[ p. 238 ]
JOURNEYING TO JERUSALEM
Mt. xix. la. Lk. xiii. 22-30; Mt. vii. 13, 14, viii. 11, 12. Lk. xiii. 31-33. J°. vii. 2-10. Lk. xi. 37, 38, xiv (xvii. 5, 6), xv (Mt. xviii. 12, i3)-xvi. 12, 14, 15, 19-31, xvii. 11-21, xviii. 1-14, ix. 51-56, x. 17-20, 25-37.
It was now time for Him to turn His steps toward Jerusalem. He travelled southward through the midst of Galilee, teaching as He went; and once when He was discoursing on “salvation/’ one of His hearers, evidently impressed but reluctant to face the personal issue, essayed to evade it by raising a theological question much debated in the Rabbinical schools. The general belief was that “all Israel would have a portion in the world to come," but some argued that even as only two of the multitude that left Egypt inherited the Promised Land, so would it be in the days of the Messiah ; and all agreed that since there was no salvation outside the pale of the chosen race, the myriads of heathendom were doomed to perdition. “Lord," asked this man, “are they few that are being saved ?” The Lord answered by quoting a fancy of the ancient moralists which had passed into a common proverb. There are two paths, they said—the path of virtue and the path of vice, the former entered by a narrow gate and winding steep and difficult up rugged heights, and the latter entered by a wide gate and running broad and smooth through pleasant places. The easy path ended in ruin, but, said the moralists, because it was easy, [ p. 239 ] most men chose it; the difficult path led to life, but few had the courage to pursue it. “Strive/’ said the Lord, addressing not His questioner alone but all the company, “to enter by the narrow gate. And strive betimes, while the gate is open. Soon it will be closed ; your day of opportunity will be past."
And thus He taught His hearers a twofold lesson. First He urged them to personal and immediate decision. The question was not whether few or many would be saved, but whether they were of the number. And He warned them against building upon their privileges. Unless they entered the narrow gate and trod the steep path, it would avail them nothing that they were Jews, children of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. They would surely find themselves excluded, and to their bitter chagrin would see in the enjoyment of the felicity which they had forfeited many from east and west and north and south, despised heathen who, lacking their privileges, had nobly striven and pursued the upward path.
He had just spoken when several strangers accosted Him. They were Pharisees, yet their errand was friendly; for it should not be overlooked that the Pharisees were not all His enemies. There were not a few who, like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathsea, were His disciples at heart, though they were meanwhile afraid to confess Him. Eventually they espoused His cause ; and even now, so far as prudence permitted, they exhibited their good will, frequently entertaining Him at their tables, as St. Luke especially is careful to record, and otherwise befriending Him (Cf. Ac. xv. 5; Cf. vii. 36-50; xi. 37,38; xiv. 1-24). These Pharisees now approached to warn Him of an imminent danger. [ p. 240 ] Travelling southward, He had reached the uplands to the west of the Lake, and was only some fifteen miles distant from Tiberias, the seat of Herod Antipas. It had come to their knowledge that the crafty Tetrarch, alarmed by the popularity of our Lord and apprehending, after the suspicious manner of a tyrant, a political insurrection, purposed arresting Him and dealing summarily with Him. And so they had come to warn Him. “Begone,” said they, “and journey hence, because Herod wishes to kill you.” “Go,” He replied, “and tell this fox: ‘ Look you, I cast out demons today and to-morrow, and on the third day I finish My work.’” It was Jewish phraseology. He was immortal till His work was done, and meanwhile He would fearlessly prosecute His ministry. But not for long. His work would soon be accomplished, and then Herod would have his desire. “To-day and to-morrow I must journey on”—on to Jerusalem—“because it is unfitting that a prophet should perish outwith Jerusalem.”
He continued His journey. Following the southward route, He would pass by Cana. Surely He would linger at that town of gracious memories, and it is there probably that we next find Him. It was the Sabbath, the day, as we have seen, for social entertainment; and a leading Pharisee invited Him to dine at his house with a company of his friends, Pharisees and Rabbis. It is ever the manner of petty dignitaries to be jealous of their honour, and to the kindly host’s vexation some unpleasantness arose among his guests as they took their places at table over the question of precedence. Perhaps the occasion was that our Lord had been assigned the place of honour, but He took no notice at the moment and the banquet proceeded.
