The Simultaneous Suppliants

STATED that between the sermon on the mount and the first missionary journey of the league of pity there are two episodes which have, to my mind, a very distinct bearing on the development of the new movement. The first of these has already been considered. We pass now from the significant incident on the sea to the significant incident on the land. The storm on the Sea of Galilee was a great preparation for sympathy with man; yet it was rather a preparation for it than a lesson z# it. It taught the league of pity the intrinsic weakness of human nature and its inability to battle unaided with the storm; and to this extent it bound the little band to the brotherhood of all souls. Yet this result was, after

all, only negative. It was a common levelling down; it was a work of depression. Sympathy to be perfect, needs more than depression; it requires the power of selection. The sense of a common want may lead us to fzty; but something more is essential to enable us either to seek or to save. The movement wanted from the league of pity was not one of mere emotion; it was a drastic movement. The members of that league were to make the transition from their own circle into other circles, from their own circumstances into other circumstances, They were to set forth upon a pilgrimage of ever-expanding benevolence, from the narrow limits of the home in Galilee to the many mansions in the house of the Father. Such a goal demanded not only a community but a versatility of human sympathy — a power to pass rapidly from the interests of one to the interests of another. A more stimulating influence was required than the levelling effect of the storm.

And that stimulating influence was forthcoming. It came in an episode which, so far as I know, is unique even in a unique history.

Let us briefly recall the circumstances. Jesus has been visited by one of the leading office-bearers of the synagogue of Capernaum. He is evidently a man of great repute; and it is equally evident that he does not imagine he is endangering that repute by the mere acknowledgment of the Messianic power of Jesus. He is driven to Jesus by an exigency. He has a little girl lying at the point of death. It does not occur to him that the power claimed by Jesus could extend beyond actual contact; doubtless he too would have objected to the height of Christ’s aspiration in the upper room. He does not ask Jesus to heal his daughter by a word spoken through the distance; he asks Him to come. Jesus accepts him at his own level; He accompanies the afflicted father to his house of mourning. An immense crowd follows them. The high position of the suppliant and the boldness of his demand give dramatic interest to the situation. With the solitary exception of a family connected with the league, others had brought their sick to Jesus; this man proposes to bring Jesus to his sick, It is boldness originating in depth of feeling, and it evokes a corresponding effect on the part of the multitude. They are eager that the suppliant should be successful, that the girl should not die before the arrival of Jesus. The members of the league are specially so. This is to them a golden opportunity for recognition by the higher powers — for the acceptance of their Leader as the national Messiah. They fear ta

be too late; they are disposed to hurry on. Suddenly, there is an interruption — an interruption the cause of which is not at once apparent. Jesus halts in the march of mercy, turns round and asks, ‘Who touched me?’ There is a general disclaimer. The disciples are ruffled by the delay. I think I can detect a certain flavour of impatience in their words, The multitude throng Thee and press Thee; and sayest Thou, Who touched me?’ It is as if they felt themselves to be losing time, as if they were eager to resume their journey. The object in advance of them seems so advantageous that anything in the rear is deemed unworthy

their attention.

Not so thinks Jesus. He insists on prolonging the delay; He demands investigation: ‘Some one did touch me, for I perceive that virtue has gone out of me.’ Then, in answer to His importunity, there comes trembling through the crowd a woman who for years had been the victim of a disease which, like leprosy, had always been associated with ceremonial uncleanness. She had felt herself too vile to ask openly for healing. Hoping to get the benefit without the publicity, she had come behind in the throng and laid her hand upon the hem of Jesus’ garment. She now stands forth, to confess what she believed to be a crime, to hear this supposed crime declared to be a glory.

Now, the crucial point of this narrative lies in the declaration of Jesus, ‘I perceive that virtue has gone out of me.’ The point is that before the appearing of the woman the cure was already completed, and that Jesus knew it to be so. So far as the healing was concerned, there was no ground whatever for interrupting the mission to the relief of the dying girl. It was not a case in which two people demand the simultaneous attendance of the same physician to the exclusion of one another. The woman did not interrupt the mission to the girl — not by a moment of time. A halt in the march there was; but it was not caused by her, nor had it anything to do with her cure. The interruption came from Jesus and from Jesus alone. Why? It cannot be supposed that, in the view of the gospel narrator, He was seeking personal information. It cannot be supposed that, in the view of this narrator, a Being gifted with Divine power could be destitute of Divine clairvoyance. What, then, is the meaning of this feature in the Portrait of Jesus? A girl is dying — nay, she is already dead. The Master will arrive too late to fulfil the purpose for which He was ‘summoned. Why has He delayed? Is it that He may manifest a greater glory? Is it that, instead of merely reviving a dying spark, He may require to kindle a new one? You may quote the case of Lazarus in support of such a

view. But when we come to the case of Lazarus we shall find ourselves in a new era. We shall find that the work of Jesus has assumed another attitude, an attitude which is quite inapplicable to the circumstances of the Galilean days. To my mind it would mar the beauty, it would destroy the simplicity, of this narrative if you suffer yourself for a moment to believe that Jesus delayed in order to effect a greater miracle. It would place the elaborateness of art in a scene of rustic nature; it would substitute electric light for sunlight; it would spread a carpet of painted flowers over the natural flowers of the field. The glory of Galilee is its simple-heartedness; the glory of the Christ of Galilee is His adaptation to the scene. We dare not mar the picture by exhibiting a hot-house growth in the place where tropical plants luxuriate in the sun,

