We may note that our Lord accepts at once the imprisonment of the
Baptist as the final call to himself. Gathering, therefore, a few of
John’s disciples round him, and welcoming the restless inquiring crowds
who had been roused by the voice crying in the wilderness, he stands
forward at once to proclaim and explain the nature of that new kingdom
of God, which has now to be set up in the world. Standing forth alone,
on the open hillside, the young Galilean peasant gives forth the great
proclamation, which by one effort lifted mankind on to that new and
higher ground on which it has been painfully struggling ever since,
but on the whole with sure though slow success, to plant itself and
maintain sure foothold.
In all history there is no parallel to it. It stands there, a miracle
or sign of God’s reign in this world, far more wonderful than any of
Christ’s miracles of healing. Unbelievers have been sneering at and
ridiculing it, and Christian doctors paring and explaining it away
ever since. But there it stands, as strong and fresh as ever, the calm
declaration and witness of what mankind is intended by God to become on
this earth of his.
As a question of courageous utterance, I would only ask you to read
it through once more, bearing in mind who the preacher was—a peasant,
already repudiated by his own neighbors and kinsfolk, and suspected by
the national rulers and teachers; and who were the hearers—a motley
crowd of Jewish peasants and fishermen, Romish legionaries, traders
from Damascus, Tyre, and Sidon, and the distant isles of Greece, with a
large sprinkling of publicans, scribes, Pharisees, and lawyers.
The immediate result of the sermon was to bow the hearts of this crowd
for the time, so that he was able to choose followers from amongst
them, much as he would. He takes fishermen and peasants, selecting only
two at most, from any rank above the lowest, and one of these from a
class more hated and despised by the Jews than the poorest peasant,
the publicans. It is plain that he might at first have called apostles
from amongst the upper classes had he desired it—as a teacher with any
want of courage would surely have done. But the only scribe who offers
himself is rejected.
The calling of the Apostles is followed by a succession of discourses
and miracles, which move the people more and more, until, after that of
the loaves, the popular enthusiasm rises to the point it had so often
reached in the case of other preachers and leaders of this strange
people. They are ready to take him by force and make him a king.
The Apostles apparently encouraged this enthusiasm, for which he
constrains them into a ship, and sends them away before him. After
rejoining them and rebuking their want of understanding and faith, he
returns with them to the multitudes, and at once speaks of himself
as the bread from heaven, in the discourse which offends many of his
disciples, who from this time go back and walk no more with him. The
brief season of triumphant progress is drawing to an end, during which
he could rejoice in spirit in contemplating the human harvest which he
and his disciples seem to be already successfully garnering.