© 2003 Bruce Barton
© 2003 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
This is the final installment of “The Man Nobody Knows … a Discovery of the Real Jesus,” written by Bruce Barton, who (I would discover many years later) was a famous advertising man. This book made a great impression on my young mind. Somehow I retained this book over the years. As a Urantian, many years later, I am amazed how close Bruce Barton came in 1924 to describing what I believe is the real Jesus. Thanks to the many Urantians who have expressed their interest in this work.
Larry Mullins
When Jesus was twelve years old his father and mother took him to the Feast at Jerusalem. It was the big national vacation; even peasant families saved their pennies and looked forward to it through the year. Towns like Nazareth were emptied of their inhabitants except for the few old folks who were left behind to look after the very young ones. Crowds of cheerful pilgrims filled the highways, laughing their way across the hills and under the stars at night.
In such a mass of folk it was not surprising that a boy of twelve should be lost. When Mary and Joseph missed him on the homeward trip, they took it calmly and began a search among the relatives. The inquiry produced no result. Some remembered having seen him in the Temple, but no one had seen him since. Mary grew frightened: where could he be? Back there in the city alone? Wandering hungry and tired through the friendless streets? Carried away by other travelers into a distant country? She pictured a hundred calamities. Nervously she and Joseph hurried back over the hot roads, through the suburbs, up through the narrow city streets, up to the courts of the Temple itself.
And there he was.
Not lost; not a bit worried. Apparently unconscious that the Feast was over, he sat in the midst of a group of old men, who were tossing questions at him and applauding the shrewd common sense of his replies. Involuntarily his parents halted-they were simple folk, uneasy among strangers and disheveled by their haste. But after all they were his parents, and a very human feeling of irritation quickly overcame their diffidence. Mary stepped forward and grasped his arm.
“Son, why have you thus dealt with us?” she demanded. “Behold how, sorrowing, your father and I have sought you.”
I wonder what answer she expected to receive. Did any one in Nazareth quite understand this keen, eager lad, who had such curious moments of abstraction and was forever breaking out with remarks that seemed so far beyond his years?
He spoke to her now with deference, as always, but in words that did not dispel but rather added to her uncertainty.
“How is it that you sought me?” he asked. “Did you not know that I must be about my father’s business?”
His father’s business, indeed, as if that wasn’t exactly where they wanted him to be. His father owned a prosperous carpenter shop in Nazareth, and that was the place for the boy, as he very well knew. She was on the point of saying so, but there was something in his look and tone that silenced her. She and Joseph turned and started out, and Jesus followed them — away from the temple and the city back to little Nazareth.
His hour of boyish triumph had not turned his head. He knew how thorough must be his preparation for any really successful work. A building can rise high into the air only as it has sunk its foundations deep into the earth; the part of a man’s life which the world sees is effective in proportion as it rests upon solid work which is never seen. Instinctively he knew this. For eighteen years more he was content to remain in that country town — until his strength was at its summit; until he had done his full duty by his mother and the younger children. Until his hour had come.
But what interests us most in this one recorded incident of his boyhood is the fact that for the first time he defined the purpose of his career. He did not say, “Did you not know that I must practice preaching?” or “Did you not know that I must get ready to meet the arguments of men like these?” The language was quite different, and well worth remembering. “Did you not know that I must be about my father’s business?” he said. He thought of his life as business. What did he mean by business? To what extent are the principles by which he conducted his business applicable to ours? And if he were among us again, in our highly competitive world, would his business philosophy work?
On one occasion, you recall, he stated his recipe for success. It was on the afternoon when James and John came to ask him what promotion they might expect. They were two of the most energetic of the lot, called “Sons of Thunder,” by the rest, being noisy and always in the midst of some sort of a storm. They had joined the ranks because they liked him, but with no very definite idea of what it was all about; and now they wanted to know where the enterprise was heading, and just what there would be in it for them.
