A Layman's Life of Jesus

He is no longer the simple village carpenter, He is now the Christ, and in a few days around and about the beautiful blue lake of Galilee, close by, He will be carrying the glad tidings to all the world.

It was soon after one of these meetings by the waters of Galilee that He performed another of the most beautiful and striking miracles of His life. Jairus, a rich man and a high elder in the Jewish church, came to Him at a feast given by Matthew and begged Him to come and heal his little daughter who was sick. If only He will lay His hands on her, she will be well. There was a little delay, for people crowded all about the Master as He started on the roadside, to hear him talk, and praying to be healed. One poor sick woman secretly touched just the hem of His garment, her mighty faith telling her that even this little act could make her whole. Jesus turned to her, and simply said, "Daughter, go; thy faith hath saved thee."

The delay is awful for the agonized father, who knows not one moment is to be lost. Suddenly comes a messenger flying to him to tell him it is already too late – don't worry the Master – the little girl is dead. Instantly Jesus turned to the broken-hearted one and in deep compassion told him to have no fear – only believe. In a few minutes they are at the rabbi's home. The hired mourners and the flute players, as is the custom, are already there. They laughed at Him when He told them the little girl was not dead, but sleeping. Turning the crowd away, He took the little cold hand in His, and sweetly said, "Little maid, arise," and she arose and went about the house rejoicing. The miracle made a tremendous sensation, and multitudes were touched by it.

Now His home will be Capernaum, almost at the head of the dear lake. The little carpenter shop in the narrow street at Nazareth is closed forever; Joseph, the father, has passed away, and sleeps with the sons of David; Mary, the mother, lives in the town of Cana, where she first came from; the young carpenter with the soft speech, the tender eyes, the golden hair, and the radiance on His face goes up, and down through Galilee – and they call Him "The Light of the World."

Capernaum, with its houses of white marble, reflected in the blue waters of Galilee, was, in the Master's day, like Nazareth, one of the delightful spots of Palestine. All was fresh, green, and restful; and round about the land was called "The Garden of Abundance." And there too is the little plain so filled with green fields and flowers and running brooks that men likened it to "A pure emerald." It was in this little land of loveliness, surrounded by all that was enchanting in nature, that Jesus was to begin His public teaching. No wonder that He found in beautiful nature a thousand indices to the majesty and goodness of the Creator. No wonder that His language was the language of poetry, and His similitudes the reflection of the fields and the flowers. He was in the land of idealism – of fancy – and He himself was the poet of the Lord. "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow." "If they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" "'Tis your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." "We have piped to you, and ye have not danced."

The whole race of men there are idealists. There was not a better place than this Galilee in all the world for Christ to be born in. This is the spot of all the world for a new religion. These Galilean peasants are not reasoners, they are simply believers. They are the children of faith. Sad enough it is that the centuries of time, and the hands of war, changed all the beautiful scene. Even the climate lost its loveliness – there is almost nothing left that is lovely in dear Galilee any more save its enchanting lake. All else is desolate now. The marble houses of Capernaum are now adobe huts, roofed in straw; the fields are bare and yellow; the trees are dead these thousand years. Nothing is green there any more. How changed from the perfect loveliness of that other time, when the Savior of mankind, amid the roses of Palestine, and the lilies by the sea, walked and talked and healed the poor.

It was as a healer of the body, not less than as a healer of the soul, that the miraculous carpenter now walked from village to village all over Galilee, followed sometimes by a handful of disciples, sometimes by a multitude of men, women, and children, though occasionally by hooting enemies. But what wonderful things He did – and how many poor He helped! The occasional miracles described in the Testament are probably not even a fraction of what He did. Why, the evangelist John says, he does not suppose the world would hold the books telling of all of them. Of course, this is momentary hyperbole. The people of the East often exaggerate in telling of what they saw. They are the greatest tellers of beautiful stories in the world. But were these things miracles? The world goes on asking this question. Do we know what a miracle is? "A miracle is an impossibility," say the wise men of science. "No law of nature yet was ever set aside." Let us not forget, however, that the Galilean never claimed to set absolute law aside. By supreme faith in the Almighty, in Himself, He helped the law, instead of setting it aside.

