Rejected In His Own Country.
“And He went out from thence; and He cometh into His own country;
and His disciples follow Him.”—MARK vi. 1-6 (R.V.).
We have seen how St. Mark, to bring out more vividly the connection
between four mighty signs, their ideal completeness as a whole, and that
mastery over nature and the spiritual world which they reveal, grouped
them resolutely together, excluding even significant incidents which would
break in upon their sequence. Bearing this in mind, how profoundly
instructive it is that our Evangelist shows us this Master over storm and
demons, over too-silent disease, and over death, too clamorously bewailed,
in the next place teaching His own countrymen in vain, and an offence to
them. How startling to read, at this juncture, when legend would surely
have thrown all men prostrate at his feet, of His homely family and His
trade, and how He Who rebuked the storm “could there do no mighty work.”
First of all, it is touching to see Jesus turning once more to “His own
country,” just at this crisis. They had rejected Him in a frenzy of rage,
at the outset of His ministry. And He had very lately repulsed the rude
attempt of His immediate relatives to interrupt His mission. But now His
heart leads Him thither, once again to appeal to the companions of His
youth, with the halo of His recent and surpassing works upon His forehead.
He does not abruptly interrupt their vocations, but waits as before for
the Sabbath, and the hushed assembly in the sacred place. And as He
teaches in the synagogue, they are conscious of His power. Whence could He
have these things? His wisdom was an equal wonder with His mighty works,
of the reality of which they could not doubt. And what excuse then had
they for listening to His wisdom in vain? But they went on to ask, Is not
this the carpenter? the Son of Mary? they knew His brothers, and His
sisters were living among them. And they were offended in Him, naturally
enough. It _is_ hard to believe in the supremacy of one, whom
circumstances marked as our equal, and to admit the chieftainship of one
who started side by side with us. In Palestine it was not disgraceful to
be a tradesman, but yet they could fairly claim equality with “the
carpenter.” And it is plain enough that they found no impressive or
significant difference from their neighbours in the “sisters” of Jesus,
nor even in her whom all generations call blessed. Why then should they
abase themselves before the claims of Jesus?
It is an instructive incident. First of all, it shows us the perfection of
our Lord’s abasement. He was not only a carpenter’s son, but what this
passage only declares to us explicitly, He wrought as an artizan, and
consecrated for ever a lowly trade, by the toil of those holy limbs whose
sufferings should redeem the world.
And we learn the abject folly of judging by mere worldly standards. We are
bound to give due honour and precedence to rank and station. Refusing to
do this, we virtually undertake to dissolve society, and readjust it upon
other principles, or by instincts and intuitions of our own, a grave task,
when it is realized. But we are not to be dazzled, much less to be misled,
by the advantages of station or of birth. Yet if, as it would seem,
Nazareth rejected Christ because He was not a person of quality, this is
only the most extreme and ironical exhibition of what happens every day,
when a noble character, self-denying, self-controlled and wise, fails to
win the respect which is freely and gladly granted to vice and folly in a
coronet.
And yet, to one who reflected, the very objection they put forward was an
evidence of His mission. His wisdom was confessed, and His miracles were
not denied; were they less wonderful or more amazing, more supernatural,
as the endowments of the carpenter whom they knew? Whence, they asked, had
He derived His learning, as if it were not more noble for being original.
Are we sure that men do not still make the same mistake? The perfect and
lowly humanity of Jesus is a stumbling block to some who will freely admit
His ideal perfections, and the matchless nobility of His moral teaching.
They will grant anything but the supernatural origin of Him to Whom they
attribute qualities beyond parallel. But whence had He those qualities?
What is there in the Galilee of the first century which prepares one for
discovering there and then the revolutionizer of the virtues of the world,
the most original, profound, and unique of all teachers, Him Whose example
is still mightier than His precepts, and only not more perfect, because
these also are without a flaw, Him Whom even unbelief would shrink from
saluting by so cold a title as that of the most saintly of the saints. To
ask with a clear scrutiny, whence the teaching of Jesus came, to realize
the isolation from all centres of thought and movement, of this Hebrew,
this provincial among Hebrews, this villager in Galilee, this carpenter in
a village, and then to observe His mighty works in every quarter of the
globe, is enough to satisfy all candid minds that His earthly
circumstances have something totally unlike themselves behind them. And
the more men give ear to materialism and to materialistic evolution
without an evolving mind, so much the more does the problem press upon
them, Whence hath this man this wisdom? and what mean these mighty works?
From our Lord’s own commentary upon their rejection we learn to beware of
the vulgarising effects of familiarity. They had seen His holy youth,
against which no slander was ever breathed. And yet, while His teaching
astonished them, He had no honour in his own house. It is the same result
which so often seems to follow from a lifelong familiarity with Scripture
and the means of grace. We read, almost mechanically, what melts and
amazes the pagan to whom it is a new word. We forsake, or submit to the
dull routine of, ordinances the most sacred, the most searching, the most
invigorating and the most picturesque.