[ p. 241 ]
The incident cast a cloud on the entertainment, and the company furtively observed how Jesus comported Himself. Presently their attention was arrested. It was the fashion, as we have seen, for strangers to attend a banquet and witness the festivity, and a man suffering from dropsy had entered and was standing in front of Jesus. “Is it allowable,” He asked the sullen company, “to heal on the Sabbath ? or is it not ?” Of course, according to their law, it was not allowable in this instance, since the man’s life was in no immediate danger ; but they knew how He had already dealt with that regulation, and no one answered. Without more ado He healed the man, and then silenced criticism by His wanted appeal to humanity : “Which of you, when his son or even his ox falls into a well, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath Day ? ”
His lips were now opened, and He playfully bantered them on their behaviour a little ago. “If,” said He, “you be invited by any one to a wedding-feast, do not take your place on the first couch, in case a more honourable person have been invited by him ; and your host and his will say to you : ‘ Give place to this man.’ And then, crest-fallen, you will set about taking the last place. No, when you are invited, go and recline in the last place, that, when your host comes, he may say to you : ‘ Friend, come up higher.’ Then you will have glory in the sight of all your fellow-guests.” It made His rebuke the more effective that it was an amplified quotation from the Book of Proverbs, and there were Rabbis among His hearers (Pr. xxv. 6,7). What could they do but hang their heads when they were rebuked out of those Scriptures which it was their business to study and interpret ? And if the scene was [ p. 242 ] indeed the village of Cana, then it appears why He spoke of “a wedding-feast,” The last banquet which He had attended there, had been a wedding-feast; and He intended a contrast between the kindliness of that homely gathering of peasant-folk and the absurdity of this company of arrogant ecclesiastics.
Then He completed their discomfiture by turning to His host, who had surely been relishing such trenchant dealing with his ill-mannered guests and feeling how hollow and heartless were such formal entertainments. “When,” said Jesus, “you make a breakfast or a dinner, do not call your friends or brothers or kinsfolk, in case they invite you back and you get a requital. No, when you make an entertainment, invite poor folk and maimed and lame and blind ; and blessed will you be, because they have no requital for you, and you will have your requital at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Here one of the company nodded approval and, thinking to rehabilitate himself, ejaculated sententiously: “Blessed is he who will eat bread in the Kingdom of God !” It was a mere pious platitude, and there was nothing that our Lord disliked more. Once, on the occasion of some shortcoming like their failure in dealing with the epileptic at Caesarea Philippi, when the Apostles essayed to veil it beneath a sanctimonious petition : “Increase our faith,” He turned sharply upon them. It was not more faith that they needed but more devotion, more self-forgetfulness. Ever so little faith, where there is devotion, will achieve impossibilities. “If,” said He, “you have faith as a grain of mustard, you would have said to this mulberrytree ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea,’ and it would have obeyed you.” And so here He answers [ p. 243 ] with a parable, telling how a man invited a numerous company to a grand dinner. The day arrived and he sent round his slave, according to the oriental custom, to remind them of their engagement and acquaint them with the precise hour. “Come,” was his message, “for everything is now ready” ; but they all cried off on various pretexts. Said one : “I have just bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Pray, hold me excused.” Said another: “I have just bought five pairs of oxen, and I am going to test them. Pray, hold me excused.” “I have just married a wife,” said a third, “and this is why I cannot come.” They were all very polite, but their politeness was simply an aggravation of the insult. The host was indignant. He determined that, though they stayed away, the entertainment would go forward, and he bade his slave go out to the streets and alleys of the town and bring in all the poor, needy creatures there. These trooped into the banquet-hall, but they were not enough to fill it; and the host, resolved that not a place would be vacant, bade the slave extend his quest. “Go out of the town, and bring all the forlorn wretches whom you find tramping the roads or crouching beneath the hedges. Take no refusal: compel them to come in.”
Like the parable of the barren fig tree, it was a warning of the judgment impending over the Jewish people who had so slighted God’s gracious invitation, insulting Him by lip-service and hypocritical pretension. The denizens of street and alley were the sinners of Israel—those taxgatherers and harlots whom, to the scandal of the Pharisees, Jesus befriended; and the wanderers by the highways and hedges were [ p. 244 ] the Gentiles whom the Jews accounted unclean, outcasts from the love and grace of God.
