Miracles of Our Lord Part 4

What they did at length understand by these words is expressed in the additional word of our Lord given by St Mark: "Let the children first be filled." But even this they could not understand until afterwards. They could not see that it was for the sake of the Gentiles as much as the Jews that Jesus came to the Jews first. For whatever glorious exceptions there were amongst the Gentiles, surpa.s.sing even similar amongst the Jews; and whatever the wide-spread refusal of the Jewish nation, he _could_ not have been received amongst the Gentiles as amongst the Jews.

In Judaea alone could the leaven work; there alone could the mustard-seed take fitting root. Once rooted and up, it would become a great tree, and the birds of the world would nestle in its branches. It was not that G.o.d loved the Jews more than the Gentiles that he chose them first, but that he must begin somewhere: _why,_ G.o.d himself knows, and perhaps has given us glimmerings.

Upheld by her G.o.d-given love, not yet would the woman turn away. Even such hard words as these could not repulse her.

She came now and fell at his feet. It is as the Master would have it: she presses only the nearer, she insists only the more; for the devil has a hold of her daughter.

"Lord, help me," is her cry; for the trouble of her daughter is her own.

The "Help _me_" is far more profound and pathetic than the most vivid blazon of the daughter's sufferings.

But he answered and said,--

"It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs."

Terrible words! more dreadful far than any he ever spoke besides! Surely now she will depart in despair! But the Lord did not mean in them to speak _his_ mind concerning the relation of Jew and Gentile; for not only do the future of his church and the teaching of his Spirit contradict it: but if he did mean what he said, then he acted as was unmeet, for he did cast a child's bread to a dog. No. He spoke as a Jew felt, that the elect Jews about him might begin to understand that in him is neither Jew nor Gentile, but all are brethren.

And he has gained his point. The spirit in the woman has been divinely goaded into utterance, and out come the glorious words of her love and faith, casting aside even insult itself as if it had never been--all for the sake of a daughter. Now, indeed, it is as he would have it.

"Yes, Lord; yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs."

Or, as St Matthew gives it:

"Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."

A retort quite Greek in its readiness, its symmetry, and its point! But it was not the intellectual merit of the answer that pleased the Master.

Cleverness is cheap. It is the faith he praises, [Footnote 5: Far more precious than any show of the intellect, even in regard of the intellect itself. The quickness of her answer was the scintillation of her intellect under the glow of her affection. Love is the quickening nurse of the whole nature. Faith in G.o.d will do more for the intellect at length than all the training of the schools. It will make the best that can be made of the whole man.] which was precious as rare--unspeakably precious even when it shall be the commonest thing in the universe, but precious now as the first fruits of a world redeemed--precious now as coming from the lips of a Gentile--more precious as coming from the lips of a human mother pleading for her daughter.

"O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt."

Or, as St Mark gives it, for we cannot afford to lose a varying word,

"For this saying, go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter."

The loving mother has conquered the tormenting devil. She has called in the mighty aid of the original love. Through the channel of her love it flows, new-creating, "and her daughter was made whole from that very hour."

Where, O disciples, are your children and your dogs now? Is not the wall of part.i.tion henceforth destroyed? No; you too have to be made whole of a worse devil, that of personal and national pride, before you understand. But the day of the Lord is coming for you, notwithstanding ye are so incapable of knowing the signs and signals of its approach that, although its banners are spread across the flaming sky, it must come upon you as a thief in the night.

For the woman, we may well leave her to the embraces of her daughter.

They are enough for her now.

But endless more will follow, for G.o.d is exhaustless in giving where the human receiving holds out. G.o.d be praised that there are such embraces in the world! that there are mothers who are the salvation of their children!

