[ p. 177 ]
BACK IN CAPERNAUM
Jo. vi. 22-71. Mk. vi. 53-vii. 23 ; Mt. xiv. 34-xv. 20 (Lk. vi. 39, 40).
When the Lord had made His escape to the uplands and the Twelve had embarked and put off for Capernaum, taking with them as many others as the boat would accommodate, most of the crowd dispersed and made their way homeward round the head of the Lake. Not a few, however, remained—those enthusiasts who were bent on acclaiming Him King. His disappearance frustrated their intention for the moment; and observing that He did not embark with the Twelve, they inferred that He was lurking in the vicinity and remained in the hope of discovering Him. They searched for Him in vain, and in the morning, finding on the beach a number of boats belonging to Tiberias—probably a fishing fleet which had put in for shelter from the storm—they had themselves conveyed by these across the Lake and so got home to Capernaum.
That day there was a service in the synagogue. It was not the Sabbath, else they would not have made the journey across the Lake, but either Monday or Thursday, the two week-days when the congregation assembled. On repairing to the synagogue they were surprised to find Jesus there. How had He come ? They had seen the Twelve leave the further shore last evening without Him, nor had He crossed with themselves that morning. A week-day service [ p. 178 ] was somewhat informal, and they questioned Him. A conversation ensued, and the Lord availed Himself of the opportunity to unfold the significance of His two miracles. These were prophetic of His Death and His Resurrection, and in unfolding their significance He had a twofold purpose. First He would discover to the Twelve and all others who could receive it the mystery of His approaching Passion, “the sufferings which awaited Messiah and the glories which should follow these.” (1 Pet. i. 11) And then at all hazards He would check the misguided enthusiasm of the multitude and deal, if He might, a death-blow to their mischievous expectation of a worldly kingdom.
Even as He wrought the miracle of feeding the multitude the Lord had revealed the thought of His heart. It is written by all our Evangelists that “He took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looked up to Heaven and blessed them and broke them, and gave them to the disciples” ;(Cf. Mt. xxvi. 26; Mk. xiv. 22 ; Lk. xxii. 19.) and surely it is not without significance that they employ the self-same language in telling how on the night of His betrayal He instituted the Sacrament of the Supper which is at once a commemoration and an interpretation of His death. And what does this mean ? It means that already He was thinking of His death and anticipating the sacred memorial which He would institute. None of that vast multitude nor even the Twelve would catch His meaning at the moment, but now in the synagogue of Capernaum He unfolds it.
He began with a rebuke. What had appealed to them and assured them of His Messiahship was His supplying their physical want—“perishing food” [ p. 179 ] They were oblivious of the spiritual boon whereof that was but a token and which as the Messiah He was offering them—“the enduring food which nourishes eternal life.” This puzzled them. The Rabbinical interpreters had recognised in Moses a prototype of the Messiah. He was “the former Redeemer,” and all that he had done foreshadowed what “the latter Redeemer” would do. Thus they interpreted the manna in the wilderness. As Moses had given their fathers bread from Heaven, so would the Messiah when He appeared; and had not the Lord by His miracle yester-eve fulfilled this promise ? Surely His feeding of the multitude with “perishing food” was an evidence of His Messiahship. He answered that the manna which Moses gave their fathers was merely “perishing food,” a symbol of the true “bread from Heaven,” “the enduring food which nourishes eternal life.” And this was God’s gift. It was the gift which the Messiah would bring and which as the Messiah He was offering.
“I,” said He, “am the bread of life.” What did this mean ? It was a Jewish phrase. The Rabbis spoke of “eating the Messiah” in the sense of eagerly receiving Him, welcoming His grace, assimilating His doctrine, and imbibing His spirit. Our Lord was the Messiah. He is “the bread of life” ; and even as we nourish our bodies by eating “perishing food,” so we nourish our souls by eating Him—by coming to Him and believing in Him. “He who comes to me shall never hunger and he who believes in Me shall never thirst any more.” He will have eternal life within him, and there will be no death for him. “I will raise him at the last day.”