Since He was on His way to Jerusalem, the idea had got abroad in the town that the time for the grand denouement had at last arrived and He would now openly assume His Messianic dignity and claim His throne ; and as He took His departure an eager crowd trooped after Him, thinking to escort Him to the capital and witness His triumph. Knowing what was in their minds, He turned and told them the stern reality. It was not a triumph that awaited Him at Jerusalem but a dread ordeal, and no one need follow Him who was not prepared to sacrifice all on earth that was dear and precious to him and encounter for His sake suffering and shame. “Count the cost” He said. “Who would commence a watchtower in his vineyard without first counting the cost, lest he should have to leave it unfinished, a monument of his improvidence, the jest of every passer-by ? What king would take the field against another without reckoning his forces and ascertaining his chance of victory ?” His miracles had enkindled their enthusiasm, but it was a false enthusiasm and it would quickly evaporate in face of the stern realities. They had a proverb, “As salt to flesh/’ and it was apposite here. As salt to flesh, so is clear-eyed devotion, the courage which never flinches, to the achievement of a high enterprise ; and a blind enthusiasm is like salt which loses its bite.
Pursuing His journey, He came to Nazareth, the town where He had passed His childhood and youth and where Mary and her sons and daughters still dwelt. After His bitter experience there about a year [ p. 245 ] ago He would have little pleasure in returning thither, and His forebodings were realised. His “brethren” had continued unbelieving, and they greeted Him with sneers. The Feast of Tabernacles, which began that year (28 A.D.) on September 23, was at hand, and they were just getting ready for the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Why, they asked, had He stayed so long in Galilee ? It was a year and a half since He had visited the capital, and His disciples there were wondering at His absence. If He were indeed the Messiah, the Holy City was His place, and it was high time that He was going thither “Remove hence and be off to Judsea, that your disciples may behold the works which you are doing. No one does a thing in private when he is seeking public recognition. If you are doing these things, manifest yourself to the world.”
Their talk grieved Him, but He answered them gently. They did not understand. When the appointed time arrived, He would go to Jerusalem, but that time had not yet arrived. “Go you up to the Feast I am not going up to this Feast; for My time has not yet been fulfilled.”
The enmity which had so nearly wrought His destruction on His previous visit to Nazareth still persisted, and no Pharisee entertained Him. But even this turned to good. Neglected by the religious and respectable, He was welcomed by the social outcasts— “the taxgatherers and the sinners”—who were glad of an opportunity of gathering about Him and hearing His message. And just as Levi the tax-gatherer at Capernaum had entertained Him in his house and invited a company of his former associates to meet Him, so it happened now at Nazareth (cf. Lk. v. 27-32). In [ p. 246 ] the judgment of His enemies it was a public scandal. “This fellow,” they cried, “is receiving sinners and eating with them !” And a band of Pharisees and Rabbis visited the banquet-hall to frown upon the company and find, if they might, some pretext for interference.
It was not the first time that He had been censured for befriending sinners, but never had He presented so noble an apology as now. He appealed to that human instinct which invests whatever we have lost with a peculiar preciousness and moves us to seek its recovery; and He illustrated it by three parables.
What think you ?” said He, surveying those ungracious faces. “If a man has got a hundred sheep and one of them be wandered, does he not leave the ninety-nine and travel over the mountains, seeking the wanderer ? And if he succeed in finding it, verily I tell you that he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not wandered. He puts it on his shoulders joyfully, and on getting home calls together his friends and his neighbours. ‘ Rejoice with me, he says to them; ‘ for I have found my sheep, the lost one/ So,” explains the Master, “will there be joy in Heaven over one repenting sinner rather than over ninety-nine righteous/’ Indeed His hearers needed no explanation; for did not their Scriptures love to speak of the Lord as the Shepherd of Israel, “seeking that which was lost, and bringing again that which was driven away, and binding up that which was broken, and strengthening that which was sick” ? (Cf. Ezek. xxxiv.)
Again, think of a woman who has ten shillings and loses one of them—how she lights a candle and sweeps [ p. 247 ] out every comer till she finds it, and how glad she is then. “Rejoice with me,” she cries to her friends and neighbours ; “for I have found the shilling which I lost.” “So, I tell you, there arises joy in the presence of the angels of God over one repenting sinner.”