“Master,” they said, “we want to ask what plans you have in mind for us. You’re going to need big men around you when you establish your kingdom; our ambition is to sit on either side of you, one on your right hand and the other on your left.”
Who can object to that attitude? If a man fails to look after himself, certainly no one will look after him. If you want a big place, go ask for it. That’s the way to get ahead. Jesus answered with a sentence which sounds poetically absurd.
“Whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister,” he said, “and whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.”
A fine piece of rhetoric, now isn’t it? Be a good servant and you will be great; be the best possible servant and you will occupy the highest possible place. Nice idealistic talk but utterly impractical; nothing to take seriously in a common sense world. That is just what men thought for some hundreds of years; and then, quite suddenly, Business woke up to a great discovery. You will hear that discovery proclaimed in every sales convention as something distinctly modern and up to date. It is emblazoned in the advertising pages of every magazine. Look through those pages.
Here is the advertisement of an automobile company, one of the greatest in the world. And why is it greatest? On what does it base its claim to leadership? On its huge factories and financial strength? They are never mentioned. On its army of workmen or its high salaried executives? You might read its advertisements for years without suspecting that it had either. No. “We are great because of our service,” the advertisements cry. "We will crawl under your car oftener and get our backs dirtier than any of our competitors. Drive up to our service stations and ask for anything at all-it will be granted cheerfully. We serve; therefore we grow.”
A manufacturer of shoes makes the same boast in other terms. “We put ourselves at your feet and give you everything that you can possibly demand.” Manufacturers of building equipment, of clothes, of food; presidents of railroads and steamship companies; the heads of banks and investment houses — all of them tell the same story. “Service is what we are here for,” they exclaim. They call it the “spirit of modern business;” they suppose, most of them, that it is something very new. But Jesus preached it more than nineteen hundred years ago.
Are they empty words? Do they bring destruction upon a business which regards them seriously? Is a man a fool to let them be a guiding influence in his life? I talked one day with H. G. Wells after his Outline of History had appeared. I said:
“You have stood upon a mountain and viewed the whole panorama of human progress. You have seen the captains and the kings, the princes and the prophets, the scientists and the adventurers, the millionaires and the dreamers — all the billions of human atoms that have lived and loved and struggled their little hour upon the earth. In this vast army what heads rise above the common level? Among all those who have fought for fame, who have actually achieved it? What half dozen men among them all deserve to be called great?”
He turned the question over in his mind for a day or two, and then gave me a list of six names, with his reasons for each. An extraordinary list:
Think of the thousands of emperors who have battled for fame; who have decreed themselves immortal, and fashioned their immortality into monuments of brick and stone. Yet there is only one emperor, Asoka, on the list; and he is there not because of his victories but because he voluntarily abandoned war, after his success, and devoted himself to the betterment of his millions of subjects. Think of the hosts who have struggled for wealth, fretting over figures, denying their generous instincts, cheating and grasping and worrying. Yet no millionaire is on the list, excepting again Asoka. Who sat on the throne in Rome, when Jesus of Nazareth hung on the cross? Who ruled the hosts of Persia when Aristotle thought and taught? Who was King of England when Roger Bacon laid the foundations of modern scientific research?
And when the historian, looking over the field where they contended for the prize, seeks for something which has endured, he finds the message of a teacher, the dream of a scientist, the vision of a seer. “These six men stood on the corners of History,” said Wells in his picturesque way. “Events hinged on them. The current of human thought was freer and clearer because they had lived and worked. They took little from the world and left it much. They did not get; they gave; and, in the giving, gained eternal influence.”
In our own country, in Monticello, in Virginia, an American statesman lies buried. He was Secretary of State, Minister to France, President of the United States; yet his epitaph makes reference to none of these honors. It reads:
Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia
The offices that he held are forgotten on the stone, as they will be eventually forgotten by all but the historian; he desired to be remembered only by what he gave. And he has his wish.
