Poor Magdalene's Tears Illumined
Tesus probably returned to Capertiaum after the great miracle at Nain, though the circumstance about to be related may have occurred in that village. The gospels are silent as to His deeds while at Nain, though it is scarcely believable that He concluded the ministry there with a single act of mercy. Having raised the dead to life, He must have made that great deed a beginning of merciful acts in the village where He was certain now to meet with favor. But the record is so broken and incomplete that we cannot follow Him in the mighty works which He performed. What a blessing to civilization is the daily press, and the restless activity of energetic news-gathers who make it the medium through which we view the doings of the Christianized world. Oh, if in the days of Christ every town in Palestine had been blessed with a daily, or weekly, or monthly newspaper, how much the world would have been benefited b)’ full and accurate reports of Jesus’ doings. But there were no types or printing presses or active reporters to herald events in those days. No means of communication except by word of mouth, no records except the few made by scribes, no books except those in manuscript, which only one in ten thousand persons was able to read. Small wonder then that the gospel accounts of our Saviour’s works and life are so brief. Nothing save momentous reasons, absolute authenticity of the wonders performed, made even a fragmentary’ record of them by the disciples possible. Not that all the things written by scribes in the early centuries are true, but because the New Testament bears, by reason of its sublime, aye, divine, images, teachings, history, revelations, the impress of inspiration, even without the corroborating testimonies of the time and of the ages.
Banquet in Honor of Jesus.
Whether in Nain or Capernaum, or other place in Galilee, Jesus had become known to all the people, so that sinners, as well as the converted, followed Him wherever He went. The contempt expressed by vain-glorious rabbis and Pharisees could not repress the faith of those who saw great miracles performed, and the rigid requirements of the Mosaic Law and the autocratic domination of a priestly but intensely worldly class could not restrain the noble impulses, born of conviction, that brought even Pharisees to show favor to the Holy One. More than one of this haughty sect had so far humbled himself in the eyes of his fellows as ta acknowledge Jesus as the Christ. And now comes another, named Simon, who
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/ sends an invitation to our I^ord asking His company at a dinner which was to be given probabl)^ in His honor.
What was Simon’s motive in sending this invitation? Why, it was like insulting his sect; it meant social ostracism, it meant the loss of influence, loss of business, loss of friends! It was therefore a bold step, hence Simon must have had good reason for his action. But Jesus may have healed some whom Simon loved, or given him new understanding such as created a faith in his heart that here was indeed the Messiah, or he may have been drawn to Him through sympathy, for bitter persecution of our enemies often excites our compassion and makes us befriend them. But whatever was the prompting, Jesus accepted the invitation, for He had no enmities, not even for His persecutors, and no revilings for the faithless, no pride that lifted Him above association with the lowest or even the sinful.
Simon may have considered it a condescension on his part to invite Jesus to meet his friends at dinner in his house, and this appears to be true, because he did not observe towards his guest the customs which were invariable among Pharisees. Several years before the time of Christ the custom had obtained in Palestine of setting food on table-couches about one foot in height and arranged on three sides of a square, where the guests were served, by the sides of which cushions were placed for the diners to rest on in a reclining position, with feet behind them. Before sitting at the table, hospitality required that several usages, which appear singular to us, be observed. Upon entering the house each guest must remove his sandals and leave them outside the door. He was then received by the host with a kiss on the cheek, and with the salutation,” The Lord be with you.” Having thus been welcomed, the guest took his seat beside the table, when a servant brought water and washed his feet as a ceremony figurative of cleanliness. Following this the master of the house or his servant applied to the beard and head of the guest fragrant oil as a ceremonial of anointment, aftei which another pail of water was brought in for the guest to wash his hands. This latter ceremony was figurative of legal purity as well as an act of cleanliness, the guests having to take their bread in the fingers and dip into a dish that was passed around to all.
The Bathing of Tired Feet.