[ p. 180 ]
Thus far the conversation had been between our Lord and those enthusiasts who were leading the popular movement; but here interposed “the Jews,” that is, in St. John’s phraseology, the Jewish rulers, the Scribes who occupied the front seats in the synagogue and had been listening to the discussion. His language seemed to them sheer blasphemy. “Is not this,” said they, “Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know ? ” He took up their challenge, and first, quoting from the scriptures, whereof they were the official guardians and interpreters, that prophetic word “They shall all be taught of God,” (Is. liv. 13; cf. Jer. xxxi. 33,34) He told them that the reason of their blindness to His claim was their lack of that heavenly teaching. And then He reiterated His claim in more emphatic terms. “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. I am the true manna, the living bread : if one eat of this bread, he will live for ever. “And,” He added, “the bread which I will give is My flesh for the life of the world.” Here is an intimation of His sacrificial death. The Rabbis spoke of “eating the Messiah,” which signified merely feeding upon His teaching; but here our Lord declares that “the enduring food which nourishes eternal life ” is more than His teaching; it is His atoning sacrifice, “His flesh for the life of the world.”
It is hardly surprising that they missed His meaning, though surely in view of their own familiar phrase they might have caught something of it. They took His words in crude literalness. “How,” they exclaimed, “can this man give us His flesh to eat ? “Yes,” He replied, reaffirming and elaborating what [ p. 181 ] He had said,” unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have not life in yourselves. My flesh is true food and My blood is true drink ; and one who eats this bread will live for ever : I will raise him at the Last Day.”
Thus in the familiar terms of their Jewish theology He interpreted His miracle of the feeding of the multitude, seeking to raise their thoughts from the perishing food to the enduring food which nourishes eternal life—the rich grace of His atoning sacrifice. And what did He mean by that reiterated assurance that every one who eats of this living bread He will “raise at the Last Day” ? Here He had in view that other miracle which the Twelve and their companions in the storm-tossed boat had witnessed that morning. Even as His feeding of the multitude was prophetic of His sacrificial Death, so His walking on the water was, as will by and by appear, prophetic of His Resurrection, the refashioning of the body of His humiliation into a body of glory (cf. Phil. iii. 21). Of this also He purposed speaking at large, thus interpreting both those transcendent miracles ; but His purpose was arrested. The criticism of the dull Scribes, their indignant objection to His claim that He had come down from Heaven and to that mystic phrase, the eating of His flesh and the drinking of His blood, swayed the minds of the assemblage and turned not a few against Him who had professed themselves His disciples. The congregation dispersed, and no enthusiastic crowd attended Him on His homeward way; only the Twelve, and they followed Him bewildered by what they had heard and saddened by so sudden an eclipse of their Master’s popularity It seemed to [ p. 182 ] them a heavy disaster, and it grieved Him too that He had been so little understood. “Are you also,” He asked them, “minded to go away ?” “Lord,” answered Simon, the disciple who loved Jesus, always impulsive but always true-hearted, “to whom shall we go ? You have words of eternal life ; and we have believed, we are sure that you are the Holy One of God.” He spoke for them all. They were indeed sorely perplexed, since His premonition of suffering and death was so contrary to their dream of an earthly triumph ; yet nothing could shake their faith in His Messiahship born of their experience of His grace. Simon thought he was speaking for all his comrades, but there was one whose face belied his confidence —Judas the man of Kerioth. The Lord had been reading his heart, and He knew the treason which was already lurking there. “Did I not,” said He, “choose you the Twelve ? and one of you is a devil.”
