(Back) The Message From the Baptist The Anointing of Christ's Feet (Next)
This is a series of lectures given by Mr. Edward Rabel, member of the faculty of S.M.R.S.
Winter semester 1976 - 2nd. Yr. Class. Part of Lecture 12 given on February 6, 1976
Matt. 11:20-30 pp. 76-77 of transcript.
From this passage Ed selects verses 28, 29 and 30 and reads, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy ladden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart:.." Isn't that strange? isn't that paradoxical? Here is this one who knew his own greatness, and yet He also claims to be meek and lowly in heart, "and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
This statement of Jesus might be taken on one level of meaning and right now it is the level which appeals mostly to me. By regarding his reference to his meekness as being in us at this time our own personal, individual thought of him and of the Truth for which he is dispossessed. Not Jesus in the abstract and Truth in the absolute but our own current thought of us. What you now know of Jesus, or what you now think of Jesus will change and what you now think of as the Truth will change, will develop: it will gain additional dimensions, but I think Jesus here is talking about whoever we are, whoever use these words, whoever reads them, right now, in the current state of his Jesus thought and his Truth thought, that will do for him what he promises. You don't have to wait until he becomes grander, larger, more metaphysically and spiritually correct but right now the same is truth with the God thought. Right now the God thought you now have will suffice for any need you might ever have or bring to that God thought. Whatever your God thought is now, that is your God and your God thought will respond just the same as If you had the total God-realization and the same is Truth on its own dimension of the Jesus Christ Truth thought you now have; it may be nothing comparable to what it will be let's say ten years from now, but whatever it is now, if you take it upon you, if you believe it, if you cooperate with it it will do all that he promises to do with his works.
I'll just read my own personal thoughts on this as I have them here. "The statement might best be taken into our understanding if we regard his references to himself, me, as standing for our own personal, individual thought of him and the Truth he is spokesman for, not Jesus in the abstract and Truth in the absolute but our own thought of all this; this is our real comfort-giver, not what we ought to give, that won't give us comfort but what it now is and what we recognize it to be, that is the comfort-giver. When our understanding of it expands and grows, then that will be the comfort-giver, you see, ad infinitum but whatever it is, that is what we have and that will be the comfort-giver. This is the real teacher of the greater things: it isn't the greater teacher who will teach the greater things, it is the teacher we now have which will teach the greater things and the light which makes our problems in life less burdensome. It is helpful to realize that in dealing with spiritual reality, Principle and ideas, it is always your thought of them which constitute their actual presence and power for you. This includes God, Christ, Jesus, Truth, Healing, Love and so forth.
Text of the original transcript from the last paragraph of page 76 through the first paragraph of page 77.
Transcribed by Nita Strauss on September 25, 2013
