The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 51 of 124
Fourth Sermon for the Feast of the Ascension
Yon shall be witnesses onto Me in Jerusalem, and In all Judea, and Samaria. — Acts 1, 8.
Dear children, since onr Head, Jesus Christ, has ascended into Heaven, it is both possible and proper that we His members should ascend thither after Him. We should neither seek nor desire comfort or joy in this unstable life of ours, nor put up with any delay here. To follow Him always, to desire Him with a yearning heart and without resting, to love Him, to keep Him in view in everything, to urge others to follow fast after Him who with such bitter suffering led the way filled with love for their eternal happiness — all this should be our task.
It was necessary that Christ should die, and in that manner return to the glory of His heavenly Father. Let us ever follow our beloved Captain, Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. He has unfurled the banner of bitter pain, and borne it faithfully forward with heroic patience. With like patience should all His chosen friends grasp and hold aloft that holy standard of suffering, each one to the very best of his power. Wouldst thou be a true follower of God’s eternal Son? Then humbly take up thy cross of pain, and suffer gladly for the sake of God, no matter whence may come thy sorrow, whether it be merited or unmerited, interior or exterior. And by this means thou shalt joyfully ascend to the Son of God and into eternal life.
Beloved children, you know that in our times many a man serves the world for the sake of its petty honor and fame. For this end he gives up all comfort of body and all his worldly goods, journeying often into
Vfca strange land to fight in battle in order to win glory and gain. In like manner must a man act if he would be a true follower of Jesus Christ the eternal Son of God. He must renounce everything for His sake, and he must do it freely and joyfully. All comfort and convenience of life must be given up and all honors, if he would come to union with the very truth and essence of life that God Himself is. For if there is any single member of the whole body that is not joined with the head, it is a rotten member and must be cut off.
Christ our Lord said to His disciples: “You shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth.” Now Jerusalem, the city of peace, was to Jesus Christ also a city of unrest, for in that city of peace He had received inhuman torment and suffered a cruel death, all for the love of men. In that same kind of city shall we be witnesses unto Jesus Christ, not by words alone, but by works, by our life, by our imitation of Him to the uttermost of our ability.
You all know, children, that all would gladly bear witness to our Lord in peace, if only everything went on as they willed. They would gladly be holy, if devotional exercises were never distasteful and -God’s work was always easy, ^They would gladly proclaim God, if it were to be done always in sweetness and consolation, never amid powerful temptations or deep interior darkness. But when such men find themselves in interior desolation, and are at the same time outwardly forsaken, then they turn back to their old ways: they are not witnesses of God in very truth. All men seek peace in their relations of life; but, my dear children, we must die to this kind of seeking after peace, and go forth out of it. We must seek for peace in another way, namely, in the midst of unrest, and that with all earnestness; that peace alone can give us a supernatural, holy and Divine life. That peace alone generates in us true and Divine peace, always abiding, ever enduring within us. Any other peace causes thee self-deception. But if thou canst be willing to seek joy in sorrow, steadfast peace in unrest, singlemindedness amid multiplicity, comfort in bitterness, then veritably thou shalt be made a worthy witness of God. Jesus Christ promised His chosen followers peace, both before His death and after His resurrection. Yet as long as they lived they never found outward peace. But they none the less really found peace amid all their troubles, and they got it from all the unpeaceful men they met, essential peace. They stood immovably peaceful in all pain and pleasure. From death they received life; they rejoiced when they were hated and judged and condemned to death. And thus they became true witnesses of God.
There are many men whose souls and bodies are so saturated with Divine sweetness, that it seems to flow through their very veins and marrow. But when suffering comes, and when they are left in darkness, when they seem forsaken by God and creatures both interiorly and externally, then they are at a loss to know what to do with themselves; nothing good can be made of them. Dear children, when the tempest strikes men’s souls, that is to say when interior abandonment oppresses them, and when opposition and temptations assail them from without; when the world, the flesh and the devil conspire against them — whichever one of them can stand up against all this with genuine patience, will And true peace. He will find essential peace in all trouble, a peace that no creature can take from him. And whosoever does not tread this path shall never attain to true peace.
Our Lord also said to His apostles: “You shall be witnesses unto Me in Judea.” Judea may be taken to mean first confessing and second praising God. Children, we must be God’s witnesses in such wise that we follow after our beloved Lord in all our works, ways and intentions steadfastly, without any intermission, and not because things go well with us, nor because of our spiritual consolations and devotional sentiments. While we enjoy these feelings, we flatter ourselves that we are right with God, and we imagine that we cannot yearn enough after Him, nor ever be satisfied with Him. But when the shock of spiritual adversity strikes us, then we do not know what to think of our former state, or of how we now stand with God. And this shows that formerly the interior foundation was not God alone.
