The Demoniac Of Gadara.
“And they came to the other side of the sea, into the country of
the Gerasenes. And when He was come out of the boat, straightway
there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who
had his dwelling in the tombs; and no man could any more bind him,
no, not with a chain; because that he had been often bound with
fetters and chains, and the chains had been rent asunder by him,
and the fetters broken in pieces: and no man had strength to tame
him. And always, night and day, in the tombs and in the mountains,
he was crying out, and cutting himself with stones. And when he
saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshipped Him; and crying out
with a loud voice, he saith, What have I to do with Thee, Jesus,
Thou Son of the Most High God? I adjure Thee by God, torment me
not. For He said unto him, Come forth, thou unclean spirit, out of
the man. And He asked him, What is thy name? And he saith unto
Him, My name is Legion; for we are many. And he besought Him much
that He would not send them away out of the country. Now there was
there on the mountain side a great herd of swine feeding. And they
besought Him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter
into them. And He gave them leave. And the unclean spirits came
out, and entered into the swine: and the herd rushed down the
steep into the sea, _in number_ about two thousand; and they were
choked in the sea. And they that fed them fled, and told it in the
city, and in the country. And they came to see what it was that
had come to pass. And they come to Jesus, and behold him that was
possessed with devils sitting, clothed and in his right mind,
_even_ him that had the legion: and they were afraid. And they
that saw it declared unto them how it befell him that was
possessed with devils, and concerning the swine. And they began to
beseech Him to depart from their borders. And as He was entering
into the boat, he that had been possessed with devils besought Him
that he might be with Him. And He suffered him not, but saith unto
him, Go to thy house unto thy friends, and tell them how great
things the Lord hath done for thee, and _how_ He had mercy on
thee. And he went his way, and began to publish in Decapolis how
great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel.”—MARK
v. 1-20 (R.V.).
Fresh from asserting His mastery over winds and waves, the Lord was met by
a more terrible enemy, the rage of human nature enslaved and impelled by
the cruelty of hell. The place where He landed was a theatre not unfit for
the tragedy which it revealed. A mixed race was there, indifferent to
religion, rearing great herds of swine, upon which the law looked askance,
but the profits of which they held so dear that they would choose to
banish a Divine ambassador, and one who had released them from an
incessant peril, rather than be deprived of these. Now it has already been
shown that the wretches possessed by devils were not of necessity stained
with special guilt. Even children fell into this misery. But yet we should
expect to find it most rampant in places where God was dishonoured, in
Gerasa and in the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And it is so. All misery is
the consequence of sin, although individual misery does not measure
individual guilt. And the places where the shadow of sin has fallen
heaviest are always the haunts of direst wretchedness.
The first Gospel mentions two demoniacs, but one was doubtless so
pre-eminently fierce, and possibly so zealous afterward in proclaiming his
deliverance, that only St. Matthew learned the existence of another, upon
whom also Satan had wrought, if not his worst, enough to show his hatred,
and the woes he would fain bring upon humanity.
Among the few terrible glimpses given us of the mind of the fallen angels,
one is most significant and sinister. When the unclean spirit is gone out
of a man, to what haunts does he turn? He has no sympathy with what is
lovely or sublime; in search of rest he wanders through dry places,
deserts of arid sand in which his misery may be soothed by congenial
desolation. Thus the ruins of the mystic Babylon become an abode of
devils. And thus the unclean spirit, when he mastered this demoniac, drove
him to a foul and dreary abode among the tombs. One can picture the victim
in some lucid moment, awakening to consciousness only to shudder in his
dreadful home, and scared back again into that ferocity which is the child
of terror.
“Is it not very like,
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
Oh! if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
Environed with all these hideous fears?”
_Romeo and Juliet_, iv. 3.
There was a time when he had been under restraint, but “now no man could
any more bind him” even with iron upon feet and wrists. The ferocity of
his cruel subjugator turned his own strength against himself, so that
night and day his howling was heard, as he cut himself with stones, and
his haunts in the tombs and in the mountains were as dangerous as the lair
of a wild breast, which no man dared pass by. What strange impulse drove
him thence to the feet of Jesus? Very dreadful is the picture of his
conflicting tendencies: the fiend within him struggling against something
still human and attracted by the Divine, so that he runs from afar, yet
cries aloud, and worships yet disowns having anything to do with Him; and
as if the fiend had subverted the true personality, and become the very
man, when ordered to come out he adjures Jesus to torment him not.