But a sinner is more than a lost sheep or a lost shilling. He is a lost son ; and this truth our Lord proclaims in a third parable, the most moving He ever spoke. It is the story of a generous father, a prosperous farmer, and his two sons. As so often happens in families, the latter were very dissimilar in disposition. The elder was a steady and industrious lad, but he was also selfish, surly, and conceited. The younger was a merry lad, fonder of play than of work , withal adventurous, discontented with his narrow life on the farm and ambitious of seeing something of the large world. It brought out the worst which was in him that his brother was hard on him ; and presently he could endure it no longer, and he determined that he would leave home and try his fortune abroad. So he came to his father and preferred a bold request. When the old man died, his sons would inherit his property. According to the general rule the elder would get two thirds and the younger one third, and he begged his father to give him his portion now (Cf. Det. xxi. 17). It was indeed a bold request, but it was by no means unreasonable. The thing was often done when there was good reason. And there was good reason in this case. The continual bickering of the lads had grieved their good father, and he recognised that the boy would never get on if he stayed ami might do well if he got the chance of pushing his [ p. 248 ] own way in the world. And so he granted the request. He might have given him merely an allowance; but, anxious that he should have every opportunity, he gave him his full portion. For all his generosity he was a prudent man, and he would not, like King Lear, beggar himself by resigning all his property and making himself dependent on his sons. It was understood that on his decease his elder son would inherit all that he retained ; but meanwhile it was his and he kept it in his own hands. His elder son had no immediate need of it, for he lived at home with his father, sharing his income and his confidence.
Unhappily his generosity was abused. The young adventurer went abroad and fell into evil company and squandered his all. And what of the elder ? It was largely his fault that the trouble had arisen; for he should have borne considerately with his wayward brother from the first, and now surely he should have supported his father by doing his best to repair the mischief. Even if he had not been originally so much to blame, magnanimity would have prompted him to generous behaviour now. But his selfish soul was aggrieved, and he thought it an injustice that he too had not got immediate possession of his patrimony. This was the reward of his steadiness and industry: he was no better than his father’s servant, dependent on his bounty, which he regarded as bare and niggardly.
It aggrieved him the more that his father kept mourning for his lost son; and his indignation broke out one day when the prodigal returned. The lad had fallen very low. His money was all spent, and he was glad—disgusting though the office was to a Jew— [ p. 249 ] to get employment as a swineherd. There was a famine in the country; and when he found himself, in sheer starvation, gnawing a carob-pod from the unclean creatures’ trough, he realised his abject mis ery It was intolerable. “I will be up and away to mv father !” he cried. “And I will say : ‘ Father, I have sinned against Heaven and in your sight. I no longer deserve to be called your son : make me as one of your hirelings.’”
Away he went. As he neared home footsore and tattered, his father spied him in the distance and, recognising him, ran to meet him and embraced and kissed him. “Father,” said the lad, “I have sinned against Heaven and in your sight. I no longer deserve to be called your son-” He got no farther. His father shouted to his slaves: “Quick ! bring out a robe—his former robe” he added—“and put it on him.” Right well they understood. When the lad went away in his bravery, he had left his old robe behind, and his father had treasured that memorial of the wanderer. Often had they seen him tenderly unfolding it and bedewing it with tears. And now that his boy had come home, he would have his misdoing forgotten like an evil dream. “Bring out a robe,” he cried, and only one robe would do—“the robe,” as old Matthew Henry has it, “which he wore before he ran his ramble.” “Bring it out and put it on him ; and give him a ring for his hand and sandals for his feet; and fetch the fatted calf and slay it; and let us eat and make merry. For this son of mine was dead and is come to life ; he was lost and is found.”
At the time the elder son was out on the farm, and on his return at eventide he heard the jubilation. [ p. 250 ] “What may this mean ?” he demanded of a servant, and on learning he flew into a passion and would not enter the house. His father came out and remonstrated with him. “Look you,” he answered, “all these years I have slaved for you and never transgressed your command ; and you never even gave me a kid to make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots—when he came, you slew the fatted calf for him.” “My child,” said the good old man, “you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. We had to make merry and rejoice; for this brother of yours was dead and is come to life; he was lost and is found.”