While the company in Simon’s house were partaking of the meal, theii feasting was arrested by the entrance of a woman bearing in her hands an alabaster box of ointment; pausing but a moment, in her difiidence, she timidly approached Jesus and with worshipful mien stooped down to anoint with oil and to kiss His feet, as a mark of extreme humility and reverence; but so overcome was she by emotion that a flood of tears gushed from her eyes and fell upon the unsandaled feet of her Saviour, at the same time her long hair became loosed from its fastenings, which she quickly seized and used as a towel to wipe the feet which her tears of contrition had thus bathed. What agitation, what patience, what sting of conscience, and what adoration exhibited by this sincere penitent! But who was she? Well, she was not a righteous woman, she was not only a Gentile, she was not merely a Pharisee come to acknowledge the hypocrisy of her people, nor a woman who felt regret for an ordinar>’ sin. She was worse than any of these, than all of these, for she was a courtezan. Oh, what a crime is this! What an unpardonable sin, that all the rabbis and the self-righteous, and the proud Pharisees could not condone, but who made the offence as great as murder, or blasphemy, or treason, and who only withheld the penalty of death because there was so much like guilt among themselves. Simon was appalled by such effrontery, horrified, indignant at what he esteemed to be the »uost aggravating insult
TABLE-COUCHES OF PALESTINE.
that his guest could possibly suffer. Why, no woman, not even a good woman,
not even a wife or daughter, might obtrude her presence upon an assemblage of
friends at meals, but not only is there here a transgression of social custom but
the intruder is a corrupt creature! The disgust of Simon and his Pharisaic
fellows, who were doubtless present, was doubly intensified upon seeing Jesus
accept with apparent pleasure such defilement, such pollution. “Why,” said
they in their hearts, “if this Man is what He pretends to be He would have
known who the woman is and that she is a sinner, and He would have repelled
her advances as a moral leper, whose touch was to be avoided as poison to both
flesh and soul.”
The Quest Rebukes the Host.
Understanding, by divine perception, what Simon was revolving in his mind, Jesus turned to him and said,” Will you answer Me this question? There was a certain creditor who had two debtors; the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which of them will love him most?
” Simon answered and said, I suppose that he to whom he forgave most. And He said unto him. Thou hast rightly judged.
“And He turned unto the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet; but she has washed my feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest Me no kiss, but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint, but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment.
“Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for .she loved much; but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.”
Then directing His conversation to the penitent and weeping woman. He spoke compassionate words which lifted her soul out of its travail and dispelled the darkness in her heart by the light of divine forgiveness. Said He,” Thy «ins be forgiven. Thy faith hath saved thee: go in peace.”
She was a depraved woman, but by God’s immeasurable grace she was not a lost woman! No sin so great that it may not be reached and cured by the balm of Christ’s mercy. Society may pass its harsh criticisms, and brand with disgrace, and afflict with stripes, and aggravate by persecution, but Jesus stands as a barrier against the mockers, and He takes the persecuted but penitent outcasts under His care, when lo! they are forgiven and depart in peace.
Another Circuit of Galilee.
After the feast at Simon’s house, Jesus continued His ministry through all the towns and villages of Galilee, being accompanied on this mission by all the twelve of His apostles and by several women who had been drawn to Him by acts of mercy, and the graciousness of His teachings. These were so devoted in their attachments to our Lord that we rejoice that their names are preserved as the first £ve mothers of the Church of Christ. Mary, which name is also rendered Miriam, Miriamne and Marie, was probably the earliest of these to accept Jesus. She was a native of Magdala, from whom seven devils had been cast out, but the special circumstance is not reported. There was also Johanna, wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward in the palace of Tiberias; and Mary, wife of Cleophas, or most likely the wife of James the Less, one of the disciples, as Dr. Smith belieyes; and Salome, wife of Zebedee, mother of John and James, and sister of our Lord’s mother; and Susanna, about whom also we are told little. These loyal five were women of more or less wealth and influence, and they not only gave to Jesus their Jieartiest support, but contributed to Him and the disciples from their possessions, (287)
following Him on all the long and toilsome journeys through the hill country of Galilee, sharing all His hardships and the revilings of Pharisees, and accounting these as blessings because they served to bring them into closer sympathy with Him.
