Verses 1-56
Chapter 6
6:1-6 Jesus left there
and came into his own native place, and his disciples went with him.
When the Sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue. Many, as they
listened, were amazed. "Where," they said, "did this man get this
knowledge? What wisdom is this that has been given to him? And how can
such wonderful things keep happening through his hands? Is not this the
carpenter, Mary's son, the brother of James and Joses and Judah and
Simon? Are his sisters not here with us?" And they took offence at him.
So Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honour except in his
own native place, and amongst his own kinsmen and in his own family."
And he was not able to do any wonderful deeds there, except that he laid
his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he was amazed by
their unwillingness to believe. He made a tour of the villages teaching.
When Jesus came to Nazareth he put himself to a very severe
test. He was coming to his home town; and there are no severer critics
of any man than those who have known him since his boyhood. It was never
meant to be a private visit simply to see his old home and his own
people. He came attended by his disciples. That is to say he came as a
Rabbi. The Rabbis moved about the country accompanied by their little
circle of disciples, and it was as a teacher, with his disciples, that
Jesus came.
He went into the synagogue and he taught. His teaching was
greeted not with wonder but with a kind of contempt. "They took offence
at him." They were scandalised that a man who came from a background
like Jesus should say and do things such as he. Familiarity had bred a
mistaken contempt.
They refused to listen to what he had to say for two reasons.
(i) They said, "Is not this the carpenter?" The word used for carpenter is tekton (Greek #5045). Now tekton (Greek #5045) does mean a worker in wood, but it means more than merely a joiner. It means a craftsman. In Homer the tekton (Greek #5045)
is said to build ships and houses and temples. In the old days, and
still to-day in many places, there could be found in little towns and
villages a craftsman who would build you anything from a chicken-coop to
a house; the kind of man who could build a wall, mend a roof, repair a
gate; the craftsman, the handy-man, who with few or no instruments and
with the simplest tools could turn his hand to any job. That is what
Jesus was like. But the point is that the people of Nazareth despised
Jesus because he was a working-man. He was a man of the people, a
layman. a simple man--and therefore they despised him.
One of the leaders of the Labour movement was that great soul
Will Crooks. He was born into a home where one of his earliest
recollections was seeing his mother crying because she had no idea where
the next meal was to come from. He started work in a blacksmith's shop
at five shillings a week. He became a fine craftsman and one of the
bravest and straightest men who ever lived. He entered municipal
politics and became the first Labour Mayor of any London borough. There
were people who were offended when Will Crooks became Mayor of Poplar.
In a crowd one day a lady said with great disgust, "They've made that
common fellow, Crooks, Mayor, and he's no better than a working man." A
man in the crowd--Will Crooks himself--turned round and raised his hat.
"Quite right, madam," he said. "I am not better than a working man."
The people of Nazareth despised Jesus because he was a working
man. To us that is his glory, because it means that God, when he came to
earth, claimed no exemptions. He took upon himself the common life with
all its common tasks.
The accidents of birth and fortune and pedigree have nothing to do with manhood. As Pope had it,
"Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow;
The rest is all but leather or prunello."
As Burns had it,
"A prince can mak' a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a'that!
But an honest man's aboon his might--
Guid faith, he mauna fa'that!
For a'that, an'a'that,
Their dignities an'a'that,
The pith o' sense an'pride o'worth
Are higher rank than a'that."
We must ever beware of the temptation to evaluate men by externals and incidentals, and not by native worth.
(ii) They said, "Is not this Mary's son? Do we not know his
brothers and his sisters?" The fact that they called Jesus Mary's son
tells us that Joseph must have been dead. Therein we have the key to one
of the enigmas of Jesus' life. Jesus was only thirty-three when he
died; and yet he did not leave Nazareth until he was thirty. (Luke 3:23.)
Why this long delay? Why this lingering in Nazareth while a world
waited to be saved? The reason was that Joseph died young and Jesus took
upon himself the support of his mother and of his brothers and sisters;
and only when they were old enough to fend for themselves did he go
forth. He was faithful in little, and therefore in the end God gave him
much to do.
But the people of Nazareth despised him because they knew his
family. Thomas Campbell was a very considerable poet. His father had no
sense of poetry at all. When Thomas' first book emerged with his name on
it, he sent a copy to his father. The old man took it up and looked at
it. It was really the binding and not the contents at all that he was
looking at. "Who would have thought," he said in wonder, "that our Tom
could have made a book like that?" Sometimes when familiarity should
breed a growing respect it breeds an increasing and easy-going
familiarity. Sometimes we are too near people to see their greatness.
The result of all this was that Jesus could do no mighty works
in Nazareth. The atmosphere was wrong; and there are some things that
cannot be done unless the atmosphere is right.
(i) It is still true that no man can be healed if he refuses to
be healed. Margot Asquith tells of the death of Neville Chamberlain.
Everyone knows how that man's policy turned out in such a way that it
broke his heart. Margot Asquith met his doctor, Lord Horder. "You can't
be much of a doctor," she said, "as Neville Chamberlain was only a few
years older than Winston Churchill, and I should have said he was a
strong man. Were you fond of him?" Lord Horder replied, "I was very fond
of him. I like all unlovable men. I have seen too many of the other
kind. Chamberlain suffered from shyness. He did not want to live; and
when a man says that, no doctor can save him." We may call it faith; we
may call it the will to live; but without it no man can survive.
