Jesus

by Paul Johnson

  Nor was the hostility of the powerful the only risk Jesus faced. The fact that he could cure chronically sick people led to riotous behavior among those seeking relief and their anxious friends and families. When Jesus entered a place in Capernaum, and “it was noised that he was in the house,” a huge crowd collected, so that there was no room within. A man sick of the palsy, evidently wealthy, since he had four attendants who carried him around, came to the house, but his men could not get him in because of what Mark calls “the press” of the crowds. So, desperate and excited, “they uncovered the roof ” of the house where Jesus was, “and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay” (2 : 1-4). This was the occasion when Jesus forgave the sick man his sins, thus scandalizing the orthodox, before telling him to take up his bed and walk. The Pharisees were furious—and the man who owned the house cannot have been too pleased either.

  A similar, but even more striking, tale of the inconveniences of miracles is given in Matthew 8 : 28-34 about the region around Gadara, east of the Sea of Galilee. Matthew came from this part of the country and therefore was able to identify the actual town, Gergesa, on cliffs overlooking the water, where the incident occurred. There, two men possessed by devils who lived among the tombs (one described as “exceeding fierce”) recognized and confronted Jesus. The devils begged him, if he should cast them out of the men, to permit them to go into a herd of swine that was feeding peacefully nearby. Jesus consented. The devils left the men and “went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.” The herdsmen, terrified, “went their ways into the city, and told every thing.” Matthew, for whom the incident was only too familiar, concludes: “And, behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus: and when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts.” As one would expect. The ways of a miracle worker were hard.

  Indeed, as his ministry continued, Jesus increasingly avoided working miracles, except when entreated in such a way that he could not refuse. The fifth chapter of Mark (22-43) tells us about two of these cases. On the northwest side of the Sea of Galilee, the area where Jesus was best known, a prominent Jew called Jairus, “one of the rulers of the synagogue,” who had helped him to preach there, “fell at his feet, And besought him greatly.” He said his twelve-year-old daughter “lieth at the point of death.” He begged Jesus to “come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed.” Jesus went with him but was “thronged” by the mob. An old woman saw her opportunity to get his help. Hers was a pitiful tale. She had suffered for twelve years from “an issue of blood,” a common postmenstrual complaint, in an acute form. She had meekly put up with the fruitless efforts of many doctors, who had taken all her money in fees, “and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse.” She had heard of Jesus, joined the crowd, and in the press of bodies contrived to touch his garment: “For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.” And it was true: “[S]traightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.” But Jesus felt it, too, “immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him.” Turning round in the crowd, he asked, “Who touched my clothes?” The disciples were puzzled. In that immense, pressing throng, how could anyone possibly tell? But the woman heard, and knew. “[F]earing and trembling,” she fell down before Jesus and told him the truth. He looked with kindness on her. Seeing she was old and trembling, he did not address her with the formal “Woman,” but said, “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.”

  Meanwhile, one of Jairus’s family arrived to tell him there was no point in troubling Jesus further: the little girl was dead. But Jesus insisted on going to Jairus’s house. There he found a crowd of relatives, servants, and minstrels performing the funeral dirge—“making a noise” as Matthew puts it (9:23). He commanded silence, saying, “[T]he maid is not dead, but sleepeth” (9:24). He ordered them all out of the house and, accompanied only by the girl’s parents, Peter, James, and John, went into the room where she lay (Lk 8:51). “[H]e took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, Talitha cumi,” a phrase in Aramaic meaning “Little girl, get up” (Mk 5 : 41). The girl arose and walked. Then comes the small detail that lends touching authenticity to the story. Jesus loved children and understood them. The little girl had been given nothing to eat while she lay in mortal sickness and the doctors fussed around her bed. Now she was up, and Jesus knew she must be hungry. Luke says that his first instruction was that she must be given something to eat.

  But his next was to command all those people present that they say nothing. As always, he wanted to avoid at all costs being known as a miracle worker. He detested being thought of as a kind of holy magician. In none of the four Gospels is there a single instance of his using his powers of healing to attract support—just the opposite. But sometimes publicity was unavoidable, and it could be dangerous, as well as irksome, to a profoundly thoughtful man and speaker who was eager to convey his message by reason and not by “signs.” It became clear, as his mission proceeded, that the Jewish authorities were increasingly anxious to destroy or at least to silence him. To them, the fact that he had unusual powers was an added reason to eliminate an outsider who challenged their authority. For them, the crisis became acute when it was shown he had power to wield. This point is made particularly clear by John in his Gospel, which is the only one to describe the raising of Jesus’s friend Lazarus (11:1-57).

