He has returned to the point from which He started. His going to the Father has been the subject of His discourse ever since He met them in the upper room at the feast. That has led Him to speak of the Comforter who should tell them of His Father; afterwards of His own eternal union to them, as the root of their fellowship, as the spring of their life; then again of the Comforter who should teach them of both Him and the Father, who should make them witnesses of their eternal unity to men. It is no break in the discourse when He adds, '_A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father_.' The words which we translate '_see_' in the two clauses, are different. I do not know that I can discern the shades of their meaning; but I am sure that there is a reason for the variation, and that it should not be overlooked. The word θεωρεῖτε may, perhaps, intimate that for a time they would lose all perception of Him, even an intellectual perception; the word ὄψεσθε, that they should see Him again with the eyes of the body as well as of the mind, may have cheered the disciples afterwards; at present it added to their confusion. '_Then said some of His disciples among themselves, What is this that He saith unto us, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me: and, Because I go to the Father? They said therefore, What is this that He saith, A little while? we cannot tell what He saith._' They are like men awakening out of a dream, full of troubles and of joys mixed strangely together. He was departing from the earth; He was going to the Father; He was to prepare a place for them. What did it all mean? They thought He was about to tell them; these words '_a little while_' seem to throw them back into more than their old perplexity. '_Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask Him, and said unto them, Do ye inquire among yourselves of that I said, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me?_' He knew that they were desirous to ask Him, because He had taught them to ask. The processes of their minds were under His guidance, as well as the issues of the processes. He determined nothing for them till He had led them to feel after it. So their conversations have become lesson-books for all ages; not resolutions of doubts by peremptory decisions, but histories of transactions in the hearts of men like ourselves, whom the Divine Word chose as instances of the method by which He educates us. And the sentences which follow show us something more of this method, and make us understand how little even the most celestial food can nourish us if it is taken in without being digested.