John reminds us with his final few verses, in the culmination of his telling of the Good News, that the Gospel is not a case of ‘seeing is believing’ but, instead, in the words of our Beloved it is a case of ‘believing is not seeing’:
TRY it for a day, I beseech you, to preserve yourself in an easy and cheerful frame of mind.
…depression always implies physical or moral weakness, and is therefore never to be tolerated so long as one can struggle against it.
…most nervous, irritable states of temper are the mere physical result of a used-up condition.
Our friends are nice people, after all; the little things that annoyed us look ridiculous by bright sunshine; and we are fortunate individuals.
How can we live and think that any one has trouble – piercing trouble – and we could help them and never try?
…the highest philosophy for persons thus afflicted is to understand themselves and their tendencies, to know that these fits of gloom and depression are just as much a form of disease as a fever or a toothache,
‘My dear sir, there are times when I know I am possessed of the Devil, and then I never let myself speak!’
Our Beloved in leaving us does not leave us desolate but leaves reminders of his presence. Perhaps not in an enchanted place but in ordinary things
surrounded by the dead and in fear of being killed themselves that they heard the news of the hope that was born in a cave in Bethlehem and escaped from a tomb in Jerusalem.
Suffolk Vicar 