(ii) There can be no preaching in the wrong atmosphere. Our
churches would be different places if congregations would only remember
that they preach far more than half the sermon. In an atmosphere of
expectancy the poorest effort can catch fire. In an atmosphere of
critical coldness or bland indifference, the most Spirit-packed
utterance can fall lifeless to the earth.
(iii) There can be no peace-making in the wrong atmosphere. If
men have come together to hate, they will hate. If men have come
together to refuse to understand, they will misunderstand. If men have
come together to see no other point of view but their own, they will see
no other. But if men have come together, loving Christ and seeking to
love each other, even those who are most widely separated can come
together in him.
There is laid on us the tremendous responsibility that we can
either help or hinder the work of Jesus Christ. We can open the door
wide to him--or we can slam it in his face.
6:7-11 Jesus called
The Twelve to him and he began to send them out in twos. He gave them
power over unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for the road
except a staff. He ordered them not to take bread, or a wallet, or a
copper coin in their belts. He ordered them to wear sandals and, he
said, "You must not put on two tunics." He said to them, "Wherever you
enter into a house, stay there, until you leave that place; and, if any
place refuses to give you hospitality, and, if in any place they will
not listen to you, when you leave there, shake off the dust from the
soles of your feet, to bear witness to the fact that they were guilty of
such conduct."
We will understand all the references in this passage better if
we have in our minds a picture of what the Jew in Palestine in the time
of Jesus ordinarily wore. He had five articles of dress.
(i) The innermost garment was the chiton (Greek #5509), or sindon (Greek #4616);
or tunic. It was very simple. It was simply a long piece of cloth
folded over and sewn down one side. It was long enough to reach almost
to the feet. Holes were cut in the top corners for the arms. Such
garments were commonly sold without any hole for the head to go through.
That was to prove that the garment was in fact new, and it was to allow
the buyer to arrange the neck-line as he or she wished. For instance,
the neckline was different for men and women. It had to be lower in the
case of women so that a mother could suckle her baby. At its simplest,
this inner garment was little more than a sack with holes cut in the
corners. In a more developed form it had long close-fitting sleeves; and
sometimes it was opened up so that it was made to button down the front
like a cassock.
(ii) The outer garment was called the himation (Greek #2440).
It was used as a cloak by day and as a blanket by night. It was
composed of a piece of cloth seven feet from left to right and four and a
half feet from top to bottom. One and a half feet at each side was
folded in and in the top corner of the folded part holes were cut for
the arms to go through. It was therefore almost square. Usually it was
made of two strips of cloth, each seven feet by a little more than two
feet, sewn together. The seam came down the back. But a specially
carefully made himation (Greek #2440) might be woven of one piece, as Jesus' robe was (John 19:23). This was the main article of dress.
(iii) There was the girdle. It was worn over the two garments we
have already described. The skirts of the tunic could be hitched up
under the girdle for work or for running. Sometimes the tunic was
hitched above the girdle, and in the hollow place so made above the
girdle a parcel or a package could be carried. The girdle was often
double for the eighteen inches from each end. The double part formed a
pocket in which money was carried.
(iv) There was the head-dress. It was a piece of cotton or linen
about a yard square. It could be white, or blue, or black. sometimes it
was made of coloured silk. It was folded diagonally and then placed on
the head so that it protected the back of the neck, the cheek-bones, and
the eyes from the heat and glare of the sun. It was held in place by a
circlet of easily stretched, semi-elastic wool round the head.
(v) There were the sandals. They were merely flat soles of
leather, wood or matted grass. The soles had thongs at the edges through
which a strap passed to hold the sandal on to the foot.
The wallet may be one of two things.
(a) It may be the ordinary travellers' bag. This was made of a
kid's skin. Often the animal was skinned whole and the skin retained the
original shape of the animal, legs, tail, head and all! It had a strap
at each side and was slung over the shoulder. In it the shepherd, or
pilgrim, or traveller carried bread and raisins, and olives, and cheese
enough to last him for a day or two.
(b) There is a very interesting suggestion. The Greek word is pera (Greek #4082);
and it can mean a collecting-bag. Very often the priests and devotees
went out with these bags to collect contributions for their temple and
their god. They have been described as "pious robbers with their booty
growing from village to village." There is an inscription in which a man
who calls himself a slave of the Syrian goddess says that he brought in
seventy bags full each journey for his lady.
If the first meaning is taken, Jesus meant that his disciples
must take no supplies for the road, but must trust God for everything.
If the second meaning is taken, it means that they must not be like the
rapacious priests. They must go about giving and not getting.
There are two other interesting things here.
(i) It was the Rabbinic law that when a man entered the Temple
courts he must put off his staff and shoes and money girdle. All
ordinary things were to be set aside on entering the sacred place. It
may well be that Jesus was thinking of this, and that he meant his men
to see that the humble homes they were to enter were every bit as sacred
as the Temple courts.
