Quiet Talks on John's Gospel Part 15

The cunning discussion among the great Jordan crowds about the purifying rite of baptism, stirred up so successfully by "_a Jew_," that is, probably by one of the Jerusalem leaders, would seem to be a studied attempt to discredit the two preachers, Jesus and John, and swing the crowds away. It was shrewdly done and might have dissipated the fine spiritual atmosphere by bitter strife and discussion had not Jesus quietly slipped away.[76]

This att.i.tude of theirs is clearly recognized and felt by Jesus. He plainly points out that vulgarizing hurt of sin whereby G.o.d's own messenger is not recognized when He comes in the garb of a neighbour.[77]

Then things get more acute. The blessed healing of a thirty-eight-year-old infirmity leads to outspoken persecution, to a desire and purpose actually to kill Jesus. It grew intenser as Jesus'

claim grew clearer. The issue was sharply drawn. He "called G.o.d _His own Father_, making Himself _equal with G.o.d_." They begin plotting His death.[78]

His prudent absence from Jerusalem at the time of the next Pa.s.sover reveals graphically how tense the opposition had gotten. But even up by Galilee's sh.o.r.es they have messengers at work amongst the crowds exciting discussion and discontent and worse. In the discussion it is easy to pick out the two elements, the nagging critics and the earnest seekers. And the saddening result is seen in many disciples leaving Jesus and going back again to their old way.[79]

Then things got so intense that Jesus' habit of life was broken or changed. He could no longer frequent Judea as He had done, but kept pretty much to the northern province of Galilee. The settled plan to kill made His absence a matter of common prudence. This makes most striking His great courage in going up to Jerusalem at the autumn Feast of Tabernacles. He quietly arrived in the midst of much rumour and hot discussion about Himself, and begins teaching the crowds openly, to the great amazement of many.

At once begin the wordy critical attacks, egged on probably by the warmth with which many receive Jesus' teachings. There are three attempts to take Him by force, including an official attempt at arrest.

But, strangely enough, the very officers sent to arrest are so impressed by Jesus' teaching that they return with their mission not done, to the intensest disgust and rage of their superiors.[80]

Early on the morning following there's a cunning coa.r.s.e attempt to entrap Him into saying something that can be used against Him. A woman is brought accused of wrong-doing of the gravest sort, and His opinion is asked as to the proper punishment for so serious an offense. There's nothing more dramatic in Scripture than the withdrawal of these accusers, one by one, actually conscience-stricken in the presence of the few simple words of this wondrous Man.[81]

This is followed by the intensest give-and-take of discussion thus far, in which they give vent to their bitterest degree of vile language in calling Him "a Samaritan," and accusing Him of being possessed with "a demon." And then the terrible climax is reached in the enraged pa.s.sionate attempt of stoning. It is the worst yet to which their fanatical rage has gone.[82]

Now they reach out to intimidate the mult.i.tude, by threatening to cut off from religious and civic privileges all who would confess belief in Jesus as Christ. And their spleen vents its rage on the man born blind but now so wondrously given sight of two sorts.[83]

The winter Feast of the Dedication a few months later finds Jesus back again in Jerusalem teaching. And again their enraged attempt at stoning, the second one, is restrained by a something in Him they can neither understand nor withstand.[84]

The Lazarus incident arouses their opposition to the highest pitch.[85]

This is recognized as a crisis. Such power had never been seen or known.

The inroads of belief are everywhere, in the upper social circles, among the old families, even in the Jewish Senate itself, notwithstanding the threatened excommunication. On every hand men are believing. Things are getting desperate for these leaders. They determine to use all the authority at hand arbitrarily and with a high hand. What strange blindness of stubborn self-will to such open evidence of power!

A special meeting of the Jewish Senate is held, not unlikely hastily summoned of those not infected with belief. And there it is officially determined to put Jesus to death, and serve public notice that any one knowing of His whereabouts must report their information to the authorities.

And as the incoming crowds thicken for the Pa.s.sover, and the talk about Lazarus is on every tongue, it is determined to put Lazarus to death, too. This is the pitch things have risen to as John brings this part of his story to a close.

The Glory-Coloured Thread.

It is a relief to turn now to the chief figure in this tapestried picture of John's weaving. Here are glory-coloured threads of bright yellow. They easily stand out, thrown in relief both by the pleasing blues and the disturbing blacks. It is the figure of the Man on the errand, intent on His wooing, absorbed in His great task. Thia Man, His tremendous wooing, wins glad grateful ever-growing acceptance. And with rarest boldness and courage He persists in His wooing in spite of the terrific intensifying opposition.

