It could not have been long after this, most likely, as soon as possible, that the healed man and his Healer met in the Temple. What He then said to him, completed the inward healing. On the ground of his having been healed, let him be whole. As he trusted and obeyed Jesus in the outward cure, so let him now inwardly and morally trust and obey. Here also this looking through the external to the internal, through the temporal to the spiritual and eternal, which is so characteristic of the after-discourse of Jesus, nay, of all His discourses and of His deeds, is most marked. The healed man now knew to Whom he owed faith, gratitude, and trust of obedience; and the consequences of this knowledge must have been incalculable. It would make him a disciple in the truest sense. And this was the only additional lesson which he, as each of us, must learn
individually and personally: that the man healed by Christ stands in quite another position, as regards the morally right, from what he did before, not only before his healing, but even before his felt sickness, so that, if he were to go back to sin, or rather, as the original implies, 'continue to sin,' [1 See Westcott ad loc] a thing infinitely worse would come to him.
It seems an idle question, why the healed man told the Jews that it was Jesus. It was only natural that he should do so. Rather do we ask, How did he know that He Who had spoken to him was Jesus? Was it by the surrounding of keen-eyed, watchful Rabbis, or by the contradiction of sinners? Certain we are, that it was far better Jesus should have silently withdrawn from the porches of Bethesda to make it known in the Temple, Who it was that had done this miracle. Far more effectually could He so preach its lesson to those who had been in Bethesda, and to all Jewry.
And yet something further was required. He must speak it out in clear, open words, what was the hidden inward meaning of this miracle. As so often, it was the bitter hatred of His persecutors which gave Him the opportunity. The first forthbursting of His Messianic Mission and Character had come in that Temple, when He realised it as His Father's House, and His Life as about His Father's business. Again had these thoughts about His Father kindled within Him in that Temple, when, on the first occasion of His Messianic appearance there, He had sought to purge it, that it might be a House of Prayer. And now, once more in that House, it was the same consciousness about God as His Father, and His Life as the business of His Father, which furnished the answer to the angry invectives about His breach of the Sabbath-Law. The Father's Sabbath was His; the Father worked hitherto and He worked; the Father's work and His were the same; He was the Son of the Father, [a ver. 17.] And in this He also taught, what the Jews had never understood, the true meaning of the Sabbath-Law, by emphasising that which was the fundamental thought of the Sabbath, 'Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it:' not the rest of inactivity, but of blessing and hallowing.
Once more it was not His whole meaning, but only this one point, that He claimed to be equal with God, of which they took hold. As we understand it, the discourse beginning with verse 19 is not a continuation of that which had been begun in verse 17, but was delivered on another, though probably proximate occasion. By what He had said about the Father working hitherto and His working, He had silenced the multitude, who must have felt that God's rest was truly that of beneficence, not of inactivity. But He had raised another question, that of His equality with God, and for this He was taken to task by the Masters in Israel. To them it was that He addressed that discourse which, so to speak, preached His miracle at the Pool of Bethesda. Into its details we cannot enter further than has already been done. Some of its reasonings can be clearly traced, as starting from certain fundamental positions, held in common alike by the Sanhedrists and by Christ. Others, such as probably in answer to unreported objections, we may guess at. This may also account for what may seem occasional abruptness of transitions.
But what most impresses us, is the majestic grandeur of Christ's self-consciousness in presence of His enemies, and yet withal the tone of pitying sadness which pervades His discourse. The time of the judgment of silence had not yet come. And for the present the maj esty of His bearing overawed them, even as it did His enemies to the end, and Christ could pass unharmed from among them. And so ended that day in Jerusalem. And this is all that is needful for us to know
of His stay at the Unknown Feast. With this inward separation, and the gathering of hostile parties closes the first and begins the second, stage of Christ's Ministry.
THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF TRANSFIGURATION. BY THE SEA OF GALILEE, THE FINAL CALL OF THE FIRST DISCIPLES, AND THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES. CHAPTER XIII
(St. Matt. iv. 18-22; St. Marki. 16-20; St. Luke v. 1-11.)
