Kitabı oku: «A Layman's Life of Jesus», sayfa 5
Once at the dawn of a beautiful summer morning in Galilee, the Master stood on the edge of a mountain and chose twelve disciples to help Him teach, and to the whole world delivered the wonderful message known as "The Sermon on the Mount." Lovelier words were never spoken – so simple, so true, so direct, so sustaining to human hearts, that they were to reach through all times and to all men. It ended with the great promise that "unto him who sought God's kingdom all things should be added." The promise of that morning in Galilee sustains mankind forever.
Once He went over to the little city of Tyre by the Mediterranean, perhaps to teach some there. Possibly it was the only time the Master ever beheld the ocean. Tyre, with its minarets, its monuments, its temples, its white sails on the sea, was a heathen city. One can fancy how profoundly stirred a soul like His, steeped in a love of nature, must have been at the first sight of the ocean. There were the white ships going to every known land of the earth – there was a new and picturesque people; there was heathendom, in luxurious idolatry. The little journey served Him as material for many a reflection later in His Galilean home.
His name was not wholly strange in the beautiful heathen city by the sea – for it is told how a woman, a Greek, met Him, threw herself at His feet, and beseeched Him to heal her daughter. The persistence, the faith of this heathen woman, that He could do it, even without seeing the afflicted daughter, led to a miracle. As in almost all His life the miracle came only after the absolute show of faith on the part of the one asking. No faith, no miracle, was a constant teaching.
Only a little time there by the blue sea now, and He is soon off for a three days' stay in that heathen land – the desert cities beyond the Jordan. Heathen as they are there, they follow in multitudes and are astounded at His wonders, for He heals many of the sick.
There, too, almost on the edge of His own country, He feeds another multitude. It is the five thousand people who have followed Him to a lonesome place in the country. They are filled, and they glorify His name. As darkness comes on the vast crowd that He has fed goes home rejoicing – while the disciples enter a boat, and, despite a coming storm on the lake of Galilee, start to the other side. Jesus Himself goes up on a lonesome mountain to pray. The night is utterly dark on the sea, and the wind howls around the foot of the mountain and over the tempest-tossed waters. Naturally, the disciples and the boatmen are alarmed. Their boat is about going down – the wind is more threatening – midnight is on the sea. Once there is a little rift in the clouds, and the half-light of a summer moon falls over them; the sailors glance out onto the waves and behold the form of a man walking toward them on the billows. It is a spirit. The phantom – as phantom it surely is – fills them with alarm, but a voice cries out, "Be not afraid, it is I." It is said, Peter seeing some one walking on the water tried it himself, and would have drowned had not the strange spirit taken him by the hand. Then the phantom itself got into the boat – the winds at once went down – and, as the little ship touched the shore, the amazed disciples discover the night phantom to be the Lord Himself.
The weird story instantly is sent to all the neighboring villages, and again people come in multitudes, some to be healed, some to revile. They were willing enough to be healed, everybody, yet the unbelieving also were there in crowds, and, strangely enough, despite wonders, miracles, and healing, a storm of opposition grows. His Galileans themselves even are joining His opponents. It is all unexplainable.
To us of the twentieth century it would seem that seeing the miracles He did, and hearing the Heavenly teaching that fell from His lips, the whole world would have fallen down and worshiped. Perhaps He said too many things that they could not understand.
He went up to Capernaum that morning for a little bit, and talked to the people in the village synagogue. "I am the Bread of Life," he said, "except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." This was too much for their small understandings – not a soul knew what He meant. "This is a very hard saying," His hearers answered. They puzzled their brains over it a little; loss of faith was seizing on them. Some of them commenced leaving Him. Then He said something harder still, "If this about the flesh and blood startles you, what would you say to see me ascending up where I was?" Now, still, the mystery had deepened; more people left Him. In a tone of overwhelming sadness He asked His twelve apostles "if they too would leave Him"? The storm of hatred was breaking everywhere. Enemies surrounded Him; only a few seemed absolutely faithful. The rabbis, the scribes, and the big doctrinaires at Jerusalem had their spies everywhere, watching for His smallest word to ensnare Him. They surely, earnestly, believed Him a foe to all their Jewish church. He was teaching people to despise their great prophet, Moses, and to follow the vagaries of a new, unheard of religion. He was to them worse than the heathens across the border.
What a change it all was! Even here in His own beautiful Capernaum they began to deny Him. Pharisees, Sadducees, and every conceivable enemy of the new faith are concentrating in crowds to traduce Him. Once more they demand a sign from Heaven – again, a clap of thunder, a sudden earthquake, or something, if He wants to prove that He is really the Christ. To their insolent demands He naturally makes no reply. Then more than ever conspiracy to destroy Him is rapidly being set on foot everywhere. Shortly He will leave this people by Galilee and their hypocrisies and falseness forever. Of course, His immediate friends all around Lake Galilee and His disciples are mostly sticking to Him, but not all of them – many have gone back on Him.
One day walking on a country road He asked His disciples who the people really said He was? They answered that some thought Him one of the old prophets, risen from the dead.