And yet we wonder that the men of Nazareth could not discern the divinity
of “the carpenter,” whose family lived quiet and unassuming lives in their
own village.
It is St. Mark, the historian of the energies of Christ, who tells us that
He “could there do no mighty work,” with only sufficient exception to
prove that neither physical power nor compassion was what failed Him,
since “He laid His hands upon a few sick folk and healed them.” What then
is conveyed by this bold phrase? Surely the fearful power of the human
will to resist the will of man’s compassionate Redeemer. He would have
gathered Jerusalem under His wing, but she would not; and the temporal
results of her disobedience had to follow; siege, massacre and ruin. God
has no pleasure in the death of him who dieth, yet death follows, as the
inevitable wages of sin. Therefore, as surely as the miracles of Jesus
typified His gracious purposes for the souls of men, Who forgiveth all our
iniquities, Who healeth all our diseases, so surely the rejection and
defeat of those loving purposes paralysed the arm stretched out to heal
their sick.
Does it seem as if the words “He could not,” even thus explained, convey a
certain affront, throw a shadow upon the glory of our Master? And the
words “they mocked, scourged, crucified Him,” do these convey no affront?
The suffering of Jesus was not only physical: His heart was wounded; His
overtures were rejected; His hands were stretched out in vain; His pity
and love were crucified.
But now let this be considered, that men who refuse His Spirit continually
presume upon His mercy, and expect not to suffer the penalty of their evil
deeds. Alas, that is impossible. Where unbelief rejected His teaching, He
“could not” work the marvels of His grace. How shall they escape who
reject so great salvation?
The Mission Of The Twelve.
“And He called unto Him the twelve, and began to send them forth
by two and two; and He gave them authority over the unclean
spirits; and He charged them that they should take nothing for
_their_ journey, save a staff only; no bread, no wallet, no money
in their purse; but _to go_ shod with sandals: and, _said He_, put
not on two coats. And He said unto them, Wheresoever ye enter into
a house, there abide till ye depart thence. And whatsoever place
shall not receive you, and they hear you not, as ye go forth
thence, shake off the dust that is under your feet for a testimony
unto them. And they went out, and preached that _men_ should
repent. And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many
that were sick, and healed them.”—MARK vi. 7-13 (R.V.).
Repulsed a second time from the cradle of His youth, even as lately from
Decapolis, with what a heavy heart must the Loving One have turned away.
Yet we read of no abatement of His labours. He did not, like the fiery
prophet, wander into the desert and make request that He might die. And it
helps us to realise the elevation of our Lord, when we reflect how utterly
the discouragement with which we sympathise in the great Elijah would ruin
our conception of Jesus.
It was now that He set on foot new efforts, and advanced in the training
of His elect. For Himself, He went about the villages, whither slander and
prejudice had not yet penetrated, and was content to break new ground
among the most untaught and sequestered of the people. The humblest field
of labour was not too lowly for the Lord, although we meet, every day,
with men who are “thrown away” and “buried” in obscure fields of
usefulness. We have not yet learned to follow without a murmur the
Carpenter, and the Teacher in villages, even though we are soothed in
grief by thinking, because we endure the inevitable, that we are followers
of the Man of Sorrows. At the same moment when democracies and priesthoods
are rejecting their Lord, a king had destroyed His forerunner. On every
account it was necessary to vary as well as multiply the means for the
evangelisation of the country. Thus the movement would be accelerated, and
it would no longer present one solitary point of attack to its
unscrupulous foes.
Jesus therefore called to Him the Twelve, and began to send them forth. In
so doing, His directions revealed at once His wisdom and His fears for
them.
Not even for unfallen man was it good to be alone. It was a bitter
ingredient in the cup which Christ Himself drank, that His followers
should be scattered to their own and leave Him alone. And it was at the
last extremity, when he could no longer forbear, that St. Paul thought it
good to be at Athens alone. Jesus therefore would not send His
inexperienced heralds forth for the first time except by two and two, that
each might sustain the courage and wisdom of his comrade. And His example
was not forgotten. Peter and John together visited the converts in
Samaria. And when Paul and Barnabas, whose first journey was together,
could no longer agree, each of them took a new comrade and departed.
Perhaps our modern missionaries lose more in energy than is gained in area
by neglecting so humane a precedent, and forfeiting the special presence
vouchsafed to the common worship of two or three.
St. Mark has not recorded the mission of the seventy evangelists, but this
narrative is clearly coloured by his knowledge of that event. Thus He does
not mention the gift of miraculous power, which was common to both, but He
does tell of the authority over unclean spirits, which was explicitly
given to the Twelve, and which the Seventy, returning with joy, related
that they also had successfully dared to claim. In conferring such power
upon His disciples, Jesus took the first step towards that marvellous
identification of Himself and His mastery over evil, with all His
followers, that giving of His presence to their assemblies, His honour to
their keeping, His victory to their experience, and His lifeblood to their
veins, which makes Him the second Adam, represented in all the newborn
race, and which finds its most vivid and blessed expression in the
sacrament where His flesh is meat indeed and His blood is drink indeed.