We are once again out of the stifling spiritual atmosphere of the great City, and by the glorious Lake of Galilee. They were other men, these honest, simple, earnest, impulsive Galileans, than that self-seeking,sophistical, heartless assemblage of Rabbis, whose first active persecution Jesus had just encountered, and for the time overawed by the majesty of His bearing. His return to Capernaum could not have remained unknown. Close by, on either side of the city, the country was studded with villages and towns, a busy, thriving, happy multitude. During that bright summer He had walked along that Lake, and by its shore and in the various Synagogues preached His Gospel. And they had been 'astonished at His doctrine, for His word was with power.' For the first time they had heard what they felt to be 'the Word of God,' and they had learned to love its sound. What wonder that, immediately on His return, 'the people pressed upon Him to hear' it.
If we surrender ourselves to the impression which the Evangelic narratives give us when pieced together, [1 The accounts in the three Synoptic Gospels must be carefully pieced together. It will be seen that only thus can they be understood. The narratives of St. Matthew and St. Mark are almost literally the same, only adding in St. Mark i. 20 a notice about 'the hired servants,' which is evidential of the Petrine origin of the information. St. Luke seems to have made special inquiry, and, while adopting the narrative of the others, supplements it with what without them would be almost unintelligible.] it would almost seem, as if what we are about to relate had occurred while Jesus was returning from Jerusalem. For, the better reading of St. Mark i. 16 gives this as the mark of time: 'As He was passing on by the Sea of Galilee.' But perhaps, viewed in connection with what follows, the impression may be so far modified, that we may think of it as on the first morning after His return. It had probably been a night of storm on the Lake. For, the toil of the fishermen had brought them no draught of fishes, [a St. Luke v. 5.] and they stood by the shore, or in the boats drawn up on the beach, casting in their nets to 'wash' them [1 St. Matt. iv. 18 &c; St. Mark i. 16 &c. as compared with St. Luke v. 2.] of the sand and pebbles, with which such a night's work would clog them, or to mend what had been torn by the violence of the waves. It was a busy scene; for, among the many industries by the Lake of Galilee, that of fishing was not only the most generally pursued, but perhaps the most lucrative. Tradition had it, that since the days of Joshua, and by one of his ten ordinances, fishing in the Lake, though under certain necessary restrictions, was free to all. [2 In order not to impede navigation, it was forbidden to fix nets. For these two ordinances, see Baba K. 80 b, last line &c. The reference to the fishing in the lake is in 81 b. But see Tos. Baba K. viii. 17, 18.] And as fish was among the favouritearticles of diet, in health and
sickness, on week-days and especially at the Sabbath-meal, many must have been employed in connection with this trade. Frequent, and sometimes strange, are the Rabbinic advices, what kinds offish to eat at different times, and in what state of preparation. They were eaten fresh, dried, or pickled; [b St. Matt. vii. 10; xiii. 47; xv. 36.] a kind of'relish' or sauce was made of them, and the roe also prepared, [c Ab. Z. 39 a.] or twine, [d Bab. Mez ii. 1.] and the smaller fish in baskets or casks. In truth, these Rabbis are veritable connoisseurs in this delicacy; they discuss their size with exaggerations, advise when they are in season, discern a peculiar flavour in the same kinds if caught in different waters, and tell us how to prepare them most tastfully, cautioning us to wash them down, if it cannot be with water, with beer rather than wine, [e Moed K. 11 a, last line.] [3 Three lines before that we read this saying of a fisherman: 'Roast fish with his brother (salt), lay it beside his father (water), eat it with his son (fish-juice), and drink upon it his father' (water).] It is one of their usual exaggerations, when we read of 300 different kinds offish at a dinner given to a great Rabbi, [f Jer. Sheq. vi. 2, p. 50 a.]although the common proverb had it, to denote what was abundant, that it was like 'bringing fish to Acco.' [g Shem. R. 9.] Besides, fish was also largely importedfrom abroad. [4 Specially from Egypt and Spain, Machsh. vi. 3.] It indicates the importance of this traffic, that one of the gates of Jerusalem was called 'the fish-gate.' [h Neh. iii. 3.] Indeed, there is a legend [i Ber. 44 a.] to the effect, that not less than 600,000 casks of sardines were every week supplied for the fig-dressers of King Jannaeus. But, apart from such exaggerations, so considerable was this trade that, at a later period, one of the