And here we observe the knowledge of Christ’s rank possessed by the evil
ones. Long before Peter won a special blessing for acknowledging the Son
of the living God, the demoniac called Him by the very name which flesh
and blood did not reveal to Cephas. For their chief had tested and
discovered Him in the wilderness, saying twice with dread surmise, If Thou
be the Son of God. It is also noteworthy that the phrase, the most High
God, is the name of Jehovah among the non-Jewish races. It occurs in both
Testaments in connection with Melchizedek the Canaanite. It is used
throughout the Babylonian proclamations in the book of Daniel. Micah puts
it into the lips of Balaam. And the damsel with a spirit of divination
employed it in Philippi. Except once, in a Psalm which tells of the return
of apostate Israel to the Most High God (lxxviii. 35), the epithet is used
only in relation with the nations outside the covenant. Its occurrence
here is probably a sign of the pagan influences by which Gadara was
infected, and for which it was plagued. By the name of God then, whose Son
He loudly confessed that Jesus was, the fiend within the man adjures Him
to torment Him not. But Jesus had not asked to be acknowledged: He had
bidden the devil to come out. And persons who substitute loud confessions
and clamorous orthodoxies for obedience should remember that so did the
fiend of Gadara. Jesus replied by asking, What is thy name? The question
was not an idle one, but had a healing tendency. For the man was beside
himself; it was part of his cure that he was found in his right mind; and
meanwhile his very consciousness was merged in that of the fiends who
tortured him, so that his voice was their voice, and they returned a
vaunting answer through His lips. Our Lord sought therefore both to calm
His excitement and to remind him of himself, and of what he once had been
before evil beings dethroned his will. These were not the man, but his
enemies by whom he was “carried about,” and “led captive at their will.”
And it is always sobering to think of “Myself,” the lonely individual,
apart from even those who most influence me, with a soul to lose or save.
With this very question the Church Catechism begins its work of arousing
and instructing the conscience of each child, separating him from his
fellows in order to lead him on to the knowledge of the individualising
grace of God.
It may be that the fiends within him dictated his reply, or that he
himself, conscious of their tyranny, cried out in agony, We are many; a
regiment like those of conquering Rome, drilled and armed to trample and
destroy, a legion. This answer distinctly contravened what Christ had just
implied, that he was one, an individual, and precious in his Maker’s eyes.
But there are men and women in every Christian land, whom it might startle
to look within, and see how far their individuality is oppressed and
overlaid by a legion of impulses, appetites, and conventionalities, which
leave them nothing personal, nothing essential and characteristic, nothing
that deserves a name. The demons, now conscious of the power which calls
them forth, besought Him to leave them a refuge in that country. St. Luke
throws light upon this petition, as well as their former complaint, when
he tells us they feared to be sent to “the abyss” of their final
retribution. And as we read of men who are haunted by a fearful looking
for of judgment and a fierceness of fire, so they had no hope of escape,
except until “the time.” For a little respite they prayed to be sent even
into the swine, and Jesus gave them leave.
What a difference there is between the proud and heroic spirits whom
Milton celebrated, and these malignant but miserable beings, haunting the
sepulchres like ghosts, truculent and yet dastardly, as ready to
supplicate as to rend, filled with dread of the appointed time and of the
abyss, clinging to that outlying country as a congenial haunt, and
devising for themselves a last asylum among the brutes. And yet they are
equally far from the materialistic superstitions of that age and place;
they are not amenable to fumigations or exorcisms, and they do not upset
the furniture in rushing out. Many questions have been asked about the
petition of the demons and our Lord’s consent. But none of them need much
distress the reverential enquirer, who remembers by what misty horizons
all our knowledge is enclosed. Most absurd is the charge that Jesus acted
indefensibly in destroying property. Is it then so clear that the owners
did not deserve their loss through the nature of their investments? Was it
merely as a man, or as the Son of the living God, that His consent was
felt to be necessary? And was it any part of His mission to protect brutes
from death?
The loss endured was no greater than when a crop is beaten down by hail,
or a vineyard devastated by insects, and in these cases an agency beyond
the control of man is sent or permitted by God, Who was in Christ.