(ii) Hospitality was a sacred duty in the East. When a stranger
entered a village, it was not his duty to search for hospitality; it was
the duty of the village to offer it. Jesus told his disciples that if
hospitality was refused, and if doors and ears were shut, they must
shake off the dust of that place from their feet when they left. The
Rabbinic law said that the dust of a Gentile country was defiled, and
that when a man entered Palestine from another country he must shake off
every particle of dust of the unclean land. It was a pictorial formal
denial that a Jew could have any fellowship even with the dust of a
heathen land. It is as if Jesus said, "If they refuse to listen to you,
the only thing you can do is to treat them as a rigid Jew would treat a
Gentile house. There can be no fellowship between them and you."
So we can see that the mark of the Christian disciple was to be
utter simplicity, complete trust, and the generosity which is out always
to give and never to demand.
6:12-13 So they went
out and heralded forth the summons to repentance; and they cast out many
demons, and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.
Here in brief summary is an account of the work that the Twelve did when Jesus sent them out.
(i) To the people they brought Jesus' message. The word used is
literally that used for a heralds proclamation. When the apostles went
out to preach to men, they did not create a message; they brought a
message. they did not ten people what they believed and what they
considered probable; they told people what Jesus had told them. It was
not their opinions they brought to men; it was God's truth. The message
of the prophets always began, "Thus saith the Lord." The man who would
bring an effective message to others must first receive it from God.
(ii) To the people they brought the King's Message; and the
King's message was, "Repent!" Clearly that was a disturbing message. To
repent means to change one's mind and then to fit one's actions to this
change. Repentance means a change of heart and a change of action. It is
bound to hurt, for it involves the bitter realization that the way we
were following is wrong. It is bound to disturb, because it means a
complete reversal of life.
That is precisely why so few people do repent--for the last
thing most people desire is to be disturbed. Lady Asquith, in a vivid
phrase, speaks of people who "dawdle towards death." So many people do
that. they resent all strenuous activity. Life for them is "a land where
it is always afternoon." In some ways the positive, vivid,
swashbuckling sinner who is crashing his way to some self-chosen goal is
a more attractive person than the negative, nebulous, loiterer who
drifts spinelessly and without direction through life.
There is a passage in the novel Quo Vadis? Vinicius, the young
Roman, has fallen in love with a girl who is a Christian. Because he is
not a Christian she will have nothing to do with him. He follows her to
the secret night gathering of the little group of Christians, and there,
unknown to anyone, he listens to the service. He hears Peter preach,
and, as he listens, something happens to him. "He felt that if he wished
to follow that teaching, he would have to place on a burning pile all
his thoughts, habits and character, his whole nature up to that moment,
burn them into ashes and then fill himself with a life altogether
different, and an entirely new soul."
That is repentance. But what if a man has no other desire than
to be left alone? The change is not necessarily from robbery, theft,
murder, adultery and glaring sins. The change may be from a life that is
completely selfish, instinctively demanding, totally inconsiderate, the
change from a self-centred to a God-centred life--and a change like
that hurts. W. M. Macgregor quotes a saying of the Bishop in Les
Miserables. "I always bothered some of them; for through me the outside
air came at them; my presence in their company made them feel as if a
door had been left open and they were in a draught." Repentance is no
sentimental feeling sorry; repentance is a revolutionary thing--that is
why so few repent.
(iii) To the people they brought the King's mercy. Not only did
they bring this shattering demand upon men; they brought also help and
healing. They brought liberation to poor, demon-possessed men and women.
From the beginning Christianity has aimed to bring health to body and
to soul; it has always aimed not only at soul salvation, but at whole
salvation. It brought not only a hand to lift from moral wreckage, but a
hand to lift from physical pain and suffering. It is most suggestive
that they anointed with oil. In the ancient world oil was regarded as a
panacea. Galen, the great Greek doctor, said, "Oil is the best of all
instruments for healing diseased bodies." In the hands of the servants
of Christ the old cures acquired a new virtue. The strange thing is that
they used the things which men's limited knowledge knew at that time;
but the spirit of Christ gave the healer a new power and the old cure a
new virtue. the power of God became available in common things to the
faith of men.
So the Twelve brought to men the message and the mercy of the
King, and that remains the church's task today and every day.
6:14-15 King Herod
heard about Jesus, for his name was known everywhere. He said, "John the
Baptizer has risen from the dead. That is why these wonderful powers
work through him." Others said, "It is Elijah." Others said, "He is a
prophet, like one of the famous prophets."
By this time news of Jesus had penetrated all over the country.
The tale had reached the ears of Herod. The reason why he had not up to
this time heard of Jesus may well be due to the fact that his official
residence in Galilee was in Tiberias. Tiberias was largely a Gentile
city, and, as far as we know, Jesus never set foot in it. But the
mission of the Twelve had taken Jesus' fame all over Galilee, so that
his name was upon every lip. In this passage we have three verdicts upon
Jesus.
(i) There is the verdict of a guilty conscience. Herod had been
guilty of allowing the execution of John the Baptizer, and now he was
haunted by what he had done. Whenever a man does an evil thing, the
whole world becomes his enemy. Inwardly, he cannot command his thoughts;
and, whenever he allows himself to think, his thoughts return to the
wicked thing that he has done. No man can avoid living with himself; and
when his inward self is an accusing self, life becomes intolerable.
