CHAPTER V. THE YEAR OF PUBLIC FAVOR
66. AFTER the year spent in the south, Jesus shifted the sphere of His
activity to the north of the country. In Galilee He would be able to address
Himself to minds that were unsophisticated with the prejudices and supercilious
pride of Judea, where the sacerdotal and learned classes had their headquarters;
and He might hope that, if His doctrine and influence took a deep hold
of one part of the country, even though it was remote from the centre
of authority, He might return to the south backed with an irresistible
national acknowledgment, and carry by storm even the citadel of prejudice
itself.
67. Galilee. --The area of His activity for the next
eighteen months was very limited. Even the whole of Palestine was a very
limited country. Its length was a hundred miles less than that of Scotland,
and its breadth considerably less than the average breadth of Scotland.
It is important to remember this, because it renders intelligible the
rapidity with which the movement of Jesus spread over the land, and all
parts of the country flocked to His ministry; and it is interesting to
remember it as an illustration of the fact, that the nations which have
contributed most to the civilization of the world have, during the period
of their true greatness, been confined to very small territories. Rome
was but a single city, and Greece a very small country.
Galilee.
68. Galilee was the most northerly of the four provinces into which Palestine
was divided. It was sixty miles long by thirty broad; that is to say,
it was less than some of our Scottish counties. It was about the size
of Aberdeenshire. It consisted for the most part of an elevated plateau,
whose surface was varied by irregular mountain masses. Near its eastern
boundary it suddenly dropped down into a great gulf, through which flowed
the Jordan, and in the midst of which, at a depth of five hundred feet
below the Mediterranean, lay the lovely, harp-shaped Sea of Galilee. The
whole province was very fertile, and its surface was thickly covered with
large villages and towns. The population was perhaps as dense as that
of Lancashire or the West Riding of Yorkshire. But the centre of activity
was the basin of the lake, a sheet of water thirteen miles long by six
broad. Above its eastern shore, round which ran a fringe of green a quarter
of a mile broad, there towered high, bare hills, cloven with the channels
of torrents. On the western side, the mountains were gently sloped and
their sides richly cultivated, bearing splendid crops of every description;
while at their feet the shore was verdant with luxuriant groves of olives,
oranges, figs, and every product of an almost tropical climate. At the
northern end of the lake the space between the water and the mountains
was broadened by the delta of the river and watered with many streams
from the hills, so that it was a perfect paradise of fertility and beauty.
It was called the plain of Gennesareth, and even at this day, when the
whole basin of the lake is little better than a torrid solitude, it is
still covered with magnificent corn fields, wherever the hand of cultivation
touches it; and, where idleness leaves it untended, is overspread with
thick jungles of thorn and oleander. In our Lord's time, it contained
the chief cities on the lake, such as Capernaum, Bethsaida and Chorazin.
But the whole shore was studded with towns and villages, and formed a
perfect beehive of swarming human life. The means of existence were abundant
in the crops and, fruits of every description which the fields yielded
so richly; and the waters of the lake teemed with fish affording employment
to thousands of fishermen. Besides, the great highways from Egypt to Damascus,
and from Phoenicia to the Euphrates, passed here, and made this a vast
centre of traffic. Thousands of boats for fishing, transport and pleasure
moved to and fro on the surface of the lake, so that the whole region
was a focus of energy and prosperity.
69. The report of the miracles which Jesus had wrought at Jerusalem,
eight months before, had been brought home to Galilee by the pilgrims
who had been south at the feast, and doubtless also the news of His preaching
and baptism in Judea had created talk and excitement before He arrived.
Accordingly, the Galileans were in some measure prepared to receive Him
when He returned to their midst.
70. One of the first places He visited was Nazareth, the home of His
childhood and youth. He appeared there one Sabbath in the synagogue, and,
being now known as a preacher, was invited to read the Scriptures and
address the congregation. He read a passage in Isaiah, in which a glowing
description is given of the coming and work of the Messiah: 'The Spirit
of the Lord God is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the
gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach
deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to
set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of
the Lord.' As He commented on this text, picturing the features of the
Messianic time--the emancipation of the slave, the enriching of the poor,
the healing of the diseased--their curiosity at hearing for the first
time a young preacher who had been brought up among themselves passed
into spell-bound wonder, and they burst into the applause which used to
be allowed in the Jewish synagogues. But soon the reaction came. They
began to whisper: Was not this the carpenter who had worked among them?
had not his father and mother been their neighbors? were not his sisters
married in the town? Their envy was excited. And when He proceeded to
tell them that the prophecy which He had read was fulfilled in Himself,
they broke out into angry scorn. They demanded of Him a sign, such as
it was reported He had given in Jerusalem; and, when He informed them
that He could do no miracle among the unbelieving, they rushed on Him
in a storm of jealousy and wrath, and, hurrying Him out of the synagogue
to a crag behind the town, would, if He had not miraculously taken Himself
away from them, have flung Him over and crowned their proverbial wickedness
with a deed which would have robbed Jerusalem of her bad eminence of being
the murderess of the Messiah.