The parable needed no interpretation. In the elder brother the Pharisees would recognise their own portraiture, and they would realise how unlike God s was their attitude to sinners. He is the Heavenly Father with a father’s heart toward all the children of men ; and the difference between a saint and a sinner is not that the one is a son of God and the other a son of the Devil, but that a saint is a son once lost and now restored, and a sinner a lost son still in the far country, lost and not yet found. The whole Gospel lies in that word “lost.” As our Lord used it, it is the tenderest word in Holy Scripture, throbbing with an infinite compassion. For it signifies not an outcast doomed to perdition but a wanderer from the Father’s House, still dear to His heart, mourned over, longed for, and sought after.
It was a gracious parable; and is there not an especial graciousness in our Lord’s attitude toward the Pharisees? He was the Friend of sinners, but He [ p. 251 ] was the Friend of Pharisees too. He does not denounce those narrow-hearted men. He recognises that they also were children of the Heavenly Father, and pleads with them to acknowledge the sinners as their brethren, as dear as they to the Father’s heart. “This son of yours ” said the elder brother: “This brother of yours ” his father answered—“my son no less than you, claiming of you a brotherly affection.”
And now, turning to “the disciples ”—those taxgatherers and sinners whose hearts He had won and who were assembled to honour Him and confess their faith in Him—He discourses to them. Evidently the question had arisen what those taxgatherers should now do with the wealth which they had acquired as agents of the Roman tyranny and too often by vexatious exactions ; and He answers it by a parable. He tells of a steward who had been employed by a wealthy magnate to manage his estate and had shamefully abused his trust, not only appropriating much of the revenue but oppressing the tenantry. A complaint was addressed to the master, who promptly discharged him and required a statement of accounts. “What am I to do ? ” he cried. “I am not strong enough to dig; I am ashamed to beg. … I know what to do, that when I am removed from the stewardship, they may welcome me into their homes.” He summoned the defaulters. “How much,” he asked one, “are you owing to my lord ? ” “A hundred casks of oil,” was the answer. “Here is your bill. Quick ! sit down and enter fifty.” “And how much are you owing ? ” he asked another. “A hundred quarters of wheat.” “Here is your bill. Enter eighty.” See what a cunning rogue he was. It was [ p. 252 ] he who had been plundering them, but he lays the blame on the master and claims the credit of procuring them those large remissions. And he knew his men and paid each his price—here 50 per cent., there only 20. But after the fashion of a trickster he reckoned unduly on their simplicity, fancying that when he was thrown on the world, they would gratefully come to their supposed benefactor’s rescue.
It was a clever stratagem, and if it did not work out as the rascal hoped, it served him in another direction. For on its coming to the master’s knowledge it amused him and softened his resentment. And there was a salutary lesson in the story. If a worldling be thus solicitous for his temporal interests, should we be less solicitous for our eternal welfare, less provident of the hereafter ? “Make yourselves friends,” says our Lord, “with the mammon of unrighteousness, that when it fails, they may welcome you into the eternal tabernacles.” Mammon was a Syriac word for “riches ” ; and “mammon of unPs xxiii righteousness ” is a Hebrew phrase. Just as, when the shepherd-psalmist speaks of “paths of righteousness,” (Ps. xxiii. 3) he means paths which lead home, serving a path’s proper purpose, unlike the sheep-tracks on the moor which fade away, leading the traveller astray and leaving him bewildered— “delusive tracks which lead nowhere,” so by “the mammon of unrighteousness ” our Lord means this world’s vain riches which, unlike the “unfailing Lk xii treasure in the heavens,” perish in the using, disappointing our hopes, and at last slipping from our grasp and leaving us forlorn (Lk. xii. 33). “Employ the perishing wealth of this passing world,” is His counsel, [ p. 253 ] “in helping others in their need and so winning their love, that when you leave it all behind you and pass into Eternity, they may greet you there and welcome you into the eternal tabernacles.” It was the eve of the Feast of Tabernacles, that joyous festival when the worshippers made them booths of leafy branches in remembrance of the tents where their fathers had dwelt in the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land (cf. Lev. xxiii. 33-44; Neh. viii. 15). Those outcasts had no share in the glad celebration, but it was theirs to win the nobler felicity which the joyous festival foreshadowed.
Here perhaps is the place of that saying which, recorded by none of the Evangelists, is so frequently ascribed to our Lord in the early Christian literature : “Show yourselves approved bankers.” [1] Our worldly wealth, He meant, is not our own : it is a trust which God has committed to us ; and our duty, while it remains in our hands, is to employ it for His glory and our own eternal profit. We are His bankers, and He will one day reclaim His deposit and call us to account. Meanwhile we must be scrupulously faithful. “One who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much.” It is thus that we shall approve ourselves and win a larger and enduring trust. “If you have not shown yourselves faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will entrust you with the true ? And if you have not shown yourselves faithful in what is another’s, who will give you what is your own ?”
