Jesus for the men of today, when science aids religion

Front matter

^ JESUS ^

FOR THE MEN OF TODAY

GEORGE HOLLEY GILBERT

Introduction

THE LONG HOPE OF ISRAEL

Tracing his way along the stream of Christian life back to its humble source in Galilee, observing what that stream has wrought across the wide expanse of years, the traveller comes at length to that fardistant spring with a mingled sense of awe and mystery. This stream of life, still rising slowly as it flows, has touched with hope a third of all the millions of mankind, and makes to grow along its banks the fairest things, the things of greatest promise, that we see in all the earth. Go back along its winding course through other centuries. How has it wrought on right and left, in single souls, in states, and kingdoms? It made the men who planted what we prize in this new world; it brought the springtime in the days of Luther; it gave ideals of purity and right and strength to knight-

vii

Vlil INTRODUCTION

hood; and further back, through the rude landscape of the Middle Age, it kept a little candle burning in the cloister of the monk, it made sweet records of self-sacrifice, and gave to many struggling spirits songs in the night Still journeying further backward by this stream of Christian life that runs from soul to soul, and moulds the manners and the thoughts of men, we see great emperors and heathen gods go down before the unarmed witnesses of Christ; we pass through fields made sacred by the blood of martyrs, and meet at last, far back, the hurrying messengers whose eyes had seen the very Master and whose ears had heard the Gospel from his lips. What zeal is theirs, what power breathes upon us in their words, what visions must their souls have seen and felt to lift them from their lowly lot and make them glorious through all coming time!

Another stream there was, less wide and clear, that rose far off in some inspired soul and flowed through many generations till it found its rest just where the stream of Christian life arose. It was the hope of

INTRODUCTION ix

One whose rule would bring what neither king nor prophet yet had brought to Israel, a hope that varied with the varying times, now earthly grand, now mystical and high, now narrow as the land in which it rose, again majestic in its sweep, including every tongue and tribe.

Beside this stream of hope, back in the twilight of the ancient world, we take our stand, and listen for a moment to the words in which it found expression from the inmost heart of one who from his youth had longed to greet the promised day in the form foreseen by Israel's greater prophets.

Terah, ruler of a little synagogue in central Galilee, in the village of Gath Hepher, just east of Sepphoris, in the last years of Herod called the Great, said, while resting from his morning labour by a fig tree in his vineyard, ^^O that the Holy One — blessed be his name! would rend these silent heavens and send at last to us, his people, the Deliverer, even King Messiah!

"We have waited long, and the waves of evil and sorrow have gone over us, like the

INTRODUCTION waves of the great sea in number. Nations that fear not Jehovah have despised us; they have profaned our holy things, and filled our cup with bitterness.

"As a flock torn and scattered by jackals or by lions from the thickets of Jordan, so has Israel been torn and scattered well nigh all the years since the great prophets told our fathers of the coming Kingdom, and fell asleep. We wept long by the rivers of Babylon, far away from our homes and our ruined Temple. The Syrians and the Romans have mocked us, have trodden our sacred books in the dust, and have brought us under an iron yoke. Worst of all, we have been peeled and broken by foes who were of our own household.

"Has God forgotten us? Has the Most High cast us away from being his people because of all our sins? Yet the Pharisees in every town, with long prayers and fastings, with tithes and washings and many other rites, keep all the Law. They are holy, and the Lord must surely have regard for them, and visit us in mercy for their sakes. Righteous, too, and well-pleasing

INTRODUCTION xi

unto him are those silent people in Sepphoris and in the desert places by the river, who always go in white garments, who despise riches, and who have all things in common.

*'But the many in our land are not like these, and the scribes say they are accursed. May that not be! We all are children of the covenant with Abraham, and the Lord God is full of loving kindness. Yet are we far from right, from being such a people as Jehovah seeks; and there are other sins than those the scribes are quick to charge us with.

"We keep the fasts indeed, but often are the fatherless forgot, and widows. Some among us speak the tongues of Gentiles, and read their books that take away the fear of God; and many seek for gain as beasts seek after prey at evening. We suffer the abominations of idolatry in our midst Our priests in the holy city, not excepting Annas himself, the high priest, break bread with the uncircumcised who oppress us, and do not hope for the coming age. They lay up gold in abundance, jewels too and costly xii INTRODUCTION

raiment, while the poor, their brothers, toil and groan unpitied.