71. From that day Nazareth was His home no more. Once again, indeed,
in His yearning love for His old neighbors, He visited it, but with no
better result. Henceforward He made His home in Capernaum, on the north-western
shore of the Sea of Galilee. This town has completely vanished out of
existence; its very site cannot now be discovered with any certainty.
This may be one reason why it is not connected in the Christian mind with
the life of Jesus in the same prominent way as Bethlehem, where He was
born, Nazareth, where He was brought up, and Jerusalem, where He died.
But we ought to fix it in our memories side by side with these, for it
was His home for eighteen of the most important months of His life. It
is called His own city, and He was asked for tribute in it as a citizen
of the place. It was thoroughly well adapted to be the centre of His labors
in Galilee, for it was the focus of the busy life in the basin of the
fake, and was conveniently situated for excursions to all parts of the
province. Whatever happened there was quickly heard of in all the regions
round about.
72. In Capernaum, then, He began His Galilean work; and for many months
the method of His life was--to be frequently there as in His headquarters,
and from this centre to make tours in all directions, visiting the towns
and villages of Galilee. Sometimes His journey would be inland, away to
the west. At other times it would be a tour of the villages on the lake
or a visit to the country on its eastern side. He had a boat that waited
on Him, to convey Him wherever He might wish to go. He would come back
to Capernaum, perhaps only for a day, perhaps for a week or two at a time.
73. In a few weeks the whole province was ringing with His name; He was
the subject of conversation in every boat on the lake and every house
in the whole region; men's minds were stirred with the profoundest excitement,
and everyone desired to see Him. Crowds began to gather about Him. They
grew larger and larger. They multiplied to thousands and tens of thousands.
They followed Him wherever He went. The news spread far and wide beyond
Galilee and brought hosts from Jerusalem, Judea and Perea, and even from
Idumaea in the far south and Tyre and Sidon in the far north. Sometimes
He could not stay in any town, because the crowds blocked up the streets
and trod one on another. He had to take them out to the fields and deserts.
The country was stirred from end to end, and Galilee was all on fire with
excitement about Him.
74. How was it that He produced so great and widespread a movement? It
was not by declaring Himself the Messiah. That would, indeed, have caused
to pass through every Jewish breast the deepest thrill which it could
experience. But, although Jesus now and then, as at Nazareth, revealed
Himself, in general He rather concealed His true character. No doubt the
reason of this was that among the excitable crowds of rude Galilee, with
their grossly materialistic hopes, the declaration would have excited
a revolutionary rising against the Roman Government, which would have
withdrawn men's minds from His true aims and brought down on His head
the Roman sword, just as in Judea it would have precipitated a murderous
attack on His life by the Jewish authorities. To avert either kind of
interruption, He kept the full revelation of Himself in reserve, endeavoring
to prepare the public mind to receive it in its true inward and spiritual
meaning, when the right moment for divulging it should come, and in the
meantime leaving it to be inferred from His character and work who He
was.
75. The two great means which Jesus used in His work, and which created
such attention and enthusiasm, were His Miracles and His Preaching.
76. The Miracle-Worker. --Perhaps His miracles excited
the widest attention. We are told how the news of the first one which
He wrought in Capernaum spread like wildfire through the town and brought
crowds about the house where He was; and, whenever He performed a new
one of extraordinary character, the excitement grew intense and the rumor
of it spread on every hand. When, for instance, He first cured leprosy,
the most malignant form of bodily disease in Palestine, the amazement
of the peoples knew no bounds. It was the same when He first overcame
a case of possession; and, when He raised to life the widow's son at Nain,
there ensued a sort of stupor of fear, followed by delighted wonder and
the talk of thousands of tongues. All Galilee was for a time in motion
with the crowding of the diseased of every description who could walk
or totter to be near Him, and with companies of anxious friends carrying
on beds and couches those who could not come themselves. The streets of
the villages and towns were lined with the victims of disease as His benignant
figure passed by. Sometimes He had so many to attend to that He could
not find time even to eat; and at one period He was so absorbed in His
benevolent labors, and so carried along with the holy excitement which
they caused, that His relatives, with indecorous rashness, endeavored
to interfere, saying to each other that He was beside Himself.