Now first He is seen to commit His powers and His honour into mortal
hands.
In doing this, He impressed on them the fact that they were not sent at
first upon a toilsome and protracted journey. Their personal connection
with Him was not broken but suspended for a little while. Hereafter, they
would need to prepare for hardship, and he that had two coats should take
them. It was not so now: sandals would suffice their feet; they should
carry no wallet; only a staff was needed for their brief excursion through
a hospitable land. But hospitality itself would have its dangers for them,
and when warmly received they might be tempted to be fêted by various
hosts, enjoying the first enthusiastic welcome of each, and refusing to
share afterwards the homely domestic life which would succeed. Yet it was
when they ceased to be strangers that their influence would really be
strongest; and so there was good reason, both for the sake of the family
they might win, and for themselves who should not become self-indulgent,
why they should not go from house to house.
These directions were not meant to become universal rules, and we have
seen how Jesus afterwards explicitly varied them. But their spirit is an
admonition to all who are tempted to forget their mission in personal
advantages which it may offer. Thus commissioned and endowed, they should
feel as they went the greatness of the message they conveyed. Wherever
they were rejected; no false meekness should forbid their indignant
protest, and they should refuse to carry even the dust of that evil and
doomed place upon their feet.
And they went forth and preached repentance, casting out many devils, and
healing many that were sick. In doing this, they anointed them with oil,
as St. James afterwards directed, but as Jesus never did. He used no
means, or when faith needed to be helped by a visible application, it was
always the touch of His own hand or the moisture of His own lip. The
distinction is significant. And also it must be remembered that oil was
never used by disciples for the edification of the dying, but for the
recovery of the sick.
By this new agency the name of Jesus was more than ever spread abroad,
until it reached the ears of a murderous tyrant, and stirred in his bosom
not the repentance which they preached, but the horrors of ineffectual
remorse.
Herod.
“And king Herod heard _thereof;_ for His name had become known:
and he said, John the Baptist is risen from the dead, and
therefore do these powers work in him. But others said, It is
Elijah. And others said, _It is_ a prophet, _even_ as one of the
prophets. But Herod, when he heard _thereof_, said, John, whom I
beheaded, he is risen. For Herod himself had sent forth and laid
hold upon John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias,
his brother Philip’s wife: for he had married her. For John said
unto Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife.
And Herodias set herself against him, and desired to kill him; and
she could not; for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a
righteous man and a holy, and kept him safe. And when he heard
him, he was much perplexed; and he heard him gladly. And when a
convenient day was come, that Herod on his birthday made a supper
to his lords, and the high captains, and the chief men of Galilee;
and when the daughter of Herodias herself came in and danced, she
pleased Herod and them that sat at meat with him; and the king
said unto the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will
give it thee. And he sware unto her, Whatsoever thou shalt ask of
me, I will give it thee, unto the half of my kingdom. And she went
out, and said unto her mother, What shall I ask? And she said, The
head of John the Baptist. And she came in straightway with haste
unto the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou forthwith give
me in a charger the head of John the Baptist. And the king was
exceeding sorry; but for the sake of his oaths, and of them that
sat at meat, he would not reject her. And straightway the king
sent forth a soldier of his guard, and commanded to bring his
head: and he went and beheaded him in the prison, and brought his
head in a charger, and gave it to the damsel; and the damsel gave
it to her mother. And when his disciples heard _thereof_, they
came and took up his corpse, and laid it in a tomb.”—MARK vi.
14-29 (R.V.).
The growing influence of Jesus demanded the mission of the Twelve, and
this in its turn increased His fame until it alarmed the tetrarch Herod.
An Idumæan ruler of Israel was forced to dread every religious movement,
for all the waves of Hebrew fanaticism beat against the foreign throne.
And Herod Antipas was especially the creature of circumstances, a weak and
plastic man. He is the Ahab of the New Testament, and it is a curious
coincidence that he should have to do with its Elijah. As Ahab fasted when
he heard his doom, and postponed the evil by his submission, so Herod was
impressed and agitated by the teaching of the Baptist. But Ahab
surrendered his soul to the imperious Jezebel, and Herod was ruined by
Herodias. Each is the sport of strong influences from without, and warns
us that a man, no more than a ship, can hope by drifting to come safe to
haven.
No contrast could be imagined more dramatic than between the sleek seducer
of his brother’s wife and the imperious reformer, rude in garment and
frugal of fare, thundering against the generation of vipers who were the
chiefs of his religion.
How were these two brought together? Did the Baptist stride unsummoned
into the court? Did his crafty foemen contrive his ruin by inciting the
Tetrarch to consult him? Or did that restless religious curiosity, which
afterwards desired to see Jesus, lead Herod to consult his forerunner? The
abrupt words of John are not unlike an answer to some feeble question of
casuistry, some plea of extenuating circumstances such as all can urge in
mitigation of their worst deeds. He simply and boldly states the
inflexible ordinance of God: It is not lawful for thee to have her.
