Pastor Pastorum Part 21

Our Lord now lays aside for a time His setting forth of G.o.d's Kingdom to the people at large, and devotes Himself entirely to preparing the Apostles for what was to come. He now breaks to all the Twelve the news of what His end on earth would be. He speaks in the plainest terms but they do not understand: their own preconception firmly holds its ground. Some perhaps thought that this death spoken of would be like a temporary trance, from which their Master would rise to a life in the body such as He had led before.

Our Lord, we may be sure, did not suppose that they would understand, nor was He careful that they should do so, if He had been He would have asked them questions and commented on their replies. If the whole sad truth had been unfolded, they would have had no heart for daily work; the cloud in the future would have overcast their souls. Thus it is that our Lord does not dwell upon the end. He says nothing of its meaning, He utters no word of doctrine, but He states the facts in the barest form. His intention in doing this is made known to us in words spoken long afterwards:

"But these things have I spoken unto you, that when their hour is come, ye may remember them, how that I told you. And these things I said not unto you from the beginning, because I was with you."(260)

It was not His object that they should know beforehand what was coming, but that when circ.u.mstances furnished the key, they should understand that all was taking place in the way He had foreseen: neither should they be made to grieve while the bridegroom was with them.

When the Crucifixion came, it would be some support to the disciples to mark that it was a fulfilment of their Master's words. They would get a larger view of G.o.d's plans by marking that what came about was part of a purpose worked steadily out, on lines long before laid down.

Whatever our Lord's words might mean, no doubt about the final restoration of the Kingdom to Israel entered the Apostles' heads. Come what might this was to them a certainty, and the notion of a Kingdom over the hearts and consciences of men, without the sanctions or appurtenances of royal sway, was one which neither they nor any others of those times could conceive; it had to appear, indeed, as a fact, before it could be entertained as an idea.

The Apostles were ready enough to admit that vicissitudes of fortune might befall them and their Master on their way, but that their cause must finally triumph was a conviction which formed part of themselves. They made light of the conflicts and dangers which beset the road, for they saw behind all these an empire settled for evermore and stretching over the world. This material view brought with it at the time the ills that cling to error. It made them think of what they should themselves receive. Their care for self, which had pa.s.sed almost out of sight while they devotedly followed their Master over the mountains or the Lake, swelled out greatly now. Our Lord, so tolerant of merely speculative error, is made anxious by the symptoms of rivalry displayed. Mistaken opinions, or illusions, due to the traditions in which they had been reared, events already impending would dispel; but self-regard among the founders of the Church would be fatal to the work.

"And they came to Capernaum: and when he was in the house he asked them, What were ye reasoning in the way?"(261)

We get here a glimpse of the Apostolic company taking their road along the path which had been chosen as being unfrequented.(262) We may picture them journeying on, with our Lord a little in front, with them but not quite of them-for always He is essentially alone-close enough to hear a medley of voices and to catch the tones which indicated contest, but not near enough to distinguish words-and after Him the Apostles following in knots of two or three which now and then came together into one group. Our Lord is not quick to interrupt; He is singularly sparing of interposing the Master's hand, He does not turn on them and chide. The Apostles would not have grown to what they did if they had been checked at every turn.

The dispute has died away, their journey is over and they are together in the house at Capernaum which they had left some months before, when our Lord asks the question in the text just quoted shewing that He knew their hearts, and they held their peace. Our Lord sat down and called the Twelve; from this they might be sure that He had something of moment to say.

St Mark gives his words thus,

"If any man would be first, he shall be last of all, and minister of all."(263)

This evangelist's way of putting what was said makes it look like a penal provision against seeking the mastery; as if he who was convicted of aiming at the highest place was to be put down to the bottom of the scale.

But St Luke's version points to a view more consistent with Our Lord's usual way. He makes our Lord say, "for he that is least among you all, the same is great."(264) Christian greatness is born of willingness to lay the lowliest duties on yourself, and the way to be first is to be ready to remain last.

Our Lord goes to the root of this matter of greatness. He makes them put it to themselves what they meant by being greater one than another. He recalls them from what is worldly and ephemeral, from gradations of precedence and authority, to what const.i.tutes the real greatness of a spiritual being, his favour in G.o.d's sight.

St Matthew's account of this discourse is the most full, and if we take out of it the denunciations of offence, and suppose them put subsequently as St Mark gives them, it makes it easier to follow the connexion of thought.

"In that hour came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And he called to him a little child, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me: but whoso shall cause one of these little ones which believe on me to stumble, it is profitable for him that a great millstone should be hanged about his neck, and _that_ he should be sunk in the depth of the sea.