Sweet feelings of devotion were the unstable basis on which our confidence in God was built — not just God alone, God in all joy and all sorrow. God’s true witnesses ever rest fast and firm on God alone and on His most adorable will, come weal, come woe. God gives or God takes away — they remain always in peace, resting wholly on God, not at all on their own devotional contrivances. When all seems prosperous, and when they feel as if they could do mighty things for God, they nevertheless do not build upon that; distrust of self and real lowliness of spirit possess their souls. God often deprives them of all comfort, and He does so because He is true to their better spiritual interests. And so it happens frequently that such men can accomplish nothing. If they would gladly keep holy vigil, they fall asleep in spite of themselves; they try to fast, and cannot help but eat; they crave repose, and they are forced into the very opposite. All this happens because God would withdraw from them all support but Himself alone. On Him simply and solely must they rest, themselves being annihilated in all things of soul and body, their souls dropping deep down into pure singlehearted faith in God. For as worldly men do themselves harm by their excessive enjoyment of the pleasures of the senses and of their temporal goods and honors, so do spiritual men hurt themselves by excessive joy in God’s spiritual gifts, whether in good works or in the sweetness of devotion. They rest with inordinate joy in God’s ever-flowing spiritual favors, instead of resting simply on the only true foundation, namely God’s own self, held and possessed in true poverty of spirit.
Judea also may be taken to mean the praise of God. Ah, children, if a man could but be guided to praise the eternal God in all things no matter whence they come, interior or exterior, for him or against him, then, indeed, would he be journeying along the right road. And if a man would but offer all things up to God with thanksgiving, then would he become a true witness of God. Therefore, dear child, render back into God’s deep being all that has thence come forth to thee; do this invariably; and never tarry in thine own self, which is mere nothingness. Rather restore thyself habitually to thy source and origin, namely the abyss of God’s love. Out of this thy act, be well assured, shall come forth a noble praise of God; from this will be granted thee a fruitful harvest of virtue. The blossom and the fruit are one, for herein God is in God and light in light. All that is outward thou shalt give to God, as created things affect thee in joy or sorrow; and all inward things, too, of whatever kind they may be, and thyself along with them.
Christ also said: “You shall be witnesses of Me in Samaria,” and that name may be considered to mean union with God. This refers to the truest witness that man can bear to God in this life, namely when he is most perfectly united to Him. Then, as it were, there slips away from him his own spirit, and all creatures seem gone: in the Divine unity all multiplicity vanishes away. The highest powers of the soul are now drawn up to Heaven, where God the Holy Spirit dwells in God the Father and God the Son, in the Divine unity. The soul now finds its highest bliss in very truth, enjoying God with a delightful sweetness, drawing after it, too, its lower powers, as far as this is possible in our mortal life. And, absorbed into the Divine abyss of being, the soul need do nothing more than humbly abandon itself to enjoy all the gifts of
God’s grace; for now it beholds them in God, and is entirely without self-consciousness concerning them.
After this, again, the soul is led into yet another heaven in the Divine being, in which it loses itself and sinks into God. No man can tell what happens there to the soul in the possession of God and in His enjoyment— neither tell, nor think, nor even understand. How can the soul tell or understand what has come upon it, while it was meted out of itself and absorbed in the Divine abyss, knowing nothing, seeing nothing, feeling nothing but only the pure, simple being of God? But after that experience, dear children, you may be sure that a man can look into the very essence of all his devotional exercises, even the littlest of them. And he can plainly discover all imperfections in his use of them, find out why they do not profit him, and how they may be freshened anew and made more fruitful.
Thus does the faithful and detached soul stand between Heaven and earth. With the higher faculties of his being he dwells always in God his Lord, elevated high above self and all things else; and with his lower faculties he is placed under foot of all things, sunk down in deep humility, not otherwise than if he were a mere beginner in the spiritual life. He can content himself in the lowest order of devout practices, for he is ashamed of nothing that is good, however contemptible it may seem to others. He keeps true peace with all creatures in spirit and in act, in joy and sorrow. Such a man is in very truth a witness of our Lord Jesus Christ, who first came down from Heaven, and ascended again into the Heaven of Heavens. And all who would dwell there must become one with Him, that in Him and with Him and through Him they may ascend to Heaven.
Whatsoever man shall earnestly endeavor after this end, and shall bid farewell to all the joys and pains of creatures, shall not go astray in his conscience. He shall not have a silly head; he shall not be found gadding about asking foolish questions, wasting his time and following delusions. May God make us His true witnesses in things spiritual and things natural; may He raise us up to Heaven with His eternal Bon; may He grant us all this as He is God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.