A far harder question it is, How could devils enter into brute creatures?
and again, Why did they desire to do so? But the first of these is only a
subdivision of the vaster problem, at once inevitable and insoluble, How
does spirit in any of its forms animate matter, or even manipulate it? We
know not by what strange link a thought contracts a sinew, and transmutes
itself into words or deeds. And if we believe the dread and melancholy
fact of the possession of a child by a fiend, what reason have we, beyond
prejudice, for doubting the possession of swine? It must be observed also,
that no such possession is proved by this narrative to be a common event,
but the reverse. The notion is a last and wild expedient of despair,
proposing to content itself with the uttermost abasement, if only the
demons might still haunt the region where they had thriven so well. And
the consent of Jesus does not commit Him to any judgment upon the merit or
the possibility of the project. He leaves the experiment to prove itself,
exactly as when Peter would walk upon the water; and a laconic “Go” in
this case recalls the “Come” in that; an assent, without approval, to an
attempt which was about to fail. Not in the world of brutes could they
find shelter from the banishment they dreaded; for the whole herd, frantic
and ungoverned, rushed headlong into the sea and was destroyed. The second
victory of the series was thus completed. Jesus was Master over the evil
spirits which afflict humanity, as well as over the fierceness of the
elements which rise against us.
The Men Of Gadara.
“And they that fed them fled, and told it in the city, and in the
country. And they came to see what it was that had come to pass.
And they come to Jesus, and behold him that was possessed with
devils sitting, clothed and in his right mind, _even_ him that had
the legion: and they were afraid. And they that saw it declared
unto them how it befell him that was possessed with devils, and
concerning the swine. And they began to beseech him to depart from
their borders. And as He was entering into the boat, he that had
been possessed with devils besought Him that he might be with Him.
And He suffered him not but saith unto him, Go to thy house unto
thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for
thee, and _how_ He had mercy on thee. And he went his way, and
began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for
him: and all men did marvel.”—MARK v. 14-20 (R.V.).
The expulsion of the demons from the possessed, their entrance into the
herd, and the destruction of the two thousand swine, were virtually one
transaction, and must have impressed the swineherds in its totality. They
saw on the one hand the restoration of a dangerous and raging madman,
known to be actuated by evil spirits, the removal of a standing peril
which had already made one tract of country impassable, and (if they
considered such a thing at all) the calming of a human soul, and its
advent within the reach of all sacred influences. On the other side what
was there? The loss of two thousand swine; and the consciousness that the
kingdom of God was come nigh unto them. This was always an alarming
discovery. Isaiah said, Woe is me! when his eyes beheld God high and
lifted up. And Peter said, Depart from me, when he learned by the
miraculous draught of fish that the Lord was there. But Isaiah’s concern
was because he was a man of unclean lips, and Peter’s was because he was a
sinful man. Their alarm was that of an awakened conscience, and therefore
they became the heralds of Him Whom they feared. But these men were simply
scared at what they instinctively felt to be dangerous; and so they took
refuge in a crowd, that frequent resort of the frivolous and
conscience-stricken, and told in the city what they had seen. And when the
inhabitants came forth, a sight met them which might have won the
sternest, the man sitting, clothed (a nice coincidence, since St. Mark had
not mentioned that he “ware no clothes,”) and in his right mind, even him
that had the legion, as the narrative emphatically adds. And doubtless the
much debated incident of the swine had greatly helped to reassure this
afflicted soul; the demons were palpably gone, visibly enough they were
overmastered. But the citizens, like the swineherds, were merely
terrified, neither grateful nor sympathetic; uninspired with hope of pure
teaching, of rescue from other influences of the evil one, or of any
unearthly kingdom. Their formidable visitant was one to treat with all
respect, but to remove with all speed, “and they began to beseech Him to
depart from their borders.” They began, for it did not require long
entreaty; the gospel which was free to all was not to be forced upon any.
But how much did they blindly fling away, who refused the presence of the
meek and lowly Giver of rest unto souls; and chose to be denied, as
strangers whom He never knew, in the day when every eye shall see Him.
With how sad a heart must Jesus have turned away. Yet one soul at least
was won, for as He was entering into the boat, the man who owed all to Him
prayed Him that he might be with Him. Why was the prayer refused?
Doubtless it sprang chiefly from gratitude and love, thinking it hard to
lose so soon the wondrous benefactor, the Man at whose feet he had sat
down, Who alone had looked with pitiful and helpful eyes on one whom
others only sought to “tame.” Such feelings are admirable, but they must
be disciplined so as to seek, not their own indulgence, but their Master’s
real service. Now a reclaimed demoniac would have been a suspected
companion for One who was accused of league with the Prince of the devils.