The defection of so many of His followers would please the rulers, since it was the good-will of the multitude that had hitherto restrained them from taking severe measures with Him, and it seemed that He was now at their mercy. Their triumph, however, was short-lived. Whether He were the Messiah or no, He was still the Friend of sinners, the Comforter of the sorrowful, and the Helper of the helpless. There were still sickness and suffering in Galilee, and there were still pity in His heart and healing in His hand. From near and far the afflicted gathered to Him and experienced His grace ; and presently the popular enthusiasm was as ardent as ever. It chagrined His enemies to see their victim thus snatched from their grasp, and those Rabbinical inquisitors who for a year past had [ p. 183 ] been spying upon Him and reporting His doings to the authorities at Jerusalem, cast about for a casus belli.
This they soon found. Their unwritten law, “the Tradition of the Elders” as it was called, forbade eating without first washing the hands by pouring water over them to cleanse away the taint of contact with unhallowed things ; and it is amazing how much store was set by this prescription. Eating with unwashed hands was likened to commerce with an harlot. It was punishable with excommunication, and it exposed the polluted dwelling to the visitation of the nocturnal fiend Shibta who suffocated children in their beds. It is told of Rabbi Akiba, that exemplar at once of Jewish patriotism and of Pharisaic scrupulosity, that one morning during the imprisonment which ended in his martyrdom his gaoler in bringing him his day’s food stinted his allowance of water. “Give me water for my hands” said he ere eating to his attendant disciple. “My master,” was the answer, “there is not sufficient here even for drinking.” “What shall I do ?” said the old Rabbi. “It is better for me to die than to transgress the commandments of the Elders.” And he washed his hands and went thirsty.
This rite, like many other ceremonial observances, our Lord disregarded, and His disciples followed His example. The Scribes found some of them eating without washing their hands, and they challenged Him : “Why do your disciples transgress the Tradition of the Elders ?”(cf. Lk. xi. 37,38) They expected that He would excuse the transgression and thus expose Himself to a charge of sacrilegious innovation ; but He dexterously turned the tables and crushed them with [ p. 184 ] a damning countercharge. They were aggrieved at His disciples for their transgression of a hu man ordinance, and all the while they were themselves transgressing a divine commandment. It was written in the Law of Moses : “Honour thy father and thy mother” and “He that revileth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.” (Ex. xx. 12, xxi. 17) And how was this duty of filial piety construed by the Tradition of the Elders ? The Rabbis were subtle casuists, and they displayed their ingenuity in devising evasions of burdensome moral obligations. Thus, whatever was devoted to God was corban, a sacred offering, and it would have been sacrilege to divert it to other uses. If a man’s parents sought his help in need and he grudged it, he had only to devote something of his available means to God, and then he might answer: “What you require is corban.” It was but a small portion of their requirement that he had devoted, and after he had put this in the sacred treasury he retained all the rest. And so at the cost of an inconsiderable offering to God he escaped a larger sacrifice. “You hypocrites !” He cried ; “you play-actors, hiding your villainy under a mask of piety! Beautifully do you set aside the commandment of God that you may keep your tradition.” Then He turned and addressed the bystanders. “Listen,” said He, “and understand. It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles the man. No, what comes out of the mouth—this it is that defiles the man.”
The Scribes had been heavily worsted in the encounter. They had not a word to say, and they retired muttering vengeance on their audacious adversary. [ p. 185 ] The Twelve were alarmed for the consequences. “Do you know,” said they, “that the Pharisees have taken offence at what you said ?” He was unmoved. The Pharisees were the champions of a godless cause. It was doomed, and what could they do with God against them ? “Every plant which My Heavenly Father did not plant shall be uprooted. Let them go,” He cried, surveying their retreating forms and quoting a common proverb : “they are blind guides of blind men ; and if blind guide blind, both will tumble into a ditch.”
He took His way home with the Twelve, and when they got there, Peter asked an explanation of His parable,” meaning His saying about what really defiles a man—not what goes into the mouth but what comes out of it. It was not a parable at all but a plain statement, and He wondered at the question. It proved how wedded the Twelve were to the Jewish notion of ceremonial defilement. “Are you too still without understanding ?” He remonstrated, and patiently explained that it is not unclean food that defiles the soul but unclean thoughts. It is not the hands that need cleansing but the heart.