Outwardly, he lives in the fear that he will be found out and that some
day the consequences of his evil deed will catch up on him.
Some time ago a convict escaped from a Glasgow prison. After
forty-eight hours of liberty he was recaptured, cold and hungry and
exhausted. He said that it was not worth it. "I didn't have a minute,"
he said. "Hunted, hunted all the time. You don't have a chance. You
can't stop to eat. You can't stop to sleep."
Hunted--that is the word which so well describes the life of the
man who has done some evil thing. When Herod heard of Jesus, the first
thing that flashed into his mind was that this was John the Baptizer
whom he had killed, come back to reckon with him. Because the sinning
life is the haunted life, sin is never worth the cost.
(ii) There is the verdict of the nationalist. Some thought that
this Jesus was Elijah come again. The Jews waited for the Messiah. There
were many ideas about the Messiah, but the commonest of all was that he
would be a conquering king who would first give the Jews back their
liberty and who would then lead them on a triumphant campaign throughout
the world. It was an essential part of that belief that, before the
coming of the Messiah, Elijah, the greatest of the prophets, would come
again to be his herald and his forerunner. Even to this day, when the
Jews celebrate the Passover Feast, they leave at the table an empty
chair called Elijah's chair. They place it there with a glass of wine
before it, and at one part of their service they go to the door and
fling it wide open that Elijah may come in and bring at last the
long-awaited news that the Messiah has come.
This is the verdict of the man who desires to find in Jesus the
realization of his own ambitions. He thinks of Jesus, not as someone to
whom he must submit and whom he must obey; he thinks of Jesus as someone
he can use. Such a man thinks more of his own ambitions than of the
will of God.
(iii) There is the verdict of the man who is waiting for the
voice of God. There were those who saw in Jesus a prophet. In those days
the Jews were pathetically conscious that for three hundred years the
voice of prophecy had been silent. They had listened to the arguments
and the legal disputations of the Rabbis; they had listened to the moral
lectures of the synagogue; but it was three long centuries since they
had listened to a voice which proclaimed, "Thus saith the Lord." Men in
those days were listening for the authentic voice of God--and in Jesus
they heard it. It is true that Jesus was more than a prophet. He did not
bring only the voice of God. He brought to men the very power and the
very life and the very being of God. But those who saw in Jesus a
prophet were at least more right than the conscience-stricken Herod and
the expectant nationalists. If they had got that length in their
thoughts of Jesus, it was not impossible that they might take the
further step and see in him the Son of God.
6:16-29 But when Herod
heard about it, he said, "This is John, whom I beheaded, risen from the
dead." For Herod had sent and seized John and had bound him in prison
because of the affair of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife--because he
had married her. For John had said to Herod, "It is not right for you
to have your brother's wife." Herodias set herself against him, and
wished to kill him, and she could not succeed in doing so, for Herod was
afraid of John, because he well knew that he was a just and holy man,
and he kept him safe. When Herod listened to John he did not know what
to do, and yet he found a certain pleasure in listening to him. But a
day of opportunity came, when, on his birthday, Herod was giving a
banquet to his courtiers and to his captains and to the leading men of
Galilee. Herodias' daughter herself came in and danced before them, and
she pleased Herod and those who were reclining at table with him. The
king said to the maiden, "Ask me for anything you like and I will give
it to you." He swore to her, "Whatever you ask me for, I will give you,
even up to half of my kingdom." She went out and said to her mother,
"What am I to ask for myself?" She said, "John the Baptizer's head." At
once she hurried into the king and made her request. "I wish," she said,
"that here and now you will give me the head of John the Baptizer on a
plate." The king was grief-stricken, but, because of the oath he had
taken, and because he had taken it in front of his guests, he did not
wish to break his word to her. So immediately the king despatched an
executioner with orders to bring his head. The executioner went away and
beheaded him in prison, and brought his head on a plate, and gave it to
the maiden, and the maiden gave it to her mother. When his disciples
heard about it, they came and took away his body and laid it in a tomb.
This story has all the simplicity of tremendous drama.
First, let us look at the scene. The scene was the castle of
Machaerus. Machaerus stood on a lonely ridge, surrounded by terrible
ravines, overlooking the east side of the Dead Sea. It was one of the
loneliest and grimmest and most unassailable fortresses in the world. To
this day the dungeons are there, and the traveller can still see the
staples and the iron hooks in the wall to which John must have been
bound. It was in that bleak and desolate fortress that the last act of
John's life was played out.
Second, let us look at the characters. The marriage tangles of
the Herod family are quite incredible, and their inter-relations are so
complicated that they become almost impossible to work out. When Jesus
was born Herod the Great was king. He was the king who was responsible
for the massacre of the children in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16-18).
Herod the Great was married many times. Towards the end of his life he
became almost insanely suspicious, and murdered member after member of
his own family, until it became a Jewish saying, "It is safer to be
Herod's pig than Herod's son."
First, he married Doris, by whom he had a son, Antipater, whom
he murdered. Then he married Mariamne, the Hasmonean, by whom he had two
sons, Alexander and Aristobulus, whom he also murdered. Herodias, the
villainess of the present passage, was the daughter of this Aristobulus.
Herod the Great then married another Mariamne, called the Boethusian.