There is no reason to suppose that he had any fitness whatever to enter
the immediate circle of our Lord’s intimate disciples. His special
testimony would lose all its force when he left the district where he was
known; but there, on the contrary, the miracle could not fail to be
impressive, as its extent and permanence were seen. This man was perhaps
the only missionary who could reckon upon a hearing from those who
banished Jesus from their coasts. And Christ’s loving and unresentful
heart would give this testimony to them in its fulness. It should begin at
his own house and among his friends, who would surely listen. They should
be told how great things the Lord had done for him, and Jesus expressly
added, how He had mercy upon thee, that so they might learn their mistake,
who feared and shrank from such a kindly visitant. Here is a lesson for
these modern days, when the conversion of any noted profligate is sure to
be followed by attempts to push him into a vagrant publicity, not only
full of peril in itself, but also removing him from the familiar sphere in
which his consistent life would be more convincing than all sermons, and
where no suspicion of self-interest could overcloud the brightness of his
testimony.
Possibly there was yet another reason for leaving him in his home. He may
have desired to remain close to Jesus, lest, when the Saviour was absent,
the evil spirits should resume their sway. In that case it would be
necessary to exercise his faith and convince him that the words of Jesus
were far-reaching and effectual, even when He was Himself remote. If so,
he learned the lesson well, and became an evangelist through all the
region of Decapolis. And where all did marvel, we may hope that some were
won. What a revelation of mastery over the darkest and most dreadful
forces of evil, and of respect for the human will (which Jesus never once
coerced by miracle, even when it rejected Him), what unwearied care for
the rebellious, and what a sense of sacredness in lowly duties, better for
the demoniac than the physical nearness of his Lord, are combined in this
astonishing narrative, which to invent in the second century would itself
have required miraculous powers.
With Jairus.
“And when Jesus had crossed over again in the boat unto the other
side, a great multitude was gathered unto Him: and He was by the
sea. And there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus
by name; and seeing Him, he falleth at His feet, and beseecheth
Him much, saying, My little daughter is at the point of death: _I
pray Thee_ that Thou come and lay Thy hands on her, that she may
be made whole, and live. And He went with him; and a great
multitude followed Him, and they thronged Him. And a woman, which
had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things
of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was
nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, having heard the things
concerning Jesus, came in the crowd behind, and touched His
garment. For she said, If I touch but His garments, I shall be
made whole. And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried
up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her plague.
And straightway Jesus, perceiving in Himself that the power
_proceeding_ from Him had gone forth, turned Him about in the
crowd, and said, Who touched My garments? And His disciples said
unto Him, Thou seest the multitude thronging Thee, and sayest
Thou, Who touched Me? And He looked round about to see her that
had done this thing. But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing
what had been done to her, came and fell down before Him, and told
Him all the truth. And He said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath
made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague. While He
yet spake, they come from the ruler of the synagogue’s _house_,
saying, Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any
further? But Jesus not heeding the word spoken, saith unto the
ruler of the synagogue, Fear not, only believe. And He suffered no
man to follow with Him, save Peter, and James, and John the
brother of James. And they come to the house of the ruler of the
synagogue; and He beholdeth a tumult, and _many_ weeping and
wailing greatly. And when He was entered in, He saith unto them,
Why make ye a tumult, and weep? the child is not dead, but
sleepeth. And they laughed Him to scorn. But He, having put them
all forth, taketh the father of the child and her mother and them
that were with Him, and goeth in where the child was. And taking
the child by the hand, He saith unto her, Talitha cumi; which is,
being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, Arise. And straightway
the damsel rose up, and walked; for she was twelve years old. And
they were amazed straightway with a great amazement. And He
charged them much that no man should know this; and He commanded
that _something_ should be given her to eat.”—MARK v. 21-43
(R.V.).
Repulsed from Decapolis, but consoled by the rescue and zeal of the
demoniac, Jesus returned to the western shore, and a great multitude
assembled. The other boats which were with Him had doubtless spread the
tidings of the preternatural calm which rescued them from deadly peril,
and it may be that news of the event of Gadara arrived almost as soon as
He Whom they celebrated. We have seen that St. Mark aims at bringing the
four great miracles of this period into the closest sequence. And so he
passes over a certain brief period with the words “He was by the sea.” But
in fact Jesus was reasoning with the Pharisees, and with the disciples of
John, who had assailed Him and His followers, when one of their natural
leaders threw himself at His feet.