A people, superstitious and ignorant of every scientific law, wondered to see Him do what He did. At that hour of His consecration, in the Jordan river, Providence gave Him a new birth; and in that birth, a strength to overcome men's minds – a strength to awaken dormant action in their bodies. Even the poor sick man He met at the roadside should be getting well, not dying – Nature intended it so – but pain and misfortune have cost him every resolution. The Christ came by, the sunlight of His face, the blessing of His words fall upon him, and he smiles. "Help yourself," says the Master, "you can do it – only think so. Do you believe me?" "Yes," cries the weary one, "I believe, help thou my unbelief." The Master smiles and takes him by the hand. Instantly the encouraged mind acts on the half withered form. His blood starts, his nerves thrill, – the miracle is done.

No, we do not understand – not quite – neither do we understand how a drop of rain revives a blade of grass, nor how a night's dew wakens the roses to an untold beauty. Genius is born. The astronomer opens his book and without an effort understands the stars. The gift of stirring thoughts, of lifting human souls, is born. No being in the world had such anointing from above, such Godsent powers, as He who is just back from the Jordan. He believed in Himself, and that was half the battle – the other half had to be fought by the soul asking aid. One must believe. No faith, no miracle, is a principle. Not once did an unbeliever receive help from the Master. It was impossible. Impossible then as now. The strong faith of two beings is needed to produce a wonder. Only two or three times in His history did Jesus perform a miracle without some human being's faith – and those two or three wonders lack a perfect confirmation. It is not in question here whether God, who made every law of nature, could not suspend them every one if He wanted to. He would not be God, all powerful, if He could not. It is unimportant to us whether the Galilean did wonders by His supreme faith, His control over men's minds (a control given Him there at the Jordan river), or whether His Father in Heaven reached forth a hand each time and helped Him.

The peasants of Palestine knew little of any fixed law of nature. They did not ask as to that. Simply the doing of the unusual was enough for them. They demanded wonders – and healing of the sick by a word, or a touch of the hand, was a great wonder, – a miracle. He who could simply influence mind was the Master. The Galilean was born anointed with the power. He knew it – and only asked others to believe. The people of that day asked for wonders. Mere assertions of truth were not enough. "Give us a clap of thunder, or shake the earth, if You would have us believe in You. Suddenly cure these sick, and we will know Your power." He did it, not for a show, but out of pity. And the healing made adorers for the truths He taught them. One thing is sure, He never doubted His own beliefs, His God-given powers. In the solitude of the desert He had reached definite conclusions. All His assertions were positive. If He said things in parables, it was because His hearers had no understanding of plain truth. We talk to children that way when we tell them stories. His wonders, or miracles, were for the same purpose.

CHAPTER VI

A wandering Teacher. Lives in a borrowed house at Capernaum. The Testament Books, fragments written from memory. The whole Law of Life boiled down to Seven Words. He visits Tyre by the Ocean. Walking on the Sea. A hard saying, and not understood. His friends begin to leave Him. They demand Wonders, Miracles. Raffael's great picture.

At this time the wonder-working carpenter had some dear friends in beautiful Capernaum by the lake. There were two fishermen there, brothers, Peter and Andrew. Peter was married and his wife and children joined the two brothers in the earnest welcome to the Master whenever He returned from His journeys among the lake villages.

How often He went to Jerusalem never will be surely known. Sometimes He returned to Peter's home right after a long rest in the solitude of the desert, bordering on the east side of the lake. There was a Greek country there called Decapolis. Though also a province of Rome, it was an alliance of ten confederated cities, and all worshiped the heathen gods. Over into this strange confederacy the Master also went sometimes, and the welcome His kindly message met was as warm as in Galilee itself. He also went over to Tyre and Sidon, by the Mediterranean sea, at times, and learned at first hand the workings of heathendom as practiced by a cultured people. On every hilltop, as He went and came, He saw temples to the gods of Greece or Rome. Here, as elsewhere, He was going and coming to preach to the poor. He was the poor man's Christ. He himself often had nothing. It has been said that it was only as a poor wandering teacher, possessed of nothing, not even a place to lay His head, that He went all about Galilee. In Capernaum He lived in a borrowed house, or from the hospitality of His two dear friends.

