Pastor Pastorum Part 17

"And they began to beseech him to depart from their borders."(197)

It would be hard upon this people to say that they counted the deliverance of their brother a less matter than the loss of their swine; they were terror-stricken at the display of superhuman power, and they wished to be rid of their cause of fear.

In the above verse we find the first instance of indifference or aversion among those to whom our Lord went.

The schooling of the Apostles leads them steadily on; step by step they advance into the rougher ground of actual life, and one such step is noted here.

It was well, as I have said, that a glow of success should at starting rest upon their path, but they could never grow into hardy wayfarers if all the ways were smooth and all the weather bright; there were in them many qualities, good and hard, which could only take their proper l.u.s.tre by rubbing against what was rough. So they were early taught to expect opposition, and they saw in what spirit it was dealt with by our Lord.

Men, thinking only of the contest, are apt to lose sight of the matter in debate, and make it a point of honour not to give way. They are often made obstinate by being opposed. Our Lord counts the fact that opposition exists to be material in the case and allows it its weight. Here the people pray Him to go and He goes. He could do them no good by staying against their will. He returns at once to the western side of the Lake, and soon after his arrival we read of the raising of Jairus' daughter.

With the miracle itself I have nothing to do; I am concerned with the choosing of Peter, James and John, to witness the miracle,(198) but this is an instance of the principle which will form the subject of the next chapter and will there be discussed.

After this, according to my view of the chronology, our Lord paid a second visit to Nazareth accompanied by His disciples. He may have supposed that the news of His doings would have turned His townspeople towards Him; but the old impression is still strong among them. A man from G.o.d, they thought, must come they knew not whence, whereas Jesus and His brothers they had known all their lives; and although it seems that His mother and brethren had gone to live at Capernaum,(199) His sisters were still among them in Nazareth. We may gather from these two events that the faith of the disciples had by this time grown strong enough to encounter opposition without harm. A strong conviction is confirmed by attack; it takes up a firm position on its bases of support; while a stripling faith bends and quivers at every gust of disbelief.

It was soon after this rejection at Nazareth, and possibly from the neighbourhood of that place, that our Lord sent forth the Twelve on their mission journey, giving them the very remarkable injunction, which I print below. St Luke tells us of another mission of seventy disciples; how long a time elapsed between the two missions, or whether the Apostles were among the seventy, we do not know; inasmuch as the circ.u.mstances of the two journeys, and the directions given are very similar, and the educational purport of the two is alike, I shall print both the narratives here, and consider the two events together. St Mark's account is as follows:

"And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and he gave them authority over the unclean spirits; and he charged them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no bread, no wallet, no money in their purse; but to go shod with sandals: and, said he, put not on two coats. And he said unto them, Wheresoever ye enter into a house, there abide till ye depart thence. And whatsoever place shall not receive you, and they hear you not, as ye go forth thence, shake off the dust that is under your feet for a testimony unto them. And they went out, and preached that men should repent.

And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them."(200)

St Luke gives this account of the sending of the seventy.

"Now after these things the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself was about to come. And he said unto them, The harvest is plenteous, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth labourers into his harvest. Go your ways: behold, I send you forth as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no wallet, no shoes: and salute no man on the way. And into whatsoever house ye shall enter, first say, Peace be to this house. And if a son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon him: but if not, it shall turn to you again.

And in that same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house. And into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you: and heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them, The kingdom of G.o.d is come nigh unto you. But into whatsoever city ye shall enter, and they receive you not, go out into the streets thereof and say, Even the dust from your city, that cleaveth to our feet, we do wipe off against you: howbeit know this, that the kingdom of G.o.d is come nigh."(201)

In the account of St Matthew we find some small differences. The discourses delivered on the two occasions are perhaps combined.(202)

It so rarely happens that practical directions as to conduct or behaviour are given to the Apostles by our Lord, that we may be convinced that there is strong reason for His so doing in this case. A lesson of great moment was to be taught by this mission; much depended on the spirit in which it was carried out. This spirit would be affected by the external circ.u.mstances, and these are therefore so ordered as to give the greatest possible impressiveness to the lesson in view.

These missions have another singularity. Our Lord, contrary to His usual practice, explains the part they bore in the education of His followers.

In a few words spoken to the Twelve, as He was leaving the chamber on the way to Gethsemane, He throws abundant light on the whole purport of these journeys.

