JESUS IN THE SYNAGOGUE.
Jesus came back to Galilee through the Valley of Jenin and across the
plain of Jezreel to Cana, where His disciple Nathanael lived, and where
He had wrought His first miracle. While He was in Cana a nobleman who
lived at Capernaum came riding into the little town in great haste to
asked Jesus to come down and heal his son who was near death. To try
him, Jesus said,
"Except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe."
The nobleman would not stop to talk of this, but besought Jesus, saying,
"Sir, come down ere my child die."
Jesus was glad to see his faith, and ready to meet it.
"Go thy way," He said, "thy son liveth," and the man went away
believing what Jesus had said. On the way down to Capernaum by the
Lake, some glad-faced servants came hastening to meet him.
"Thy son liveth!" They cried--the very words that Jesus had used. When
he asked them when the boy had taken a turn for the better they said,
"Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him."
Then the happy father knew that it was at the seventh hour--one
o'clock--that Jesus had said, "Thy son liveth."
There was joy in the house of the nobleman when the father and mother
and all the household gathered around the boy who had been healed, and
talked of the wonderful power of Jesus in speaking the word of healing.
From Cana Jesus went to Nazareth. John the Baptist had been thrown
into a gloomy prison down by the Dead Sea by Herod Antipas because he
had rebuked the wickedness of that king, and Jesus knew that His own
work was now fully begun, since the prophet, who had come to prepare
His way, was laid aside.
While Jesus was at home with His mother and brothers and sisters He
went one Sabbath to the village church or synagogue, as He had always
done through His childhood and youth. Perhaps His brothers and some of
His disciples were with Him, while His mother and sisters parted from
Him and entered by another door, as was the Jewish custom. There were
many there who hoped that the young carpenter, who had become a
teacher, and as many believed, a prophet, would read from the Book of
the Law.
After the singing, and the prayers, and the reciting of the creeds, the
time came for the reading and teaching. The first lesson had been
read, and the ruler of the synagogue took from the sacred place where
it was kept another parchment roll, and coming down the steps he handed
it to Jesus. It was the roll of Isaiah, and as Jesus went up to the
reader's desk He opened and unrolled it until He came to these words,
"The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to
preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the broken
hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight
to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the
acceptable year of the Lord."
[Illustration: Jesus in the synagogue]
When he had finished he rolled the book again and handed it to the
minister and sat down. It was the custom of those who were teachers of
the people to sit down to teach, while the people all rose and stood
until he had finished.
"This day," said Jesus "is this scripture fulfilled in your ears."
The people were looking and listening so earnestly that it was very
still, and as Jesus told them simply that He was the very One whom
Isaiah had spoken of seven hundred years before, that He had brought
the good tidings, and had come to do the work the prophet had spoken
of, they looked at each other in amazement. To be sure they had never
heard such words of grace and wisdom, but how could this be true?
"Is not this Joseph's son?" they asked each other. Joseph had been
their neighbor and Jesus had grown up among them and played with their
children. They thought some evil thing had entered into Him disturbing
His mind. But when He began to tell them that no prophet was accepted
in his own country, and that the Lord was obliged to send them to
strangers, as He sent Elijah and Elisha, they were angry with Him.
Some of the men wished to teach Him a lesson, and they took Him by
force to the edge of a cliff, for Nazareth was built high up among the
hills, and were about to cast Him over among the limestone rocks below,
but turning away from them, Jesus walked quietly down the hill to the
path that led into the valley--and no one was able to lay a hand upon
Him to harm Him. "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not,"
and He went away to preach the good tidings in other towns. The heart
of Mary must have been full of sorrow when she saw her Son "despised
and rejected of men" as Isaiah prophesied, but she hid her sorrow, and
remembered the words of the Lord brought to her by the angel before her
Son was born.
And so Jesus went down to Capernaum where he had friends and disciples,
and afterward His mother and His brothers went to Him there, but
Nazareth knew him no more.
It was about this time that it is supposed that Jesus went alone to a
religious feast at Jerusalem, and while there cured a poor man who
could not walk. He lay on his mat near a spring called Bethesda. It
was covered by a roof, and had five porches. Here the sick were
brought by their friends that they might, when they saw the waters
bubble up, step in and be cured. They believed then an angel came down
and made the moving of the waters, but it was probably one of the kind
called intermittent springs. There is one at Jerusalem now called the
"Fountain of the Virgin" which rises at certain times.
Jesus saw the poor friendless man who had waited for thirty-eight years
for the chance of stepping into the waters when they were moving, and
had been disappointed for others stepped in before him. Looking at
him, He said,
"Wilt thou be made whole?"
The man explained why he could not be cured, for there was no man to
help him. Then Jesus said,
"Rise, take up thy bed, and walk."
He rose at once, and walked, carrying the mat on which he lay.
The Jews were angry when they heard of it for the man had been cured on
the Sabbath, but Jesus told them that they were all refusing eternal
life because of their unbelief, saying,
"Ye will not come unto Me that yet might have life."