What follows may teach us much.
1. It warns us that good inclinations, veneration for holiness in others,
and ineffectual struggles against our own vices, do not guarantee
salvation. He who feels them is not God-forsaken, since every such emotion
is a grace. But he must not infer that he never may be forsaken, or that
because he is not wholly indifferent or disobedient, God will some day
make him all that his better moods desire. Such a man should be warned by
Herod Antipas. Ruggedly and abruptly rebuked, his soul recognised and did
homage to the truthfulness of his teacher. Admiration replaced the anger
in which he cast him into prison. As he stood between him and the
relentless Herodias, and “kept him safely,” he perhaps believed that the
gloomy dungeon, and the utter interruption of a great career, were only
for the Baptist’s preservation. Alas, there was another cause. He was
“much perplexed”: he dared not provoke his temptress by releasing the man
of God. And thus temporizing, and daily weakening the voice of conscience
by disobedience, he was lost.
2. It is distinctly a bad omen that he “heard him gladly,” since he had no
claim to well-founded religious happiness. Our Lord had already observed
the shallowness of men who immediately with joy receive the word, yet have
no root. But this guilty man, disquieted by the reproaches of memory and
the demands of conscience, found it a relief to hear stern truth, and to
see from far the beauteous light of righteousness. He would not reform his
life, but he would fain keep his sensibilities alive. It was so that
Italian brigands used to maintain a priest. And it is so that fraudulent
British tradesmen too frequently pass for religious men. People cry shame
on their hypocrisy. Yet perhaps they less often wear a mask to deceive
others than a cloke to keep their own hearts warm, and should not be
quoted to prove that religion is a deceit, but as witnesses that even the
most worldly soul craves as much of it as he can assimilate. So it was
with Herod Antipas.
3. But no man can serve two masters. He who refuses the command of God to
choose whom he will serve, in calmness and meditation, when the means of
grace and the guidance of the Spirit are with him, shall hear some day the
voice of the Tempter, derisive and triumphant, amid evil companions, when
flushed with guilty excitements and with sensual desires, and deeply
committed by rash words and “honour rooted in dishonour,” bidding him
choose now, and choose finally. Salome will tolerate neither weak
hesitation nor half measures; she must herself possess “forthwith” the
head of her mother’s foe, which is worth more than half the kingdom, since
his influence might rob them of it all. And the king was exceeding sorry,
but chose to be a murderer rather than be taken for a perjurer by the bad
companions who sat with him. What a picture of a craven soul, enslaved
even in the purple. And of the meshes for his own feet which that man
weaves, who gathers around him such friends that their influence will
surely mislead his lonely soul in its future struggles to be virtuous.
What a lurid light does this passage throw upon another and a worse scene,
when we meet Herod again, not without the tyrannous influence of his men
of war.
4. We learn the mysterious interconnection of sin with sin. Vicious luxury
and self-indulgence, the plastic feebleness of character which half yields
to John, yet cannot break with Herodias altogether, these do not seem
likely to end in murder. They have scarcely strength enough, we feel, for
a great crime. Alas, they have feebleness enough for it, for he who joins
in the dance of the graces may give his hand to the furies unawares.
Nothing formidable is to be seen in Herod, up to the fatal moment when
revelry, and the influence of his associates, and the graceful dancing of
a woman whose beauty was pitiless, urged him irresistibly forward to bathe
his shrinking hands in blood. And from this time forward he is a lost man.
When a greater than John is reported to be working miracles, he has a wild
explanation for the new portent, and his agitation is betrayed in his
broken words, “John, whom I beheaded, he is risen.” “For” St. Mark adds
with quiet but grave significance, “Herod himself had sent forth and laid
hold upon John, and bound him.” Others might speak of a mere teacher, but
the conscience of Herod will not suffer it to be so; it is his victim; he
has learnt the secret of eternity; “and therefore do these powers work in
him.” Yet Herod was a Sadducee.
5. These words are dramatic enough to prove themselves; it would have
tasked Shakespere to invent them. But they involve the ascription from the
first of unearthly powers to Jesus, and they disprove, what sceptics would
fain persuade us, that miracles were inevitably ascribed, by the credulity
of the age, to all great teachers, since John wrought none, and the
astonishing theory that he had graduated in another world, was invented by
Herod to account for those of Jesus. How inevitable it was that such a man
should set at nought our Lord. Dread, and moral repulsion, and the
suspicion that he himself was the mark against which all the powers of the
avenger would be directed, these would not produce a mood in which to
comprehend One who did not strive nor cry. To them it was a supreme relief
to be able to despise Christ.
