And now it has happened. Crucified, dead, buried, I stand before you once again. When I first returned you were utterly confused. My death, and the manner of my death, had smashed for ever the illusion that I was the political messiah. But now, I had returned. You didn't know what to think. And precisely because you didn't know what to think, I could at last get through to you. I could get through to you what my mission was actually all about. I could also do more. I could show you something of where it was meant to lead and I could also prepare you to carry on my work.

In the time we have had together since I returned, I have tried to tell you what I believed my mission was all about. This testament is part of that effort. Bear with me if I summarise it for you once again. My mission was primarily spiritual. All I wanted to do was to share with others the truths that my own experience had taught me. I had come to know God as my loving father. I had come to know that in responding to that love all that was best in me had come to the surface. I had become my very best self I wanted to draw others to share that same experience of God and to see the difference it would make to their lives, lifting them out of the pit of selfishness onto a new and higher plane. I do not deny that such a change has political consequences. It would turn the world upside-down. Love not power would become the shaping force in human society. Its agenda set not by the wishes and whims of the mighty but by the needs of the humble and distressed. All this I tried to say to you during my mission, but at that time your minds were locked against it. Now they are open, and you can hear.

By raising me from the dead, God has made it possible for me to complete the work I had begun. He has allowed me to get my message through. But he has also done more. Not only has he allowed me to speak of that step-change that I hoped to bring. He has allowed me to show you something of what making that step-change would lead to. It has allowed me first, to show you something of what it means to the individual. Since my return, all of you have been aware that I have been freed from the normal physical limitations. I have appeared and disappeared at will as I did after the supper at Emmaus. I have passed through locked doors as I did when I first visited you in the Upper Room. But what you cannot see is the infinitely greater freedom I enjoy within, of which the physical freedom is merely an outward sign. I move in effortless communion with God, with others, and with myself Coming back has also allowed me to show you something of what making the step-change would do for mankind as a whole. Since I have returned, we have been more at one with each other than we ever were before. That terrible illusion which for so long stood between us has been banished. You are no longer in the grip of that selfish nationalism that then shaped your thoughts and your hopes. We have, I feel, come much closer to realising that state that I used to pray for as we journeyed to Jerusalem. I asked God then what I ask him still:

"That they me all be one; as thou Father art in me,
and l in thee, so also may they be in us; that the
world may believe that thou didst send me."

But now the time that I can spend with you is almost at an end. Soon I must leave you and leave to you the job of carrying on my work. It will be your job to try to make people aware of God's love for them, to lead them to make that step-change out from selfishness and into selflessness. You will be the leaven in the lump, working to change people and to change the world. What lies ahead of you, time will reveal, but I can at least tell you how it will start. You remember that my own ministry began with those strange events by the River Jordan following my baptism. I saw the heavens opened. I saw the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove. I heard a voice saying, "Thou art my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased." Something very similar will happen to you. What form it will take I cannot tell but you will feel that same Holy Spirit descend on you, and you will feel yourselves filled with all the power that you need to carry on our work. How soon this will happen, I do not know, but until it does wait for it here in Jerusalem.

Farewell, my brothers. I lift my hands in blessing. And may you know and bring to others the peace that comes from God.

Retreat 6 - Reflection and Prayers:

Now surely, Lord, you have gone too far. You have passed clean out of our realm of experience. But no. Once again you offer us a bridge. The bridge is formed by your uncanny ability to pass through locked doors, to appear and disappear at will.

You have entered a realm where nothing stands between. Nothing stands between you and God. You move in effortless communion with him. Nothing stands between you and others. You are at one with your disciples. Nothing stands between you and your own best self The demon of self has been conquered.

We know of what you speak. We have known those moments, perhaps in the quiet of church, where nothing seemed to stand between us and you. We have known those moments of deep communion where nothing seemed to stand between us and the friend with whom we shared our thoughts. We have known those moments sometimes when we knew the unfettered freedom of being our own best selves.

Help us Lord to make the step-change up into that world where nothing stands between; where nothing stands between us and you, where nothing stands between us and others, where nothing stands between us and our own best selves. We ask this for Jesus' sake. Amen.

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