Somewhere in his Essays, Emerson has a sentence to this effect: “See how the mass of men worry themselves into nameless graves, while here and there a great unselfish soul forgets himself into immortality.” A fine thought, finely phrased; but Jesus thought it first. So we have the main points of his business philosophy
We have quoted some men of conspicuous success, but the same sound principles apply to every walk of life. Great progress will be made in the world when we rid ourselves of the idea that there is a difference between work and religious work. We have been taught that a man’s daily business activities are selfish, and that only the time which he devotes to church meetings and social service activities is consecrated.
Ask any ten people what Jesus meant by his “Father’s business,” and nine of them will answer “preaching.” To interpret the words in this narrow sense is to lose the real significance of his life. It was not to preach that he came into the world; nor to teach; nor to heal. These are all departments of his Father’s business, but the business itself is far larger, more inclusive. For if human life has any significance it is this — that God has set going here an experiment to which all His resources are committed. He seeks to develop perfect human beings, superior to circumstance, victorious over Fate. No single kind of human talent or effort can be spared if the experiment is to succeed. The race must be fed and clothed and housed and transported, as well as preached to, and taught and healed. Thus all business is his Father’s business. All work is worship; all useful service, prayer. And whoever works wholeheartedly at any worthy calling is a coworker with the Almighty in the great enterprise which He has initiated but which He can never finish without the help of men.
Jesus had crossed the lake one day in a little boat to get away from the crowds; but they were too quick for him. Running around the end of the lake, and gathering recruits as they ran they waited for him at the landing place-more than five thousand strong. He was tired, and wanted a chance to rest and think. But here were the people, pathetically eager, and he “had compassion on them.” So he sat down among them and went on with his teaching until the day was almost over. Then, at last, the disciples came, hardly concealing their tired petulance, and demanded that he send them away.
“But they have made a long trip and have been with us all day without food,” he replied. “We must feed them before they go.” The disciples regarded him with blank amazement.
“Feed them-on what?” they demanded. “We have no money, and even if we had there are more than five thousand in the crowd!” Jesus apparently did not hear them.
“Have them sit down,” he commanded. “Gather up whatever food you can find and bring it here to me.” Doubtingly, but too well trained to argue, the disciples did as they were told. They arranged the crowd in companies of fifty and a hundred, collected the little supply of food which the more prudent members had brought, and laid the collection at his feet. He lifted his eyes to heaven, blessed the food, ordered it redistributed and somehow the people ate and were satisfied.
Just what happened in the moment when the food was laid before him is an impenetrable mystery; but there is no doubt at all as to what took place afterward. It was the event for which the people had waited, the unmistakable sign! Moses had fed their fathers on manna in the wilderness; here was one who likewise called on Heaven, and supplied their wants. Surely he was the son of David, long foretold, who would overthrow the rule of their conquerors and restore the throne to Jerusalem!
Joyously they shouted the news back and forth. The day of deliverance had come; the tyranny of the Romans was about to end. Their enthusiasm carried them to their feet — fifty in this group, a hundred in that; almost as if by magic they found themselves organized. They were an army and had not realized it. Right there on the field they were enough to outnumber the garrison in Jerusalem; but they were only a nucleus of the host that would gather to their banners, once their southward march was formed. If they were five thousand now, they would be fifty thousand, perhaps a hundred thousand then. A wild enthusiasm seized upon them; shouting his name at the top of their voices they surged forward toward the little hill where he stood.
It was as splendid a picture as ever stirred the pulses of an ambitious man. The Gospel story puts the dramatic climax into a single sentence:
Jesus, therefore, perceiving that they were about to come and take him and crown him king, with himself alone withdrew again into the mountain.