77. The miracles of Jesus, taken altogether, were of two classes--those
wrought on man, and those wrought in the sphere of external nature, such
as the turning of water into wine, stilling the tempest, and multiplying
the loaves. The former, were by far the more numerous. They consisted
chiefly of cures of diseases less or more malignant, such as lameness,
blindness, deafness, palsy and leprosy. He appears to have varied very
much His mode of acting, for reasons which we can scarcely explain. Sometimes
He used means, such as a touch, or the laying of moistened clay on the
part, or ordering the patient to wash in water. At other times He healed
without any means, and occasionally even at a distance. Besides these
bodily cures, He dealt with the diseases of the mind. These seem to have
been peculiarly prevalent in Palestine at the time and to have excited
the utmost terror. They were believed to be accompanied by the entrance
of demons into the poor imbecile or raving victims, and this idea was
only too true. The man whom Jesus cured among the tombs in the country
of the Gadarenes was a frightful example of this class of disease; and
the picture of him sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right
mind, shows what an effect the kind, soothing and authoritative presence
of Jesus had on minds so distracted. But the most extraordinary of the
miracles of Jesus upon man were the instances in which He raised the dead
to life. They were not frequent, but naturally produced an overwhelming
impression whenever they occurred. The miracles of the other class--those
on external nature--were of the same inexplicable description. Some of
His cures of mental disease, if standing by themselves, might be accounted
for by the influence of a powerful nature on a troubled mind; and in the
same way some of His bodily cures might be accounted for by His influencing
the body through the mind. But such a miracle as walking on the tempestuous
sea is utterly beyond the reach of any natural explanation.
78. Why did Jesus employ this means of working? Several answers may be
given to this question.
79. First, He wrought miracles because His Father gave Him these signs
as proofs that He had sent Him. Many of the Old Testament prophets had
received the same authentication of their mission, and, although John,
who revived the prophetic function, worked no miracles, as the Gospels
inform us with the most simple veracity, it was to be expected that He
who was a far greater prophet than the greatest who went before Him should
show even greater signs than any of them of His divine mission. It was
a stupendous claim which He made on the faith of men when He announced
Himself as the Messiah, and it would have been unreasonable to expect
it to be conceded by a nation accustomed to miracles as the signs of a
divine mission, if He had wrought none.
80. Secondly, the miracles of Christ were the natural outflow of the
divine fullness which dwelt in Him. God was in Him, and His human nature
was endowed with the Holy Ghost without measure. It was natural, when
such a Being was in the world, that mighty works should manifest themselves
in Him. He was Himself the great miracle, of which His particular miracles
were merely sparks or emanations. He was the great interruption of the
order of nature, or rather a new element which had entered into the order
of nature to enrich and ennoble it, and His miracles entered with Him,
not to disturb, but to repair its harmony. Therefore all His miracles
bore the stamp of His character. They were not mere exhibitions of power,
but also of holiness, wisdom and love. The Jews often sought from Him
mere gigantesque prodigies, to gratify their mania for marvels. But He
always refused them, working only such miracles as were helps to faith.
He demanded faith in all those whom He cured, and never responded either
to curiosity or unbelieving challenges to exhibit marvels. This distinguishes
His miracles from those fabled of ancient wonder-workers and mediaeval
saints. They were marked by unvarying sobriety and benevolence, because
they were the expressions of His character as a whole.
81. Thirdly, His miracles were symbols of His spiritual and saving work.
You have only to consider them for a moment to see that they were, as
a whole, triumphs over the misery of the world. Mankind is the prey of
a thousand evils, and even the frame of external nature hears the mark
of some past catastrophe: 'The whole creation groaneth and travaileth
in pain.' This huge mass of physical evil in the lot of mankind is the
effect of sin. Not that every disease and misfortune can be traced to
special sin, although some of them can. The con-sequences of past sin
are distributed in detail over the whole race. But yet the misery of the
world is the shadow of its sin. Material and moral evil, being thus intimately
related, mutually illustrate each other. When He healed bodily blindness,
it was. a type of the healing of the inner eye; when He raised the dead,
He meant to suggest that He was the Resurrection and the Life in the spiritual
world as well; when He cleansed the leper, His triumph spoke of another
over the leprosy of sin; when He multiplied the loaves, He followed the
miracle with a discourse on the bread of life; when He stilled the storm,
it was an assurance that He could speak peace to the troubled conscience.
82. Thus His miracles were a natural and essential part of His. Messianic
work. They were an excellent means of making Him. known to the nation.
They bound those whom He cured to Him with strong ties of gratitude; and
without doubt, in many cases, the faith in Him as a miracle-worker led
on to a higher faith. So it was in the case of His devoted follower Mary
Magdalene, out of whom He cast seven devils.
83. To Himself this work must have brought both great pain and great
joy. To His tender and exquisitely sympathetic heart, that never grew
callous in the least degree, it must often have been harrowing to mingle
with so much disease, and see the awful effects of sin. But He was in
the right place; it suited His great love to be where help was needed.
And what a joy it must have been to Him to distribute blessings on every
hand and erase the traces of sin; to see health returning beneath His
touch; to meet the joyous and grateful glances of the opening eyes; to
hear the blessings of mothers and sisters, as He restored their loved
ones to their arms ; and to see the light of love and welcome in the faces
of the poor, as He entered their towns and villages. He drank deeply of
the well at which He would have His followers to be ever drinking--the
bliss of doing good.
Chapter 4
Chapter 5 Part B
This text is from James Stalker's Life of Christ. New York, London, Edinburgh, etc.: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1909. Transcribed by David Ash. Used by permission of David Ash, 2 March 2005. David Ash, pastor of Shiloh
Baptist Church, has placed several worthwhile texts online. View his list here. Images are from the CHI archives.