But right now, rich or poor, He is commencing the teachings and the wonders that are to make Him the loved and the hated of the world. To the believing He will show that He is not poor; in fact, that He has a friend ruling in the clouds of Heaven. The disappointed ones, who, mistaking the signs, had looked for a real earthly king, persecuted Him at every roadside. The very orthodox Jews hated Him – called Him a Sabbath-breaker, a glutton among sinners, and a blasphemer of God. They seemed incapable of understanding anything He said. He talked by figures and parables – He told them stories – He talked of His father God – and His sonship – they would not see the spiritual sense in which He said all things. They put false words into His mouth, and then demanded He should prove them true. They listened only to deny, and to defame. Then again they demanded wonders, miracles – more wonders, more miracles. It was their only way of proving things. Had there been no wonders, no miracles, no seeming impossibilities performed, Christ would have had no followers in Palestine. Asserting things was not enough. "Prove to us that you are God by doing wonders." As He never had said that He was God He could not prove it. "I and my father are one," He told them, but only in the sense that every Christian is one with the father. They could not, would not, see it, and at times would have stoned Him from their towns. In His meekness, His gentleness, He bore it all. Sometimes hundreds, thousands, would hear His words, see His miracles, and believe. Other thousands, though seeing, believed not. Some of His own nearest friends, not grasping His meaning, turned their backs and left Him.

Do not even to-day many feel that He should have spoken plainer, or, is it that our few fragmentary stories of His life are misconceived, confused, misinterpreted, mistranslated – and in a sense falsified by two thousand years of time and change of methods of human thought? No one knows. The Master did not speak the language of the Bible, not even the language of the Jews. His was a Syrian dialect called Arimean. It was the tongue His mother spoke; the same dialect they talked, and laughed and sang in, that night of the marriage in Cana. Let us not ask too much of the Testament. Time and circumstances do strange things with human thought and speech. Despite mystery, and despite fragments, in the great story, enough is left clear to teach us the spirit of the Golden Rule. Christ said that was enough. The people who wrote the books of the Testament wrote wholly from memory, and some of them were now old men. John was ninety, and was then almost the last man on earth to have seen Jesus alive. Dates, deeds, times, places, words, are sometimes much confused in the Testament. Some things are omitted by one and told by another. Yet the spirit of each Testament book is the same – and all as authentic as writing from memory would permit. The Testament books are fragments only – yet piecing them together what a beautiful whole remains! Sometimes one wonders that just plain uncultured fishermen could write so beautifully. It would require a much larger book than this is intended to be to repeat all the tender stories, the touching words, of the Master that are portrayed by these inspired fishermen by the sea. Even they did not tell all. In every village in Galilee, on all the winding roads, along the dear lake, in every hamlet, synagogue, the feet of the Master went. Every hour saw miracles of healing, and every poor peasant heard words of kindness. What delightful little journeys they were in the beautiful land as the Prince of Peace passed, scattering blessings. To the happy little communities it must have sometimes seemed as if the new kingdom, the promised hour, was there already! Such crowds pressed to Him that time and again He would climb into a little boat on Galilee lake, ask His friends to push it a little from the shore, and there, from this improvised altar on the sea, talk to the crowds on the shore.

And what did He say to the people standing on the shore? "They were only the needed things," said in a clear, simple, beautiful language. If He said them in parables often, it was because the people of His day understood things better said in that way. Things were made clearer, stronger, if illustrated in stories. The great Lincoln understood the effectiveness of such an art, and pointed many a political moral by a human story. If, occasionally, the Master spoke in terms too mysterious to be comprehended by even His disciples, it was occasionally only. The needed things the common wayfarer could understand then, understands them to-day. He boiled down the whole duty of life into seven words, "Do as you would be done by." This, He said, was all there is to religion. How simple, how just, how necessary, if we hope for happiness even in our every-day life.

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?"