Elsewhere we can trace the gradual cessation of the alarm of Herod. At
first he dreads the presence of the new Teacher, and yet dares not assail
Him openly. And so, when Jesus was advised to go thence or Herod would
kill Him, He at once knew who had instigated the crafty monition, and sent
back his defiance to that fox. But even fear quickly dies in a callous
heart, and only curiosity survives. Herod is soon glad to see Jesus, and
hopes that He may work a miracle. For religious curiosity and the love of
spiritual excitement often survive grace, just as the love of stimulants
survives the healthy appetite for bread. But our Lord, Who explained so
much for Pilate, spoke not a word to him. And the wretch, whom once the
forerunner had all but won, now set the Christ Himself at nought, and
mocked Him, So yet does the God of this world blind the eyes of the
unbelieving. So great are still the dangers of hesitation, since not to be
for Christ is to be against Him.
6. But the blood of the martyr was not shed before his work was done. As
the falling blossom admits the sunshine to the fruit, so the herald died
when his influence might have clashed with the growing influence of his
Lord, Whom the Twelve were at last trained to proclaim far and wide. At a
stroke, his best followers were naturally transferred to Jesus, Whose way
he had prepared. Rightly, therefore, has St. Mark placed the narrative at
this juncture, and very significantly does St. Matthew relate that his
disciples, when they had buried him, “came and told Jesus.”
Upon the path of our Lord Himself this violent death fell as a heavy
shadow. Nor was He unconscious of its menace, for after the
transfiguration He distinctly connected with a prediction of His own
death, the fact that they had done to Elias also whatsoever they listed.
Such connections of thought help us to realise the truth, that not once
only, but throughout His ministry, He Who bids us bear our cross while we
follow Him, was consciously bearing His own. We must not limit to “three
days” the sorrows which redeemed the world.
Bread In The Desert.
“And the apostles gather themselves together unto Jesus; and they
told Him all things, whatsoever they had done, and whatsoever they
had taught. And He saith unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into
a desert place, and rest awhile. For there were many coming and
going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And they went
away in the boat to a desert place apart. And _the people_ saw
them going, and many knew _them_, and they ran there together on
foot from all the cities, and outwent them. And He came forth and
saw a great multitude, and He had compassion on them, because they
were as sheep not having a shepherd: and He began to teach them
many things. And when the day was now far spent, His disciples
came onto Him, and said, The place is desert, and the day is now
far spent: send them away, that they may go into the country and
villages round about, and buy themselves somewhat to eat. But He
answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say
unto Him, Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and
give them to eat? And He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye?
go _and_ see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes.
And He commanded them that all should sit down by companies upon
the green grass. And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by
fifties. And He took the five loaves and the two fishes, and
looking up to heaven, He blessed, and brake the loaves; and He
gave to the disciples to set before them; and the two fishes
divided He among them all. And they did all eat, and were filled.
And they took up broken pieces, twelve basketfuls, and also of the
fishes. And they that ate the loaves were five thousand men. And
straightway He constrained His disciples to enter into the boat,
and to go before _Him_ unto the other side to Bethsaida, while He
Himself sendeth the multitude away. And after He had taken leave
of them He departed into the mountain to pray.”—MARK vi. 30-46
(R.V.).
The Apostles, now first called by that name, because now first these
“Messengers” had carried the message of their Lord, returned and told Him
all, the miracles they had performed, and whatever they had taught. From
the latter clause it is plain that to preach “that men should repent,”
involved arguments, motives, promises, and perhaps threatenings which
rendered it no meagre announcement. It is in truth a demand which involves
free will and responsibility as its basis, and has hell or heaven for the
result of disobedience or compliance. Into what controversies may it have
led these first preachers of Jesus! All was now submitted to the judgment
of their Master. And happy are they still who do not shrink from the
healing pain of bringing all their actions and words to Him, and
hearkening what the Lord will speak.
Upon the whole, they brought a record of success, and around Him also were
so many coming and going that they had no leisure so much as to eat.
Whereupon Jesus draws them aside to rest awhile. For the balance must
never be forgotten between the outer and the inner life. The Lord Himself
spent the following night in prayer, until He saw the distress of His
disciples, and came to them upon the waves. And the time was at hand when
they, who now rejoiced that the devils were subject unto them, should
learn by sore humiliation and defeat that this kind goeth not forth except
by prayer. We may be certain that it was not bodily repose alone that
Jesus desired for his flushed and excited ambassadors, in the hour of
their success. And yet bodily repose also at such a time is healing, and
in the very pause, the silence, the cessation of the rush, pressure, and
excitement of every conspicuous career, there is an opportunity and even a
suggestion of calm and humble recollection of the soul. Accordingly they
crossed in the boat to some quiet spot, open and unreclaimed, but very far
from such dreariness as the mention of a desert suggests to us. But the
people saw Him, and watched His course, while outrunning him along the
coast, and their numbers were augmented from every town as they poured
through it, until He came forth and saw a great multitude, and knew that
His quest of solitude was baffled. Few things are more trying than the
world’s remorseless intrusion upon one’s privacy, and subversions of plans
which one has laid, not for himself alone. But Jesus was as thoughtful for
the multitude as He had just shown Himself to be for His disciples. Not to
petulance but to compassion did their urgency excite Him; for as they
streamed across the wilderness, far from believing upon Him, but yet
conscious of sore need, unsatisfied with the doctrine of their
professional teachers, and just bereaved of the Baptist, they seemed in
the desert like sheep that had no shepherd. And He patiently taught them
many things.
