CHRIST’S MINISTRY. ACT I
“This perfect man, by merit called my Son,
To earn salvation for the sons of men.”
MILTON, Paradise Regained, Book I.
IT will be necessary for our purpose to follow in outline the events of
our Lord’s ministry as a consecutive narrative. If I do so without
calling your attention to the endless difficulties and questions which
have been fairly raised as to the occurrence and sequence of many or
those events, it is not because I wish to ignore them myself, or to lead
you away from the examination of them. In our time, which is, perhaps,
before all things an age of criticism, much has been done towards the
creation of a science of history, and therefore of a science of
religion, which is the highest part of history. We have discovered, or
at any rate have done much to perfect, the use of new and searching
methods of investigation, and have applied, and are applying, these to
every department of human knowledge and human life.
It was not to be expected, or indeed to be wished, that the new
criticism should pause before that history, or the books containing it,
which our forefathers held too sacred to be looked upon or treated as
ordinary history. It has not paused, and—while respecting our fathers’
reverent feeling for the books which have done so much for our nation,
and for the world—we may rejoice that it has not; and that friend and
foe in this generation have been alike busy in turning all the light
which recent research has placed within their reach upon the story of
our Lord’s ministry, and the gospel narratives in which it is contained.
We English were in danger of idolatry in this matter—of putting the Book
in the place of Him of whom it testifies—and it is well for us that we
have been shaken, however roughly, out of a habit which fostered
unreality in the very centre of our lives. We were inclined to claim for
Christ’s religion, and for its evidences, immunities which neither He
nor His apostles ever claimed. That position has been abandoned, and the
best representatives of every school of religious thought amongst us (so
far as I am aware) now challenge the freest inquiry, and lend their own
aid in carrying it on. And amongst the first, and not least formidable,
difficulties which have met Christian writers has been that of
harmonising the writings of the four evangelists so as to make the
several narratives fit into one continuous whole.
Whether it is possible that this can ever be done completely, in the
absence of the discovery of new evidence, which there is no reason to
look for, seems to be very doubtful. At any rate it has not been
accomplished hitherto. But the general outline comes out clearly enough,
and this is all we need in order to pursue our own particular inquiry
satisfactorily.
Turning, then, to the point at which we have arrived, we shall find
ourselves at once met by questions of detail as to our Lord’s return
from the wilderness after His temptation. Whether He returned to the
scene of John’s baptism, on the Jordan, and remained there for some
days, or went straight back into Galilee from the desert; whether He
commenced His active ministry at once, or even yet postponed it until
John had been put in prison—are questions about which there is as yet no
general concurrence of opinion.
You may each of you judge for yourselves of the difficulties by
comparing the passages in the four Gospels which relate to this period.
Taking this warning with us, we need trouble no further about the
harmonies. Indeed, for our purpose, they are of very little consequence,
for, take the narrative how we will, it divides itself beyond all
question into several distinct and clearly marked periods. The first of
these is that between the temptation and the formal opening of Christ’s
ministry in Galilee, (marked by His first great discourse at Nazareth),
the abandonment of His home, and the selection of the five first
apostles for special and continuous service. This first period extends
at most over a few months, or more probably weeks, beginning a few days
before the feast of the Passover, and ending in the early summer; at the
time, not (so far as I am aware) exactly ascertained, when Herod Antipas
seized John the Baptist and put him in prison. We must run through it
shortly, noting the principal events, and then applying our test to such
of them as seem to come within the scope of our inquiry.
The temptation over, Christ appears to have returned by Bethabara on His
way to His Galilean home. The crowds were still pressing to John’s
baptism, and a group of the most earnest amongst them had already
gathered round the Baptist, and were attaching themselves to his person,
as the sons of the prophets round Elisha, the apostles round Christ
Himself, the companions of Medina round Mohammed.
To two of these disciples John points out Christ as that Son of God, of
whom he was sent to bear record. They follow Him, spend a few hours of
the afternoon with Him, and recognise Him as the Messiah. One of them,
Andrew, brings his brother Simon Peter to Christ. He Himself calls
Philip, who in his turn brings his friend Nathanael. With these five
Christ starts for His home in Galilee.
These earliest followers, we may note, are almost certainly of the
twelve apostles. As to Andrew, Simon Peter, and Philip, who are
expressly named, there is no question; and there is good reason to
believe that the companion of Andrew, whose name is not given, was John,
the son of Zebedee, and that Nathanael was the apostle Bartholomew,
whose name is constantly coupled in the Gospels with that of Philip.
