” but now it does not - what is this? In the past, the initiate had to use a meter; he had to work in a mantric measure; this stimulated the soul of the other person. Now the spirit is to work directly, not according to an external syllabic measure. So here, too, we are given a hint of how the I of the Christ is to unfold in its direct divine activity.

That which can be taught about the Christ should be gradually absorbed by people, so that they educate themselves spiritually: First there was the I, which shows us how we should become. If we have applied each incarnation in the Christian sense, we will have been permeated by the goal of evolution on Earth. An impulse from the I, from the innermost center, will pass over to the innermost center of the other. Thus brotherhood will be achieved through the power of Christ. Therefore it is shown how the spirit takes the place of what previously only matter could do.

I am the bread of life. Taken symbolically on the outside: in the ancient Egyptian mysteries, it was known that bread was a symbol of wisdom; the real inner meaning: the I developed to the highest degree of strength should take the place of material activity. This was to be demonstrated in a great deed, in the feeding of the five thousand. It is said: When the loaves and fishes were brought to Christ, he blessed them – that is, he united them with his spirit – the spirit took effect in place of matter. The spirit brought about what otherwise matter brings about. They had been filled. With what? I am the bread of life, says Christ. The body of Jesus, as it gradually died, could overflow its powers through sacrifice.

From the center into the material existence, Christ Jesus could work. The effect of the body of Christ Jesus is eaten by the five thousand. In the mystery language, the body of man is divided into twelve members, which correspond to the twelve signs of the Zodiac: forehead - Aries, neck - Taurus, hands - Gemini, breastplate - Cancer, and so on.

What the people around had enjoyed was connected to the body of Christ; therefore twelve baskets were collected. It is a real event that the spirit had a physical effect, that of being filled; and through this the people around were imbued with the spirit and clairvoyantly saw the twelve parts of Jesus at that moment.

Thus, in these narratives, we always find a transition from the physical to the clairvoyant.

So we have an intensification in the fourth sign and also in the fifth sign. The writer of the Gospel of John describes the events so that we can take his words quite literally. But modern headlines are often wrong. It does not say “Jesus walks on the sea,” but that the disciples “saw how he walked.” The fact that he worked across, was really with them where they felt abandoned, was spiritually real with them, is hinted at. [Where his physical body was is never mentioned. This is also of no importance. The important thing was that he was with them in their need in his astral body, although he was absent with his physical body. And in this way we also always have Christ with us. - “I am with you always.”

Thus we can always experience Christ when we ascend to the spirit. He had emerged with His spirit and was with the disciples, overcoming space and time through the strong power of the ego.

The author of the Gospel of John describes how [one's own] consciousness in Christ is always increasing. How does man attain that power of love that enables him to work across? By increasing to the highest degree what is indicated to us in the discourses on judging. He never wants to let this self work, but only the great laws of the cosmic Father.

By killing his own fatherliness, his physical body, he attains to the Cosmic Father. This ascent is described to us in our own consciousness to an especially high degree in a powerful scene: an adulteress is brought before him. To understand the teaching of karma means to know that even the smallest thing we do finds expression in our life account. We only need to stand aside, then it takes effect by virtue of its own laws. The Christ does it... He sees what she has in her life account, but he does not judge. He writes on the earth what he has seen because the karma of man is working through the earth evolution. He says, “Leave the compensation to the earth evolution.” Thus, in this scene of judgment, the Christ extinguishes his own will and lets the Father work. In this way, He has the strength to transfer His ego power to the other person in such a way that it can change the other person's feelings. In this way, He makes Himself into someone who does not close anything off in Himself, but radiates everything into others.

Through this sacrifice, what humanity had done badly to itself is made good. It had worked into the inner being, striving into the ego, but had not yet had the opportunity to radiate its essence. The divinely radiating essence is light. “I am the light of the world.” Because he is this radiating light, he can help those who have become blind through karma, [thereby he can] work on such sufferings that the ego has brought with it from previous incarnations through its actions. [Jesus saw that at that moment the man's karma had expired and that he could see again, and he understood that by healing him, he was doing the will of the one whose instrument he was. But to give sight to a person who should not have it would not have been a good work.] He must work in such a way that his work is an expression of the divine work of the Father principle that permeates the cosmos. Christ does not want to work on his own initiative. Therefore, he works in the sense of karma. His presence brings about what happens in the sense of world justice.

The highest intensification is found where he lets his I pass over into the physical body of another, where he says, “I am the life.” Lazarus must become one in whom the I of Christ itself lives. Therefore, he has set up a new initiation in place of the old one. The last act of the old initiation was a letharic state of three and a half days... Hierophant awakened... [The last act of the initiation consisted of the initiate spending three and a half days in a cataleptic sleep, during which time the etheric and astral bodies were freed from the physical body. After that, the hierophant called him back to life, and he then became a teacher and a proclaimer of spiritual things, now that he could speak from his own experience. This took place in a crypt inside the temple and was done in secret. Now this resurrection took place before the whole world. Jesus loved the family in Bethany and often stayed there. He had brought Lazarus to the point that, according to the old initiation, only the last act was missing.

In Lazarus - the disciple whom Jesus loved - we are shown how, through the power of the presence of Christ Jesus, a keystone was to be laid for the old initiation; but the new one was to follow; after three and a half days, through Christ, the “I am” was to be awakened in Lazarus. Not the spiritual world in the old way, but as it lived in the spirit of Christ, the I-ness of Christ, perfected Atma, Budhi and Manas.... and what had flowed into him from higher worlds like an avatar. The world that lived in him was to shine forth as wisdom in Lazarus. So that Lazarus was imbued with the highest wisdom from the Christ himself through this initiation. He knew the mysteries through the Christ himself, and so he could share all the mysteries of the Christ event.

[In the Gospel of John, the name of the author is never mentioned. But when, at the end of the same, the author is spoken of, he is called “the disciple whom Jesus loved” – that is, he is referred to by the same expression that was always used for Lazarus before.]

He is John, the one who proclaimed the mysteries of the Christ Himself. Therefore, John is never mentioned before, just like Lazarus himself. The Lord loved him so much.

This is how Christ Jesus initiated the one who then became his proclaimer to the world.

Source: The Rudolf Steiner Archive