“By the light of burning martyr fires Christ’s bleeding feet I track,
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back.”
All chance of the speedy triumph of the kingdom of God, humanly
speaking, in the lake country of Galilee—the battle-field chosen by
himself, where his mightiest works had been done and his mightiest
words spoken—the district from which his chosen companions came, and
in which clamorous crowds had been ready to declare him king—is now
over. The conviction that this is so, that he is a baffled leader, in
hourly danger of his life, has forced itself on Christ. Before entering
that battle-field, face to face with the tempter in the wilderness, he
had deliberately rejected all aid from the powers and kingdoms of this
world, and now, for the moment, the powers of this world have proved
too strong for him.
The rulers of that people—Pharisee, Sadducee, and Herodian, scribe
and lawyer—were now marshalled against him in one compact phalanx,
throughout all the coasts of Galilee, as well as in Judea.
His disciples, rough, most of them peasants, full of patriotism, but
with small power of insight or self-control, were melting away from
a leader who, while he refused them active service under a patriot
chief at open war with Cæsar and his legions, bewildered them by
assuming titles and talking to them in language which they could not
understand. They were longing for one who would rally them against the
Roman oppressor, and give them a chance, at any rate, of winning their
own land again, purged of the heathen and free from tribute. Such an
one would be worth following to the death. But what could they make of
this “Son of Man,” who would prove his title to that name by giving
his body and pouring out his blood for the life of man—of this “Son
of God,” who spoke of redeeming mankind and exalting mankind to God’s
right hand, instead of exalting the Jew to the head of mankind?
In the face of such a state of things, to remain in Capernaum, or the
neighboring towns and villages, would have been to court death, there,
and at once. The truly courageous man, you may remind me, is not turned
from his path by the fear of death, which is the supreme test and
touchstone of his courage. True; nor was Christ so turned, even for a
moment.
Whatever may have been his hopes in the earlier part of his career, by
this time he had no longer a thought that mankind could be redeemed
without his own perfect and absolute sacrifice and humiliation. The
cup would indeed have to be drunk to the dregs, but not here, nor now.
This must be done at Jerusalem, the centre of the national life and
the seat of the Roman government. It must be done during the Passover,
the national commemoration of sacrifice and deliverance. And so he
withdraws, with a handful of disciples, and even they still wayward,
half-hearted, doubting, from the constant stress of a battle which
has turned against him. From this time he keeps away from the great
centres of population, except when, on two occasions—at the Feast of
Tabernacles and the Feast of the Dedication—he flashes for a day on
Jerusalem, and then disappears again into some haunt of outlaws, or
of wild beasts. This portion of his life comprises something less
than the last twelve months, from the summer of the second year of his
ministry till the eve of the last Passover, at Easter, in the third
year.
In glancing at the main facts of this period, as we have done in the
former ones, we have to note chiefly his intercourse with the twelve
apostles, and his preparation of them for the end of his own career
and the beginning of theirs; his conduct at Jerusalem during those two
autumnal and winter feasts, and the occasions when he again comes into
collision with the rulers and Pharisees, both at these feasts, and in
the intervals between them.
The keynote of it, in spite of certain short and beautiful interludes,
appears to me to be a sense of loneliness and oppression, caused by
the feeling that he has work to do, and words to speak, which those
for whom they are to be done and spoken, and whom they are, first of
all men, to bless, will either misunderstand or abhor. Here is all
the visible result of his labor and of his travail, and the enemy is
gathering strength every day.
This becomes clear, I think, at once, when, in the first days after his
quitting the lake shores, he asks his disciples the question, “Whom
do the world, and whom do ye, say that I am?” He is answered by Peter
in the well-known burst of enthusiasm, that, though the people only
look on him as a prophet, such as Elijah or Jeremiah, his own chosen
followers see in him “the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
It is this particular moment which he selects for telling them
distinctly, that Christ will _not_ triumph as they regard triumphing;
that he will fall into the power of his enemies, and be humbled and
slain by them. At once the proof comes of how little even the best of
his own most intimate friends had caught the spirit of his teaching or
of his kingdom. The announcement of his humiliation and death, which
none but the most truthful and courageous of men would have made at
such a moment, leaves them almost as much bewildered as the crowds in
the lake cities had been a few days before.
Their hearts are faithful and simple, and upon them, as Peter has
testified, the truth has flashed once for all, and there can be no
other Saviour of men than this man with whom they are living. Still, by
what means and to what end the salvation shall come, they are scarcely
less ignorant than the people who had been in vain seeking from him a
sign such as they desired. His own elect “understood not his saying,
and it was hid from them, that they perceived it not.” Rather, indeed,
they go straight from that teaching to dispute amongst themselves who
of them shall be the greatest in that kingdom which they understand so
little. And so their Master has to begin again at the beginning of his
teaching, and, placing a little child amongst them, to declare that not
of such men as they deem themselves, but of such as this child, is the
kingdom of heaven.
The episode of the Transfiguration follows; and immediately after it,
as though purposely to warn even the three chosen friends who had been
present against new delusions, he repeats again the teaching as to his
death and humiliation. And he reiterates it whenever any exhibition
of power or wisdom seems likely to encourage the frame of mind in the
twelve generally which had lately brought the great rebuke on Peter.
How slowly it did its work, even with the foremost disciples, there are
but too many proofs.
Amongst his kinsfolk and the people generally, his mission, thanks
to the cabals of the rulers and elders, had come by this time to be
looked upon with deep distrust and impatience. “How long dost thou make
us to doubt? Go up to this coming feast, and there prove your title
before those who know how to judge in such matters,” is the querulous
cry of the former as the Feast of Tabernacles approaches. He does not
go up publicly with the caravan, which would have been at this time
needlessly to incur danger, but, when the feast is half over, suddenly
appears in the temple. There he again openly affronts the rulers by
justifying his former acts, and teaching and proclaiming that he who
has sent him is true, and is their God.
It is evidently on account of this new proof of daring that the people
now again begin to rally around him. “Behold, he speaketh boldly. Do
our rulers know that this is Christ?” is the talk which fills the air,
and induces the scribes and Pharisees, for the first time, to attempt
his arrest by their officers.
The officers return without him, and their masters are, for the moment,
powerless before the simple word of him who, as their own servants
testify, “speaks as never man spake.” But if they cannot arrest and
execute, they may entangle him further, and prepare for their day,
which is surely and swiftly coming. So they bring to him the woman
taken in adultery, and draw from him the discourse in which he tells
them that the truth will make them free—the truth which he has come
to tell them, but which they will not hear, because they are of their
father the devil. He ends with asserting his claim to the name which
every Jew held sacred, “before Abraham was, I am.” The narrative of
the seventh and eighth chapters of St. John, which record these scenes
at the Feast of Tabernacles, have, I believe, done more to make men
courageous and truly manly than all the stirring accounts of bold deeds
which ever were written elsewhere.