By her he had a son called Herod Philip. Herod Philip married Herodias,
who was the daughter of his half-brother, Aristobulus, and who was
therefore his own niece. By Herodias, Herod Philip had a daughter called
Salome, who is the girl who danced before Herod of Galilee in our
passage. Herod the Great then married Malthake, by whom he had two
sons--Archelaus and Herod Antipas who is the Herod of our passage and
the ruler of Galilee. The Herod Philip who married Herodias originally,
and who was the father of Salome, inherited none of Herod the Great's
dominions. He lived as a wealthy private citizen in Rome. Herod Antipas
visited him in Rome. There he seduced Herodias and persuaded her to
leave her husband and marry him.
Note who Herodias was: (a) she was the daughter of his
half-brother, Aristobulus, and therefore his niece; and (b) she was the
wife of his half-brother Herod Philip, and therefore his sister-in-law.
Previously Herod Antipas had been married to a daughter of the king of
the Nabataeans, an Arabian country. She escaped to her father who
invaded Herod's territory to avenge his daughter's honour and heavily
defeated Herod. To complete this astounding picture Herod the Great
finally married Cleopatra of Jerusalem, by whom he had a son called
Philip the Tetrarch. This Philip married Salome who was at one and the
same time (a) the daughter of Herod Philip, his half brother, and (b)
the daughter of Herodias, who herself was the daughter of Aristobulus,
another of his half brothers. Salome was therefore at one and the same
time his niece and his grand-niece. If we put this in the form of a
table it will be easier to follow. See the table below.
Herod The Great
Herod the Great married
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | |
Cleopatra Doris Mariamnethe Mariamne Malthake
of Jerusalem | the Hasmonean Boethusian |
| | | | -------------------
| | ------------------ | | |
| | | | | | |
Philip the Antipater, Alexander, Aristobulus, Herod Philip, Herod Antipas Archelaus
Tetrach, murdered by murdered by murdered by who married who married
who married his father his father his father Herodias Herodias
Salome | |
Herodias Salome
Seldom in history can there have been such a series of
matrimonial entanglements as existed in the Herod family. By marrying
Herodias, his brother's wife, Herod had broken the Jewish law (Leviticus 18:16; Leviticus 20:21) and had outraged the laws of decency and of morality.
Because of this adulterous marriage and because of Herod's
deliberate seduction of his brother's wife, John had publicly rebuked
him. It took courage to rebuke in public an oriental despot who had the
power of life and death, and John's courage in rebuking evil wherever he
saw it is commemorated in the Prayer-book collect for St. John the
Baptist's Day.
"Almighty God, by whose providence thy servant, John the
Baptist, was wonderfully born, and sent to prepare the way of thy
Son our Saviour, by preaching of repentance; Make us so to
follow his doctrine and holy life, that we may truly repent
according to his preaching; and after his example constantly
speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer for the
truth's sake."
In spite of John's rebuke Herod still feared and respected him,
for John was so obviously a man of sincerity and of goodness; but with
Herodias it was different. She was implacably hostile to John and
determined to eliminate him. She got her chance at Herod's birthday
feast which he was celebrating with his courtiers and his captains. Into
that feast her daughter Salome came to dance. Solo dances in those days
in such society were disgusting and licentious pantomimes. That a
princess of the royal blood should so expose and demean herself is
beyond belief because such dances were the art of professional
prostitutes. The very fact that she did this is a grim commentary on the
character of Salome, and of the mother who allowed and encouraged her
to do so. But Herod was pleased; and Herod offered her any reward; and
thus Herodias got the chance she had plotted for so long; and John, to
gratify her spleen, was executed.
There is something to learn from every character in this story.
(i) Herod stands revealed before us.
(a) He was an odd mixture. At one and the same time he feared
John and respected him. At one and the same time he dreaded John's
tongue and yet found pleasure in listening to him. There is nothing in
this world so queer a mixture as a human being. It is man's
characteristic that he is a mixture. Boswell, in his London Diary, tells
us how he sat in church enjoying the worship of God and yet at the same
time was planning how to pick up a prostitute in the streets of London
that same night.
The strange fact about man is that he is haunted both by sin and
by goodness. Robert Louis Stevenson speaks about people "clutching the
remnants of virtue in the brothel or on the scaffold." Sir Norman
Birkett, the great Q.C. and judge, speaks of the criminals he had
defended and tried. "They may seek to escape but they cannot; they are
condemned to some nobility; all their lives long the desire for good is
at their heels, the implacable hunter." Herod could fear John and love
him, could hate his message and yet not be able to free himself from its
insistent fascination. Herod was simply a human being. Are we so very
different?
(b) Herod was a man who acted on impulse. He made his reckless
promise to Salome without thinking. It may well be that he made it when
he was more than a little drunk and flown with wine. Let a man have a
care. Let a man think before he speaks. Let him never by self-indulgence
get into a state when he loses his powers of judgment and is liable to
do things for which afterwards he will be very sorry.
(c) Herod feared what men might say. He kept his promise to
Salome because he had made it in front of his cronies and was unwilling
to break it. He feared their jeers, their laughter; he feared that they
would think him weak. Many a man has done things he afterwards bitterly
regretted because he had not the moral courage to do the right. Many a
man has made himself far worse than he is because he feared the laughter
of his so-called friends.