The gentle softening dew persists in distilling even on the hardest stoniest soil. The _gentle winsomeness of the wooing_ stands out appealingly as one goes through those fragments of teaching talks running throughout. The rare faithfulness of it to the nation and its leaders is thrown into bold relief by the very opposition that reveals their dire spiritual plight and their sore need.

The _power of it_ is simply stupendous. As gentle in action as the falling dew it grows in intensity until neither the gates of death nor even the stubborn resistance of a human will can prevail against it. It is power sufficient to satisfy the most critical search, and to make acceptance not only possible with one's reasoning power in fullest exercise but the rational thing.

Look a bit at the power at work here. For in looking at the power we are getting a better look at the Man, and at the purpose that grips Him. Of the nineteen incidents in these twelve chapters fifteen give exhibitions of power. It is of two sorts, power over the human will, and miraculous power.

Eight incidents reveal _power working upon the human will_. In three of these--Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, the accused sinful woman--the will becomes pliant and is radically changed, so morally affecting the whole life. In five--the temple cleansing, at the Tabernacles Feast, the first and second attempt at stoning, and the kingly entry into the city--the human will is stubbornly aggressively antagonistic to Jesus, but is absolutely restrained from what it is fully set upon doing.

In the other seven incidents the power is _miraculous_ or supernatural.

In three--turning the water into wine, multiplying food supplies, walking on the water--it is power in _the realm of nature_. In four--healing the Roman n.o.bleman's son, the thirty-eight-year infirmity, giving sight to the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus--it is power in _the realm of the body_, radically changing its conditions.

It will help to remember what those words _miraculous_ and _supernatural_ mean. Miraculous means something wonderful, that is, something filling us with wonder because it is so unusual. Supernatural means something above the usual natural order. The two words are commonly taken as having one meaning. Neither word means something contrary to nature, of course, but simply on a higher level than the ordinary workings of nature with which we are familiar. The action is in accord with some higher law in G.o.d's world which is brought into play and is seen to be superior to the familiar laws.

But the power, or the man that can call this higher law into action, is of a higher order. There is revealed an intimacy of acquaintance with these higher laws, and even more a power that can command and call them into action down in the sphere of our common ordinary life, until we stare in wonder. This is really the remarkable thing. Not supernatural action itself simply, tremendous as that is, but the man in such touch with higher power as to be able to call out the action, and to command it at will.

This is one of the things that marks Jesus off so strikingly from other holy men. There are miracles in the Old Testament and in the Book of Acts. But there's an abundance and a degree of power in Jesus' miracles outcla.s.sing all others. It is fascinating and awesome to watch the growth of power in these movements of Jesus. It is as though He woos more persistently in the very degree and variety of power that He uses so freely, and with such apparent ease.

Which calls out greater power, creating or healing? making water into wine or healing bodily ailment? Which is the greater, power in the realm of nature or the body? _or_ in the realm of the human will? multiplying food _or_ changing a human will? Which is greater, to induce a man voluntarily to change his course of action, _or_ to restrain him (by moral power only, not by force) from doing something he is dead-set on doing?

This is the range through which Jesus' action runs in these fifteen incidents. Is there a growth in the power revealed? Is there an intenser plea to these men as the story goes on? Is there a steady piling up of evidence in the wooing of their hearts?

Well, creating is bringing into material being what didn't so exist before. Healing does something more. It creates new tissue, makes new or different adjustments and conditions, _and_ it overcomes the opposite, the broken tissue, the diseased conditions, the weakness, the tendency towards decay and death. Clearly there's a greater task in healing, and a greater power at work, or more power, or power revealed more.

Then, too, of course, the human is above the physical. Man is higher than nature. He is the lord of creation. It is immensely more to affect a human will than to affect conditions in nature. The whole thing moves up to a measureless higher level. And clearly enough it is a less difficult task to enlighten and persuade one who seeks the light, and to woo up one who is simply carelessly indifferent, than it is to overcome and restrain a will that is dead-set against you and is bitterly set on an opposite course.