Woe unto the world because of occasions of stumbling! for it must needs be that the occasions come; but woe to that man through whom the occasion cometh!

See that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven."(265)

A child does not feel that he is humbling himself by helping even in the lowliest matters in his parents' work; rather is he elated at being found to be of use. The Apostles could take a lesson by children in this particular; and in order to learn this lesson, they could hardly do better than try to win children to them, not counting them lightly because they were children, but feeling a reverence for childhood, because Christ claimed children as His own, and, what was more, declared that in heaven their angels always beheld His Father's face.

This gentleness of our Lord in rebuking, has an effect which gentleness often has, it awakens compunctions in those to whom it is shewn. A child, who by severity is set on its defence or drawn into falsehood, is often melted into full confession by being loved and trusted more than it deserves. While our Lord was speaking of offences, St John had been asking himself whether he had ever put back any who were pressing toward Christ in their own way, whether he had ever chilled a nascent faith; his conscience is not clear and he must come out with what troubles him. They had seen one casting out devils in their Master's name(266) and the evil spirit of exclusiveness had come over them. Their Master they thought was wholly theirs, and no one who did not become altogether one of themselves was to have any part in Him; there is a touch of truth to nature in this which makes us sure that what we read took place. Our Lord's reply is again gentle; to be hard on a fault that was confessed would have dried up that confidence which flowed so freely. They were to take the large view, they are told "He that is not against us is for us." Man is a weak being and where there is good, however partial, there is hope. Spirits, on the contrary, we may suppose are either good or evil and do not change their nature; so when speaking of them, not of mankind, in the reply to the charge that He cast out devils by Beelzebub, we find the opposite statement.

"He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth."(267)

It is commonly supposed that it was at this visit to Capernaum that the half shekel was demanded of Peter, which was provided by the stater found in the fish's mouth; of this miracle I have spoken already, but I may have occasion to recur to it again.

We find in St Matthew's Gospel(268) a lesson delivered at this time by our Lord on the forgiveness of offences. St Peter,-characteristically ready to bring out what is in his heart-is willing to accept the duty of forgiveness; but he cannot get rid of the notion in which he has been trained, that all conduct must be ordered by definite rule. He would forgive his brother as he was told to do, but he must know how many times he was to do so. He could bring himself to acts of forgiveness, but he did not yet feel that it was more blessed to forgive than to resent. A parable is spoken expressly for him, it is that of the king who made the reckoning with his servants. Later on, when he had himself needed and received forgiveness for denying his Master, a new light in this direction streamed in, no doubt, upon his soul.

This discourse of our Lord precedes His setting out for Jerusalem to the feast of Tabernacles, and may be supposed to contain his parting directions to the body of disciples left behind at Capernaum. Nothing would be so disastrous as the breaking out of rivalry among them; His injunctions therefore, like those which He gave to the Apostles at the last, are to the effect that they should forgive and love one another.

At the end of the 9th Chapter in St Mark, we have a hard pa.s.sage which has suffered from interpolation;(269) this I believe to have been the close of the lesson given to the Twelve in the house at Capernaum, when our Lord called them round Him and sat down.

"For every one shall be salted with fire. Salt is good: but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with another."(270)

When our Lord says "every one shall be salted with fire" I believe that He is thinking of that fire which He had come to send upon the earth; that new sense of communion with G.o.d, which Christ awakened in the consciences of men and which has been a mighty transforming agency in the world.

The Apostles who were to be instinct with this Spirit were the salt of the world. This Spirit should be to them what salt is to that which it seasons and preserves; but if the preserving principle, embodied in the Apostles, and which was to emanate from them should itself prove corrupt, then where could help be found? If they, the chosen ones, became selfish, if they wrangled about who should be greatest; then the fire which our Lord had come to send upon earth was clearly not burning in them, and whence could it be kindled afresh. So our Lord parts from the body of disciples, going with a few on His way to the feast, and His last injunction is that they should have salt in themselves and be at peace one with another.

At this point, the end of the ninth chapter, we lose the guidance of the Gospel of St Mark. All that the writer gives for the events of half a year, lies in this verse:

"And he arose from thence, and cometh into the borders of Judaea and beyond Jordan: and mult.i.tudes come together unto him again; and, as he was wont, he taught them again."(271)

It would seem as if it was the Galilaean ministry that he had set himself to relate, and that when our Lord pa.s.sed into Judaea and Peraea he-being perhaps no longer a constant eye witness and not willing to speak from hearsay-broke off his tale. The narrative is supplied here by St John (Chap. vii.) and also by St Luke who, in a section of the Gospel which has driven formal Harmonists to despair (Chaps. ix. 50 to xviii. 15), preserves matter of the greatest value belonging apparently to this time.

