Christmas gold, p.269
Christmas Gold, page 269
But the day was not ended. Jesus, as His custom was, went down to the shore, where He could teach greater numbers than in the narrow streets. As He was passing along He saw a tax-collector sitting in his booth gathering tolls for the hated Roman conquerors. Such a person was singularly offensive to all Jews, but especially so to the Pharisees, who looked upon publicans as the most vicious and degraded of men. Mark tells us this man was the son of Alpheus, or Cleophas, the uncle of Jesus by his marriage with Mary, his mother’s sister. If so, he was a reprobate son, probably disowned by all his family, to whom he was a sorrow and disgrace. The presence of Jesus and his brethren in Capernaum must have been a trial to him, bringing back to mind the days of their happy boyhood together in Nazareth, and making him feel keenly the misery and ignominy of the present But now Jesus stands opposite his booth, looks him in the face, not angrily but tenderly, and he hears Him say, ‘Levi, follow Me!’ And immediately he arose, left all, and followed Him.
The same evening Levi, or Matthew as he was afterwards called, gave a supper at his own house to Jesus and His disciples; and, no doubt with our Lord’s permission, invited many publicans like himself to come and meet Him and hear His teaching. The Pharisees could not let such a circumstance pass uncriticised. For their part, their religion forbade them eating even with the common people, and here was the Prophet eating with publicans and sinners. This was a fresh offence; and Jesus answered only by saying, ‘They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’ No defence was offered, and no excuse made. But there was a sad sarcasm in His reply which must have stung the consciences of some of them. Were they the righteous, whom He could not call into the kingdom of God?
CHAPTER VIII.
FOES FROM JERUSALEM.
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As spectators at Matthew’s feast were two of John’s disciples, who had been sent by their master with a strange question, ‘Art thou He that should come, or look we for another?’ John had now been imprisoned for some time in a gloomy dungeon on the desolate shores of the Dead. Sea. His disciples, who were inclined to be somewhat jealous of the younger prophet, had brought him word of the miracles wrought by Jesus, but wrought upon the Sabbath day in direct antagonism to the Pharisees, and, as it seemed, to the law of Moses. The very first miracle at Cana of Galilee was altogether opposed to the austere habits of John, who had never tasted wine. There was something perplexing and painful to him in these reports; and he had nothing else to do in his prison than brood over them. Was it possible that he could have made any mistake—could have fallen under any delusion in proclaiming his cousin Jesus as the promised Messiah? Had he truly heard a voice from heaven? Could this be indeed the Son of God, who mingled with common people at their feasts, and visited Samaritans? He, who all his life long had lived in the open air, free from even social restraints, was becoming morbid in his captivity. It grew necessary to him at last to send his disciples to Jesus for some comforting and reassuring message.
When John’s disciples came to Jesus they seem to have found Him feasting with the publicans—a circumstance utterly foreign to their master’s custom. They felt themselves more akin to the Pharisees, and asked Him, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but Thy disciples fast not?’ Jesus answered them that He was the bridegroom of whom John himself had spoken, and that as long as the bridegroom was with them they could not mourn. But the days would come when He should be taken away, and then they would fast He would have no pretence at mourning or fasting to be seen of men. He would have no acting. These were days of joy, and it was meet to make merry and be glad when a brother who had been lost was found. Matthew was their brother, and he was restored to them; how could they mourn?
But Jesus kept John’s disciples with Him for a short time, that they might see how miracles were His everyday work, not merely a wonder performed in the synagogues on a Sabbath day, before sending them back to the poor prisoner in Herod’s fortress. The next day was a Sabbath. The Pharisees kept closely beside Jesus, following Him even when He and His disciples were walking through the fields of standing corn, possibly after the synagogue service, but before the Sabbath was ended. It was the second week of April, and the grain was growing heavy in the ear; perhaps a few ears of it were ripe, for in the lowlands about Capernaum it ripened earlier than in the uplands of Galilee. The disciples plucked the ears of com, rubbing them in their hands with the careless ease of men who thought it no harm, and who had forgotten the captious Pharisees beside them. The latter accused them sharply of breaking the law, and aroused Jesus to defend them by giving them instances from their own Scriptures and observances of the law of Moses being broken without blame. Then, pausing to give more weight to His last words, He added, ‘The Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath.’ He did not acknowledge their authority to make laws for the Sabbath. Nay, more, He claimed to be Lord of it Himself.