Nathanael was of Cana of Galilee, of what trade we do not know; the
other four were of Bethsaida, a suburb of Capernaum, fishermen on the
Sea of Galilee.
They accompany Christ to Cana, Nathanael’s home, where they meet
Christ’s mother, and are present at the marriage feast, at which His
first miracle is wrought. From thence they follow Him to Capernaum, and
some of them go on with Him to Jerusalem to the Passover, at which He
drives out the cattle-dealers from the outer court of the Temple, and
overthrows the tables of the money-changers.
This act fixes the attention of all Jerusalem upon Him, and brings Him
at once under the notice of the Sanhedrim. One of its members, a
Pharisee, seeks an interview with Him by night. He commits Himself
neither to the mob, nor to the nobleman. After the feast He remains for
some time in the northern part of Judæa, where His fame attracts
followers, whom His disciples baptize. He then passes through Samaria,
still attended by his followers, stopping some days in the city of that
name, and preaching there. They then go into Galilee, and, while the
disciples, apparently, separate for the time to their own homes and
pursuits, He returns to Nazareth, to begin His formal ministry amongst
those who had known Him from His childhood. They turn upon Him in the
middle of His first discourse, and attempt to murder Him. He leaves His
old home for the neighbouring village of Cana, where He is found by the
ruler whose son is sick at Capernaum. He heals the child, and follows
the father to that city, where He hears of the imprisonment of the
Baptist, and at once enters on the second stage of His public career.
And now, following the narrative step by step so far, see if you can
find any trace in it of a failure of courage, even for a moment. In the
first place you will find, generally, that there is no wavering or
hesitation at any point. The time for these is past, and, the call once
recognised and accepted, there is no shrinking, or looking round, or
going back. The strain and burthen of a great message of deliverance to
men has again and again found the weak places in the faith and courage
of the most devoted and heroic of those to whom it has been entrusted.
Moses pleads under its pressure that another may be sent in his place,
asking despairingly, “Why hast thou sent me?” Elijah prays for death.
Mohammed passes years of despondency and hesitation under the sneers of
those who scoff, “There goeth the son of Abdallah, who hath his converse
with God!” Such shrinkings and doubtings enlist our sympathy, make us
feel the tie of a common humanity which binds us to such men. But no
one, I suppose, will maintain that perfect manliness would not suppress,
at any rate the open expression of, any such feelings. The man who has
to lead a great revolution should keep all misgivings to himself, and
the weight of them so kept must often prove the sorest part of his
burthen.
But let us pass on to the particular events of this period. As to many
of them the question of whether they are courageous or not, perhaps,
does not arise, except in so far as it arises on every act in our lives,
each of which may, and indeed must, be done either manfully with perfect
directness, or unmanfully with more or less adroitness. The man whose
“yea is yea and his nay nay,” is, we all confess, the most courageous,
whether or no he may be the most successful, in daily life. And He who
gave the precept has left us the most perfect example of how to live up
to it. And this quality you will find shines out at once in these early
conversations with Nathanael, Nicodemus, and the woman of Samaria, as
much as in the discourses of His later years.
Before considering them we may glance at the purification of the Temple,
an act which at any rate should satisfy those who think courage best
proved by physical daring. At this time, we must remember, He had no
following, such as the crowd that swept after Him on Palm Sunday, three
years later, into the Temple courts. But, leaving the act to speak for
itself, look at the rare courage of the speech by which that act is
justified when it is challenged. He, not even a Levite, a mere peasant
from a despised province, had presumed to exercise authority in the very
Temple precincts! Jerusalem was full of worse idolatries, but the
idolatry of the Temple buildings was, perhaps, the strongest. The Jews
seem to have regarded them as Christians have sometimes regarded the
visible Church, or the Bible—as an object of worship; to have thought
that if they perished God Himself would perish. And so Christ’s answer
goes straight to the root of their idolatry. His words were not
understood by the crowd, or even by His own disciples, in their full
meaning—that His body, and the body of every man, is the true temple of
God. But they understood enough of them to see that He had no
superstition about these splendid buildings of theirs, and was trying to
lift all of them above local and national prejudices. Those who would
not be lifted brooded over them till their day of vengeance came.
But there were those on whom the daring acts and words of Christ were
already taking hold. Many of those who had come up to the Passover
believed in Him, some even amongst the rulers. One of these we hear more
of at once.