Nor was He careful only for their souls. We have now reached that
remarkable miracle which alone is related by all the four Evangelists. And
the narratives, while each has its individual and peculiar points,
corroborate each other very strikingly. All four mention the same kind of
basket, quite different from what appears in the feeding of the four
thousand. St. John alone tells us that it was the season of the Passover,
the middle of the Galilean spring-time; but yet this agrees exactly with
St. Mark’s allusion to the “green grass” which summer has not yet dried
up. All four have recorded that Jesus “blessed” or “gave thanks,” and
three of them that He looked up to heaven while doing so. What was there
so remarkable, so intense or pathetic in His expression, that it should
have won this three-fold celebration? If we remember the symbolical
meaning of what He did, and that as His hands were laid upon the bread
which He would break, so His own body should soon be broken for the relief
of the hunger of the world, how can we doubt that absolute self-devotion,
infinite love, and pathetic resignation were in that wonderful look, which
never could be forgotten?
There could have been but few women and children among the multitudes who
“outran Jesus,” and these few would certainly have been trodden down if a
rush of strong and hungry men for bread had taken place. Therefore St.
John mentions that while Jesus bade “the people” to be seated, it was the
men who were actually arranged (vi. 10 R.V.). Groups of fifty were easy to
keep in order, and a hundred of these were easily counted. And thus it
comes to pass that we know that there were five thousand men, while the
women and children remained unreckoned, as St. Matthew asserts, and St.
Mark implies. This is a kind of harmony which we do not find in two
versions of any legend. Nor could any legendary impulse have imagined the
remarkable injunction, which impressed all four Evangelists, to be frugal
when it would seem that the utmost lavishness was pardonable. They were
not indeed bidden to gather up fragments left behind upon the ground, for
thrift is not meanness; but the “broken pieces” which our Lord had
provided over and above should not be lost. “This union of economy with
creative power,” said Olshausen, “could never have been invented, and yet
Nature, that mirror of the Divine perfections, exhibits the same
combination of boundless munificence with truest frugality.” And Godet
adds the excellent remark, that “a gift so obtained was not to be
squandered.”
There is one apparent discord to set against these remarkable harmonies,
and it will at least serve to show that they are not calculated and
artificial.
St. John represents Jesus as the first to ask Philip, Whence are we to buy
bread? whereas the others represent the Twelve as urging upon Him the need
to dismiss the multitude, at so late an hour, from a place so ill
provided. The inconsistency is only an apparent one. It was early in the
day, and upon “seeing a great company come unto Him,” that Jesus
questioned Philip, who might have remembered an Old Testament precedent,
when Elisha said “Give unto the people that they may eat. And his servitor
said, What? shall I set this before an hundred men? He said, again, they
shall both eat and shall also leave thereof.” But the faith of Philip did
not respond, and if any hope of a miracle were excited, it faded as time
passed over. Hours later, when the day was far spent, the Twelve, now
perhaps excited by Philip’s misgiving, and repeating his calculation about
the two hundred pence, urge Jesus to dismiss the multitude. They took no
action until “the time was already past,” but Jesus saw the end from the
beginning. And surely the issue taught them not to distrust their Master’s
power. Now the same power is for ever with the Church; and our heavenly
Father knoweth that we have need of food and raiment.
Even in the working of a miracle, the scantiest means vouchsafed by
Providence are not despised. Jesus takes the barley-loaves and the fishes,
and so teaches all men that true faith is remote indeed from the
fanaticism which neglects any resources brought within the reach of our
study and our toil. And to show how really these materials were employed,
the broken pieces which they gathered are expressly said to have been
composed of the barley-loaves and of the fish.
Indeed it must be remarked that in no miracle of the Gospel did Jesus
actually create. He makes no new members of the body, but restores old
useless ones. “And so, without a substratum to work upon He creates
neither bread nor wine.” To do this would not have been a whit more
difficult, but it would have expressed less aptly His mission, which was
not to create a new system of things, but to renew the old, to recover the
lost sheep, and to heal the sick at heart.
Every circumstance of this miracle is precious. That vigilant care for the
weak which made the people sit down in groups, and await their turn to be
supplied, is a fine example of the practical eye for details which was
never, before or since, so perfectly united with profound thought, insight
into the mind of God and the wants of the human race.
The words, Give ye them to eat, may serve as an eternal rebuke to the
helplessness of the Church, face to face with a starving world, and
regarding her own scanty resources with dismay. In the presence of
heathenism, of dissolute cities, and of semi-pagan peasantries, she is
ever looking wistfully to some costly far-off supply. And her Master is
ever bidding her believe that the few loaves and fishes in her hand, if
blessed and distributed by Him, will satisfy the famine of mankind.