(ii) Salome and Herodias stand revealed before us. There is a
certain greatness about Herodias. Years after this her Herod sought the
title of King. He went to Rome to plead for it; instead of giving him
the title the Emperor banished him to Gaul for having the insolence and
the insubordination to ask for such a title. Herodias was told that she
need not share this exile, that she might go free, and she proudly
answered that where her husband went she went too.
Herodias shows us what an embittered woman can do. There is
nothing in this world as good as a good woman, and nothing as bad as a
bad woman. the Jewish Rabbis had a quaint saying. They said that a good
woman might marry a bad man, for by so doing she would end by making him
as good as herself. But they said that a good man might never marry a
bad woman, for she would inevitably drag him down to her own level. The
trouble with Herodias was that she wished to eliminate the one man who
had the courage to confront her with her sin. She wished to do as she
liked with no one to remind her of the moral law. She murdered John that
she might sin in peace. She forgot that while she need no longer meet
John, she still had to meet God.
(iii) John the Baptizer stands revealed before us. He stands as
the man of courage. He was a child of the desert and of the wide open
spaces, and to imprison him in the dark dungeons of Machaerus must have
been the last refinement of torture. But John preferred death to
falsehood. He lived for the truth and he died for it. The man who brings
to men the voice of God acts as a conscience. Many a man would silence
his conscience if he could, and therefore the man who speaks for God
must always take his life and his fortune in his hands.
6:30-34 The apostles
came together again to Jesus, and they told him all that they had done
and taught. He said to them, "Come you by yourselves into a lonely
place, and rest for a while." For there were many coming and going and
they could not find time even to eat. So they went away in the boat to a
lonely place all by themselves. Now many saw them going away and
recognized them; and they ran together there on foot from all the towns
and went on ahead of them. When Jesus disembarked he saw a great crowd,
and he was moved to the depths of his being with pity for them, because
they were like sheep who had no shepherd; and he began to teach them
many things.
When the disciples came back from their mission they reported
to Jesus all that they had done. The demanding crowds were so insistent
that they had no time even to eat; so Jesus told them to come with him
to a lonely place on the other side of the lake that they might have
peace and rest for a little time.
Here we see what might be called the rhythm of the Christian
life. The Christian life is a continuous going into the presence of God
from the presence of men and coming out into the presence of men from
the presence of God. It is like the rhythm of sleep and work. We cannot
work unless we have our time of rest; and sleep will not come unless we
have worked until we are tired.
There are two dangers in life. First, there is the danger of a
too constant activity. No man can work without rest; and no man can live
the Christian life unless he gives himself times with God. It may well
be that the whole trouble in our lives is that we give God no
opportunity to speak to us, because we do not know how to be still and
to listen; we give God no time to recharge us with spiritual energy and
strength, because there is no time when we wait upon him. How can we
shoulder life's burdens if we have no contact with him who is the Lord
of all good life? How can we do God's work unless in God's strength? And
how can we receive that strength unless we seek in quietness and in
loneliness the presence of God?
Second, there is the danger of too much withdrawal. Devotion
that does not issue in action is not real devotion. Prayer that does not
issue in work is not real prayer. We must never seek the fellowship of
God in order to avoid the fellowship of men but in order to fit
ourselves better for it. The rhythm of the Christian life is the
alternate meeting with God in the secret place and serving men in the
market place.
But the rest which Jesus sought for himself and for his
disciples was not to be. The crowds saw Jesus and his men going away. At
this particular place it was four miles across the lake by boat and ten
miles round the top of the lake on foot. On a windless day, or with a
contrary wind, a boat might take some time to make the passage, and an
energetic person could walk round the top of the lake and be there
before the boat arrived. That is exactly what happened; and when Jesus
and his men stepped out of the boat the very crowd from which they had
sought some little peace was there waiting for them.
Any ordinary man would have been intensely annoyed. The rest
Jesus so much desired and which he had so well earned was denied to him.
His privacy was invaded. Any ordinary man would have resented it all,
but Jesus was moved with pity at the pathos of the crowd. He looked at
them; they were so desperately in earnest; they wanted so much what he
alone could give them; to him they were like sheep who had no shepherd.
What did he mean?
(i) A sheep without the shepherd cannot find the way. Left to
ourselves we get lost in life. Principal Cairns spoke of people who feel
like "lost children out in the rain." Dante has a line where he says,
"I woke up in the middle of the wood, and it was dark, and there was no
clear way before me." Life can be so bewildering. We can stand at some
cross-roads and not know what way to take. It is only when Jesus leads
and we follow that we can find the way.
(ii) A sheep without the shepherd cannot find its pasture and
its food. In this life we are bound to seek for sustenance. We need the
strength which can keep us going; we need the inspiration which can lift
us out of ourselves and above ourselves. When we seek it elsewhere our
minds are still unsatisfied, our hearts still restless, our souls still
unfed. We can gain strength for life only from him who is the living
bread.