The Pharisees were listening as He discoursed thus to His fellow-guests, and his counsel on the use of [ p. 254 ] money touched them in the quick ; for they were fond of money and, like greedy ecclesiastics in every age, were guilty of worse exaction than the taxgatherers ever perpetrated (Cf. Mk. xii. 40; Lk. xx. 47). They sneered at His admonition, and He turned upon them indignantly and addressed to them a parable, at once rebuking them and enforcing His exhortation to the taxgatherers : “Make yourselves friends with the mammon of unrighteousness/’ He drew a moving contrast—a rich man in gorgeous attire feasting in his mansion and a beggar crouching at his gate, a mass of loathsome sores, and hungrily eyeing the revelry. He named the wretch Lazarus, the Greek form of Eleazar, which signifies “God has helped,” expressing at once his earthly destitution and his humble piety. His plight was indeed woeful, yet he was not utterly forlorn. No human hand dressed his sores, but the pariah dogs, his companions in misery, more pitiful than his fellow-men, licked them with their soft, warm tongues ; [2] and he was compassed by invisible angels, God’s ministering spirits.
These were his helpers—the dogs and the angels ! And now another and more startling contrast is presented. The beggar died, and he was borne away by angel hands “to Abraham’s bosom.” Here and throughout the sequel our Lord in depicting the Hereafter employs the Jewish imagery wherewith His hearers were familiar. The Unseen World—the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades —was conceived as the common domain of the departed. The righteous and [ p. 255 ] the unrighteous dwelt apart; and it was a sore aggravation of the latter’s misery that they beheld the righteous in the enjoyment of that felicity which now they might never know (cf. Book of Enoch xxvii. 3; Rev. xiv. 10). And the image of that felicity was a joyous festival presided over by Abraham, the father of the Jewish race. The place of honour was next to Abraham; and since at an ancient banquet the guests reclined on couches, leaning on their left elbows, the honoured guest lay in front of the host, and when he would talk with him, he leaned back on his breast, as the beloved disciple leaned back on Jesus’ breast in the Upper Room (cf. Jo. xiii. 25). Presently the rich man died, and from his place of woe he beheld Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom. It was a grim reversal of their old relationship. “Father Abraham,” he cried, “have pity on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.” “My child,” answered Abraham, “remember that you got your good things in your lifetime just as Lazarus got the evil. And now there is a wide and impassable gulf between us.” “I pray you then, father,” he pleaded, “send him to my father’s house to warn my five brothers, lest they too come to this place of torment.” “They have Moses and the Prophets,” said Abraham : “let them hearken to them.” “Nay, father Abraham, but if one from the dead go to them, they will repent.” “If they do not hearken to Moses and the Prophets, not even though one rise from the dead will they be persuaded.”
The Pharisees and Rabbis would perceive His meaning. How often had they demanded of Him “a sign from heaven” in attestation of His Messianic claim ! And all the while its attestation was written plain on [ p. 256 ] the pages of those Scriptures which they professed to revere. And so He tells them as He had told their colleagues in Jerusalem eighteen months ago : “There is one who condemns you—Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For had you believed Moses, you would have believed Me; for he wrote of Me.” (Jo. v. 45,46)
Continuing His journey, the Lord approached the Samaritan frontier; and ere passing it He stopped somewhere on the Galilean side. His arrival was expected in the neighbourhood, since the town had lately been visited by two of His seventy heralds; and He found a pitiful company awaiting Him—ten lepers. They had gathered there to waylay Him as He passed, in the hope that He would heal them. At least one of them was a Samaritan ; but “adversity makes strange bedfellows,” and forgetting in their misery their racial antipathy, they were herded together and greeted Him with the cry: “Jesus, Master, have pity on us !” He bade them betake themselves to their priests, whose office it was to examine a patient who was cured of that loathsome disease, and in case of a veritable recovery absolve him of the ban precluding him from social intercourse. They obeyed, and as they went they found themselves healed. They all hastened on to their priests, eager for absolution—all save that Samaritan; and instead of pushing on to Mount Gerizim he turned back and poured out his gratitude at his Benefactor’s feet. And he was a despised Samaritan ! “Were not the ten cleansed ?” exclaimed Jesus. “And where are the nine ? Were there none of them to return and give glory to God except this alien ? Arise, and go your way. Your faith has saved you.” [ p. 257 ] Since it was a frontier town, the racial antipathy was strong there, and His commendation of the grateful Samaritan displeased the bystanders, especially some Pharisees. They retaliated with a sneer at His Messianic claim, so preposterous as it seemed in a poor wayfarer, a fugitive from the Tetrarch’s enmity. “When,” they asked, “is the Kingdom of God coming ?” And He told them that it would not come in the unspiritual fashion they supposed. “The Kingdom of God is not coming with observation”—like a planet flashing out in the firmament on the astrologer’s gaze. “Nor will they say ‘ Look you, here! or yonder ! ’ For, look you, the Kingdom of God is among you.” It had already come, if only they had hearts to recognise it.
