Then came a great Voice out of the unseen. “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.”
The people heard the sound of the Voice and trembled. But not to every man is it given to hear aright; so some said, “It thundered,” and rolled foolish eyes toward the cloudless heavens.
Others, awe-stricken, whispered, “An angel hath spoken to him.”
To these Jesus spake presently. “This [pg 97]voice hath not come for my sake, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”
Then one of the scribes, shaken out of his hypocrisy by the thunder of that celestial Voice, asked in all sincerity: “We have heard out of the law that the Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? who is this Son of man?”
And Jesus, divinely patient, answered once again: “Yet a little while is the light among you. Walk while ye have the light, that darkness overtake you not: and he that walketh in the darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have the light, believe on the light, that ye may become sons of light.”
And with that word he went away and hid himself, and no man saw him for many hours.