(iii) A sheep without the shepherd has no defence against the
dangers which threaten it. It can defend itself neither from the robbers
nor the wild beasts. If life has taught us one thing it must be that we
cannot live it alone. No man can defend himself from the temptations
which assail him and from the evil of the world which attacks him. Only
in the company of Jesus can we walk in the world and keep our garments
unspotted from it. Without him we are defenceless; with him we are safe.
6:35-44 When it was
now late the disciples came to Jesus. "The place," they said, "is
lonely, and it is now late. Send them away that they may go into the
surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to
eat." He answered, "You give them something to eat." "Are we," they said
to him, "to go away and buy ten pounds worth of loaves and so give them
something to eat?" "How many loaves have you?" he said to them. "Go and
see!" When they had found out, they said, "Five and two fishes." He
ordered them to make them all sit down in groups on the green grass. So
they sat down in sections of hundreds and of fifties. He took the five
loaves and the two fishes, and he looked up into the heaven and blessed
them and broke the loaves. He gave them to the disciples to serve the
people with them. and he divided up the two fishes among them all. And
they all ate until they were completely satisfied; and they gathered up
the broken pieces of bread and what was left of the fishes--twelve
basketsful. And those who ate the loaves amounted to five thousand men.
It is a notable fact that no miracle seems to have made such an
impression on the disciples as this, because this is the only miracle
of Jesus which is related in all four gospels. We have already seen how
Mark's gospel really embodies the preaching material of Peter. To read
this story, so simply and yet so dramatically told, is to read something
that reads exactly like an eye-witness account. Let us note some of the
vivid and realistic details.
They sat down on the green grass. It is as if Peter was seeing
the whole thing in his mind's eye again. It so happens that this little
descriptive phrase provides us with quite a lot of information. The only
time when the grass would be green would be in the late springtime, in
mid-April. So it is then that this miracle must have taken place. At
that time the sun set at 6 p.m., so this must have happened some time in
the late afternoon.
Mark tells us that they sat down in sections of a hundred and of fifty. The word used for sections (prasiai, Greek #4237)
is a very pictorial word. It is the normal Greek word for the rows of
vegetables in a vegetable garden. When you looked at the little groups,
as they sat there in their orderly rows, they looked for all the world
like the rows of vegetables in a series of garden plots.
At the end they took up twelve basketsful of fragments. No orthodox Jew travelled without his basket (kophinos, Greek #2894).
The Romans made a jest of the Jew and his basket. There were two
reasons for the basket which was a wicker-work affair shaped like a
narrow-necked pitcher, broadening out as it went down. First, the very
orthodox Jew carried his own food supplies in his basket, so that he
would be certain of eating food that was ceremonially clean and pure.
Second, many a Jew was an accomplished beggar, and into his basket went
the proceeds of his begging. The reason that there were twelve baskets
is simply that there were twelve disciples. It was into their own
baskets that they frugally gathered up the fragments so that nothing
would be lost.
The wonderful thing about this story is that all through it runs
an implicit contrast between the attitude of Jesus and the attitude of
the disciples.
(i) It shows us two reactions to human need When the disciples
saw how late it was, and how tired and hungry the crowd were, they said,
"Send them away so that they can find something to eat." In effect they
said, "These people are tired and hungry. Get rid of them and let
someone else worry about them." Jesus said, "You give them something to
eat." In effect Jesus said, "These people are tired and hungry. We must
do something about it." There are always the people who are quite aware
that others are in difficulty and trouble, but who wish to push the
responsibility for doing something about it on to someone else; and
there are always the people who when they see someone up against it feet
compelled to do something about it themselves. there are those who say,
"Let others worry." And there are those who say, "I must worry about my
brother's need."
(ii) It shows us two reactions to human resources. When the
disciples were asked to give the people something to eat, they insisted
that ten pounds, or what the King James Version calls two hundred
"pence" was not enough to buy bread for them. The word the King James
Version translates penny is denarius. This was a Roman silver coin worth
about 3p. It was the standard day's wage of a working man. In effect
the disciples were saying, "We could not earn enough in more than six
months' work to give this crowd a meal." They really meant "Anything we
have got is no use at all."
Jesus said, "What have you got?" They had five loaves. These
were not like English loaves: they were more like rolls. John (John 6:9)
tells us they were barley loaves; and barley loaves were the food of
the poorest of the poor. Barley bread was the cheapest and the coarsest
of all bread. They had two fishes, which would be about the size of
sardines. Tarichaea--which means the salt-fish town--was a well known
place on the lake from which salt-fish went out to all over the world.
The little salt-fishes were eaten as relish with the dry rolls.
It did not seem much. But Jesus took it and worked wonders with
it. In the hands of Jesus little is always much. We may think that we
have little of talent or substance to give to Jesus. That is no reason
for a hopeless pessimism such as the disciples had. The one fatal thing
to say is, "For all I could do, it is not worth my while trying to do
anything." If we put ourselves into the hands of Jesus Christ, there is
no telling what he can do with us and through us.
6:45-52 Immediately he
made the disciples embark on the boat and go across ahead to Bethsaida
while he sent the crowd away. When he had taken leave of them, he went
away into a mountain to pray. When it was late the boat was half way
across the lake and Jesus was alone upon the land. He saw that they were
sore beset as they rowed, for the wind was against them. About the
fourth watch of the night he came to them walking on the sea, and it
looked as if he meant to pass them by. When they saw him walking on the
sea they thought it was a ghost, and they cried out in terror, for they
all saw him and they were distracted with fear. At once he spoke with
them. "Courage!" he said. "It is I. Don't be afraid." And he came into
the boat with them, and the wind sank to rest. And they were exceedingly
astonished within themselves, because they did not understand about the
loaves because their minds were obtuse.
