Discourses at the Communion on Fridays

[ 11 ] John 12:321

[ 11 ] John 12:321 • Prayer Lord Jesus Christ, there is so much to draw us back: empty exploits, trivial pleasures, unworthy concerns. There is so much to frighten us back: a pride that is too cowardly to let itself be helped, a cowardly timidity that shirks to its own destruction, an anxiety of sin [en Syndens Angst] that shuns the purity of holiness like sickness shuns the remedy. But you are indeed still the strongest: so draw us, and even more strongly , to yourself. We call you our Savior and Redeemer in that you came to the world in order to free us from the chains in which we were bound or in which we had bound ourselves, and in order to rescue the redeemed. This was your task, which you have completed and which you will complete until the end of time,2 for just as you yourself have said it, so you will do it: lifted up from the earth, you will draw all to yourself. John 12:32: And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all to myself. From on high he will draw all to himself. Attentive listener, if a human being’s life is not to be led altogether unworthily like that of the animal, which never lifts up its head; if it 1. [Editor’s note:] The following note is appended to the text by Anti-Climacus, the pseudonymous author of Practice in Christianity: “This discourse was delivered by Magister Kierkegaard in Our Lady’s Church on Friday, 1 September 1848. Since it originally gave me the idea for the title, I have printed it with his permission. In order to round off the whole with a conclusion that corresponds to this beginning, I have kept no. 7 in the same more lenient tone and to that extent have given up a portion of my character.” No. 7 refers to the seventh discourse of No. III in Practice in Christianity. 2. See John 17:4. 120 Part 3 is not to be frittered away, emptily occupied with what is vanity as long as it lasts and is nothing when it is over, or busily occupied with what no doubt makes a noise at the moment but does not resonate in eternity—if a human being’s life is not to be dozed away in idleness or wasted in bustle, then there must be something higher that draws it. Now this higher something can be quite varied; but if this higher something is to be truly and at every moment able to draw, it must not itself be subject to variation or change3 but must triumphantly have gone through every change, transfigured—like the transfigured life of one who is dead. And just as there is now among all the living only one name that is named, the Lord Jesus Christ,4 so there is also only one dead person who still lives, the Lord Jesus Christ, he who from on high will draw all to himself. See, a Christian’s life, properly structured, is therefore directed toward what is above,5 toward loftiness, toward him who from on high draws the Christian to himself—if the Christian remembers him, and the person who does not do that is certainly no Christian. And you, my listener, you to whom my discourse is addressed , you have indeed come here today precisely in remembrance of him. It follows as a matter of course that if from on high he is able to draw the Christian to himself, there is much that must be forgotten, much that must be disregarded, much that must be died away from [afd øes fra].6 How can this be done? Oh, if you have ever been concerned, perhaps concerned about your future, your success in life, have truly wished to be able to forget something—a disappointed expectation, a shattered hope, a bitter and embittering recollection; or if, alas, out of concern for the salvation of your soul, you have quite fervently wished to be able to forget something—an anxiety of sin that continually confronted you, a terrifying thought that would not leave you—then you yourself have no doubt experienced how empty is the advice the world gives when it says, “try to forget it!” For when you anxiously ask “how shall I go about forgetting?” and the reply is “you must try to forget,” this is only an empty mockery, if it is anything...