For in truth He is Himself this bread. All that the Gospel of St. John
explains, underlies the narratives of the four. And shame on us, with
Christ given to us to feed and strengthen us, if we think our resources
scanty, if we grudge to share them with mankind, if we let our thoughts
wander away to the various palliatives for human misery and salves for
human anguish, which from time to time gain the credence of an hour; if we
send the hungry to the country and villages round about, when Christ the
dispenser of the Bread of souls, for ever present in His Church, is
saying, They need not depart, give ye them to eat.
The sceptical explanations of this narrative are exquisitely ludicrous.
One tells us how, finding themselves in a desert, “thanks to their extreme
frugality they were able to exist, and this was naturally” (what,
naturally?) “regarded as a miracle.” This is called the legendary
explanation, and every one can judge for himself how much it succeeds in
explaining to him.
Another tells us that Jesus being greater than Moses, it was felt that He
must have outstripped him in miraculous power. And so the belief grew up
that as Moses fed a nation during forty years, with angels’ food, He, to
exceed this, must have bestowed upon five thousand men one meal of barley
bread.
This is called the mythical explanation, and the credulity which accepts
it must not despise Christians, who only believe their Bibles.
Jesus had called away His followers to rest. The multitude which beheld
this miracle was full of passionate hate against the tyrant, upon whose
hands the blood of the Baptist was still warm. All they wanted was a
leader. And now they would fain have taken Jesus by force to thrust this
perilous honour upon Him. Therefore He sent away His disciples first, that
ambition and hope might not agitate and secularise their minds; and when
He had dismissed the multitude He Himself ascended the neighbouring
mountain, to cool His frame with the pure breezes, and to refresh His Holy
Spirit by communion with His Father. Prayer was natural to Jesus; but
think how much more needful is it to us. And yet perhaps we have never
taken one hour from sleep for God.
Jesus Walking On The Water.
MARK vi. 47-52 (R.V.).
(See iv. 36, pp. 133-140.)
Unwashen Hands.
“And when they had crossed over, they came to the land unto
Gennesaret, and moored to the shore.... Making void the word of
God by your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like
things ye do.”—MARK vi. 53-vii. 13 (R.V.).
There is a condition of mind which readily accepts the temporal blessings
of religion, and yet neglects, and perhaps despises, the spiritual truths
which they ratify and seal. When Jesus landed on Gennesaret, He was
straightway known, and as He passed through the district, there was hasty
bearing of all the sick to meet Him, laying them in public places, and
beseeching Him that they might touch, if no more, the border of His
garment. By the faith which believed in so easy a cure, a timid woman had
recently won signal commendation. But the very fact that her cure had
become public, while it accounts for the action of these crowds, deprives
it of any special merit. We only read that as many as touched Him were
made whole. And we know that just now He was forsaken by many even of His
disciples, and had to ask His very apostles, Will ye also go away?
Thus we find these two conflicting movements: among the sick and their
friends a profound persuasion that He can heal them; and among those whom
He would fain teach, resentment and revolt against His doctrine. The
combination is strange, but we dare not call it unfamiliar. We see the
opposing tendencies even in the same man, for sorrow and pain drive to His
knees many a one who will not take upon His neck the easy yoke. Yet how
absurd it is to believe in Christ’s goodness and His power, and still to
dare to sin against Him, still to reject the inevitable inference that His
teaching must bring bliss. Men ought to ask themselves what is involved
when they pray to Christ and yet refuse to serve Him.
As Jesus moved thus around the district, and responded so amply to their
supplication that His very raiment was charged with health as if with
electricity, which leaps out at a touch, what an effect He must have
produced, even upon the ceremonial purity of the district. Sickness meant
defilement, not for the sufferer alone, but for his friends, his nurse,
and the bearers of his little pallet. By the recovery of one sick man, a
fountain of Levitical pollution was dried up. And the harsh and rigid
legalist ought to have perceived that from his own point of view the
pilgrimage of Jesus was like the breath of spring upon a garden, to
restore its freshness and bloom.
It was therefore an act of portentous waywardness when, at this juncture,
a complaint was made of His indifference to ceremonial cleanness. For of
course a charge against His disciples was really a complaint against the
influence which guided them so ill.
It was not a disinterested complaint. Jerusalem was alarmed at the new
movement resulting from the mission of the Twelve, their miracles, and the
mighty works which He Himself had lately wrought. And a deputation of
Pharisees and scribes came from this centre of ecclesiastical prejudice,
to bring Him to account. They do not assail His doctrine, nor charge Him
with violating the law itself, for He had put to shame their querulous
complaints about the sabbath day. But tradition was altogether upon their
side: it was a weapon ready sharpened for their use against one so free,
unconventional and fearless.
The law had imposed certain restrictions upon the chosen race,
restrictions which were admirably sanitary in their nature, while aiming
also at preserving the isolation of Israel from the corrupt and foul
nations which lay around. All such restrictions were now about to pass
away, because religion was to become aggressive, it was henceforth to
invade the nations from whose inroads it had heretofore sought a convert.