Herod up at Jerusalem believed Him to be John the Baptist, whom he had murdered to please a dancing girl that night in the castle by the Dead Sea. Herod was much alarmed about it all, too. "But who do you say that I am?" the Master asked again – and Peter said, "Thou art the Christ." "Tell no one this," continued Jesus, and then He explained to them privately His coming sufferings and death. They were all astounded. But these sufferings simply "had to be"; likewise His death. It seemed impossible.
He spoke to them then about life's duties, the futility of riches, of earthly success, and added, "What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" There was much thinking now, but still little believing. In less than a week He took three of His disciples on to a high mountain to pray, and, while there before them, He was transfigured for a little while. "And the fashion of his countenance altered, and his raiment was white and glistening." Not only that – two angels, or spirits, appeared in glory with Him and talked about the death that was to come to Him at Jerusalem. Shortly, as the Master and His disciples went down the mountain side, they met a crowd gesticulating and shouting over an epileptic boy led by his agonized father. Some of the Apostles had tried to cure this boy and failed. The father prayed to Christ for compassion. "If thou only canst believe," answered Christ, "all things are possible." Weeping, the father said, "Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief" – and the boy at once was healed. The scene on the mountain and the story gave rise to that greatest picture in the world, Raffael's painting of the "Transfiguration." It is in the Vatican at Rome.
CHAPTER VII
Jesus goes alone and on foot to Jerusalem, to try and prove Himself. In six months they will kill Him. The rich Capital no place for Socialism. "If thou be Christ, tell us, plainly." He is a fugitive from a city mob. The Raising of Lazarus. Again the people are following Him. The great Sanhedrin is alarmed. "This Man has everybody believing on Him! He will create a Revolution yet." Jerusalem is in political danger, anyway; so is the Roman Empire. Everything seems going to pieces. "This Man has too many Followers; we must kill Him." Judas is hired to betray Him.
There is but a little stay in Capernaum now, the great Galilean will scarcely walk by His beautiful lake again. He is now thirty-two years old and more.
In a few days His disciples will have gone up to Jerusalem to the great festival, the feast of the tabernacle. It is said that some of the nearest relatives of the Galilean did not believe in Him even now. It was they, however, who told Him to go up to Jerusalem to the headquarters of the opposition and "prove himself," if He could. "Show Thyself to the world," they said, "these things are not done in secret." And so He went alone and on foot.
Six months – and it will be the end. They will kill Him. His meditation on that lonesome foot journey to Jerusalem, with death and the cross as its last goal, we will never know.
The great Jerusalem is full of strangers. Tens of thousands are now beginning to hear of the great Galilean for the first time. There is great excitement in the city. Most of the newcomers take time to talk of Him. He is on every tongue. "When does He come, and from whence?" "Galilee?" "No good can come from there; that is sure." "Where is He now?" "Why do the people shout?" "What does He look like?" "Will He be welcomed or stoned?"
Suddenly the sweet face of the Master himself is on the temple porch in Jerusalem. Look, He is teaching the people. How strange, how embarrassing the situation. Save for a little coming of believers and friends, men and women who have come to Him from Galilee, He is almost without a friend in all that splendid city. If many souls, hearing, believe in Him, it is dangerous to say so. All such will be turned out of the synagogue, their houses and their lands taken from them. Anyway this great, unbelieving city is not the place to preach humility in, nor love for the lowly, nor the giving away of property, nor for the reproaching of the rich. That is a kind of socialism usually wanted by people who have nothing. This splendid city, with its minarets and domes, its gorgeous temple, and the magnificent structures built by Roman emperors, is full of rich people, full of aristocrats; and is governed by proud priests, who look upon the Galilean reformer and His small following with utter contempt.
One day when He was walking on Solomon's porch of the temple, numbers of Jews came around Him and tauntingly said, "How long dost Thou make us to doubt? If Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." He answered, "I have already told you, and ye believed not." "The works I do in my Father's name bear witness of me." Then He happened to say something very mysterious. "I and my Father are one." That was too much for them. Not knowing what it meant, they tried to stone Him out of the city. "I have done many good works," He continued, "for which of those works do you stone me?" "We stone you for blasphemy," they cried, "and because being a man Thou makest Thyself God." He had to fly. Another bitter charge against Him had been His healing the sick on Sunday. Not even a good deed dare be done on the Sabbath, was a doctrine of these extreme interpreters of the Mosaic law. Once the Lord restored a blind man to sight on a Sunday, and the poor man was almost mobbed because of it.
The wrangling of the scribes and doctors about Him still goes on. There is not a moment of peace for Him. He is even in constant danger.
On a slope of the Mount of Olives, where He often sits summer evenings looking down to the city at His feet and lamenting over it, stands the little hamlet of Bethany. Three good friends of his live there. Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus. Many a time after tiresome disputes and wranglings with insolent priests and rabbis in the city, who were only trying to entrap Him, He goes to this quiet little home among the olive groves for rest.