The words are these:

"And he said unto them, When I sent you forth without purse, and wallet, and shoes, lacked ye anything? And they said, Nothing. And he said unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise a wallet: and he that hath none, let him sell his cloke, and buy a sword. For I say unto you, that this which is written must be fulfilled in me, And he was reckoned with transgressors: for that which concerneth me hath fulfilment. And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough."(203)

From this it is seen that all these provisions and directions had a definite purpose, tending to give certain strong impressions to the Twelve, one of the most important being that the Twelve might trust themselves to Christ's guardianship even when He was not by.

They were sent without purse and scrip and shoes, and they found that those among whom they came would not suffer them to lack anything: all went smoothly as they proceeded with their work in the Lord's name. They were to be kept free from sordid anxieties and hara.s.sing bodily wants, in order that their minds might be open to higher lessons; and that they might gain the habit of trusting-not indeed that Christ would send them on every occasion just what they desired-but that He would not suffer them to be tried beyond their strength. Possibly, on that journey all their needs were supplied so easily, that it may hardly have struck them as strange that they never had felt the lack of anything they required. They may never have thought that what seemed to come by accident was really the Lord's doing and part of His plan, until He Himself recalled this mission to their minds.

Our Lord goes on to teach them that these journeys of theirs to the cities, compared to the missions awaiting them in the actual life on which they so soon would enter, were only what the mimic fight on a day of review is to the conflict of real war; or what the exercise of a swimmer in a school, within reach of his instructor's help, is to the crossing a river for his life. In the exercise ground one lesson, or one set of motions is taught at a time; but when the faculty acquired is brought into actual practice all a man's capacities and endowments are wanted to work together at once. So, in Christ's schooling also, one thing is taught at a time. Two leading qualities only, viz. trustfulness in Christ's spiritual oversight and a helpful self-reliance, were cultivated and tested by this preparatory mission; but in the actual work itself which awaited the Twelve, every gift of nature or fortune, and every faculty of their being would have to be brought into play and turned to the best account.

They went on their way through the cities without purse or wallet, and they found then that no money or provision was needed; but in the real work awaiting them, in the open world, they must take thought beforehand for all their needs; and those who have worldly means are to use them in G.o.d's service just as they must do their talents or their strength. They are to be wise as serpents as well as simple as doves. Prudence and a good judgment are entrusted gifts whose true worth is most apparent when they are turned to the service of G.o.d. It is not only piety for which G.o.d has a care; He claims for his service all endowments of fortune and body and mind; station and wealth, health and skill of hand, judgment, utterance, and clearness of thought-all these are held on trust for Him. The Apostles had been sent on the mission without any provision, in order that they might learn this one particular lesson-what it was to abandon themselves to the guardianship of Christ. In the real work now lying close before them, He bids them use the same forethought and the same practical good sense in all that relates to G.o.d's service as in what relates to their own. They went to the cities without arms, and they were unmolested on their way; but now they are told to provide weapons of self-defence, even though they should sell their garments to buy them. It is not the arms themselves that are the gist of the matter, but they stand for a symbol of that personal courage which would have to play no small part in the work of the Christian Church.

Again these words of our Lord throw a stream of light upon what was His object in the plan He pursued; they shew that the training of the Apostles was carried on continually and systematically from the first, and was among the things always uppermost in His mind. When the Twelve set out on this first mission journey it seemed to them a pa.s.sing act in the regular course of ministerial duty, but after a year had gone by, it is brought back to their minds by our Lord; and they learn the significance of that which they had almost suffered to pa.s.s out of mind. It is cited, not with regard to what it effected directly-not for the good it did to those who were taught-but for the qualities it fostered in the preachers themselves.

That these preachers rendered service to those to whom they were sent there can be no doubt, but the notice of our Lord calls attention, not to this, but to the lesson which the Apostles learned. There are some points in these directions which it is hard to explain if we suppose them given solely with the practical view of furthering the Apostles' work, as Christ's forerunners in making known to the people the advent of the Kingdom of G.o.d. We do not, on such an hypothesis, see why they should have gone without food or raiment or have saluted no man on the way; they would have made no fewer converts if they had taken purse and scrip and wished "G.o.d speed" to those they met. They might, indeed, have _done_ the same good, but they would not have _got_ the same good. We shall see presently how these instructions were calculated to make them feel that they were G.o.d's servants, dignified by their duty, and withdrawn by their special overmastering vocation from the ordinary intercourse of man with man.

