The knot tied on the end of the thread holds the seam. The clinching of the nail on the underside holds all that has been done. Love ties knots to hold what has been gotten. The bit of prayer knots up the kindly act. The warm hand-grasp knots the timely word. The added word and act tie up all that's gone before. Hate imitates love the best it can. But its intense fires are never so hot.

The rest of John's book is simple. It is tying knots on the ends of threads. Five knots are tied on the ends of these same three threads we have been tracing.

There's a triple knot on the end of the blue thread of acceptance; an ugly tangled knotty knot on the end of that black thread of opposition and rejection; and a knot of wondrous beauty on the end of that yellow thread of winsome wooing. Chapters eighteen and nineteen tie two of these, the black and the glory-coloured.

Chapters thirteen through seventeen, is the first knot on the faith thread, the betrayal-night knot. Chapter twenty is the second, the Resurrection knot; chapter twenty-one the extra knot, the love-service knot. We take a look now at the patient skilful tying of the first knot on the end of that true-blue faith thread.

It's taken a good bit of careful work to get that thread, tearing loose, cleansing, spinning, twisting, careful handling, till at last a good thread is gotten, and is being woven into the warp. Now a knot is tied on its end to hold what has been gotten, and keep it from ravelling out, for there's a desperately hard place coming in the weaving.

There's a clean finish at the end of the twelfth chapter of John. There's a sharp break, an abrupt turn off to something quite different. The direct-wooing case is made up. There is no more added to it, except the indirect, the incidental. The evidence is all in. Wondrous wooing it has been, in its winsomeness, its faithfulness, its rare power. Now it is over. It's done, and well done. That door is shut, the national door.

Now another door opens. The inner door into Jesus' heart is being opened by Him. And the inner door into the disciples' heart is being knocked at that it, too, may open. It is the betrayal night. Jesus is alone with the inner circle. They have received Him. Now He will receive them into closer intimacy than yet before. They have opened their hearts to His love. Now He opens His heart to let out more the love that is there. Love accepted is free to reveal itself. And love revealing its warmth and tenderness and depth yet more calls out quickly a deeper, a tenderer love.

It's the Passover evening. They have met, the twelve and their Master, by appointment, in the home of one of Jesus' faithful unnamed friends. In a large upper room they are shut in, gathered about the supper board. As they eat Jesus is quietly but intently thinking. Four trains of thought pass through His mind side by side.[103] The Father had trusted all into His hands. He had come down from the Father on an errand and would return when the errand was done.

And now the hour was come. The turn in the road was reached, the sharp turn down leading to the sharp turn up and then back. It had seemed slow in coming, that hour.[104] Dreaded things seem to linger even while they hasten, dreaded longed-for things, dreaded in the experience of pain to be borne, eagerly longed for in the blessed result; as with an expectant mother. Now the hour's here.[105]

And yonder across the board sits the man so faithfully wooed, yet dead-set in his inner heart on a dark purpose, more evil in its outcome than he realizes. There must be more and tenderer wooing. He shall have yet another full opportunity. And under all is the heart-throb of love for these who are His own, being birthed into a new life by the giving of His very own life these months past. He loves His own, and will to the uttermost, the utterest, the mostest, limit of love and of time left Him before the great event. These are the thoughts passing quietly, clearly, intensely, through Jesus' mind as they sit at supper.