^^O that Elijah would come, and call aloud, standing upon the mountains of Israel, and bring the great repentance! If all the people were contrite for one day, say the rabbis, the glorious deliverance of the Messiah would surely appear. But, alas! the Gentiles are poured out upon us as a flood, and the noise of the world fills our ears, and there is no prophet or open vision.

"Our land mourns, but not unto Jehovah. It cries out because the burden of suffering and disappointment is too great for it. Our young men fall here among the mountains of Galilee, the strong-hearted Zealots who think to break the Roman yoke as their fathers broke that of Syria in the days when God exalted the house of Mattathias; and yonder in Judea has not Pilate hanged our brethren upon crosses, and made the courts of the Temple red with the blood of the descendants of Jacob? The throne of David is desolate, and our people pay taxes to a stranger on a distant shore who knows not the Lord.

INTRODUCTION Xlil

^^My heart is sick, and my eyes must soon close without seeing the glory of the last days. But perhaps it is better with those who have gone to Sheol than with us who see our land consumed by our enemies. They sleep in peace, but they shall awake and come forth from the dust when King Messiah destroys our foes on every side, and when He makes Zion higher than all the mountains of the earth. Then shall our land be clean again, and the light of Israel be greater than the glory of David and Solomon. All nations shall gather themselves under the banner of our King, and he shall rule in the might of God over a Kingdom that shall never be destroyed. Then shall we go up to the feasts year by year, singing as we go, and none shall ever make us afraid. We shall plough these fields again with joy, and gather our harvests in peace. We shall sit under our vines and fig-trees, and shall meditate on the law of the Lord. And all Israel shall keep the law with perfect hearts in the days of Messiah. Would God that those days might come speedily!''

xiv INTRODUCTION

And Terah, sighing deeply, rose and took up his morning labour in the vineyard.

The time of Jehovah's deliverance was indeed coming on apace, but the aged ruler of the synagogue knew it not. No one in the circuit of the land knew, though some were longing for it with a great and pure longing. But no sign appeared. The way before them seemed as dark as the long way behind, and in the bosoms of most of the faithful few hope often struggled with despair.

But even in those very days, in another quiet town of Galilee, only a few miles distant from Gath Hepher, toward the Plain, there was a man, now about thirty years of age, who walked perfectly with the Lord God. Like Terah in his vineyard, this man was toiling for his daily bread and for those dependent on him; and yet, though an artisan from his youth, a worker in wood like his father before him, unknown to the leaders of his people, he was fitted for whatever high commission Jehovah had in store for King Messiah. He had heard the Voice, he knew the way of God, he had

INTRODUCTION XV

sounded, as no other, the need of man, and had beheld, as no other, man's potential glory. He had absorbed the loftiest truths of the noblest prophets, and had looked beyond. He had grown to a spiritual stature commensurate with his unique vision. The best hope of weary generations was soon to be fulfilled in him, Jesus, son of Joseph, a carpenter of Nazareth.

XII. Page V

vii

From the Carpenter's Bench The Choice of Ways . . .

First Notes of the Gospel The Widening Horizon . .

Warning Voices ....

The Galilean Crisis . . .

The Kingdom Established .

The Darkening Way . . .

The Prophet in Jerusalem .

The Thick Darkness . .

Chapter One

"TT^LIJAH" had already come again, JOj according to an ancient promise, but he was hidden still from men in the wild regions of the desert of Tekoa. The shadows were thickening in the deep valley below him, over the Jordan and the Salt Sea, as he sat meditating in the entrance of his rocky cave, a roll of the prophets lying at his side.

His home in Beth Zacharias beyond the highway from Jerusalem to the South Land had not seen him since his aged father and then his mother had breathed their farewell blessing, and had gone from earth strong in the hope that the day of the Lord was near. This hope, their only dower, they had passed on to the soul of their boy, where its flame, once kindled, burned with increasing might, consuming other hopes and all common ambitions. Their long wish that he might go before the promised King, to level and make straight his way, had grown in him with all his growth, and through the solitary years of thought and prayer and fellowship with the mighty spirits of Israel's past had ripened in a deep and solemn faith that he was called to be the herald of the coming age.

Most of his old neighbours in Beth Zacharias had forgotten him. A few still wondered whether some great message might not yet come from the strange youth who had disappeared long since among the silent fastnesses of the Tekoan desert. An occasional shepherd, in the spring time, when bits of verdure for his flock were found along the wadys, met the recluse as he sought his rude fare among the rocks, or saw him poring o'er his precious roll of ancient wisdom in the shade of some stunted oak or juniper bush. And thus a rumour of his place and ways went forth to all the country round.