The contrast is sharp enough, as He rises from a feast to go to the house
of mourning, from eating with publicans and sinners to accompany a ruler
of the synagogue. These unexpected calls, these sudden alternations all
found Him equally ready to bear the same noble part, in the most
dissimilar scenes, and in treating temperaments the most unlike. But the
contrast should also be observed between those harsh and hostile critics
who hated Him in the interests of dogma and of ceremonial, and Jairus,
whose views were theirs, but whose heart was softened by trouble. The
danger of his child was what drove him, perhaps reluctantly enough, to
beseech Jesus much. And nothing could be more touching than his prayer for
his “little daughter,” its sequence broken as if with a sob; wistfully
pictorial as to the process, “that Thou come and lay Thy hands upon her,”
and dilating wistfully too upon the effect, “that she may be made whole
and live.” If a miracle were not in question, the dullest critic in Europe
would confess that this exquisite supplication was not composed by an
evangelist, but a father. And he would understand also why the very words
in their native dialect were not forgotten, which men had heard awake the
dead.
As Jesus went with him, a great multitude followed Him, and they thronged
Him. It is quite evident that Jesus did not love these gatherings of the
idly curious. Partly from such movements He had withdrawn Himself to
Gadara; and partly to avoid exciting them He strove to keep many of His
miracles a secret. Sensationalism is neither grace nor a means of grace.
And it must be considered that the perfect Man, as far from mental apathy
or physical insensibility as from morbid fastidiousness, would find much
to shrink away from in the pressure of a city crowd. The contact of
inferior organizations, selfishness driving back the weak and gentle,
vulgar scrutiny and audible comment, and the desire for some miracle as an
idle show, which He would only work because His gentle heart was full of
pity, all these would be utterly distressing to Him who was
“The first true gentleman that ever breathed,”
as well as the revelation of God in flesh. It is therefore noteworthy that
we have many examples of His grace and goodness amid such trying scenes,
as when He spoke to Zacchæus, and called Bartimæus to Him to be healed.
Jesus could be wrathful but He was never irritated. Of these examples one
of the most beautiful is here recorded, for as He went with Jairus, amidst
the rude and violent thronging of the crowds, moving alone (as men often
are in sympathy and in heart alone amid seething thoroughfares), He
suddenly became aware of a touch, the timid and stealthy touch of a
broken-hearted woman, pale and wasted with disease, but borne through the
crowd by the last effort of despair and the first energy of a newborn
hope. She ought not to have come thither, since her touch spread
ceremonial uncleanness far and wide. Nor ought she to have stolen a
blessing instead of praying for it. And if we seek to blame her still
further, we may condemn the superstitious notion that Christ’s gifts of
healing were not conscious and loving actions, but a mere contagion of
health, by which one might profit unfelt and undiscovered. It is urged
indeed that hers was not a faith thus clouded, but so majestic as to
believe that Christ would know and respond to the silent hint of a gentle
touch. And is it supposed that Jesus would have dragged into publicity
such a perfect lily of the vale as this? and what means her trembling
confession, and the discovery that she could not be hid? But when our
keener intellects have criticised her errors, and our clearer ethics have
frowned upon her misconduct, one fact remains. She is the only woman upon
whom Jesus is recorded to have bestowed any epithet but a formal one. Her
misery and her faith drew from His guarded lips, the tender and yet lofty
word Daughter.