While He thus answered those sneering Pharisees, the Lord knew well how trying to the faith of His Jewish disciples was the slow progress, as they deemed it, of His cause and how sorely they were tempted to lose heart. And so He encouraged them with a parable. He told them how a widow had been wronged and sought legal redress. It was a clear case, but the judge in oriental fashion delayed decision in the hope of a bribe. Again and again she waited on him, till at length she got angry. This brought him to reason. “Though,” he soliloquised, “I have no fear of God nor regard for man, yet because this widow is a bother to me, I will do her justice, lest,” he added half jestingly, “she keep on coming and end by taking her fists to me.” So effectual is importunity ; and, argues our Lord, if it prevailed with that heartless and corrupt judge, surely God, a righteous Judge, a gracious Father, will hear your cry and fulfil your desire. If He keep [ p. 258 ] you waiting, it is for a wise reason. Always pray, and never lose heart.
The Pharisaic spirit was rampant in that border town, and He rebuked it by another parable. Just then bands of worshippers were setting out for Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, and He pictured a scene in the Temple-court. A Pharisee was standing there in the Pharisaic attitude with his face toward the Sanctuary; and hard by was a taxgatherer. It was seldom that an outcast visited the sacred precincts, but he had been awakened to a sense of his sinfulness and had ventured thither in humble penitence. With a disdainful glance at him the Pharisee prayed thus—“prayed to himself” says our Lord, since his prayer was one which never reached Heaven : “O God, I thank Thee that I am not like the rest of men—extortioners, unrighteous, adulterers, or indeed like this taxgatherer. I fast”—not merely, as the Law required, on special occasions but, after the supererogatory fashion of his order, every Monday and Thursday—“twice a week ; I tithe all my income.” And what of the taxgatherer ? He stood with bowed head and, smiting his breast, cried : “0 God, be merciful to me, the sinner !” Just as the Pharisee posed as superlatively righteous, so the taxgatherer felt himself the chief of sinners.
“I am alone the villain of the earth.
And feel I am so most“.”
The Pharisee’s prayer never reached God’s ear; but the taxgatherer’s did, and he went home forgiven.
And now, resuming Plis journey, He crossed the frontier and reached the first station on His route [ p. 259 ] through Samaria. His heralds had duly visited the place, and He expected a welcome ; but to His disappointment He encountered a hostile reception. It would seem that the troops of Galilean pilgrims to the Feast in their passage along the route had exasperated the populace; and when Jesus and His defenceless company appeared, they met the storm. It appears that they were subjected to actual violence ; for His disciples were indignant, and James and John, “the Sons of Thunder,” proposed that He should authorise them, like Elijah of old, to call down lire from heaven and consume their assailants (cf. 2 Ki. i. 10,11). He turned and rebuked them ; and they proceeded to the next village on their route.