Nicodemus, we must remember, was a leading member of the Sanhedrim, a
representative of that section of the rulers, who, like the rest of the
nation, were expecting a deliverer, a king who should prevail against
the Cæsar. They had sent to the Baptist, and had heard of his testimony
to this young Galilean, who had now come to Jerusalem, and was showing
signs of a power which they could not but acknowledge. For, had He not
cleansed the Temple, which they had never been able to do; but,
notwithstanding their pretended reverence for it, had allowed to be
turned into a shambles and an exchange? They saw that a part of the
people were ready to gather to Him, but that He had refused to commit
Himself to them. This, then, the best of them must have felt, was no
mere leader of a low, fierce, popular party or faction. Nicodemus at any
rate was evidently inclined to doubt whether He might not prove to be
the king they were looking for, as the Baptist had declared. The doubt
must be solved, and he would see for himself.
And so he comes to Christ, and hears directly from Him, that He has
indeed come to set up a kingdom, but that it is no visible kingdom like
the Cæsar’s, but a kingdom over men’s spirits; one which rulers as well
as peasants must become new men before they can enter—that a light has
come into the world, and “he that doeth truth cometh to that light.”
From beginning to end there is no word to catch this ruler, or those he
represented; no balancing of phrases or playing with plausible religious
shibboleths, with which Nicodemus would be familiar, and which might
please, and, perchance, reconcile, this well-disposed ruler, and the
powerful persons he represented. There is, depend upon it, no severer
test of manliness than our behaviour to powerful persons, whose aid
would advance the cause we have at heart. We know from the later records
that the interview of that night, and the strange words he had heard
then, made a deep impression on this ruler. His manliness, however,
breaks down for the present. He shrinks back and disappears, leaving the
strange young peasant to go on His way.
The same splendid directness and incisiveness characterise His teaching
at Samaria. There, again, He attacks at once the most cherished local
traditions, showing that the place of worship matters nothing, the
object of worship everything. That object is a Father of men’s spirits,
who wills that all men shall know and worship Him, but who can only be
worshipped in spirit and in truth. He, the peasant who is talking to
them, is Himself the Messiah, who has come from the Father of them and
Him, to give them this spirit of truth in their own hearts.
The Jews at Jerusalem had been clamouring round Him for signs of His
claim to speak such words, and in the next few days His own people would
be crying out for His blood when they heard them. These Samaritans make
no such demand, but hear and recognise the message and the messenger.
The seed is sown, and He passes on, never to return, so far as we know,
and garner the harvest; deliberately preferring the hard, priest-ridden
lake cities of the Jews as the centre of His ministry. He will leave
ripe fields for others to reap. This decision, interpret it as we will,
is that of no soft or timid reformer. Take this test again and compare
Christ’s choice of His first field for work with that of any other great
leader of men.
This first period fitly closes with the scene of Nazareth. Here He
returns, while the reports of His doings at the feast at Jerusalem are
fresh in the minds of His family and fellow-townsmen. They are excited
and divided as to Him and His doings. A thousand reasons would occur for
speaking soft things, at such a moment, for accommodating His teaching,
here at any rate, to the wants and tastes of His hearers, so as to keep
a safe and friendly asylum at Nazareth, amongst the scenes and people He
had loved from childhood. It is clear that some of His family, if not
His mother herself, were already seriously alarmed and displeased. They
disliked what they had heard of His teaching at Jerusalem and on His way
home, which they felt must bring Him to ruin, in which they might be
involved. He must have seen and conversed with them in His own home
before that scene in the synagogue, and have had then to endure the
bitter pain of alienating those whom He loved and respected, and had
reason to love and respect, but who could not for the time rise out of
the conventional, respectable, way of looking at things.
To stand by what our conscience witnesses for as truth, through evil and
good report, even against all opposition of those we love, and whose
judgment we look up to and should ordinarily prefer to follow; to cut
ourselves deliberately off from their love and sympathy and respect; is
surely, I repeat, one of the most severe trials to which we can be put.
A man has need to feel at such times that the Spirit of the Lord is upon
him in some measure, as it was upon Christ when he rose in the synagogue
of Nazareth, and, selecting the passage of Isaiah which speaks most
directly of the Messiah, claimed that title for Himself and told them
that to-day this prophecy was fulfilled in Him.
The fierce, hard, Jewish spirit is at once roused to fury. They would
kill Him then and there, and so settle His claims, once for all. He
passes through them, and away from the quiet home where He had been
brought up—alone it would seem, so far as man could make Him so, and
homeless for the remainder of His life. Yet not alone, for His Father is
with Him; nor homeless, for He has the only home of which man can be
sure, home of His own heart shared with the Spirit of God.
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