The question recurs, Whence this accepted interruption of the mission of Jesus? If it was not needed for the cure of the woman, if it was not desired as a means of turning the healing of disease into the vanquishing of death, is there any other ground on which it can be explained? There is — an educational ground, Remember that at this period Jesus was more than a healer; He was beyond all things a teacher of How to heal. He had become the head of a little band to whom His cures were object-lessons, Every work He performed had a double value; it had a value to the sufferer, and it had a value to the league of pity. The members of that league were the pupils in a sick-nursing establishment; they looked on. Jesus knew they were looking on. He had them ever in His mind as hospital students. He said and did many things in their presence which He would not have said and done in their absence. As on the mount He spoke #0 the multitude but at the disciples, so in the hospital He spoke zo the patient but a¢ the students. These Galilean days were days of clinical instruction. As Jesus paced the wards of that great infirmary His eye was as intent on the symptoms of the pupil as on the symptoms of the sufferer. Wherever He saw a defect in the student’s sympathy, wherever He witnessed a slackness, or onesidedness, of interest, wherever He beheld a tendency to centre the attention on one point to the neglect of another, there He perceived that there was need for development, there He felt that there was work to do.

Now, this I think was one of these cases. It was an instance of what I might call the clashing of gospel interests. Two claimants had appeared for the sympathy of Jesus. They were vastly different in status. One was high; the other was lowly. One was confident; the other was shrinking. One was basking in the favour of the religious public; the other was under a cloud of religious reproach, One, from a worldly point of view, could bring much good to Jesus; the other could give nothing in recompense. Only one of these suppliants was visible to the members of the league; they had neither eyes nor ears for any other. From their point of view, I do not wonder. This ruler of the synagogue seemed the very chance for them. Here was a golden opportunity that might never return — one of the tides which, if taken at the flood, might lead on to fortune,

What better fortune could await the Christ than that He should be recognised by a leader - of the Jewish theocracy! Would it not at once put an imprimatur on the new movement? would it not save much climbing of the hill? I do not wonder that to men who felt so intensely the offence of the cross the call from Jairus came like a blast of triumph. I do not marvel that for the moment they saw only one goal and were absorbed in a single eagerness — the desire to press on.

But this was the very thing which Jesus wished to counteract. Had He not told them in the sermon on the mount that they should consider cases of conflicting interest? Had He not told them that a man should not offer his gift without taking into account his relation to his brother? Was not this exactly a case of the kind? Should He veil from them what He knew to have happened? Should He conceal from them that His had been a divided sympathy? Should He hide from them the fact that, without disparagement to the daughter of Jairus, virtue had first gone out from Him towards a humbler suppliant? No; He must not hide it. They too must be made sharers in the counter-interests of His heart. They too must be made to participate, meanwhile in the wideness, ultimately in the universalness, of His sympathy. They too must be rendered capable of taking up into the chariot of pity one whose case was not the direct object of that chariot’s journey. Therefore it is that Jesus halts in the march, even though it is a march of mercy. Therefore it is that He bids the procession stand still, and recalls the eyes of the disciples from the van to the rear. He felt that their interest was naturally more identified with the case of the suppliant Jairus than with the case of the suppliant woman; and therefore He desired both them and Jairus to understand that there is a point in which every man’s wish is interrupted and traversed by the wish of another.

ELP me ever, O Christ, to see this point of interruption. When my interest is in the van, help me to remember that the interest of another is in the rear. Never let me forget Thy rule for golden wishes — Thy lesson how to pray. I shall never be on Thy mount in prayer until I have a mountain view — Thy view. I must be able to look on every side — to consider how my wish will affect the wish of another. Give me this all-round view, O Lord; set my feet in this large room. Sometimes a voice says to me, ‘Pray Christ to press on; your interest is in the house of Jairus.’ Let me look back before doing so, and see whether there be not a suppliant in the rear, some one whose prayer is, ‘Let Christ éxger on the way.’ Ever let there be present to my mind the multitude that are pressing on Thee. Let me remember the many souls that are touching Thee, with wishes varied, conflicting. Let me remember that my gain may be my brother’s loss. Let me pause solemnly, with uncovered head, before the temple of prayer. Let me stand in the cross-way where the temple is approached from many sides, So shall my wish be golden, so shall I ask what shall be pleasing to Thee.