The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 50 of 124

Third Sermon for the Feast of the Ascension

And the Lord Jesus, after He bad spoken to them, was taken up Into heaven. — Mark xvi, 19.

The most blessed Son of God, Christ Jesus oar Lord, after He had sat with His disciples on Monnt Olivet, and had chided them for their incredulity and hardness of heart, ascended ont of their sight into Heaven.

Ah, children, what think yon were the thoughts in the hearts of those disciples, who loved their Lord so well? Must they not all have felt a bitter pain of heart after His departure? Indeed they had loved Him well, and we know that where one’s treasure is, there is his heart also. Jesus Christ carries away with Him in His glorious ascension, the hearts and senses and all the faculties of His chosen friends. Never again can they feel at home in this world. All their goings and comings and all their life is now in Heaven — all is now with God. Dear children, how can it be otherwise? Must not the members be with the head? And our Head has this day most affectionately gone before us to prepare a place for us. Hence we can but echo the words of the bride in the Canticles: “Draw me after Thee” (Cant, i, 3). Who can prevent us following our Head, Jesus Christ? He Himself has said: “I ascend to My Father and to your Father” (John xx, 17). His principle of life. His final end, His eternal bliss, are all made one with ours in Him. We have come forth from the same origin as He, we are associated to Him in the end and purpose of His life — if we will but fit ourselves rightly for this high destiny.

Consider, children, that Jesus Christ has gone before ns into the blessedness of His heavenly Father. Now if we would follow Him effectively, we must mark carefully the path He trod. And we find that for thirty years he laid out the journey to Heaven by enduring misery, poverty, shame, and finally the bitterness of death itself. Behold then the road we have to travel if we would join Him in Heaven! If all teachers were dead, if all books were burnt, the story of His life alone is doctrine enough for us. He is Himself the way, and there is no other. Let us press on after Him in this His path to the blissful end that awaits us; let us go forward with all our strength. As the magnet draws iron to it, so does Jesus Christ draw after Himself all hearts that He touches. And furthermore, as the iron itself receives the magnet’s power of attraction, and is moved and lifted up and joined to the magnet in spite of its own nature, so it is with souls touched by the magnet of the eternal Son of God. Such men no longer feel the force of their own love, or joy, or consolation: they are drawn out of themselves upward to God. They forget the laws of their own nature, and follow the touch of God. And this they do all the more readily and perfectly, according as they are more deeply influenced by the Divine attraction.

So, then, let each one of us put himself to the test, as to whether or not he has been touched by God. Men who are not really drawn by God’s magnet, start up with various fine methods and systems of devotion, lacking the interior spirit. They fancy they will gain great results, and before they are aware, it all comes to naught. For you must know that they soon fall back into their old ways, giving themselves up to natural joys and the love of created things. They act like good-for-nothing hounds in a hunt, which care nothing for the game or whither it runs; they only follow the good hounds lazily along, until they are distanced; and then they go astray and are lost. I say to thee in all sincerity: it may be but a little half hour during which thou dost grievously neglect thy duty, or clearest to thy forbidden pleasures. And in that short interval the game has escaped thee, thou art not among those who have a share in its capture. Those who may be compared to the good and faithful hounds are God’s true servants. These track the game and fiercely pursue it through fire and water, till they overtake and capture it. So do good men act who duly appreciate the Divine object they are striving after — they never give up till they have possessed themselves of it, they are hindered by neither the joys nor sorrows of this life. The others are wholly inactive, they rest slnggishly idle; and if they bo continue till death, then they are in peril of remaining so after death and through God’s eternity.

Children, if a man is not moved by God, he mast not lay the blame on Him. Yet sometimes one says: Almighty God does not influence me to good, as He does this one or that one. Such talk is false. God touches, influences and admonishes all men, and will bring all men, as far as they will allow Him, to happiness. But His gifts, His admonitions and His touches, are received by men very diversely. When He visits some, bringing His precious favors with Him, He finds their souls occupied before Him by other gifts, and in a state of uncleanness. What can He then do but turn back from us, since our souls are fixed upon and love a rival lover? So then He carries His gifts to another soul, who has kept its heart free and clean from love of all created things. Thus it is that the cause and the guilt of our eternal misery is in ourselves and not in God. What utter folly is ours, thus idly to dally with the poor creatures of this life, regardless of the presence of the infinite God — doing ourselves thereby an eternal injury.

How shall we escape from this infatuation with natural joys? In no better and surer way than by quickly and courageously turning to God, and practicing prayer in an earnest and devoted spirit. Not otherwise can we win a steadfast heart and obtain great confidence in God’s boundless mercy, as being all our hope of salvation. Add to this a determined purpose to be absolutely subject to God’s will in all things, in doing and not doing, in things spiritual and things natural.