Of course, all of this is not commonly so recognized. It seems immensely more to heal the body than to change a man's course of action, or, at least, it appeals immensely more to the imagination. The man who can heal is magnified in our eyes above the other. The miraculous always seems the greater. It is more unusual. Stronger wills are influencing others daily. That's a commonplace. Bodily healing is rare. And all the world is ill. Things are ripe to have such power seize upon the imagination then and always.

And then, too, there are interlacings here of things we see and things we don't see. There is the element of the use of the human will in all miraculous action, whether in nature or among men. Behind both nature's forces and human forces are unseen spirit personalities, both evil and good. The real battle of our human life lies there in the spirit realm.

Victory there means full victory in the realm of nature and of human lives. There is a devil with hosts of spirit attendants. The wilderness was a spirit-conflict of terrific intensity, ending in Jesus'

unqualified victory.

Jesus' power was more than simply creative, or healing, or over human wills. It was the power of a pure, strong, surrendered will having the mastery over a giant, unsurrendered, G.o.d-defiant will. This underlies all else. But we've run off a bit. Come back to the simple story, and see how the power of Jesus is revealed more and more before their eyes.

And in seeing the faithfulness and winsomeness of His power, see His wooing.

Intenser Wooing.

A look at the _miraculous_ power first. The turning of the water into wine was simple creative power at work, creating in the liquid the added const.i.tuents that made it wine. The healing of the n.o.bleman's son rises to a higher level. The power overcomes diseased weakened conditions and creates new life in the parts affected.

The healing of a thirty-eight year old infirmity rises yet higher in the scale of power seen at work. The Roman's child was an acute case; this an extreme chronic case of long standing. The acute case of illness may be most difficult and ticklish, demanding a quick masterful use of all the physician's knowledge and skill. The chronic case is yet more difficult eluding his best studied and prolonged and repeated effort.

Clearly the power at work is accomplis.h.i.+ng more; and so it is pleading more eloquently.

The feeding of the five thousand is creative power simply, like the water-wine case, but it moves up higher in the greater abundance of power shown, the increase of quant.i.ty created, and the far greater and intenser human need met and relieved.

The walking on the water was an overcoming one of nature's laws, a rising up superior to it. The universal law of gravitation would naturally have drawn His feet through the surface of the water and His whole body down. He overcomes this law, retaining His footing on the water as on land.

It was done in the night, but an Oriental community, like any country community, anywhere, is a bulletin-board for all that happens. No detail is omitted, and no one misses the news. And this like all these other incidents become the common property of the nation.

It is interesting to note in the language John uses[86] that the motive underneath the action was not to reveal power but simply to keep an appointment. But then Jesus never used His power to show that He had power, but only to meet the need of the hour. Yet each exhibition of power revealed indirectly, incidentally _who He was_.

There is an instance similar to this in the borrowed axe-head that swam in obedience to Elisha's touch of power to meet the need of the distressed theological student.[87] In each instance it is the same habit of nature that yields homage to a higher power at work.

But though there is here no increase of power shown yet the action itself was of the sort to appeal much more to the crowd. It has in it the dramatic. It would appear to the crowd a yet more wonderful thing than they had yet witnessed.

The giving of sight to the man born blind is distinctly a long step ahead of any healing power thus far related in John's story. There is here not only the chronic element, but the thing is distinctly in a cla.s.s by itself, quite outcla.s.sing in the difficulty presented any case of mere chronic infirmity.

It was not a matter of restoring what disease had destroyed but of supplying what nature had failed to give in its usual course. It was a meeting of nature's lack through some slip in the adjustment of her action in connection with human action. There is not only the appealing dramatic element, as in the walking on the water, but the appealing sympathetic element in that this poor man's lifelong burden is removed.

And then the seventh and last of these, the actual raising of Lazarus up from the dead, is a climax of power in action nothing short of stupendous. Of the six recorded cases of the dead being raised this is easily the greatest in the power seen at work. In the other five, in the Elijah record,[88] the Elisha,[89] the Moabite's body at Elisha's grave,[90] Jairus' daughter,[91] and the widow's son at Nain,[92] there was no lapse of time involved.

Here four days of death had intervened, until it was quite certain beyond question that in that climate decomposition would be well advanced. Utter human impotence and impossibility was in its last degree. Man stands utterly powerless, utterly helpless in the presence of death. It is not the last degree of improbability. There _is_ no improbability. It's an _impossibility_. The thing is in a cla.s.s by itself, the hopeless cla.s.s. And the four days give death its fullest opportunity. And death never fails in grim faithfulness to opportunity.