In that hour of crisis he proved his right to be the silent partner in every modern business; to sit at the head of every director’s table. There is no mere theorizing in his words; he speaks out of what he himself has proved. If he says that a man’s work is more eternally important than any title, he has a right to speak. He himself refused the highest title. If he says that there are things more vital than merely making money, let no one question his authority. He was handed the wealth of a nation and handed it back again. Idealist he is, but there is nothing in the whole hard world so practical as his idea of what life should be. He, who refused to turn aside from his business to become a king, was never too busy to turn aside for a sick man, a friend, a little child. He never forgot that one night his mother and father had stood on the threshold of the little inn in Bethlehem. It was so busy that the greatest event in history knocked at its doors-and could not come in.
So we come up to the end. To the final tests of a man’s living. How does he bear disappointment? How does he die? For two years it seemed almost certain that Jesus would prevail. Perhaps he himself was sure of it. We have marked the dramatic success with which his work began. We have watched the crowds flock about him in the market-place; we have heard the cheers that greeted his victories over shrewd antagonists, and the murmured awe when a sick man rose and walked. Reports of his triumphs preceded him everywhere so that men competed for the honor of being his host, and there was friendliness in his audiences that made almost anything seem possible. And why not? If, by accepting his message, men could be lifted up, transformed into sons of God, heirs of eternity, why should any be so stubborn or so foolish as to oppose? Surely such Truth must conquer.
Then came the change.
His home town was first to turn against him. Picture, if you will, the enthusiasm with which he planned his visit to it. Nazareth was little and despised, a jest among the wits of the day. It had produced no great men, been the scene of no historic achievement. Jesus knew all this. Those familiar streets and faces were often in his memory. “Jesus of Nazareth,” the world called him, linking its name with his. He had lifted the little village out of obscurity. And now, in the height of his glory, he was going back.
He awoke refreshed and had breakfast. The report of his arrival had spread quickly through the little town. When he approached the door of the synagogue a crowd was waiting outside. They returned his greeting with a mixture of regard and curiosity, and pushed promptly through the door behind him, filling the little room full. There was much whispering and craning of necks. Jesus went to the the front of the room, picked up the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, turned around toward them and smiled.
Instantly all his illusions vanished. Instead of sympathetic understanding there was only cynicism on those faces. The substantial men of the town settled solidly in their appointed seats, and dared him with their hard eyes to try his tricks on them! “You may have caused a stir in Capernaum,” they seemed to say, "but little old Nazareth isn’t so slow. We know you. You’re no prophet; you’re just the son of Joseph the carpenter, and you can’t fool us!”
Slowly he opened the scroll and in tones that stirred them in spite of themselves he began to read: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Because He anointed me to preach of good tidings to the poor, He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind; to set at liberty them that are bruised, and proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” He closed the book and handed it back to the attendant. “This day has this Scripture been fulfilled in your ears,” he said simply. There was an ominous silence in the synagogue. “The eyes of all were fastened upon Him.” He knew what they were thinking; they wanted him to do some mighty work such as he had done in Capernaum. But he knew also the uselessness of trying. The scorn, the ignorant self-sufficiency were miracle proof. They would never receive him; never be proud of him. They merely wanted him to exhibit himself and they hoped that he would fail. ”No prophet is acceptable in his own country,“ he said to them sadly. ”Elijah did his greatest works in a foreign city; Elisha could accomplish nothing big until he got beyond the borders of his home.“ With a look of soul-weariness he turned to leave. Then the storm broke. All the pent-up envy of the little town for one who has dared to out-grow it, gathered itself into a roar. They surged forward hurrying him through the main street to the edge of a precipice where they would have thrown him over. But the wrath which had been sufficient to conceive his destruction grew suddenly impotent when he turned and faced them. They shrank back, and before they could reform their purpose, he had passed through the midst of them and was on his way. In his ears sounded the buzz of malicious comment, but he was too heart-sick to look back. From henceforth Capernaum became ”his own city." Nazareth, the home of his youth, the dwelling place of his boyhood friends and neighbors, had given its verdict. He had come unto his own, and his own received him not.
