[ p. 1 ]
THE beginning of the preaching of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” With these words Mark opens his Gospel. Four statements stand out in this single sentence. The Gospel is the story of a man, Jesus. This man was the Christ, the Redeemer promised in the Old Testament and long awaited by the people of the Old Testament, the Jews. This Christ, even in the very early days when Mark wrote, was regarded as being in a unique sense the Son of God. And this Son of God had brought good news to all mankind. To the devout believer, therefore, Jesus gives the whole universe its meaning; he is a figure not only of the past, but of the continual present, ever living, ever able and ready to enter into supremely intimate relations with those who believe in him and trust him.
But, even apart from such faith, interest in Jesus never flags. He is incomparably the most significant figure in history. His influence on our civilization is incalculable. No one can discuss the difference between right and wrong without—consciously or unconsciously, sympathetically or unsympathetically— using in some way the standards Jesus defined. In religion the effect of his teaching has been overwhelming; [ p. 2 ] into the weft and warp of our religious practices, our religious ideas, our very thoughts about God, are woven concepts that originated with him.
Nor is his influence limited to “Christian” civilizations. In studying the past history of all the cultural religions of the East, we find that they have absorbed Christian elements to a degree always evident and sometimes amazing. [1] Even the religion historically least sympathetic—post-Christian Judaism—has been affected; many Hebrews are asking, “What think we of Jesus’?” and in recent years extremely able and sympathetic studies of his life and teaching have been published by Jewish scholars.
The truth is, Jesus Christ cannot be ignored. Nobody seems to find it possible to let him alone. He is still Master. The records of his life are very scanty, yet the Central Figure in the story stands out clear in every reading of the scattered memorabilia of those who knew him. Born nineteen centuries ago, living a life human as our own, he is the Great Teacher in all things that come within the realm of the spiritual, and his teaching has revolutionized our thought of God. Living in an age that was simple as compared with our complex civilization, he yet dominates our thought on all social relationships. A Jew of the first century, his teaching is as fresh and wholesome today as when he first taught his little company of followers. Homely and plain of sense in his speech, so that the common people heard him gladly, he yet charms the poets of [ p. 3 ] every age, who find in his vivid teaching beauties of thought and expression at once their delight and their despair. Crucified as a criminal, he has been worshiped for centuries as Very God.
Even those who cannot accept the faith which has so proclaimed him cannot resist the attempt to give their own impressions of him—some with a confident boldness that brings its own rebuke, some with wistful longing to read into the mystery of his personality, some with earnest endeavor to fit his teaching into the life of today. All want to know his teaching. Perhaps if we begin, patiently, slowly, with real humility, to discover what he actually taught, we may come to more sure conclusions as to what he actually did and who he really was.
Early in the story we see how the followers of Jesus came to largeness of faith through their intimacy with him. They strove hard to understand before their minds grew accustomed to the greatness of all that this experience with him meant, but at length understanding did come. In studying the life of Jesus we shall need, above everything else, to come face to face with this experience of theirs, and ask whether we can find anything in our own experience which may justify a similar faith on our part. That is the supreme thing in any study of the life of the Master, because no other religion has ever been founded upon a person quite as Christianity is. No other person has presented the problem he presents. That is the reason men cannot get rid of him, cannot stop thinking of him, find that they are forced to make up their minds about him.
[ p. 4 ]
No excuse, then, is needed for fresh attempts to understand the meaning of Jesus’ life and to recapture its beauty. Almost every month sees an addition to the number of “Lives of Christ,” but the subject is never exhausted, and every earnest attempt to see Jesus as he was has its value. In the effort to paint his portrait and study his teachings, preconceptions of some sort are, doubtless, inevitable, but in the present book a sincere attempt has been made to keep preconceptions from distorting the facts. Our endeavor, likewise, is to tell the story as simply and directly as possible, in the light of what seem to be the assured results of historical research. Of the processes by which this research has reached its conclusions, as little will be said as possible—for those interested in the problems and able to study them the books are legion. We have even postponed to a late chapter a description of the Gospels, and have relegated to the appendix an ordered account of first-century conditions in Palestine.
Where should we begin? St. Matthew and St. Luke open with the birth of Jesus; St. John with a majestic prologue which explains the meaning of Jesus as preexistent before his appearance on earth. But the oldest Gospel, St. Mark, commences with the actual work and preaching of Jesus, and with a brief mention of his predecessor, John the Baptist. We shall follow this example.
That seems the natural order. Everybody is interested in what Jesus taught and in what he did, or is supposed to have done. We start, then, with his first [ p. 5 ] appearance as a religious leader and teacher, and, like Mark, we preface the story with a short account of the teacher who preceded him, prepared the way for his work, and helped to make men ready for his spiritual message.
It is a great error to measure the effect of Christian missions by the number of full converts due directly to missionary effort. ↩︎