St Luke speaks of a journey to Jerusalem, and of our Lord's coming to a village of the Samaritans on the way.(272) This journey is identified with that to the feast of Tabernacles (St John vii. 10) which must be the same as that spoken of above by St Mark. It is doubtful whether our Lord saw Capernaum again before His death, but He may have done so just before the final journey to Jerusalem.

A word or two must be said about St John's account of the circ.u.mstances under which our Lord set out: his account is this.

"Now the feast of the Jews, the feast of tabernacles, was at hand.

His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judaea, that thy disciples also may behold thy works which thou doest. For no man doeth anything in secret, and himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou doest these things, manifest thyself to the world. For even his brethren did not believe on him. Jesus therefore saith unto them, My time is not yet come; but your time is alway ready. The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that its works are evil. Go ye up unto the feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; because my time is not yet fulfilled. And having said these things unto them, he abode _still_ in Galilee. But when his brethren were gone up unto the feast, then went he also up, not publicly, but as it were in secret."(273)

This disbelief was not, in our Lord's brethren, grounded on an opposition of will like that of the scribes. It came from the "slowness of heart" of men who had not imagination for things Divine. What came before their eyes was never doubted by them; they did not explain His miracles away as His enemies did, only they did not see what the possession of this power implied. After the Ascension they are found among the believers.(274) Like the rest of the people at Nazareth they admired "the wisdom given unto this man" and "the mighty works wrought by His hands,"(275) but they could not imagine that one who had grown up along with them had a nature of a different order from theirs. Our Lord never upbraids them; they worked their work and He His. They were blameless commonplace men, wondering at their brother's powers and also that, with all His wisdom, He should fail in the practical sense necessary for turning His superiority to account.

What was the good of these wonders being wrought if n.o.body knew of them?

That He must aim at notoriety seemed to them too much a matter of course to need saying; and now when the great feast to which all Israel gathered was at hand, it was inexplicable that He should not join the company that travelled from Galilee, and thus enter Jerusalem with a following at his back.

The voice which, at the Temptation, had whispered, "Use your superhuman power to lend material aid to your designs," spoke in His brothers' advice as it had done by Peter. They were not unconcerned for His safety, if they had foreseen danger they would have kept Him away from the Feast (St Mark iii. 21), but they either underrated the hostility of His foes or a.s.sumed that He would protect Himself by His superhuman power; for that, possessing miraculous powers as they knew He did, He should hesitate, on an emergency, to exert them in self-defence was to them an idea too unreasonable to be entertained. The deep truth unconsciously uttered by His foes, "He saved others, Himself He cannot save," was one which their minds were not constructed to contain. Our Lord foresaw that a public entry into Jerusalem would lead to commotion, and, as afterwards happened, might bring about His death. A man's life, if he have a great matter in hand, is the more precious to him until this be done: so it was with our Lord. Until He had finished what was given Him to accomplish, He took such precautions for personal safety as a prudent man would. To have made light of danger, trusting to baffle it by superhuman means, would have spoiled the lesson and the moral of His life.

When the brethren spoke of His "going up to Jerusalem," they thought of the journey in public as much as of the feast itself. Half Galilee would be upon the road, men would mix and converse freely on the way, and Jesus, they thought, would, by travelling thus, come in contact with a number of zealous men and increase His following largely. But herein lay one of the dangers which made our Lord shun this course. The people, proud of the great prophet from their own district, might have revived the project of making Him a King, and by a turbulent entry to Jerusalem have alarmed the Romans as well as the scribes. Again, the turmoil of this journey would have disturbed those processes of growth in the Apostles' mind over which our Lord held watch; the feast of Tabernacles was, above all, a festival of joyousness, and the journey to it was made an occasion of pleasure and social union. For the Apostles to have joined the crowd would have been unfavourable for the germination of the solemn thoughts of which our Lord had dropped the seed on His way from the Mount to Capernaum. By going up privately in the middle of the Feast these dangers were avoided. There was no public arrival, no welcome. The Romans would know and care nothing about a new preacher who appeared in the Temple, and the priests, in face of the diversity of opinion about Jesus of Nazareth, would hesitate to lay hands upon Him. For the Apostles too, the journey through an unfriendly country would give plenty of occasion for turning over in their minds the strange words they had heard about the sufferings of the Christ, and the injunctions to "have salt in themselves."

What gives this journey its great interest to me, with my particular purpose in view, is the refusal of hospitality to our Lord by the Samaritan villages, and the enquiry of James and John, whether they should not call down fire from heaven; wherein the "Sons of Thunder" justify their name.

"And it came to pa.s.s, when the days were well-nigh come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him.