His brothers deserted him. We ought not to blame them too much, perhaps. No man is a hero to his valet; and the near relatives of any great man, who have lived with him through the familiar experiences of everyday life, must be always a little mystified by the world’s worship. The brothers of Jesus had been witnesses of his defeat, and were left behind by him to bear the ignominy of it. How the sardonic laughter must have rung in their ears! How endlessly the wits must have cracked their jokes about that morning in the synagogue … These home town sneers were bad enough, but the reports that came back from other towns threw the simple unimaginative family into a panic. It was said that he made seditious speeches; that he claimed to have a special relationship to God; that he utterly disregarded the code of the Pharisees and denounced them openly before the crowds. Such conduct could mean only one thing. He would get himself into jail, and his relatives with him. Hence the members of his family who should have been his best helpers spent their energy in the effort to get him to go farther away from home. "For even his brethren did not believe in him.”
He was teaching one day in Capernaum to a crowd that hung spellbound on his words, when suddenly an interruption occurred. A messenger pushed through the audience to tell him that his mother and brothers were outside and insisted on speaking to him right away. A quick look of pain shot across his fine face. He knew why they had come; they had been sending him threats of their coming for weeks. They had made up their minds that he was just a little bit out of his head, and they were determined to shut him up in an asylum before his extravagances should ruin them all. He drew himself up to his full height and pointing to his disciples turned to the messenger:
“My mother and brethren?” he repeated. “Behold these who believe on me, they are my mother and my brethren.” They were indeed his real kindred and many times they proved themselves worthy of the name; but even their devotion could not entirely remove the hurt. When later he had his brief hour of triumph, when the crowds flung their garments into the streets before him and shouted their “hosannas,” even then his heart must have been sore at the thought that in all that multitude there was not one of the brothers for whom he had sacrificed so much of his youth. A warm hand-clasp from one of them would have meant more than all the high homage of the multitude. But they were far away, still ashamed of the relationship, still regarding him as well meaning but not quite sane.
The people deserted him. When last we caught a glimpse of them they were cheering his name beside the lake, seeking to force him to be their king. He eluded them and retired into the mountain to think and pray. It must have been a dramatic moment when he reappeared. Only a single “Yes” was needed and they would have lifted him on their shoulders and borne him in triumph to the city gates. Hushed and expectant they waited for his answer-and what an answer. “I am not come to restore the kingdom to Jerusalem,” he cried. "Mine is a spiritual mission; I am the bread of life. You have cheered me because I fed you in the wilderness, but I tell you now that what I have come to give you is myself, that by knowing me you may know your Father.”
They could not have been more stunned if he had struck their leaders across the face. What did he mean by this senseless mysticism, this talk about “the bread of life?” Hadn’t they seen him heal the sick and conquer the Pharisees in debate-were not these signs that he was the leader, so long promised, who would rout the Romans and restore the throne of David? And now, when the hour was ripe, when they were ready to march, why this language which nobody could understand? “These are hard sayings,” they protested, “who can understand them?” And then the note of tragedy. “Upon this, many of his disciples turned back and walked with him no more.”
The tide had turned. He realized it clearly though the disciples could not. At every opportunity he sought to build up in them an increased sense of their responsibilities. He must “go into Jerusalem,” he told them, “and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed.” They could not, would not believe it. Peter, hot-headed and enthusiastic, took him aside and rebuked him for what seemed a temporary loss of courage. “Be it far from thee, Lord,” he exclaimed, “this shall never be unto thee.” Generous loyal words, but they revealed an utter failure to appreciate the real situation. All hope of a revived and regenerated nation was gone; his one chance now for permanent influence was in welding his little group closer together, and sealing their union with his blood.
