Holy Week readings on the life of Jesus: from Bô Yin Râ: The Luminary’s Earthly Path—Part 4

From the Hortus Conclusus: The Wisdom of St. John

After he had wandered around Galilee for almost a year, healing and teaching with varying success, he believed to recognize that his words could only find their real echo in Jerusalem. He had been recommended by his friends in Capernaum to their friends in the Holy City and with his disciples he joined pilgrims on their way to the Passover celebrations in Jerusalem.

The distinguished friends took him in with hospitality, but his first appearance attracted the hatred of the Temple’s priests.

And so he quickly left the city; but instead of returning to Galilee he stayed near Jerusalem in order to tarry there briefly now and again. However, he increasingly avoided the city after it became ever more evident to him that his distinguished friends could not offer much protection if he fell into the hands of the priesthood whom he had castigated in his sermons.

He healed the sick and taught wherever he was, just as he had done before in Galilee.

There was no avoiding the fact that he represented hope for increasing numbers of people, especially amongst the poor and dispossessed who had even less time for the tyranny of the priesthood than for foreign oppressors.

So it happened that all the people became more and more convinced that he was the one supposedly promised in the ancient scriptures, the one who must free the poor from the oppression of the priests and Romans alike.

There were those of this opinion among the capital city’s ever restless throng who had learnt that the Master was going to come to Jerusalem or a short time before [his final] Passover. They prepared everything so that they could proclaim him king as soon as he arrived. They thought the power of the priesthood was secured by Roman cohorts alone; yet they could not grasp, from their limited perspective, the might of the Romans.

When the Master then arrived, they went out beyond the city gates to welcome him with jubilation—men, women, and children—and their spokesmen demanded that he lead them against the oppressors.

Overwhelmed by everything he saw, he lost at this moment the security of his inner calling, and just as Moses in the legend doubted whether he could provide water for the people, so he believed, for moments only, that the power they wanted to bestow upon him could support his mission.

Only too soon did he realize his error; he had scarcely entered the city, when he withdrew from the excited mob and sought refuge in the house of one of his distinguished friends until the crowd had been dispersed by the Roman guards. Nevertheless, the consequences of his moment of dithering could not be avoided any more, whether in the spiritual realm or on earth.

Hated for a long time as a bitter critic of the priests of the Tempe, and feared on account of his reputation among the people, he had created himself the opportunity for accusations to be brought against him with the Roman authorities that he was one who resisted their rule: an agitator who wanted to be king over his people.

The Roman authorities were indeed used to tumults among these people and would have rather ignored this latest disturbance. However, this type of accusation left open no other course than to arrest the accused.

The worldly-wise Roman procurator [Pontius Pilate] clearly saw for what purpose he was used, felt his pride offended, and sought to extricate himself from the need to pass judgment.

He therefore passed the hearing on to those who lodged the complaint.

Little did he know how welcome this was to those who could now condemn their hated enemy according to their own law and with apparently perfectly valid justification.

He had said enough things which on previous occasions they had dared not avenge, and seemingly implicated him in offenses requiring the death penalty. Moreover, he had “blasphemed against the Temple.” What else was needed?

But since the implementation of the death penalty had been withdrawn under Roman rule, they had to insist that he was leading the people astray and wanted to be proclaimed king in order to force the hand of the Roman jurisdiction to carry out on their behalf the sentence born of hate.

The result was that the man they hated died on a Roman gallows after having been practically tortured to death by Roman soldiers from all over the world and by Jewish temple servants.

But now, as his earthly work appeared to have come to an end, the Master performed that greatest act of love through which he is raised for all those who see the spiritual, sublimely high above all human greatness as the greatest of all men of love who ever walked this earth—and no one can ever come after him who would equal him in his power of love. In this last hour he succeeded in unifying the human beast within him with the power of the spiritual in absolute unity of feeling, so that he could those destroying his earthly life love as himself in the very moment of destruction.

The invisible earth which carries this globe within it like an egg carries the yolk has been since that sacred and exalted hour delivered for all time from the might of the “prince of this world”—that unseen, transient powerful one who is conscious only of himself and not within the spirit, experiencing himself in the loveless night of matter and seeing to draw everything into his own experience.

Just as he was overcome in this hour, so too can now all the might of darkness on this earth be overcome by those who know of such might of man and are of “good will”—willing from love.

This concludes Part 4.

Cited material is from the book: Jesus Christ, Discourses on his Life and his Teaching, by Bô Yin Râ, One of his Brothers in the Order After Melchisedec: A compilation by Dr. Taco van der Plaats from various books of the “Hortus Conclusus” (“The Enclosed Garden”) encompassing the compete spiritual teachings of Bô Yin Râ. Luminium Books, Amsterdam 2021. Fair Use Claimed.

Click here for Introduction.

Also available in translation here.

Bô Yin Râ is the spiritual name of Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken (1876-1943). See this.