While many in Galilee reflected the prejudices of the scribes and jealous rabbis, friends were not usually wanting to give Jesus and His company food and shelter wherever they stopped, or’ into whatever village they came. Not only were their immediate wants satisfied by generous persons in the towns through which Jesus passed, but contributions of money were made which were given into the care of Judas as treasurer, who in turn distributed it among the poor, for Jesus would not accept, nor permit His disciples to receive personal profit for His ministrations. He was sent to do the will of God, and to dispense salvation without price, and in doing so to teach the vanity of riches, as opposed to the great rewards reserved for the righteous poor.
In His journeyings through Galilee He preached the new Gospel, and by infractions of immemorial customs of austerity among the Pharisees, He repudiated the empty ceremonials which distinguished their religion; He neither fasted nor feasted, nor affected the ostentatious dress of the rabbis, nor wore leathern phylacteries, nor regarded prescribed texts, nor gave countenance to the ascetic restrictions by which Jews were bound when eating; even the ceremony of baptism seems to have been abandoned, probably because rites or sacrifices of any kind appeared to flavor of Jewish formalism, and to practice any of these would make His condemnation of their rituals, as dissimulation and impiety, inconsistent. But He observed the National festivals at Jerusalem, because by these the people were bound together to a recognition of the principles of atonement for sin, the love of God, and the divine blessings upon the institutions which a departure from the true faith had profaned. But He cared nothing for the shadow which so frail a substance cast. The Temple to Him was but the ghost of what was once a splendid reality; a magnificent body from which the spirit had been cast out; the orisons of its priests only indistinct echoes striking back from the past, and with which understanding did not fellowship. On the other hand, Christ taught in the open air, along the beach, on hillside or mountain peak, in the streets among artisans besweated by toil, or among peasants whose plow was left in the furrow, or among the fishermen who dropped their nets even while hauling in a catch, or in households to which He brought peace. He cared nothing for fine temples, or pretentious monuments whose corner-stone was insincerity. He loved the family altar. He loved His friends, He was democratic to a degree, and among sinners, for whom He had the strongest afifection — that love born of compassion — He was not only popular, but He was to them the Christ.
His Mother Seeks Him.
At one place where Christ was preaching and healing, the multitude pressed about Him so closel)- that His mother and brothers, who were on the outer side of the throng, unable to make their way through, communicated, by one to another, their desire to speak with Him. It is not improbable that He anticipated their request for Him to cease His teaching for a while and take such rest as His overtaxed energies .stood so much in need of. Indeed, their anxieties had grown so great that some of His friends seem to have contemplated a forcible seizure of His person to compel His temporar>’ withdrawal from the public. Therefore, when one of the persons learning of Mary’s request said to Him: “Thy mother and Thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with Thee,” He an.swered:” Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?” And He stretched forth His hands towards His di.sciples and said:” Behold My mother and My brethren! ‘”’
This language embodies no disrespect for His mother, for it is used only as a simile, to show His hearers how He estimates those who hear the word of God and do His will; and how these shall be to Him as brother, sister and mother. While the figure thus given was most impressive upon His hearers, it ser’ed also as a gentle reproof to His mother for having regard for His physical rather than His spiritual strength. It was only one of a hundred illustrations which He gave, not only to the multitude that gathered about Him, but to His disciples, His brothers and His mother, that as His commission was from on high so were His energies, and therefore working by Divine direction His corporeal needs were supplied by His spiritual nature.
Charged with the Black Art.