So much better is the faith which seeks for blessing, however erroneous be
its means, than the heartless propriety which criticises with most
dispassionate clearness, chiefly because it really seeks nothing for
itself at all. Such faith is always an appeal, and is responded to, not as
she supposed, mechanically, unconsciously, nor, of course, by the _opus
operatum_ of a garment touched (or of a sacrament formally received), but
by the going forth of power from a conscious Giver, in response to the
need which has approached His fulness. He knew her secret and fearful
approach to Him, as He knew the guileless heart of Nathanael, whom He
marked beneath the fig-tree. And He dealt with her very gently. Doubtless
there are many such concealed woes, secret, untold miseries which eat deep
into gentle hearts, and are never spoken, and cannot, like Bartimæus, cry
aloud for public pity. For these also there is balm in Gilead, and if the
Lord requires them to confess Him publicly, He will first give them due
strength to do so. This enfeebled and emaciated woman was allowed to feel
in her body that she was healed of her plague, before she was called upon
for her confession. Jesus asked, Who touched my clothes? It was one thing
to press Him, driven forward by the multitude around, as circumstances
impel so many to become churchgoers, readers of Scripture, interested in
sacred questions and controversies until they are borne as by physical
propulsion into the closest contact with our Lord, but not drawn thither
by any personal craving or sense of want, nor expecting any blessed
reaction of “the power proceeding from Him.” It was another thing to reach
out a timid hand and touch appealingly even that tasselled fringe of His
garment which had a religious significance, whence perhaps she drew a
semi-superstitious hope. In the face of this incident, can any orthodoxy
forbid us to believe that the grace of Christ extends, now as of yore, to
many a superstitious and erring approach by which souls reach after
Christ?
The disciples wondered at His question: they knew not that “the flesh
presses but faith touches;” but as He continued to look around and seek
her that had done this thing, she fell down and told Him all the truth.
Fearing and trembling she spoke, for indeed she had been presumptuous, and
ventured without permission. But the chief thing was that she had
ventured, and so He graciously replied, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee
whole, go in peace and be whole of thy plague. Thus she received more than
she had asked or thought; not only healing for the body, but also a
victory over that self-effacing, fearful, half morbid diffidence, which
long and weakening disease entails. Thus also, instead of a secret cure,
she was given the open benediction of her Lord, and such confirmation in
her privilege as many more would enjoy if only with their mouth confession
were made unto salvation.
While He yet spoke, and the heart of Jairus was divided between joy at a
new evidence of the power of Christ, and impatience at every moment of
delay, not knowing that his Benefactor was the Lord of time itself, the
fatal message came, tinged with some little irony as it asked, Why
troublest thou the Teacher any more? It is quite certain that Jesus had
before now raised the dead, but no miracle of the kind had acquired such
prominence as afterwards to claim a place in the Gospel narratives.
One is led to suspect that the care of Jesus had prevailed, and they had
not been widely published. To those who brought this message, perhaps no
such case had travelled, certainly none had gained their credence. It was
in their eyes a thing incredible that He should raise the dead, and indeed
there is a wide difference between every other miracle and this. We
struggle against all else, but when death comes we feel that all is over
except to bury out of our sight what once was beautiful and dear. Death is
destiny made visible; it is the irrevocable. Who shall unsay the words of
a bleeding heart, I shall go to him but he shall not return to me? But
Christ came to destroy him that had the power of death. Even now, through
Him, we are partakers of a more intense and deeper life, and have not only
the hope but the beginning of immortality. And it was the natural seal
upon His lofty mission, that He should publicly raise up the dead. For so
great a task, shall we say that Jesus now gathers all His energies? That
would be woefully to misread the story; for a grand simplicity, the easy
bearing of unstrained and amply adequate resources, is common to all the
narratives of life brought back. We shall hereafter see good reason why
Jesus employed means for other miracles, and even advanced by stages in
the work. But lest we should suppose that effort was necessary, and His
power but just sufficed to overcome the resistance, none of these supreme
miracles is wrought with the slightest effort. Prophets and apostles may
need to stretch themselves upon the bed or to embrace the corpse; Jesus,
in His own noble phrase, awakes it out of sleep. A wonderful ease and
quietness pervade the narratives, expressing exactly the serene bearing of
the Lord of the dead and of the living. There is no holding back, no
toying with the sorrow of the bereaved, such as even Euripides, the
tenderest of the Greeks, ascribed to the demigod who tore from the grip of
death the heroic wife of Admetus. Hercules plays with the husband’s
sorrow, suggests the consolation of a new bridal, and extorts the angry
cry, “Silence, what have you said? I would not have believed it of you.”