Without doubt this answer deepened the enmity and opposition of the Pharisees; nor can we wonder at it There was now no middle course they could take. If they acknowledged Jesus to be a prophet sent from God, they must own Him as Christ, the Messiah, with a Divine authority over their laws and traditions. He was setting these at defiance, asserting Himself to be Lord of the Temple and Lord of the Sabbath. John had made no such claims, though it was well known that his birth had been foretold by the angel Gabriel to Zacharias, his father, when he was ministering in the Holy Place. But John's career was at an end; and if Jesus was not taken out of the way He would turn the world upside down, and the Romans would bring them into utter subjection. Both religion and patriotism demanded that they should seek His death.
A day or two after this weekly Sabbath came a legal Sabbath, one of the holy days among the Jews. Jesus was in the synagogue; and there also, probably in a conspicuous place as if to catch His eye, sat a man with a withered hand. It seems almost as though he had been found and posted there in order to test Jesus. The Pharisees were growing eager to multiply accusations against Him before they returned to Jerusalem for the approaching feast of the passover. Even they might feel that the sin of plucking ears of corn was not a very grave one. Here was a man for Jesus to heal. The case was not an urgent one; to-morrow would do as well as today for restoring the withered hand. But Jesus will show to them that any act of love and mercy is lawful on the Sabbath day, is, in fact, the most lawful thing to do. God causes His sun to shine, and His rain to fall, on that day as on any other. He looked round upon them all with their hard faces set against Him; and He was grieved in His heart Then, with the authority of a prophet, He bade the man stand up and stand forward in the midst of them If they had been secretly plotting against Him in bringing the man there, He was not afraid to face them openly. ‘Is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good or to do evil? to save life or to destroy it?’ He asked. But the Pharisees from Jerusalem could not answer the question; and when He healed the man in the sight of all the people, they were filled with madness.
Possibly they had reckoned upon the miracle foiling, for by this time it was understood that only those who believed in the power of Jesus could be healed, and they had not expected this man to have faith in Him. It seems that they left the synagogue at once, and though it was a Sabbath day they held a council against Him how they might destroy Him. They even entered into an alliance with the Herodians, their own opponents. For the Herodians favoured the adoption of Roman laws and customs, against which the Pharisees had formed themselves into a distinct sect But they were now ready to join any party, or follow any plan, so that they might destroy this common enemy.
It became impossible for Jesus to remain in Capernaum, and He left it immediately, probably the same evening, withdrawing to some mountain near the lake, where He continued all night in prayer to God. To a nature like His this bitter and pitiless enmity, aroused by acts of goodness only, must have been a terrible burden. They were His own people, not the heathen, who were hunting Him to death—men who all their lives long had heard and read of God, His heavenly Father, who offered sacrifices to Him and gave tithes to His Temple of all that they possessed. They knew, or ought to have known, what they were doing. There was no excuse of ignorance for them. All night He prayed, with the bright stars glittering above Him in the blue sky, and the fresh breeze from the lake and the mountain, laden with the scent of flowers, breathing softly on His face. No sounds near Him save the quiet sounds of night on the mountain side, and the wail of the curfew over the lake. This was better than sleep to Him; and as the day dawned He was ready once more to meet His disciples, and to face the numerous duties coming with the sunrise.
His first act was to call His disciples to Him, and from them He chose twelve to form for the future a group of attached followers and friends, who would go with Him wherever He went and learn His message, so as to carry it to other lands when His own voice was silenced. Him His foes might and would, destroy; but His message from God must not perish with them. Philip was one of them, he who had been with Him from the first; and John, the youngest and most loved, who sat nearest to Him at meal times, and who treasured up every word that fell from His lips, so that when he came to write the history of his Lord so many memories crowded to his brain of things Jesus had said and done, that he cried in loving despair, ‘All the world could not contain the books that might be written!’