But the Pharisees had not been content even with the severe restrictions
of the law. They had not regarded these as a fence for themselves against
spiritual impurity, but as an elaborate and artificial substitute for love
and trust. And therefore, as love and spiritual religion faded out of
their hearts, they were the more jealous and sensitive about the letter of
the law. They “fenced” it with elaborate rules, and precautions against
accidental transgressions, superstitiously dreading an involuntary
infraction of its minutest details. Certain substances were unclean food.
But who could tell whether some atom of such substance, blown about in the
dust of summer, might adhere to the hand with which he ate, or to the cups
and pots whence his food was drawn? Moreover, the Gentile nations were
unclean, and it was not possible to avoid all contact with them in the
market-places, returning whence, therefore, every devout Jew was careful
to wash himself, which washing, though certainly not an immersion, is here
plainly called a baptism. Thus an elaborate system of ceremonial washing,
not for cleansing, but as a religious precaution, had grown up among the
Jews.
But the disciples of Jesus had begun to learn their emancipation. Deeper
and more spiritual conceptions of God and man and duty had grown up in
them. And the Pharisees saw that they ate their bread with unwashen hands.
It availed nothing that half a population owed purity and health to their
Divine benevolence, if in the process the letter of a tradition were
infringed. It was necessary to expostulate with Jesus, because they walked
not according to the tradition of the elders, that dried skin of an old
orthodoxy in which prescription and routine would ever fain shut up the
seething enthusiasms and insights of the present time.
With such attempts to restrict and cramp the free life of the soul, Jesus
could have no sympathy. He knew well that an exaggerated trust in any
form, any routine or ritual whatever, was due to the need of some stay and
support for hearts which have ceased to trust in a Father of souls. But He
chose to leave them without excuse by showing their transgression of
actual precepts which real reverence for God would have respected. Like
books of etiquette for people who have not the instincts of gentlemen; so
do ceremonial religions spring up where the instinct of respect for the
will of God is dull or dead. Accordingly Jesus quotes against these
Pharisees a distinct precept, a word not of their fathers, but of God,
which their tradition had caused them to trample upon. If any genuine
reverence for His commandment had survived, it would have been outraged by
such a collision between the text and the gloss, the precept and the
precautionary supplement. But they had never felt the incongruity, never
been jealous enough for the commandment of God to revolt against the
encroaching tradition which insulted it. The case which Jesus gave, only
as one of “many such like things,” was an abuse of the system of vows, and
of dedicated property. It would seem that from the custom of “devoting” a
man’s property, and thus putting it beyond his further control, had grown
up the abuse of consecrating it with such limitations, that it should
still be available for the owner, but out of his power to give to others.
And thus, by a spell as abject as the taboo of the South Sea islanders, a
man glorified God by refusing help to his father and mother, without being
at all the poorer for the so-called consecration of his means. And even if
he awoke up to the shameful nature of his deed, it was too late, for “ye
no longer suffer him to do ought for his father of his mother.” And yet
Moses had made it a capital offence to “speak evil of father or mother.”
Did they then allow such slanders? Not at all, and so they would have
refused to confess any aptness in the quotation. But Jesus was not
thinking of the letter of a precept, but of the spirit and tendency of a
religion, to which they were blind. With what scorn He regarded their
miserable subterfuges, is seen by His vigorous word, “full well do ye make
void the commandment of God that ye may keep your traditions.”
Now the root of all this evil was unreality. It was not merely because
their heart was far from God that they invented hollow formalisms;
indifference leads to neglect, not to a perverted and fastidious
earnestness. But while their hearts were earthly, they had learned to
honour God with their lips. The judgments which had sent their fathers
into exile, the pride of their unique position among the nations, and the
self-interest of privileged classes, all forbade them to neglect the
worship in which they had no joy, and which, therefore, they were unable
to follow as it reached out into infinity, panting after God, a living
God. There was no principle of life, growth, aspiration, in their dull
obedience. And what could it turn into but a routine, a ritual, a verbal
homage, and the honour of the lips only? And how could such a worship fail
to shelter itself in evasions from the heart-searching earnestness of a
law which was spiritual, while the worshipper was carnal and sold under
sin?
It was inevitable that collisions should arise. And the same results will
always follow the same causes. Wherever men bow the knee for the sake of
respectability, or because they dare not absent themselves from the
outward haunts of piety, yet fail to love God and their neighbour, there
will the form outrage the spirit, and in vain will they worship, teaching
as their doctrines the traditions of men.
Very completely indeed was the relative position of Jesus and His critics
reversed, since they had expressed pain at the fruitless effort of His
mother to speak with Him, and He had seemed to set the meanest disciple
upon a level with her. But He never really denied the voice of nature, and
they never really heard it. An affectation of respect would have satisfied
their heartless formality: He thought it the highest reward of
discipleship to share the warmth of His love. And therefore, in due time,
it was seen that His critics were all unconscious of the wickedness of
filial neglect which set His heart on fire.