Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John: Tractate XXVIII
Behold the way by which you must come to that height which you desire. The cup He made mention of was indeed that of His humility and suffering.
6. Therefore also here: “My time is not yet come; but your time,” that is the glory of the world, “is always ready.” This is the time of which Christ, that is the body of Christ, speaks in prophecy: “When I shall have received the fit time, I will judge righteously.” For at present it is not the time of judging, but of tolerating the wicked. Therefore, let the body of Christ bear at present, and tolerate the wickedness of evil livers. Let it, however, have righteousness now, for by righteousness it shall come to judgment. And what saith the Holy Scripture in the psalm to the members,—namely, that tolerate the wickedness of this world? “The Lord will not cast off His people.” For, in fact, His people labors among the unworthy, among the unrighteous, among blasphemers, among murmurers, detractors, persecutors, and, if they are allowed, destroyers. Yes, it labors; but “the Lord will not cast off His people, and He will not forsake His inheritance until justice is turned into judgment.” “Until the justice,” which is now in His saints, “be turned into judgment;” when that shall be fulfilled which was said to them, “Ye shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” The apostle had righteousness, but not yet that judgment of which he says, “Know ye not that we shall judge angels?” Be it now, therefore, the time for living rightly; the time for judging them that have lived ill shall be hereafter. “Until righteousness,” saith he, “is turned into judgment.” The time of judgment will be that of which the Lord has here said, “My time is not yet come.” For there will be a time of glory, when He who came in humility will come in loftiness; He who came to be judged will come to judge; He who came to be slain by the dead will come to judge the quick and the dead. “God,” saith the psalm, “will come manifest, our God, and He will not be silent.” What is “shall come manifest”? Because He came concealed. Then He will not be silent; for when He came concealed, “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and as a lamb before its shearer, He opened not His mouth.” He shall come, and shall not keep silence. “I was silent,” saith He, “shall I always be silent?”
7. But what is necessary at the present time for those who have righteousness? That which is read in that psalm: “Until righteousness is turned into judgment, and they that have it are upright of heart.” You ask, perhaps, who are the upright in heart? We find in Scripture those to be upright in heart who bear the evils of the world, and do not accuse God. See, brethren, an uncommon thing is that which I speak of. For I know not how it is that, when any evil befalls a man, he runs to accuse God, when he ought to accuse himself. When thou gettest any good, thou praisest thyself; when thou sufferest any evil, thou accusest God. This is then the crooked heart, not the upright. When thou art cured of this distorting and perversity, what thou didst use to do will be turned into the contrary. For what didst thou use to do before? Thou didst praise thyself in the good things of God, and didst accuse God in thine own evil things; with thy heart converted and made right, thou wilt praise God in His good things, and accuse thyself in thy own evil things. These are the upright in heart. In short, that man, who was not yet right in heart when the success of the wicked and the distress of the good grieved him, says, when he is corrected: “How good is the God of Israel to the upright in heart! But as for me,” when I was not right in heart, “my feet were almost gone; my steps had well-nigh slipped.” Why? “Because I was envious at sinners, beholding the peace of sinners.” I saw, saith he, the wicked prosperous, and I was displeased at God; for I did wish that God should not permit the wicked to be happy. Let man understand: God never does permit this; but a bad man is thought to be happy, for this reason, because men are ignorant of what happiness is.
Let us then be right in heart: the time of our glory is not yet come. Let it be told to the lovers of this world, such as the brethren of the Lord were, “your time is always ready;” our time “is not yet come.” For let us, too, dare to say this. And since we are the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, since we are His members, since we joyfully acknowledge our head, let us say it without hesitation; since, for our sakes, He deigned also Himself to say this. And when the lovers of this world revile us, let us say to them, “Your time is always ready; our time is not yet come.” For the apostle has said to us, “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” When will our time come? “When Christ,” saith he, “your life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.”
8. What said He further? “The world cannot hate you.” What is this, but, The world cannot hate its lovers, the false witnesses? For you call the things that are evil, good; and the things that are good, evil. “But me it hateth, because I bear witness concerning it, that its works are evil. Go ye up to this feast.” What means “to this”? Where ye seek human glory. What means “to this”? Where ye wish to prolong carnal joys, not to meditate on eternal joys. “I go not up to this feast, because my time is not yet full come.” On this feast-day you seek human glory; but my time, that is, the time of my glory, is not yet come. That will be my feast-day, not running before and passing over these days, but remaining for ever; that will be festivity, joy without end, eternity without a blot, serenity without a cloud. “When He had said these words unto them, He abode still in Galilee. But when His brethren were gone up, then went He also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.” Therefore “not to this feast-day,” because His desire was not for temporal glory, but to teach something to profit, to correct men, to admonish them of an eternal feast-day, to turn away their love from this world, and to turn it to God. But what means this, “He went up as it were in secret to the feast”? This action of the Lord also is not without meaning. It appears to me that, even from this circumstance that He went up as it were in secret, He had intended to signify something; for the things that follow will show that He thus went up on the middle of the feast, that is, when those days were half over, to teach even openly. But He said, “As it were in secret,” meaning, not to show Himself to men. It is not without meaning that Christ went up “as it were in secret” to that feast, because He Himself lay hid in that feast-day. What I have said as yet is also under cover of secrecy. Let it be manifested then, let the veil be lifted, and let that which was secret appear.