The effects of this journey were twofold. There was an outside good to be done by the workers in the world, and an inside good to be done within themselves. This last was brought about by the mental processes and motions they went through in doing the _outside_ good to which only they gave their thoughts at the time. They supposed that they were sent on this mission because their Master wished the Kingdom of G.o.d to be preached in the cities, and they regarded the particular injunctions,-if they thought about them at all,-as the set rules of garb and procedure for preachers of the Kingdom. It never occurred to them that by all this they were being made to grow inwardly in the way that Christ desired. They could not be told unto what end they were being educated, for self-consciousness would have spoiled all. They would have got no _inner_ good, if they had not believed they were doing _outer_ good, and good no doubt they did.

Moreover they never thought about themselves at all. Christ's disciples are always led away from doing so. They are, with sedulous care, kept so occupied in body and mind that at last self is lost sight of, and they become absorbed in their love for their Master, and in the glory of feeling that they have a share in His work.

Along with the lesson of confidence in their Master's care, there went another, not less prominently insisted upon, that of the dignity of the work they were being consecrated to do. They were to go in Christ's name, preaching the Kingdom He had declared, and affirming its presence by such Signs as He had Himself shewn. This dignity belonged, not personally to themselves, but to the Lord whom they represented; they felt secure, just as the Amba.s.sador of a power feels Sacrosanct because he represents the Majesty of his State.

They were to be possessed with the sense of the greatness of the charge laid on them, and all their being was to be concentrated in this. Their eyes are never to be off their goal; hence the minute precautions against distraction.

The directions for their equipment will be seen to further the growth of the impressions desired.

They are to go two together; this is a rule always observed. Our Lord sent "messengers before his face(204) into a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him;" it is not said that they were two in number, but as James and John are loud in their indignation, it is not improbable that they were the messengers. Two disciples are sent to find the colt before our Lord's entrance to Jerusalem,(205) and Peter and John together are sent to make ready the Pa.s.sover.(206) Afterwards, in all the Apostolic journeys the Church followed the practice. In these mission journeys of the newly chosen Apostles we see how well it suited the objects in view that they should go in pairs. If three or more had gone together the sacred character of their journey might more easily have dropped out of sight.

Conversation on indifferent points would have been more likely to arise and dissension might have ensued; two might have differed in opinion and each have tried to gain over the third. They could hardly have remained so absorbed in their purpose, as when they went two together, full of the one matter in their hearts and rarely interchanging a word.

Neither would it have been well for them to go one by one. A man by himself has many dangers. He may grow downcast, and a depressed condition is not favourable to the growth of Faith; or he may harp upon one idea, and having no one with him to criticise it and reduce it to its right proportion, it may overshadow his whole mind and degenerate into a craze.

The solitary missionary might find danger also in success. If the cures he wrought excited admiration, he might be inclined to take some of the glory to himself: or he might be tempted to go beyond his commission to preach the Kingdom, and try to establish some notions of his own about Jesus as the Christ. The presence of his colleague would recall him to his true position and remind him that he was not about his own work but his Master's. If one of the pair were inclined to take too much on himself, or to allow the people to exaggerate his own part in the wonder wrought, he would be sure to find a silent monitor in his colleague's eye. When two men go together not only does each represent to the other the purpose with which he is sent, but also each supports the other. When one is inclined to despond the other feels forced to take a hopeful tone and this does good to both.

The Apostles were to salute no man by the way; they were not to join in any trivial wayside talk. This served to impress upon them the solemn nature of their work; all their thoughts were to be centred in that, it was to supply the master purpose of their lives. They had G.o.d's work to do and G.o.d's message to give, and there should be no room in their hearts for any thing but this. This severed them for the time from the rest of the world. They were to go, side by side, with their staves in their hands, not looking this way or that, but having the fixed gaze and steadfast air of men who are marching determinedly to their goal.