Again, children, remark that the spot from which Jesus Christ, the Son of God, ascended into Heaven was the Mount of Olives, and this may be made a threefold lesson of light. First, the Mount is raised above the earth east of Jerusalem, and is lit up by the rising of the sun; later in the morning, the brightness of the sun is reflected back on the Mount from the shining pinnacles of the temple; finally, the Mount’s fruit, oil, is the food of light in our lamps. So is it with the soul in which God’s ascension sweetly takes place without any intermediary. It must be elevated above earthly and transitory things if it will be resplendent with God’s threefold light, namely the Divine Trinity shining and acting within it just as God wills.

Again, this Mount lay between Jerusalem and Bethania, and, children, be assured that whosoever would follow after Jesus Christ, must elimb up this Mount, no matter how bitter the toil may be. For there is no hill in all this wide world so sweet and so beautiful — give to ita

Lord Jesus Christ must say good-by to his natural joys; for there is many a one who would gladly follow God, if it cost no toil or pain and caused him no bitterness. Many a one would gladly be on top of the Mount that is so near Jerusalem, the city of peace, if he could be there without overcoming difficulties. In truth it is in themselves that such men seek for peace and consolation and happiness; and nothng comes of it all. Yet, as they idly tarry on the Bethania side they are miserable, for there they find only obedience to others and suffering. Of one of these the Psalmist speaks as having an abode in “The vale of tears, in the place which he hath set” (Ps. lxxxiii, 6).

Children, be sure that whosoever does not struggle up this Mount, will always remain spiritually sterile and will amount to nothing. A devout man should keep his longingeyes fixed on his sours spouse, Jesus Christ, ascended now so far above him and so hidden and unknown. Realize fully, that the deeper the touch of God in thy soul, the more surely is one side of thy life a vale of tears. If this served no other purpose, it would in thy direst need preserve thee from the sinfulness that lies concealed in thy poor human nature — those tendencies which hinder many a one from turning wholly to God. God’s grace can and should rule in us continuously. And so it does, when one without ceasing makes sacrifices to God of all things whatsoever that may lead him away from God. These weaknesses too often prevail in the soul of man, where God alone should hold undisputed Bway. And conquering them is winning up the side of the Mount of Olives that is toward Bethania.

Children, whosoever looks deep into his soul begins to draw near Jerusalem. And it were well that he should watch the different influences of God and of nature, in all that he does or does not. It were good that he nerved himself to suffer more bravely all sorrow and pain, and not weakly yield to nature in such visitations. When he seems forsaken by God, and stands in all bitterness and desolation of spirit, oppressed from within and from without, then let him diligently call to mind God’s goodness. And in times of spiritual joy, let him anticipate sorrow; as the Wise Man says: “In the day of good things be not unmindful of evils” (Eccli. xi, 27). 1

Children, both sides of the Mount must be in our souls together. For if the word Jerusalem means a city of peace, yet in that city was God’s Son Jesus Christ put to death. Our peaceful city must be the scene of many a suffering, for thou must without doubt suffer greatly, and in all spirit and flesh. Thou must fall into the hands of, as it were, the malicious Jews, who will torture and scourge thee, and drive thee out from among them as a base and wicked man, condemn thee to the worst punishments they can think of, and put thee to death in the minds of all men, as far as they can do so. I say to thee that in thy inmost soul thou must die the death, if the eternal God shall become thy only life. As it happened to Jesus Christ, that when He was put to death the Jews thought their crime was a great honor to God, so shall it happen in thy case. All who despise thee and condemn thee and torment thee, will think that in doing so they have greatly served God. Ah, beloved children, how happy of heart shall such a man be, when he thus dwells in Jerusalem the city of peace, full of peace indeed, even in the midst of this dire unrest; for in his soul’s depths the essential peace of God is born to Him, coming out of God’s own abyss of truth and love.

Children, on this Mount grows the olive tree; and therein we can perceive what true religious devotion is. Real devotion is an interior clnging to God Himself, with a sSoul entirely ready to possess all things and to think of all things just as God does. A devout man is one who is in all things fast bound to God in his will and in his understanding. Such a soul is indeed a sweet olive tree to our heavenly Father and to all His elect. Hast thou this in thy inner life? This devout spirit must ever and again be renewed by the fire of Divine love; and it must be aided by earnest searching in the soul’s depths, lest something that is not God in all truth, shall be hiding there. Therein must be nothing deceptive; for it is nature that sometimes inspires us when we think that all is being done for God. And this, also, is too often the case with men, both in communities and in the world: they do not think and love wholly and absolutely according to God, but rather according to self, whether in matters spiritual or corporal. Few are to be found who serve God for His own sake alone, having regard neither to consolations nor joys — no object but God alone, not even (if it were permissible or possible) His holy grace in time and eternity, but just simply God’s own self alone. That we may thus ascend with the Son of God, and rise high above this land of exile, far above all creatures; that we may possess eternal life with Him — may God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost mercifully grant us. Amen.