But what is natural to a hero, flushed with victory and the sense of
patronage, would have ill become the absolute self-possession and gentle
grace of Jesus. In every case, therefore, He is full of encouragement and
sympathy, even before His work is wrought. To the widow of Nain He says,
“Weep not.” He tells the sister of Lazarus, “If thou wilt believe, thou
shalt see the salvation of God.” And when these disastrous tidings shake
all the faith of Jairus, Jesus loses not a moment in reassuring Him: “Fear
not, only believe,” He says, not heeding the word spoken; that is to say,
Himself unagitated and serene.(10)
In every case some co-operation was expected from the bystanders. The
bearers of the widow’s son halted, expectant, when this majestic and
tender Wayfarer touched the bier. The friends of Lazarus rolled away the
stone from the sepulchre. But the professional mourners in the house of
Jairus were callous and insensible, and when He interrupted their
clamorous wailing, with the question, Why make ye tumult and weep? they
laughed Him to scorn; a fit expression of the world’s purblind
incredulity, its reliance upon ordinary “experience” to disprove all
possibilities of the extraordinary and Divine, and its heartless
transition from conventional sorrow to ghastly laughter, mocking in the
presence of death—which is, in its view, so desperate—the last hope of
humanity. Laughter is not the fitting mood in which to contradict the
Christian hope, that our lost ones are not dead, but sleep. The new and
strange hope for humanity which Jesus thus asserted, He went on to prove,
but not for them. Exerting that moral ascendency, which sufficed Him twice
to cleanse the Temple, He put them all forth, as already He had shut out
the crowd, and all His disciples but “the elect of His election,” the
three who now first obtain a special privilege. The scene was one of
surpassing solemnity and awe; but not more so than that of Nain, or by the
tomb of _Lazarus_. Why then were not only the idly curious and the
scornful, but nine of His chosen ones excluded? Surely we may believe, for
the sake of the little girl, whose tender grace of unconscious maidenhood
should not, in its hour of reawakened vitality, be the centre of a gazing
circle. He kept with Him the deeply reverential and the loving, the ripest
apostles and the parents of the child, since love and reverence are ever
the conditions of real insight. And then, first, was exhibited the gentle
and profound regard of Christ for children. He did not arouse her, as
others, with a call only, but took her by the hand, while He spoke to her
those Aramaic words, so marvellous in their effect, which St. Peter did
not fail to repeat to St. Mark as he had heard them, Talitha cumi; Damsel,
I say unto thee, Arise. They have an added sweetness when we reflect that
the former word, though applied to a very young child, is in its root a
variation of the word for a little lamb. How exquisite from the lips of
the Good Shepherd, Who gave His life for the sheep. How strange to be thus
awakened from the mysterious sleep, and to gaze with a child’s fresh eyes
into the loving eyes of Jesus. Let us seek to realise such positions, to
comprehend the marvellous heart which they reveal to us, and we shall
derive more love and trust from the effort than from all such doctrinal
inference and allegorizing as would dry up, into a _hortus siccus_, the
sweetest blooms of the sweetest story ever told.
So shall we understand what happened next in all three cases. Something
preternatural and therefore dreadful, appeared to hang about the lives so
wondrously restored. The widow of Nain did not dare to embrace her son
until Christ “gave him to his mother.” The bystanders did not touch
Lazarus, bound hand and foot, until Jesus bade them “loose him and let him
go.” And the five who stood about this child’s bed, amazed straightway
with a great amazement, had to be reminded that being now in perfect
health, after an illness which left her system wholly unsupplied,
something should be given her to eat. This is the point at which Euripides
could find nothing fitter for Hercules to utter than the awkward boast,
“Thou wilt some day say that the son of Jove was a capital guest to
entertain.” What a contrast. For Jesus was utterly unflushed, undazzled,
apparently unconscious of anything to disturb His composure. And so far
was He from the unhappy modern notion, that every act of grace must be
proclaimed on the housetop, and every recipient of grace however young,
however unmatured, paraded and exhibited, that He charged them much that
no man should know this.
The story throughout is graphic and full of character; every touch, every
word reveals the Divine Man; and only reluctance to believe a miracle
prevents it from proving itself to every candid mind. Whether it be
accepted or rejected, it is itself miraculous. It could not have grown up
in the soil which generated the early myths and legends, by the working of
the ordinary laws of mind. It is beyond their power to invent or to dream,
supernatural in the strictest sense.
This miracle completes the cycle. Nature, distracted by the Fall, has
revolted against Him in vain. Satan, intrenched in his last stronghold,
has resisted, and humbled himself to entreaties and to desperate
contrivances, in vain. Secret and unspoken woes, and silent germs of
belief, have hidden from Him in vain. Death itself has closed its bony
fingers upon its prey, in vain. Nothing can resist the power and love,
which are enlisted on behalf of all who put their trust in Jesus.