After this the kitchen maid comes, quite out of breath, and says to Matthew: ‘Sir, sir, come and look! Just now a multitude of young men came and brought all kinds of provisions in such quantities that we shall scarcely consume them in a year! And everything looks so fresh and good! The grain stores too are filled from top to bottom, and the skins in the cellar are full of the best wine! Sir, sir! Where has all this come from today, on the Jews’ Sabbath?!’
Matthew and everyone in the room are quite beside themselves at this news, and John’s disciples, a couple of whom had earlier fully satisfied themselves that the pantries were empty, immediately asked Matthew whether he had ordered any such provisions.
Matthew says: ‘Not I; for then of course I above all would have to know something about it, and not my wife either, for earlier, through this very maid, she sent word that our small supply is as good as completely consumed. Nor, apart from a garden and a few leased fields, do I have any land for growing produce in great quantities, and I would have little time for that business either, since, first, I have much to do with the toll and, second, must also see to entertaining the guests here in this inn of mine. So I have usually supplied this inn of mine with provisions from week to week and mostly had them brought for money from Capernaum; and it was mostly you who supplied me with fish, while I mostly bought wine and grain from my fellow believers until now, the Greeks. That, briefly, is how I have supplied my house with what it needs up to now; but neither I nor my household know a syllable about this order!
‘Unless some unknown great friend should have done this?! Otherwise it is and remains an obvious miracle! But where and who this friend is!? Naturally I know that as little as you! But now I will call in all my people and ask them before you whether they perhaps knew any of the bearers?’
Now the wife and all the maids and servants are called and questioned; but they all testify with one voice that they had not known anyone even remotely! ‘The men looked like delicately built youths, for not a single one had any visible beard; but they all had beautiful, long, curly hair, and their dress resembled Roman rather than Jewish dress.’ There had been many of them, in the pantries as well as in the grain loft and cellar. They quickly set down what they had brought and said: ‘This is a gift to Matthew the toll collector, whom the great Master called today!’ Then they went away most hurriedly, and we did not see where they have turned from the house.’
A Pharisee says to this: ‘The matter sounds quite unusually strange, and yet it is true!? We really would be very much in favor of getting to the bottom of this event.’
Turning to Matthew, the same Pharisee continues speaking and says: ‘Host! Have a sample of the wines brought to us, and we will tell you where they come from! For from the taste and color we know where it grew!’
They immediately go to the cellar and bring all the drinking vessels full; and when the Pharisees and scribes tasted the wines, they say in full astonishment: ‘No! We have never tasted such a wine as this! It is of indescribable goodness and loveliness! We have drunk all the wines that grow anywhere on the earth known to us, some of which were also very good and pleasant to the taste; but compared with this wine, they could scarcely be called lukewarm water! This is therefore a riddle and remains a riddle!
‘But since you now have a large supply of these unsurpassably glorious wines, would you not let us have a few skins in return for money and good words? It would truly be worth the trouble to send a consignment to the high priest in Jerusalem?!’
Matthew says: ‘Freely I have received it, and freely I give it in turn; but not a drop to the high priest in Jerusalem! Unless he happened to come here as a guest: then he shall be served like anyone else—but, mark well, only as a human being equal to anyone else, never as a Jewish high priest, who to me is an abomination of all desolation and a murderer of the spirit of the people who are of his faith!’
A scribe says: ‘Friend! You surely judge the high priest of Jerusalem quite wrongly there, and have no knowledge of his nature and his office!’
Matthew says: ‘Let us leave the matter alone, because it is the quickest to bring me into a truest and most just heat of anger! You are his eyes and therefore see least what is nearest you, namely your own nose, forehead and whole face; we who look at you from opposite see all that only too well and precisely! But now nothing more or further about it, otherwise I would grow heated, and I would not wish to offend you, who are now my equally respected guests!’
A more good-natured Pharisee says: ‘Well, well, let us leave this matter alone and speak instead with Master Jesus about it; perhaps he will be best able to enlighten us about this event, for he towers high above us all in every kind of knowledge and wisdom!’ Turning to Me: ‘What do you say about this story? For you seem to have some inkling of it, because your earlier conversation with John’s disciples seems almost to point to it! For almost at the very moment when you told John’s disciples how God provides for those who truly love Him and trust in Him in a wholly living way (!), and how you thoroughly scourged the ugliness and depravity of this selfishness, this happened. And so, quite secretly, it seems to me that you had obtained news of it from somewhere, or had even secretly been the originator yourself?!’
I say: ‘Good! If you suspect this of Me, then direct your suspicion also towards what I said to John’s disciples, and confess in your hearts that I have spoken the fullest truth!
‘Whoever among you acts thus from the ground of his heart will also always experience from God what our friend and brother Matthew has now experienced!
‘For believe Me! God always remains the same in His heart: as He was when no sun, moon or stars would shine in the firmament for a long time yet, so He still is at this moment, and will remain so eternally!
‘Whoever seeks Him along the right way will also find Him, and will be blessed unto all eternities of eternities!’
These words go deep into everyone’s heart, and John’s disciples begin to examine themselves deeply and say: ‘He must after all be a far greater prophet than our John was!? For we were with him for ten full years, but at his side we never experienced anything like this! The Pharisee is right when he maintains that this Jesus knows about it!? But I would almost maintain that all this comes from him and through him by a way unknown to us; and the whole thing is palpable proof against our now evident blindness, together with our great master John!?’