When they come to the city where they will stay they are not to plead for hospitality; they have not come of themselves or for themselves-they are G.o.d's messengers; they are to go to the house which they think fittest, and, if denied, they are to shake off the dust from their feet and go elsewhere, and, when admitted, there they are to abide as of right. There is to be no shifting of quarters; disturbance and unsettlement is studiously avoided, as in all other proceedings of our Lord. Many among the householders of a village might strive to have a share in entertaining the prophets of G.o.d; and the pa.s.sing of these from house to house would bring into play little worldly jealousies and call off the attention of the missionary from his single object. Where they are admitted, they are told, "there abide and thence depart."

The Apostles are given minute directions as to outfit and demeanour but very little as to what they were to say. They were not to be mere mouthpieces, they were teachers as well, and were left to teach in their own way. To use responsibility was the highest part of the lesson they had to learn, and if they had been tied down too precisely this responsibility would have been lost. We have no record of their preaching on this journey-they are sent to proclaim one truth and one only "That the Kingdom of G.o.d was come." This truth they might enforce in any way they chose-they might preach to many or few, in houses or synagogues or on the mountain side-and if any disbelieved that G.o.d's Kingdom was come, they were to a.s.sure their hearers that it was none the less about them on every side, because they did not choose to believe it was there.(207) On their return, they relate what they had taught.(208)

There is another point. They are not directed even to name our Lord; He would not suffer them to proclaim Jesus of Nazareth, for He had not "come in his own name."(209) This law is most steadily observed; the seventy say on their return, that the devils were subject to them through our Lord's name, but though they may have used His name when they wrought cures, they do not seem to have declared that the expected Messiah had come; they kept to what they were told to do. The wonder is that no one on this mission should have announced Jesus as the Messiah: they could not have been warned against doing so, because to warn them specially would have been to suggest the notion of that which was to be avoided. A similar circ.u.mstance may have been one cause of the fervent thanks which our Lord renders to His Father on the return of the seventy.(210)

How long this journey of the Apostles lasted we do not know; the exigencies of harmonists have led some of them to reduce it to a day or two, but I should suppose it to have occupied at least a week. Neither do we know in what districts the journeys took place; but that the Twelve started from the neighbourhood of Nazareth in the spring of A.D. 29, and the seventy from the Northern border of Judaea or from Peraea in the following autumn, is a plausible guess. The words, "Go not into the way of the Gentiles," &c. which St Matthew puts at the head of our Lord's directions, I think refer to the mission of the seventy. In Peraea they were close to Gentile countries and Samaria lay in the way to parts of Galilee and Judaea. They are told not to abide in any Samaritan city or set foot at all in a Gentile land; our Lord is first sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. All went well on both occasions. On the return of the seventy our Lord saw in this success of His disciples in their ministration, an augury of the establishment of His Church. Men, it was plain, could be trusted for the great work in view; and in this success of the disciples in setting it afoot our Lord seemed to behold the Power of Evil falling from the sky. Our Lord pours out His soul on this occasion in thankfulness to His Father.

"In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes: yea, Father; for so it was well-pleasing in thy sight. All things have been delivered unto me of my Father: and no one knoweth who the Son is, save the Father; and who the Father is, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him."(211)

This thankfulness of our Lord a.s.sures us of one point; these seventy must have been exposed to the possibility of failure. Our Lord's joy is that of one delivered from a great anxiety. This instance bears out the view that our Lord's knowledge of the immediate future was, partly at least, in abeyance during His stay on earth. Indeed, if He had been free from all feeling of uncertainty, His life could not have been truly human. The course of daily events depending on the will of others did not in general lie spread out to His view.

Another ill.u.s.tration of this occurs on the return of the Twelve; our Lord goes to the desert seeking quiet, but in this He is disappointed, for He finds Himself attended by five thousand people.

St Mark tells us

"And the apostles gather themselves together unto Jesus; and they told him all things, whatsoever they had done, and whatsoever they had taught. And he saith unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while. For there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desert place apart."(212)

This rule of our Lord to give the Apostles rest and leisure after a period of mental strain, or when much food for reflection had been taken in, is almost invariable. Our Lord's intention is, in this case, frustrated by the zeal of the mult.i.tude, who running together from the villages, go round the head of the Lake and meet Him on the sh.o.r.e near the northern end. St John speaking of this matter says:

"Now the pa.s.sover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. Jesus therefore lifting up his eyes, and seeing that a great mult.i.tude cometh unto him, saith unto Philip, Whence are we to buy bread, that these may eat?"(213)