The spirit of the solemn desert was near of kin to that of John; and as he looked abroad from out his rocky cell across the wide familiar landscape, its awful hush was welcome to him. ^^So might the tumult of the wicked be hushed within the gathering shadows of the Judgment Day!"

The deeply cleft ridges of massive rock, one beyond another, that fell steeply down before him to the far edge of the Dead Sea, were not more impregnable than his spirit, nor more insensible to the soft allurements of pleasure.

The withering air that rushed past him up the gorge, as though it came from some profound abyss of fire, was symbol of the intolerable blasts that soon should sweep the wicked off as chaff.

A counterpart of Pharisee and scribe he saw beneath him in the mysterious sea, so fair to the eye, divinely sheltered, and lifting up a calm unruffled face to heaven, but bitter still, though ever drinking of sweet waters — bitter and strewing desolation along every shore it touched.

But yonder, where the sun still bathed the heights of Moab, and where, above those purpling earthly heights, rose, motionless and shining, other airy summits never scaled by man, he saw what yet should be for Israel, saw the exaltation that should follow present judgment, and he gazed long, all unmindful of the dread gulf beneath him.

Then voices of the past, awakened by the vision and the hour, came to him through the sacred silence with fresh, uplifting messages of trust and hope. Words of ancient promise which had often thrilled him strangely, now kindled all his soul again and more deeply.

**There shall come forth a star out of Jacob, And a scepter shall rise out of Israel."

"Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine

inheritance, And the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession."

"Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered, nor come into mind."

And the sacred hope that lighted up those faces dearest to him in his boyhood became a passion and a prayer beyond the power of speech to utter. Again he felt the farewell pressure of his father's hands as he, in glowing faith, bade him await the King's approach, not idly but as a prophet of the end. Thus rapt above himself with strong desire, his spirit open and intent, the message fell upon his inner ear: ^'The appointed season is fulfilled. Make haste and call the nation to repentance. Spare not; cry aloud, for the great and terrible day is at hand."

Then the young prophet bowed himself in prayer while the night gathered and the stars came out. Alone in the wide and wild desert, he was glad and strong, for the time of waiting was ended, and he had now a great and sure message for his people.

We meet him next in Achor, whose valley, through his preaching, became a door of hope. Near a great highway along which, to and from the Jordan ford, throngs of people were daily passing, he lifted up his voice as herald of the coming King.

To the eastward, in an hour, one came to Jericho, which with its suburbs lay concealed in palms and gardens of spice; and nearer was the road to the north, to Phasaelus, Beth-shean, and the Lake of Galilee. The river Kelt was flowing with abundant water from the mountains of Gibeah and Beth-aven.

Six days had passed already since the report had gone abroad that one clad like Elijah and powerful in his words had at last appeared in Israel. The morning of the seventh day saw people more in number than before seeking the banks of the Kelt, to see and hear the young prophet. Few came except with quickened pulse and eager spirit, for the prophet's message — was it not what they had waited long to hear? Did it not mean a King of their own, yea and strong of arm to set them up on high? Did it not mean a swift release from the burden of taxes and the shame of foreign rule?

A King of their own, yes and overflowing wine-fats and wheat and figs and oil according to all their wishes! But some, whose sense of need was deeper, thought of happier ways to serve the Lord than those of scribe and Pharisee, in which they and their fathers had long and vainly sought to walk. Might not the coming age bring better ways than these, and change their painful service into one of joy?

But nearly all who came — the rich and the poor, both young and old, those who wanted bread alone, and they who craved a higher good, came onward with expectant hearts. Nor were they sent away unmoved. For though the prophet talked of judgment and called them to renounce their sins, he, spoke also the word which they had come to hear, and spoke it with a tone of certainty that made their spirits leap in exultation. Their King was coming, and the day of their deliverance was at hand! They clasped each other in their arms and wept for joyo

But the straitness of the path by which alone an entrance to the Kingdom could be had — the path of penitence and of purer, kindlier living — this stirred their hearts less deeply. Yet in the awe and gladness which the tidings of the Kingdom's near approach had brought, they were widely swayed to heed the prophet's stern rebuke and summons, and to make confession of their sins. Group after group, some small, some numbering scores, went down with John into the stream, and were baptised. The crowds grew less as night came on, but many lingered still beside the Kelt. Some cast themselves upon the ground to await the excitement of another day among the wondering multitudes, and learn perhaps how soon, and where, the King would first be seen. Some were not able to depart, so strong upon them lay the prophet's spiritual influence. He suffered these to follow him to his rude shelter in a neighbouring cliff, from which no offers of a resting place and food in Jericho could tempt him, and there he spoke to them more fully of his hope. They shared with him their bread and fish, and, late, they slept.