  We are told that Jesus was very fond of Lazarus, though we do not know why, for he never speaks in the Gospel accounts and is not strongly characterized like his sisters Martha and Mary. They lived in the town of Bethany, on the eastern slopes of the Mount of Olives, to the east of Jerusalem. Jesus had other friends there besides Lazarus and his sisters, and often stayed there when visiting Jerusalem. But he was watched there as a suspicious character “known” to the Temple authorities, who once raised a mob to stone him out of the town. John 11 describes how, toward the end of his ministry, while Jesus and his companions were over the border in Samaria, messengers arrived from Martha and Mary to say that Lazarus was sick. Jesus waited two days, then announced he was crossing into Judaea to go to Bethany. He explained, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby.” But, after delaying for two days, for reasons which are a mystery to us, he announced that Lazarus was dead: “And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.” The disciples said, “Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again?” Thomas, known as Didymus, believed Jesus was going to his death, and said to his comrades: “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

  When they arrived, Jesus found Lazarus had not only died but been put in his tomb four days before. The town was full of Jews who had come out from Jerusalem to console Martha and Mary, for Lazarus was obviously a popular and highly esteemed person. Mary stayed in the house, weeping. But Martha came out to meet Jesus, and the following conversation took place.

  MARTHA: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.

  JESUS: Thy brother shall rise again.

  MARTHA: I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection of the last day.

  JESUS: I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

  MARTHA: Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.

  Then she went home and called her sister Mary “secretly” and said, “The Master is come, and calleth for thee.” Mary immediately ran to where Jesus was waiting outside the town. The Jews from the house followed her, saying, “She goeth unto the grave to weep there.” Mary, seeing J
esus, knelt at his feet, and said, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” She wept, and the Jews with her wept. Jesus “groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.” He said, “Where have ye laid him?” and they replied, “[C]ome and see.” John adds: “Jesus wept.” The Jews said, “Behold how he loved him.” But others said, “Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?” Jesus groaned again, until they came to the tomb, a cave blocked by a stone. He said, “Take ye away the stone.” Martha, always the direct and practical one, warned him, “Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he has been dead four days.” Jesus reminded her that if she believed she would see the glory of God. Then the stone was lifted up, and Jesus raised his eyes to heaven, saying, “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.” In a loud voice he cried, “Lazarus, come forth.” Lazarus did so, “bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin.” Jesus said, “Loose him, and let him go.”

  This was by far the greatest of Jesus’s miracles. There was no way he could avoid it and no way it could be kept private, according to his rule. It was witnessed by many pious Jews, some of whom were converted on the spot and were sure now that Jesus was the Son of God. But others went back to Jerusalem and complained to the Pharisees and to the Temple authorities that some kind of devilry was taking place, and soon there would be rioting. The chief priests called a council meeting. They asked one another, “What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.”

  The chief priest for the year, Caiaphas, was scornful: “Ye know nothing at all.” He said it was expedient that “one man should die for the people” and that Jesus was the appointed man: “Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.” In this account John showed the double-edged effect that miracles had—only Jesus’s own attitude to them was so ambiguous. Miracles convinced the people that Jesus was a special person, but they also aroused the hostility of the Jewish authorities. Despite the truth of the miracles—indeed, precisely because they believed, or half-believed, in them—the priests, the scribes, the Pharisees and other pious and orthodox observant Jews decided Jesus was a threat both to them personally and to the Jewish community. It was the miracles, and their obvious success and truth, which persuaded these men to put Jesus to death. For they drew attention to the real threat—Jesus’s teaching, which promised to overthrow all their traditional, ancient, exclusive, and hieratic values. What they really feared was what they saw looming: a new moral world. To that we now turn.

  IV

  What Jesus Taught and Why

  JESUS TAUGHT for the best part of three years in southeast Galilee and Jerusalem. His early ministry centered on Capernaum, on the Sea of Galilee, with visits to Je rusalem and parts of Samaria. During his central ministry he made a first tour of Galilee, visiting Nazareth and other towns. Then followed trips to the eastern shores of the Sea of Galilee and a second tour of Galilee villages. A third tour of Galilee also included visits beyond it to Tyre and Sidon, Decapolis, Caesarea, and Philippi. In his late ministry, he was in Peraea, parts of Judaea, and Galilee again, until his triumphal entry into Jerusalem that led to his arrest and Crucifixion.