Two at least, if not three, of our Lord’s own family were amongst the chosen twelve: James, His cousin, of whom it is said he was so like Jesus as sometimes to be mistaken for Him; and Judas, not Iscariot, who, like the other kinsmen of Christ, asked Him, even on the last night that He lived, ‘Why wilt thou manifest thyself to us, and not unto the world?’ Levi, if he was the son of Alpheus, was a third cousin, and each one wrote for us a portion of the New Testament How much might these three have told us of His early life in Nazareth if no restraint had been laid upon them!
Then there was Peter, always the leader among the apostles, impatient and daring, so eager that he must always meet his Lord, and not wait for Him to come to him; walking upon the sea, or casting himself into it to reach more quickly the shore where Jesus stood, exclaiming rapturously at one time, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ and at another, with oaths and curses, repeating, ‘I know not the man.’ Of the rest we know little, save one dark name, read amidst the blackest shadows of the past Why did Jesus call Judas Iscariot? Why did He make him a familiar friend in whom He trusted? They went up together into the house of God, and took sweet counsel together. He gave and received from Jesus the kiss of friendship. To him was entrusted the wealth of the little band, and every trifling want of his Master's he had to supply, an office that brought him into the closest intimacy with Him. Why was he chosen for this service? Was he the eldest amid this company of young men? a wise, shrewd man, cautious and prudent, where others might have been rash or forgetful? We do not know; but whilst Peter, James, and John followed their Lord into the chamber of Jainis’ little daughter and up to the Mount of Transfiguration, Judas had the bag, and bore what was put therein.
CHAPTER IX.
AT NAIN.
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It was broad daylight now, no time for secret assassination, and, surrounded by His twelve devoted friends, Jesus could return to Capernaum, where His mother would probably be waiting in a state of anxious restlessness. As soon as it was known that He was entering the town, some of the rulers of the synagogue came to meet Him, beseeching Him to work a miracle in favour of a Roman centurion, whose servant was likely to die. The most bigoted amongst them could not deny that Jesus of Nazareth did many mighty works; and they could not decline to offer this petition to Him when the centurion, who had built them a synagogue, commissioned them with it The servant was healed without Jesus going to the house, the centurion sending to say that he was not worthy that the Lord should enter under his roof. Even Jesus marvelled at the man's faith, and though He had just chosen twelve of His most trustworthy disciples, He cried, ‘I have not found so great a faith; no, not in Israel.’
The next day, Jesus, followed by many disciples, both men and women, went out to visit the towns and villages lying westward of the hills which enclose the plain of Gennesaret As He passed along His company grew in numbers, for everywhere had men heard of Him, and those who had sick friends brought them out to the roadside that they might be healed. This day His journey was a long one, and He could not tarry by the way, except to work some such loving miracle. He was to rest in the little village of Nam that night; a place He knew quite well, for it was only five miles from Nazareth, and probably He had some friends there. Much people had gathered around Him when He trod the steep path up to Nain; but before they reached the gate another multitude appeared coming out as if to meet them, yet there was no shout of welcome; instead there were cries and wailings for one whom they were carrying forth to the tombs outside the village.
Possibly Jesus knew both the young man who was dead and his mother. He hastened to her side, and said, ‘Weep not’ Then He touched the bier, and those who were carrying it stood still. What was the prophet about to do? He could heal any kind of sickness, but this was death, not sickness. It was a corpse bound up, and swathed with grave-clothes; the eyes for ever blinded to the light, and the ears too deaf to be unloosed. An awful silence must have fallen upon the crowd; and they heard a calm, quiet voice saying, ‘Young man, I say unto thee, Arise!’ He spoke simply, in a few words only; but the quiet voice pierced through all the sealed deafness of death, and the dead sat up, and began to speak. Then Jesus, perhaps with His own hands freeing him from the grave-clothes, gave him back to his mother. A thrill of fear ran through all the crowd, and as they thronged into Nain some said, ‘A great prophet is risen up among us,’ and others, ‘God has visited His people.’