Like this came other days, when from the bank of Kelt or Jordan wider circles heard the startling message, and bore it swiftly to their homes. The air grew thick with rumours. Men forgot their daily tasks and common pleasures in hearing stories of the prophet, or in talking of the future. Soon the farthest hamlets of the land were moved, as some wide forest when a summer storm draws near, and Israel looked and waited for a glorious Kingdom.

Chapter Two

THE thrill that passed from heart to heart when John proclaimed the coming of the long-expected Kingdom reached Nazareth among the sheltering hills of Galilee as Mary, widowed mother of a family of seven, sought water for the evening meal. She scarce had reached the fountain — the sole one in the village whose waters never failed— when a man came running up the road that joins the hamlet with Esdraelon, shouting as he neared the fountain, "A prophet! a prophet!''

Then Mary with the other women, six or eight together, their jars unfilled, drank in the wondrous news which made this day of early spring one long to be remembered.

The man who brought the tidings, a dweller in the town whom she had known for years, had come from Jericho, whither he had gone some days before with skins of olive-oil for market. He there had heard of John, and then had seen him by the Jordan. So thrilled and conquered was he by what he saw and heard that he had been baptised, then leaving half his oil unsold had hastened with all speed to bear the startling message home to Nazareth. He said none knew whence John had come, or to what family in Israel he belonged, but all confessed that, when he spoke, the Spirit rested on him mightily as on Elijah in the ancient days. He told them boldly of their sins, and of the sifting that must be in all the land before Messiah could sit down upon his throne. He said the day of vengeance and reward was just at hand — the day whose light would search the inmost thoughts of men.

Now as the women heard these words, they marvelled much, believing what the man had told, and wondering what would follow. Other people soon came hurrying to the fountain, and Mary filled her jar, and started homeward. As she climbed the fountain stairs a neighbour who had heard the Story with her asked her if she thought that Jesus, her eldest son, would go down to Jordan at the prophet's call. This question had already asked itself within her heart, but had found no answer. She knew her son would do what seemed right to him, but whether this or that she could not tell. He had his own deep thoughts, not seldom strange to her in those old days.

When evening came, she watched the path across the hill toward Sepphoris, expecting Jesus, who with James and Joses, younger sons, wrought upon a storehouse for a wealthy man whose villa was an hour's walk from Nazareth. They came in sight at last, when all the evening shadows were blended into one, and, wearied by the long day's toil, approached their little home in silence. Their filial greeting was scarce spoken before Jesus, who was always quick to notice, read upon his mother's countenance that something new and wondrous had befallen. His sandals laid aside, he bathed his face and hands and feet, and then, reclining in his customary place, he looked into her eyes and waited.

Then Mary quickly told what she had heard, and where, and who had brought the news. When she had finished speaking, her youngest son, Simon, who then was but a lad of twelve, most like his father Joseph whom he never saw, besought that he might run down to the village fountain, and if the man were there, might hear him for himself. And Mary let him go.

The older sons and daughters, with wonder in their hearts and many questions on their lips, ate their barley broth, their bread and fish. What would their rabbi, Nathan, say to this strange tale? Who of the people of the town would answer to the prophet's call? What would Pilate and the Romans do? And might this man, mysteriously appearing in the desert and drawing greater crowds from day to day, be that old prophet of whose coming they had heard?

These and many other words were spoken by them, but Jesus did not speak, save now and then in answer to some question and briefly. Little of the supper did he take for one who all day long had laboured with his hands. It was not marked that he was silent through the evening meal, for often he was silent, as one wrapt up in thought. When he arose at length, and passed into the little chamber that he shared with James and Simon, Mary did not seek to learn his purpose, but turned her to the simple household cares.

In the evening neighbours came to talk of that which now was uppermost in each man's mind ; and when they asked for Jesus, his brother Joses said that he had gone apart somewhere upon the wooded hill behind the house, as not infrequently he did at night, the day's work being ended.