  The ministry was continual. Even when he traveled, Jesus taught by the wayside. There is no evidence he preached formal sermons, let alone regular, repeated ones. Indeed, the word “preached” should not be used about him. “Taught” is more accurate. He taught as the Holy Spirit moved him, often in response to what he saw or heard, or to questions. He used synagogues where those in charge of them were friendly, or he taught in the open. Jesus was not thus overburdened by a program of specific appointments to teach. While always at work, he gives the impression of finding time to chat, albeit not about trivialities. There is never a sense of hurry. Of course, Jesus, who was God as well as man, was partly outside the structure of time and space anyway. He could, and did, make time stand still, and he could annihilate the constraints of space. This was particularly true when he wished to pray, as he often did, outside time or upon a hill or mountain, beyond space. But when not praying, he was teaching, even at mealtimes, for Jesus was convivial and loved to teach when people were relaxed and enjoying their food and companionship. I calculate that Jesus, in his three-year ministry, must have taught on perhaps as many as four hundred occasions when crowds gathered, as well as scores of other times when an informal opportunity arose. His few rest days were spent fishing on the great lake around which his ministry revolved. The disciples fished, as they well knew how, while Jesus reclined in the stern and sometimes slept.

  What did Jesus teach? He had no system, no summa, no code. God forbid! The only way to grasp his teaching is to read all the Gospels repeatedly, until its essence permeates the mind. In the ancient Near East, centuries before the birth of Christ, when societies were just emerging from savagery, religious awe and belief served to civilize by producing elaborate codes of law to preserve order, because there were no civil parliaments or constitutional bodies to perform this function. These religious codes were elaborated by layers of commentaries produced by professional priests, scribes, and ecclesiastical lawyers. This process was particularly intense among the Jews, who could trace their religious-legal roots back to Moses or even Abraham, and who had, by Jesus’s time, already enjoyed a continuity and a progressive elaboration of legal duties stretching back two millennia. In the process, God had become a very distant and frightening figure, but the law was an ever-present and weighty reality.

  Jesus was a revolutionary who transformed the entire Judaic religious scheme into something quite different. It ceased to be a penal system of law and punishment—that could be left to Caesar and his soldiers—and became an affair of the heart and an adventure of the spirit. Jesus did not exactly repudiate the law. What he did was to extract its moral code and ignore the rest. Instead of the law he spoke of the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven. A faithful soul was not one who obeyed the law but one who, by transforming his spirit, “entered” the Kingdom. God was not a distant, terrifying Yahweh but “the Father.”

  Essentially, in Jesus’s teaching, the entire human race was “the children of God.” He used the term “Father” or “Holy Father” more often than any other. According to Luke 11 : 2-4, when a disciple asked him how to pray, Jesus taught him the words of the Our Father, or Lord’s Prayer, an admirably succinct and intimate address to God, who is treated as the father of a close family rather than an invisible deity on a mountain. Later, on the eve of his Passion, in the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed directly to God in an extended and transcendental version of the Our Father, which is given at full length in the seventeenth chapter of John. Jesus always taught that the present world, though created by God and good and beautiful in many respects, to be enjoyed and made use of within reason, was totally different from the Kingdom of God. It was alien, and human beings could never be fully at home in it. It was as though something in them, some vital part, was missing.

  They needed to be “made whole.” This process could not be achieved by obeying endless laws, or even by doing good works, meritorious though they were. It depended entirely on the mercy of God, whose son was the symbol and instrument by his sacrifice. Life on earth was to be devoted to a self-transformation in which each human soul strove to become as like God as possible, a process made easier by the existence of his son made man, thus facilitating imitation.

  The essence of Jesus’s teaching is the search for oneness. What matters is not the world, a mere episode in time and space, but the people in it: their sojourn in the world is temporary, and their object is to emerge from it and become one with God. About to depart the world, Jesus prayed to God for his faithful followers: “And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that
they may be one, as we are” (Jn 17:11).

  In Jesus’s eyes, the faithful are alien to the world: “[T]hey are not of the world, even as I am not of the world,” a sentence so important he repeats it (Jn 17:14, 16). He adds (17:20-26):Neither pray I for these [followers] alone, but for them also which shall believe on me. . . . That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us. . . . And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one. . . . O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou has sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

  Jesus said this magnificent and intimate prayer while kneeling. Moses had taught the Hebrews to pray standing, and aloud, with arms outstretched as though contemplating an implacable deity at a Himalayan distance. Jesus adopted the posture of a child kneeling at a parent’s thigh or lap: prayer should be silent, secret, private. The way in which a prayer was said was characteristic of Jesus’s teaching, which was to reverse all the assumptions. He turned the world, which was wrong and false, upside down and set it upright. When he taught his disciples, and the people as a whole, how to behave, there was a stunning reversal of values, which must have caused astonishment. He produced a series of precepts, known as the Beatitudes, which are part of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:3-12 and the Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6: 20-23. These should be taken in conjunction with other admonitions of Jesus’s scattered through the Gospels, which he taught as a guide through life and its material problems. The world was reversed, and poverty and humility were substituted for pride, ambitions, hierarchies, and pursuit of power, money, and pleasure.