It has been thought that here, at Nain, dwelt Simon the Pharisee, who now invited Jesus to his house to eat meat with him. He was not one of our Lord's enemies from Jerusalem, but merely a member of the sect, which was numerous throughout all Judea and Galilee. He probably regarded Jesus as a working-man from the neighbouring village of Nazareth, though now considered a prophet by the people: and he did not offer to Him the courteous attentions he would have shown to a more honoured guest. After His long and dusty walk Jesus sat down to Simon's table without the usual refreshment of having His feet washed, and His head anointed with oil.
But this slight, passed over by Jesus, was more than atoned for by a woman, who, coming in to see the supper with other townspeople, stood behind Him at His feet, and began to wash them with her tears, and to wipe them with her long hair, kissing them again and again. Caring little who was watching her in her passion of repentance and love, she brought an alabaster box of precious ointment, and poured the costly contents upon the feet she had washed and kissed Yet the prophet seemed to take no notice of her and her touch. But Simon, the host, said to himself, ‘This man, if He were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth Him; for she is a sinner.’ The sinful woman's unheeded touch was more conclusive against Him than all His miracles were for Him. Simon did not have her thrust from his house; but there was a secret satisfaction in his heart at finding out that Joseph's son after all was not prophet enough to know who she was.
Did not Jesus know? Had He not felt every tear that had fallen upon His feet, and the touch of the trembling lips which dared not speak to Him? He spoke a short, simple parable to Simon, and asked Him a question, the answer to which condemned the self-righteous Pharisee. And then, turning to the weeping woman, He said, ‘Thy sins, which are many, are forgiven; thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.’ Those who sat about Him began then with their old murmur, ‘Who is this that forgiveth sins also?’ But He gave them no sign this time. No sign could be greater than the miracle wrought that day. As Jesus Himself said in one of His parables, ‘They will not be persuaded, no, not if one rise from the dead.’
CHAPTER X.
MIGHTY WORKS.
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Leaving Nain, Jesus, with a large number of followers, including the apostles, and certain women who ministered to them of their property, passed through all the villages of that neighbourhood, gradually working their way back to Capernaum. It was some time during this week that Jesus dismissed the disciples of John the Baptist, bidding them tell Him all they had seen and heard, and adding to His message a gentle reproof, ‘Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in Me.’ He knew how many were already offended; and how the cause of offence must take deeper and deeper root, until the scandal of the cross came to eclipse every dream of glory in His followers. The message thus sent to John in his prison, with the marvellous tidings of the signs and wonders wrought, and the report of the new doctrines, must have greatly strengthened and comforted the prophet during the short time that remained to him of life.
The circuit from Nain to Capernaum, though short, was one of great exertion and fatigue; yet when they reached the latter town, and were in need of rest, so great a multitude came together again immediately, that they could not so much as eat bread Jesus could not attend to His own needs, whilst others were crying to Him for help, or crowding round Him for instruction. His meat was to do the will of Him that sent Him, and to finish His work; and the bitter enmity of the Pharisees warned Him that what He had to do must be done quickly. But His relations thought it was quite time to interfere with this self-forgetful zeal, and they sought to take hold of Him, saying, ‘He is beside Himself.’ They did not yet believe in Him, for they could not get over the impression made upon them by His homely simple life amongst them, when He worked at a trade like themselves, apparently unconscious of being different from them. Probably their words only meant that He was carried into extremes by His burning enthusiasm But the Pharisees from Jerusalem, who were still hanging about Him, caught up the hasty words, and bitterly exaggerated them. ‘He hath Beelzebub,’ they cried, ‘and by the prince of the devils He casteth out devils.’ Jesus then called them to Him, bidding the crowd make way. It was an extraordinary scene. There stood the powerful enemies from the chief city and the chief priests of the nation, strong in their reputation for religion and for righteousness, face to face with the young but well-known prophet of Nazareth, who boldly and solemnly in the hearing of all the people warned them of the sin they were committing, blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, and declared that if it was persisted in there was no forgiveness for it.
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