After a while He leaves the neighborhood of the great city entirely, and goes over the Jordan near the desert, to the very spot in fact where John baptized Him two years ago. What strange feelings must have possessed His soul while there – there where the dove had come down on Him, and where the great voice had called Him "the beloved Son"! There His public life commenced. And now He is there again. Not with the voice of God speaking to Him. – No – He is a fugitive from a city mob. Yet a great many people from the villages come to Him down there by the Jordan and believe on Him. Many wonders are again performed. Many people are healed. A part of this restful time away from Jerusalem is spent close to Jericho. A lovely plain is there with delightful plantations and gardens of perfume. "It is a divine country there," said Josephus, the historian, but in those days it was all fresh and green – the climate different from now. Lover of beautiful nature as He was, this little spot of roses and verdure must have delighted His soul.
In a few days His dear friends Mary and Martha, back there in Bethany, send to tell Him that their brother Lazarus, who is very dear to Him, is sick.
"Let us go back there at once," exclaimed the Master. His disciples tried to warn Him. "Why, – they stoned you and you had to fly just now, – will you risk going back?" He reflected a moment in silence, and then told them, sadly, plainly, that Lazarus was dead. "Let us go." And some of the disciples said, "Let us also go that we may die with Him."
It is only some twenty-five miles perhaps, and they have come near to the village. It seems the friend had been dead four days already. But the coming back is to be followed by one of the astonishing wonders of Bible history. Lazarus is to be brought to life. The names of Lazarus, with Mary and Martha, had been well known in Jerusalem, and numbers of its good citizens had come out to the village to condole with the bereaved sisters. Hearing of the Master's approach, Martha hurried out to the edge of the village and met Him at the door of her dead brother's tomb, a place cut in the solid rock. "If thou hadst been here, my brother had not died," cried the sister, weeping. "He will rise again," the Master answered, simply. "Yes, I know, at the resurrection," said Martha. Again he spoke. "I am the Resurrection, whosoever believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? Hast thou faith?" And she answered, "Yes." Instantly she ran and told her sister, and she, too, came, believing and worshiping. "Did I not tell thee," said the Master, "that if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God?" Then He commanded the door of the tomb to be taken away – and, in a loud voice, bade the dead to rise.
In a moment the living Lazarus walked out of the tomb. Some of the Jews, seeing it, believed. Some of the higher classes also believed. However it was done, it had been an astounding wonder, and the excitement ran like wildfire into the city. The great Sanhedrin and chief priests, hearing of it, instantly called a secret council.
"What shall we do?" they said. "This man doeth many miracles. If let alone, all men will believe on him – and the Romans will come and take our place and nation away from us." There was an ex-high priest named Annas at this secret meeting. He was a religious tyrant, who had never lost his power in the Jewish councils. His son-in-law, Caiaphas, was officially high priest, but only as his tool. Annas was the power behind the throne. His wishes, his commands, prevailed everywhere. The murderous strings were pulled by his hands. Annas hated Jesus, hated the apostles, hated every new doctrine; and possibly, too, he truly feared that any new religion or excitement might disturb Jewish politics, might bring on rebellion, might even bring the hatred of Rome on the Jews. He did not know that the hatred of Rome was already turned against Palestine; nor that Palestine, Jerusalem, Rome itself, were all at that moment on the road to destruction, but it is from causes with which the teaching of the Galilean, whom he is about to murder, has nothing to do. "It is better to kill this religious fanatic and disturber and save ourselves," said Annas to the great council. "We will not do it with our own hands – we will arrest Him, bring Him before the judges, and incite the mob to do the rest."
And so an order was sent out that the kind Jesus should be arrested wherever found. The miracle at the tomb, however performed, or however believed, had proved to be the most important act of the Galilean's life. Now it was, alas, to be a warrant for His death. "Now," said the Sanhedrin council, "it is going too far – all the world is running after Him."
In perhaps a week after this there was a little supper at Martha's home, in Bethany, only two miles out of the city – and the Master was there, and the resurrected Lazarus sat at the table with them. Singularly enough Judas, the coming traitor, was also there, and complained of Mary's using some precious ointment to bathe the feet of the Master. Because he was treasurer for the apostles and a thief, he wanted the money value of the ointment put where he could steal it. He was now already preparing himself for the great betrayal.
Out of curiosity to see Lazarus, the resurrected one, many went to the village that night from Jerusalem; some of them also were converted. The priests, hearing of this, decided it was best to put Lazarus also to death. The great wonder performed at the tomb had alarmed them. It had not converted them.
In a few hours, believing people, hearing that the great Galilean was entering the city again, went out to meet him, swinging palm leaves and shouting hosannas. Many even threw their mantles down for Him to ride over and hailed Him king of Israel. Some of the bystanders, looking on with contempt, even asked Jesus to silence and rebuke His zealous followers. "No, no," He answered, "were these to hold their peace, the very stones would cry out." Again all kinds of snares are set for Him, every word is watched. Though He is again permitted to talk at the porch of the temple every day, spies are there listening. He is hated in the great city.