The one week of his life which everybody knows is the last week. Hence we pass over it in this little book. It began with the triumphant shouts of “hosanna;” it ended with the bloodthirsty cries of “crucify.” Between the first morning of triumph and the last hours of mortal agony it witnessed his finest verbal victories over his opponents. Never were his nerves more steady, his courage higher, his mind more keen. He had piled up the mountain of hatred, knowing that it would kill him, but determined that there should be no doubt through the ages as to what he had stood for, and why he had to die. Every man who loves courageous manhood ought to read these final chapters at least once a year. Any attempt to abridge or paraphrase them would result in failure or worse. We pass over them in reverent silence, stopping only for a glimpse of the three most wonderful scenes.
First the final supper on that cool, quiet Thursday night. He knew that he should never meet with the disciples around the table again. All the memories of the three great years must have crowded into his mind as the meal progressed. How often they had sat together under a tree beside the lake, sharing the fish that their own nets had caught. How they had enjoyed that first meal at Cana, when he turned the water into wine. What a glorious afternoon it was when he fed five thousand, and the shouts of gladness echoed back and forth among the hills. And this was the end. His relatives had turned their backs on him; his home town had scorned his advances; the people had turned away, and his enemies were about to triumph-is there any other leader who would have stood forth unbroken by such blows? What was his attitude? Complaint? Fault finding? Weak railing at his own misfortunes or the wilful wickedness of men? See, he rises in his place. He speaks, this proud young man who had refused to be a king and now is to die with common thieves. And these are his words: “Let not your hearts be troubled … I have overcome the world.”
There is nothing in history so majestic! Already one of his disciples had slipped away to betray him. That very night the soldiers would take him, bind him, throw him into prison. The priests and Pharisees whom he had taunted would have their turn to taunt him now. He would be harried through the streets like a hunted thing, the butt of every corner loafer’s jest. All this he anticipated, and with the vision of it fresh before his mind, he lifted his head and looked beyond, into the far distant ages. “Let not your hearts be troubled,” he said to them, in tones whose splendor thrills us even now. “I have overcome the world!”
They went out into the garden where so many of their happy hours had been spent. The very air was fragrant with their most sacred confidences. Under this tree they had gathered for worship, while the setting sun gilded the towers of the city; in the waters of that brook they had found refreshment; to left and right of them very stones cried out in heartrending reminder of the days that were gone. Even at that hour it was not too late for him to have saved his life. “If it be not thy will that this cup pass from me,” he prayed again, "then, Father, thy will be done.”
It was the victory chant after the battle. With the calm peace of the conqueror he could make ready for the end. He had not long to wait. The soldiers were already at the entrance of the garden. From his vantage point on the side of the hill he could mark the progress of their torches across the brook and up the path. The clang of their arms rang jarringly through the trees; rough exclamations smote the evening air like profanity in a temple. He waited until the armed men stumbled into his presence and then, rising, stood before them.
“Whom do you seek?” he demanded.
Startled, awed, they could only mumble his name.
“Jesus of Nazareth.”
“I am he,” he answered proudly.“If therefore you seek me let these others go their way.” But he had no need to think of the disciples’ safety. Already they had made their swift escape-the last of the deserters.
— first his home town
— then his relatives
— then the crowd
— finally the eleven.
All who had stood at his side had gone and left him to face his fate alone. On a barren hill beyond the city walls they nailed his perfect body to the cross. Two robbers were crucified with him. It was over. The rabble had sickened quickly of its revenge and scattered; his friends were hiding; the soldiers were busy casting lots for his garments. There was nothing left of the external influences which fire men’s imaginations or grip their loyalty. Surely the victory of his enemies was complete; he could do no miracle there, hanging on a cross.
And yet—
“Jesus.” It was the voice of one of the robbers. “Jesus,” he says painfully, "remember me, when you come into your kingdom!”
Read that, oh men, and bow your heads. You who have let yourself picture him as weak, as a man of sorrows, uninspiring, glad to die. There have been leaders who could call forth enthusiasm when their fortunes ran high. But he, when his enemies had done their worst, so bore himself that a crucified felon looked into his dying eyes and saluted him as king. THE END