Having for a second time completed a circuit of Galilee, Jesus returned to Capernaum and again entered the house of some one of His many friends there. But His popularity had continued to increase despite the reproaches and insinuations and threats of the rabbis, who sought openly to bring Him into disrepute. They admitted His wonderful powers over death and sickness, but for want of an explanation that would more certainly prejudice Him in the eyes of His followers, they declared that what He did was through the agency of Beelzebub, whom the Phoenicians first introduced as the prince of devils. The rabbis themselves pretended to a possession of secret power, and cultivated occultism. They even claimed to be able to exorcise spirits and to perform many astounding things, which, however, for obvious reasons, they seldom or rather never performed, being apparently content with the pretension. But they taught that there were legions of good and evil spirits, the latter more numerous and generally having greater potentiality, and that they were inextinguishable except by the utterance of certain magic words, accompanied by prescribed acts which were revealed to none save the rabbis. BeHef in this occult power and teachings of the priests prevailed commonly throughout Palestine, and when they accused Jesus of practicing the black art, the charge was not wholly ineffectual. But against it Christ opposed His merciful deeds, and brought clearly to the minds of His hearers the inconsistency of the accusation: that an evil tree might be expected to bring forth good fruit, the sinful to perform righteous acts, Satan himself to be a missionary of the gospel of love, charity and godliness: in short, that hell might with equal reason be converted into heaven, as to ascribe His miracles, His pure life and His teachings to a power borrowed from Beelzebub.
Glorious Dawn of the Parables.
Though at every point of conflict with the rabbis, Jesus covered them with confusion by the unanswerable logic of His reasoning no less than by His deeds, yet this defeat before the multitudes only increased the bitterness of His enemies who saw themselves as steadily declining in the estimation of the people as Jesus was advancing. They regarded Him as a zealot determined upon overthrowing the Mosaic law and subverting the Jewish theocracy, which meant disaster to rabbinical and Pharisaical influence, and complete destruction of their power with the people. The implacable hostility of the rabbis to Christ is not a rare example of man’s antagonism to God for worldly advancement, or for the retention of earthly authority. But Jesus so lightly regarded their enmity, even when it was most threatening, that though He more than once moved out of their immediate reach, He never ceased to condemn the hypocrisy and false pretensions of the rabbis, Pharisees and all evil doers, whatsoever their power or influence.
The multitudes continued to gather about Him, and when He returned to Capernaum He was again forced to leave the house of His friend and the repose it offered, because of the pressing throng. He therefore, as before, repaired to the lake-side. Here also, as previously, the gathering was so great and importunate that He had to seek protection in a boat to avoid the crush. Taking His seat in the prow, only a yard or two from the shore. He instructed the interested congregation by parables, those bold and striking figures of speech and impressive word-illustration which is one of the prime distinguishing marks of His divine ministry. Heretofore we have seen the Lord as a teacher presenting new doctrines in opposition to the beliefs and customs that had the recognition of ages to support their continuance. Some of His sayings were therefore not so easy of interpretation by the ignorant classes who were bound heart and brain to the unyielding forms of ritualism. These direct teachings, while striking home to the hearts of many, fell with imperceptible effect on the heads of others, who, drawn by curiosity, went away to mock. Christ now adopted the parable to !» embellish His teachings, just as illustrations are used to ornament and impress the text of a book. At the same time He gave to them just enough mysticism to excite wonder and to impress with greater firmness those susceptible to instructions, — those who while yet spiritually blind had extreme sensibility of perception, which made them eager to understand when once their curiosity was aroused. The parable was used by rabbis and the Hellenes long before the time of Christ, but it was reserved for Him to present the figure in a stronger light and deeper sense of application to the relationship which man occupies toward his fellows and toward God.
Parable of the Sower..
Instead of delivering a discourse to the congregation by the seaside, Jesus instructed them by presenting to them the parable of a sower, who, without first preparing his field, scattered his seed in a careless manner, regardless of where they might fall, trusting to fortune for the harvest which they might produce. Those seeds which fell by the wayside, or on stony ground, or among thorns were of course destroyed, by being trampled upon, or scorched, or choked out by thriftier growths. But those which fell on good ground sprang up and yielded bounteously.