At dawn upon the morrow Mary did not need to ask what Jesus thought about the sudden tidings from the Jordan valley, for he was clad as on the feast days, and his face was lighted even more than it was wont to be. He asked his brothers if they would not go with him, obedient to the prophet's call, and thus make ready for the coming Kingdom, but he urged them not. He said he fully believed the work at Jordan was ordered of the Lord, the voice Elijah's, and that the coming age was nigh. When James and Joses took their scrip and tools and started for their daily work, he gave them brotherly farewell, and said that if they wished to use his newer axe and saw instead of theirs, they might. But Simon begged to go with Jesus to the Jordan, and his mother quickly made such simple preparation for the three days' journey as she was able.

When they started forth together, she went with them to the highway, and there watched until they disappeared. But little did she think that from their visit to the Jordan there would come what came in later days of shame and pain, of bitter strife and turmoil, a broken household and a broken heart.

Alone, at twilight of the ninth day, her youngest son returned, having had company from Jericho until, on nearing Nazareth, the road turns off to Sarid and the sea. Mary asked where Jesus was, but Simon could not tell. He said his brother came with him from Jordan unto Jericho, and having there commended him to friends about to start for Galilee, had gone he knew not whither.

And Simon told her of the prophet, how stern and grand he was, and how the people trembled as he spoke of sin and judgment; how different he was from all the scribes and Pharisees. The crowds were just as great, he said, as those about the Temple at the Passover, and more were coming every day along all the roads to Jordan.

Such was the story Simon told on reaching home, with many lesser incidents that had impressed his boyish mind. But what his mother most desired to know — where Jesus was, why he had stayed behind, what now he thought of John and of the changes soon to be — she could not learn from him.

Then days and weeks went by, and Mary, waiting for her son, her eldest child, the staff on which she leaned, thought fondly of all his radiant boyhood, thought how strong and gentle he had ever been, and how his father's care for all the household needs had been assumed and bravely borne by him since that dark summer when the father fell asleep. Her home grew lonelier as the days went by and Jesus came not back. They who later went from Nazareth to Jordan and returned, could tell her nothing of her son. In little intervals of rest between her household cares she sat where she could watch the way, and when awake at night she started at each sudden sound about the cottage, wondering if he were come. She knew it not, yet all her anxious fear and loneliness of heart was little by the side of that strange, fearful solitude in which her son, far ofif from Nazareth, was buried.

Chapter Three

THE long habit of his youth and early manhood, to withdraw from men when deeply moved and meditate in solitary places, asserted itself with sudden might when Jesus, face to face with John at Jordan, his spirit to its inmost depths exalted by the message of the prophet, perceived that God was calling him to realise the coming Kingdom. And when his youngest brother, Simon, had been entrusted to the care of friends for the return to Nazareth, he quickly fled from Jericho, and rested not till miles away in the wild middle of a naked desert. No sound of man invaded his retreat. The tumult by the Jordan, the noise of throngs along the highways, the questions of excited men, had given place to utter silence, and his soul could sink itself in the holy, yet dread, secret of his Messianic call.

Again and yet again, well nigh continuously by day and night, the words, ^^Thou art my son," which fell upon his soul by Jordan, resounded through his spirit. He knew the voice that uttered them — the same that often in the quiet hours of deepest aspiration he had heard and welcomed as his Father's with peace and joy too great for words. He knew the meaning of the message, and all his being rose in mighty questionings.

"I, a carpenter of Nazareth, the promised King! I to sit upon the holy hill of Zion, and have dominion from the river to the ends of the earth! I to build the temple of the Lord! To sit upon the throne of David! To let the oppressed of Israel go free! These hands, that all my life have toiled with axe and saw, to wield henceforth a royal sceptre, and kings to fall down before me! I to stand as an ensign of the peoples, to whom the nations shall seek!

^'But thy people, O my Father, seek a King and Kingdom of this world. They long to be exalted far above the Gentiles, and our rabbis teach us from thy word that this shall be when the Messiah comes. Thy prophet at the Jordan, the herald of the Kingdom, warns of judgment which the King will hold at his appearing. But where shall it begin? Thy sheep are scattered and perplext, blinded and torn, and know not thy love. The shepherds tend them not in wisdom. They are not meet to have Messiah come to them in judgment. First must he come in blessing, to gather the dispersed together and feed them what thou givest, to turn the fathers and the children back to thy holy way and set thy Kingdom up in all our land. But this is not the kingly sway thy people covet, the good of which they dream, and which our fathers have implored of thee so long.

^ Will they give heed to me unless I raise the banner of a king and thrust the Gentiles forth? But this I cannot do. What is my father's house! I have no throne to sit upon, no sceptre for my hand, no soldiers and no gold. Yea, and I crave none of these things. What are they to thy love? Could