There they fared no better. The whole country was up in arms, and there was nothing for it but that He should abandon His design of preaching in Samaria and push on to Juda;a. Somewhere by the way He encountered the Seventy returning to meet Him and report how they had sped. Evidently it was after He had passed into judsea, since they were ignorant of His disappointment in Samaria. They were exulting in the wonders which they had been privileged to accomplish. “Lord,” said they, “even the demons are subject to us in your name.” Their exultation jarred upon Him, knowing as He did how little their ministry in Samaria had availed and withal perceiving from their surprise at the miracles which they had wrought how small had been their faith in His commission. In truth He had been expecting more. “I was beholding,” said He, “Satan fallen like a flash of lightning from the sky (Ps. xci. 13). Look you, I have given you authority to trample upon serpents and scorpions [ p. 260 ] and on all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall do you wrong. But,” He added, observing how the good men’s faces had fallen and reminding them that, however small their success, a transcendent dignity was theirs, “do not rejoice at this — that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are enrolled in Heaven.” (Cf. Ex. xxxii. 32,33; Mal. iii. 16; Phil. iv. 3; Heb. xii. 23; Rev. iii. 5)
Presently they reached a town which, though unnamed by the Evangelist, was surely Jericho, the ancient “City of Palms,” ( Dt. xxxiv. 3) for this reason if for no other, that they are next found at Bethany, and Jericho was the last stage on the route to the sacred capital. It was situated on a rich plain bordering the Jordan, fully 800 feet below sea-level; and the road thence to Jerusalem was not only steep but perilous, since it was beset by brigands whose lawless deeds earned it of old the grim name of “the Ascent of Blood.” Difficult and dangerous as it was, it was much frequented not only by travelling merchants but by priests, inasmuch as there was scant accommodation in the Holy City for the ministers of the sanctuary and half of the officiating course lodged in the City of Palms, travelling daily to and fro.
During His stay there the Lord preached, presumably in the synagogue since His hearers were seated. His theme was “Eternal Life,” and when He finished a Rabbi rose and put a question to Him—one of those captious questions so often addressed to Him by the expert theologians of Judaea in the hope of puzzling Him or betraying Him into some heretical position and thus discrediting Him with the populace. “Teacher,” said he, “what am I to do to inherit ‘ eternal life’ ?” [ p. 261 ] With that dexterity which never failed Him in dialectical encounters, our Lord avoided the snare by inviting His questioner to state out of the fulness of his own professional knowledge what he regarded as the scriptural doctrine. Prompt and glib came the answer : “‘ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might and with all thine understanding’ and ‘ thy neighbour as thyself.’” It was a felicitous combination of two precepts of the Law excellently summarising “the whole duty of man” at once toward God and toward his fellows ; and it was not propounded by this Rabbi on the spur of the moment: it was a commonplace of Jewish theology. Our Lord approved it (Dt. vi. 5; Lev. xix. 18). “The right answer” said He. “This do, and you will live.”
It was indeed admirable doctrine, but the Rabbis spoiled it by a characteristic limitation, defining “a neighbour” as a fellow-Jew. The commandment, as they interpreted it, required them to love “the children of their people” ; but there the duty rested, and to “the children of strangers” they owed only hatred and scorn. Here the Rabbi saw his opportunity. “And who,” he asked, “is my ‘ neighbour ’ ?”
Our Lord answered with an apposite parable, telling how one evening as a man was travelling down that notorious road from Jerusalem to Jericho, he was assailed by brigands, who plundered him and left him lying half dead. Presently a Priest came down the road, returning from his day’s ministry in the Temple, and on espying the man lying there he took alarm. If he lingered, he too might be attacked ; and besides he could do no good since the man was apparently dead. [ p. 262 ] So he hurried past. Then came a Levite, and he followed his superior’s prudent example. By and by a Samaritan came jogging along on his ass ; and when he saw the unfortunate, he dismounted and, regardless of his own safety, dressed his wounds, according to the medical prescription of the time, with a healing lotion of oil and wine, and lifting him on his ass conveyed him to an inn. Though travelling on business he stopped with him, sitting up and tending him. He was a regular traveller, well known on the road and his credit good ; and as he was resuming his interrupted journey at an early hour, “toward the morrow,” (Cf. Mt. xx. 2) he interviewd the landlord and bespoke his kind offices. He deposited two denarii —quite a handsome sum, since a denarius was an ordinary day’s wage at that period. “Take care of him,” said he ; “and whatever more you may spend, I shall pay you on my return.”
“Which of these three,” said our Lord to the Rabbi, “do you fancy to have acted ‘ neighbour’ to the man who encountered the brigands ? ” “The one who had pity on him,” was the inevitable answer. “Go, and do you likewise.”
It was a crushing discomfiture for His assailant and at the same time a salutary lesson for all His hearers, especially His own disciples who after their recent experience were thinking so resentfully of the Samaritans.