Even those who knew Jesus best, and believed on Him most, did not at first understand the purport of this parable, failing to discover the lesson which it embodied, in the confusion which they felt at the departure thus made from His usual manner of teaching and reasoning. So when His disciples and many others of His followers were alone with Him, they asked why He spoke to the people in parables. To this inquiry He made exposition of His purpose by explaining to them the difference between those who believed on Him, and those who were yet in the darkness of doubt. He further illustrated this distinction by an explanation of the parable as follows:
” The sower soweth the word of God. When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the devil immediately, and catcheth away the word that was sown in his heart, lest he should believe and be saved. This is he which received seed by the wayside. But he that received seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself, so he endureth but for a while, and in time of temptation falleth away, for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, immediately he is offended. He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word, and the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, the pleasures of life, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that receiveth seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word and understandeth it, and in an honest good heart keepeth it, which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some thirty, some sixty, and some a hundred fold.”
This parable may also be considered as a primary object lesson delivered to the disciples and to all Christians. Christ had foreseen the hostility which His teachings would excite, and now He and His followers were confronted by persecutions of the rabbinical sect, and the temptations which mockers of every school had to offer. The parable was therefore a striking prefigurement of what His followers must endure for righteousness’ sake, and an illustration of the necessities which must be the equipment of all true disciples. No man setteth a lighted candle under a vessel, but he places it where it will shed the most light; so must those who confess God set the light of their confession and understanding before men, that it may be as a watch-fire in the path of righteousness, and a beacon to direct the way of the repentant against the temptations of the sinful.
A Ruined Crop.
When the multitude came to Him again Jesus spoke to them in other parables, presenting in each a lesson of obedience to God, the spiritual growth of knowledge in the minds of the faithful, and the promises of the new kingdom which He had come to establish in the hearts of men. He therefore offered many parables as similitudes to the kingdom of heaven, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man who soweth good seed in his field, but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among his wheat, and went his way.”
In Palestine there is a weed called daj’?iel, which before it comes to a head bears such close resemblance to wheat, that it cannot be distinguished from the other, so that the opinion is general among farmers of that country’ that darnel, or zizamia, is degenerated wheat, as we consider cheat to be. Yet when the growth puts out a head the resemblance no longer continues, so that children are employed to separate one from the other before threshing. The grains of the darnel are so poisonous that if by chance they become mixed with wheat the flour therefrom if eaten may produce convulsions and even death.
The parable which Christ gave becomes more illustrative in the light of this information, as it serves to show the likeness between the first stages of faith and good resolutions in the minds of all men, and the wide difference which afterwards appears between the weak and worldly-bound man and the firm and resolute who swerve not from early convictions of their duty towards God. The parable is therefore given to show us the importance of watchfulness against the temptations no less than the machinations of enemies. The parable following, or that of the seed growing secretly, is an explanation of that of the wheat and tares. “So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.” Thus if we continue not exclusive in our faith, but use our influence at all times for the betterment of the world, the fruits of our persistent and goodly labors will appear to gladden our hearts and give us greater favor with God.
” Another parable put He forth unto them, saying: The kingdom of heaven is likened to a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field; which is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree and shooteth out branches, so that birds of the air come and lodge under the shadow of it or in the branches thereof.” And again is the kingdom of heaven likened unto leaven which being put into a measure of meal leaveneth the whole.
And Jesus likened his kingdom unto a treasure hid in a field which a man chances to find; or like a merchant who, seeking pearls, findeth one greater than all others, which he sells all his other possessions to obtain; or like a net cast into the sea which draweth in a great catch of fish, some good and some bad, and the bad are separated from the good and cast away.
The kingdom of heaven is the pearl of great price, the one inestimable treasure, and the faithfulness and righteousness of a man, resolute in the service of God, shall be the net that drags the ocean of humanity and brings the good to Christ; the householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old as an offering to God: His works are the seed that grow up from a small beginning into a tree which casts a grateful shadow and invites to its refreshing retreat the sin-stricken and the penitential; the beginning of his teaching, the leaven that sets into action the goodly forces of righteousness until all about him are brought by his good deeds, splendid example, and worship of God to see the beauty and satisfaction and golden promise of a truly religious life, and come to embrace it.
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