(13) Jesus said to his disciples: Make a comparison to me, and tell me whom I am like. Simon Peter said to him: Thou art like a righteous angel. Matthew said to him: Thou art like a wise man of understanding. Thomas said to him: Master, my mouth will no wise suffer that I say whom thou art like. Jesus said: I am not thy master, because thou hast drunk, thou hast become drunk from the bubbling spring which I have measured out. And he took him, went aside, and spoke to him three words. Now when Thomas came to his companions, they asked him: What did Jesus say unto thee? Thomas said to them: If I tell you one of the words which he said to me, you will take up stones and throw them at me; and a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up."
To most of us this must appear very esoteric; however there are several references to the bubbling spring in the Bible:
Jeremiah 2:13,
Song of Solomon 4:15,
John 4:10-13,
John 7:38 (later versions say 'out of his heart'),
Revelation 7:17
I believe Thomas is more biblically oriented than most of us give him credit for.
Re "you will take up stones and throw them at me; and a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up" likely Thomas understood that those who got the straight message would be persecuted (like Steven), but would emerge victorious in the end.
3 comments:
What do you suppose those three words were that Jesus shared with Thomas that would lead Thomas to become persecuted if he share them?
I am drawn to this part:
"Jesus said: I am not thy master, because thou hast drunk, thou hast become drunk from the bubbling spring which I have measured out."
To me this says that when you have drunk from the same source that Jesus drinks, then Jesus is no longer your master, but more of an equal.
This saying is like one in another gospel, where Jesus asks the disciples ...
'But who do you say that I am?'" (Matthew 16:13-15)
... Jesus said Peter got it right when he called him the messiah and son of God.
Two interesting things - one is that we all have a different Jesus, and who he is to us says a lot about ourselves. And the other thing is that it matters to Jesus what we think of him.
Re the three words: I wonder if Jesus might not speak three different words to each one of us. They might be according to our level of consciousness and our experience of him.
Meredith certainly seems right to me about the "same source". When one becomes "drunk from it", one becomes a twin. (These are metaphors that express something profound, but perhaps unnameable, like the unspeakable words that Paul mentioned in II Corinthians.
Crystal, it matters to me what you think of me just as "it matters to Jesus what we think of him". That certainly emphasizes his humanity.
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