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A RETREAT INLAND
Mk. i. 35-45 ; Lk. iv. 42-44, v. 12-16 ; Mt. iv. 23-25, viii. 2-4.
It had been a hard day, and Jesus would be weary when He sought His couch. Yet He could not rest He was troubled by the commotion which His miracles had excited. For what did it mean ? His miracles had persuaded the people that He was indeed the Messiah ; and this would have been well had they truly interpreted His Messiahship. But they conceived of the Messiah as a political deliverer; and already He had perceived the mischievousness of this secular ideal and its menace to the recognition of His spiritual purposes. That evening while He healed the sick folk, the multitude had acclaimed Him the Son of God, the Christ, and He had sought to restrain their enthusiasm ; but He knew how unavailing His remonstrance would prove. And so He resolved that He would withdraw from Capernaum for a season until the excitement should subside, and make a circuit of Galilee, publishing His Gospel in the inland towns and villages.
It was an important departure, and first, as He was wont throughout His ministry, He would take counsel with His Father in prayer. There was no seclusion in that narrow and crowded dwelling, and He left His couch ere daybreak and, stealing out of doors, betook Himself to “a solitary place,” probably some retreat on the hillside behind the town.
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In the morning He was missed, and the disciples went in search of Him. The alarm spread, and the neighbours joined in the quest. At length they found Him. “They are all seeking you” cried the disciples, expecting that He would hasten back and resume the ministry which seemed to them so successful. But He told them of His resolution : “Let us away elsewhere to the adjoining country-towns, that I may preach there too. It was for this that I came out here.”
They travelled inland. Since He had already traversed southern Galilee on His way from the Passover and preached there the following year on the occasion of another retreat inland, He would now visit the midland and the north. It was a populous region thickly strewn with towns and villages, including Sepphoris, Jotapata, Iron, Hazor, Gischala, and Chorazin, and in the course of His circuit He would accomplish an extensive mission. He preached in the s y na g°gues, finding there an ample opportunity, since the congregations assembled not only twice on the Sabbath but on the second day of the week (Monday) and again on the fifth (Thursday). And wherever in streets and fields the people gathered round Him, He discoursed to them and healed their sicknesses.
Every day was crowded with beneficent activities; and the same misjudging enthusiasm which had driven Him from Capernaum, increasingly embarrassed Him until at length it brought His mission to an abrupt close. Of all the maladies afflicting the peoples of the East leprosy was then, as it still is, the most grievous (Cf. Lev. xiii. 38-46). Being incurable by human [ p. 86 ] skill, it was accounted a visitation of God, remediable only by His miraculous mercy. It was a loathsome disease, “so noisome,” says Maundrell, “that it might well pass for the utmost Corruption of the Human Body on this side the Grave.” (Cf. 2 Ki. v. 7) Its initial symptom was a reddish-white scar, and immediately it appeared the victim knew that he was doomed (Num. xii. 12). He was reckoned as already dead. For a while he was unrestricted, but as the malady ran its course his flesh became one putrid mass and he was excluded from human intercourse. He had to go with rent garments, bare head, unkempt hair, and muffled mouth, crying “Unclean ! unclean !” to give warning of his approach.
In “one of the cities” there was a leper—“full of leprosy” as St. Luke the physician observes. He had heard the fame of Jesus, and His arrival in the town kindled hope in his breast. All day long, as the Divine Healer went about teaching the people and laying His hand on the sick, the forlorn creature would watch Him from afar, fain, had he dared, to approach Him and entreat His mercy; and when evening fell, he lingered about the door of His lodging until he could restrain himself no longer. No one was by, and he daringly entered and, kneeling before Him, cried: “Lord, if you will, you can cleanse me.” Who, though ever so pitiful, would not have shrunk away from that sickening form ? It was reckoned pollution for a Jew to come within six feet of a leper ; and it is told of one Rabbi that, when he saw a leper, he hid himself, and of another that, when he saw one, he would pelt him with stones. But the Lord’s compassion conquered even His natural loathing, and He reached out His [ p. 87 ] hand and not merely “touched him” but, as the word employed by all the three Evangelists signifies, “grasped him.” “I will,” said He : “be cleansed.” And instantly health flushed through the diseased frame, and the rotting flesh was sweet and fair.
Swift as the cure was the change which passed over our Lord’s bearing. “He frowned upon him, and immediately expelled him,” bidding him without a word about the miracle hasten away to Jerusalem and, in accordance with the legal requirement, present himself for priestly examination in the Temple (Mk. i. 43). What did He mean ? It lay with the priest to pronounce a leper clean (Cf. Lev. xiv. 1-32), and unless the legal ordinance were respected, it would seem as though Jesus were deliberately violating it, and thus He would needlessly offend the already suspicious rulers. And moreover, were it divulged, so striking a miracle would intensify the popular enthusiasm. It had been wrought in privacy, and if the man forthwith quitted the town, it would remain a secret and He might continue His ministry unembarrassed.
His admonition was disregarded. No sooner was the man out of doors than, unable to contain himself, he told the story and it was noised abroad. The enthusiasm was boundless, insomuch that Jesus had to quit the town. Everywhere He went the fame of it had preceded Him, and He retreated to the solitude of the open country and took counsel with God in prayer. It was impossible for Him to continue His mission, and He turned His steps homeward and made His way back to Capernaum.