After the hunger of the crowd had been satisfied, Jesus
immediately sent his disciples away before he dismissed the crowd. Why
should he do that? Mark does not tell us but most probably we have the
explanation in John's account. John tells us that after the crowd had
been fed there was a move to take Jesus and to make him king. That was
the last thing Jesus desired. It was that very way of power that once,
finally and for all, he had rejected at the time of his temptations. He
could see it coming. He did not want his disciples to be infected and
caught up in this nationalistic outburst. Galilee was the hotbed of
revolution. If this movement was not checked, there might well emerge
amongst the excitable people a rebellion which would wreck everything
and lead to disaster for all concerned. So Jesus sent away his disciples
lest they too should become inflamed by this movement, and then he
calmed the crowd and bade them farewell.
When he was alone, he went up into a mountain to pray. Thick and
fast the problems were descending upon him. There was the hostility of
the orthodox people; there was the frightened suspicion of Herod
Antipas; there were the political hotheads who would make him a
nationalistic Messiah against his will. At this particular time there
was many a problem on Jesus' mind and many a burden on his heart.
For some hours he was alone amidst the hills with God. As we
have seen, this must have happened about mid-April, and mid-Aped was the
Passover time. Now the Passover was deliberately fixed for the full
moon, as Easter still is. The Jewish night ran from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and
it was divided into four watches--6 p.m. to 9 p.m., 9 p.m. to 12
midnight, 12 midnight to 3 a.m., and 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. About three
o'clock in the morning Jesus looked from the mountainside out across the
lake. The lake was only four miles across at that point, and in the
light of the moon it lay stretched out before him. The wind was up and
he saw the boat, with his men in it, having a hard struggle to reach the
other side.
See what happened. Immediately Jesus saw his friends in trouble
his own problems were set aside; the moment for prayer was past; the
time for action had come; he forgot himself and went to the help of his
friends. That is of the very essence of Jesus. The cry of human need to
him surpassed all other claims. His friends needed him; he must go.
What happened we do not know, and will never know. The story is
cloaked in mystery which defies explanation. What we do know is that he
came to them and their storm became a calm. With him beside them nothing
mattered any more.
When Augustine was writing about this incident he said, "He came
treading the waves; and so he puts all the swelling tumults of life
under his feet. Christians--why afraid?" It is the simple fact of life, a
fact which has been proved by countless thousands of men and women in
every generation, that when Christ is there the storm becomes a calm,
the tumult becomes a peace, what cannot be done is done, the unbearable
becomes bearable, and men pass the breaking point and do not break. To
walk with Christ will be for us also the conquest of the storm.
6:53-56 When they had
crossed over and reached land they came to Gennesareth, and moored the
boat there. When they had disembarked from the boat the people
immediately recognized him; and they ran all over that countryside, and,
wherever they knew he was, they began to carry to him on pallets those
who were ill. And whenever he came into villages or towns or country
places, they laid the sick in the open spaces, and they kept begging him
to be allowed to touch even the tassel of his robe; and all who touched
it were restored to health.
No sooner had Jesus landed on the other side of the lake than
once again he was surrounded by crowds. Just sometimes he must have
looked on the crowds with a certain wistfulness, because there was
hardly a person in them who had not come to get something out of him.
They came to get. They came with their insistent demands. They came--to
put it bluntly--to use him. What a difference it would have made if,
among these crowds, there had been some few who came to give and not to
get. In a way it is natural that we should come to Jesus to get things
from him, for there are so many things that he alone can give: but it is
always shameful to take everything and to give nothing, and yet it is
very characteristic of human nature.
(i) There are those who simply make use of their homes. It is
specially so with young people. They regard their homes as being there
to cater for their comfort and their convenience. It is there they eat
and sleep and get things done for them; but surely home is a place to
which we ought to contribute, from which we ought not only to be taking
all the time.
(ii) There are those who simply make use of their friends. There
are some people from whom we never receive a letter unless they want
something from us. There are those who regard other people as existing
to help them when they need their help, and to be forgotten when they
cannot be made of use.
(iii) There are those who simply make use of the church. They
desire the church to baptize their children, marry their young people
and bury their dead. They are seldom to be seen there unless they wish
some service. It is their unconscious attitude that the church exists to
serve them, but that they have no duty whatever towards it.
(iv) There are those who seek simply to make use of God They
never remember him unless they need him. Their only prayers are
requests, or even demands, made of God. Someone has put it this way. In
American hotels there is a boy called the "bell-hop." The hotel guest
rings the bell and the bell-hop appears; he will fetch anything the
guest wishes on demand. Some people regard God as a kind of universal
bell-hop, only to be summoned when something is needed.
If we examine ourselves, we are all, to some extent, guilty of
these things. It would rejoice the heart of Jesus if more often we came
to him to offer our love, our service, our devotion, and less often to
demand from him the help we need.
-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)