One such evening, when the sun was westering, he chose twelve men from among the seventy followers. James, happy to be among them followed him to a mountain whereupon he said he would teach them how to pray.
‘Open your hearts, for I will tell you something…’ he said as night closed about them, ‘once upon a pagan altar, I travelled through these lands, nearby to Caesarea Phillipi. Not far from the township, in a Temple, I heard a voice, it was the Bath-Kol, the thunder of heaven, and I was taken up by it, and it spoke a prayer of lament into my soul, for the downfall of man…now I will give you a reversal of this prayer. A prayer of the hopeful soul that rises up from the fall towards its spirit home.’He began it, ‘Our Father…who are in heaven, hallowed be thy name…’
And oh! What majestic choruses did James hear coming from his words! It was as if all of creation was consumed by light! Yes, praised be God! Reversed was the original darkness of sin, and the fall into degradation, and begun was the ascent towards heavenly, newborn life!
The moment passed, and Jesus, now sitting among them beneath the cedars, said, ‘This prayer tells that what lives in me is the kingdom, the power and the glory of heaven come down to the earth. I have come to bring the heavenly bread, the heavenly teachings that can feed you. Whosoever is fed in life, will not suffer death, for death in the body is only the beginning of life in the spirit, and suffering in one life becomes the seed of joy in the next.’
James puzzled over it, and said to him, ‘Can you tell us, master, what the kingdom of Heaven is like?’
Jesus sat back against the tree, and it seemed that even the calm breeze was paused for his answer. ‘To others I speak in parables but I have chosen you and brought you here because I wish now to speak plain with you…the kingdom is a light, a light that shines into the darkness of your souls,’ he said to them.
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