We now complete a little family group, as it were, with the story of another foreigner, a Roman officer, who besought the Lord for his servant. This captain was at Capernaum at the time, where I presume he had heard of the cure which Jesus had granted to the n.o.bleman for his son. It seems almost clear from the quality of his faith, however, that he must have heard much besides of Jesus--enough to give him matter of pondering for some time, for I do not think such humble confidence as his could be, like Jonah's gourd, the growth of a night. He was evidently a man of n.o.ble and large nature. Instead of lording it over the subject Jews of Capernaum, he had built them a synagogue; and his behaviour to our Lord is marked by that respect which, shown to any human being, but especially to a person of lower social condition, is one of the surest marks of a finely wrought moral temperament. Such a nature may be beautifully developed, by a military training, in which obedience and command go together; and the excellence of faith and its instant response in action, would be more readily understood by the thoughtful officer of a well-disciplined army than by any one to whom organization was unknown. Hence arose the parallel the centurion draws between his own and the Master's position, which so pleased the Lord by its direct simplicity. But humble as the man was, I doubt if anything less than some spiritual perception of the n.o.bility of the character of Jesus, some perception of that which was altogether beyond even the power of healing, could have generated such perfect reverence, such childlike confidence as his. It is no wonder the Lord was pleased with it, for that kind of thing must be just what his Father loves.

According to St Luke, the Roman captain considered himself so unworthy of notice from the carpenter's son--they of Capernaum, which was "his own city," knew his reputed parentage well enough--that he got the elders of the Jews to go and beg for him that he would come and heal his servant. They bore testimony to his worth, specifying that which would always be first in the eyes of such as they, that he loved their nation, and had built them a synagogue. Little they thought how the Lord was about to honour him above all their nation and all its synagogues. He went with them at once.

But before they reached the house, the centurion had a fresh inroad of that divine disease, humility, [Footnote 6: In him it was almost morbid, one might be tempted to say, were it not that it was own sister to such mighty faith.] and had sent other friends to say, "Lord, trouble not thyself, for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof. Wherefore, neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee; but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers, and I say unto one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it."

This man was a philosopher: he ascended from that to which he was accustomed to that to which he was not accustomed. Nor did his divine logic fail him. He begins with acknowledging his own subjection, and states his own authority; then leaves it to our Lord to understand that he recognizes in him an authority beyond all, expecting the powers of nature to obey their Master, just as his soldiers or his servants obey him. How grandly he must have believed in him!

But beyond suspicion of flattery, he avoids the face of the man whom in heart he wors.h.i.+ps. How unlike those who press into the presence of a phantom-greatness! "A poor creature like me go and talk to him!" the Roman captain would exclaim. "No, I will wors.h.i.+p from afar off." And it is to be well heeded that the Lord went no further--turned at once. With the tax-gatherer Zacchaeus he would go home, if but to deliver him from the hopelessness of his self-contempt; but what occasion was there here?

It was all right here. The centurion was one who needed but to go on. In heart and soul he was nearer the Lord now than any of the disciples who followed him. Surely some one among the elders of the Jews, his friends, would carry him the report of what the Master said. It would not hurt him. The praise of the truly great will do no harm, save it fall where it ought not, on the heart of the little. The praise of G.o.d never falls wrong, therefore never does any one harm. The Lord even implies we ought to seek it. His praise would but glorify the humility and the faith of this Roman by making both of them deeper and n.o.bler still. There is something very grand in the Lord's turning away from the house of the man who had greater faith than any he had found in Israel; for such were the words he spoke to those who followed him, of whom in all likelihood the messenger elders were nearest. Having turned to say them, he turned not again but went his way. St Luke, whose narrative is in other respects much fuller than St Matthew's (who says that the centurion himself came to Jesus, and makes no mention of the elders), does not represent the Master as uttering a single word of cure, but implies that he just went away marvelling at him; while "they that were sent, returning to the house, found the servant whole that had been sick." If any one ask how Jesus could marvel, I answer, Jesus could do more things than we can well understand. The fact that he marvelled at the great faith, shows that he is not surprised at the little, and therefore is able to make all needful and just, yea, and tender allowance.

Here I cannot do better for my readers than give them four lines, dear to me, but probably unknown to most of them, written, I must tell them, for the sake of their loving catholicity, by an English Jesuit of the seventeenth century. They touch the very heart of the relation between Jesus and the centurion:--

Thy G.o.d was making haste into thy roof; Thy humble faith and fear keeps Him aloof: He'll be thy guest; because He may not be, He'll come--into thy house? No, into thee.

As I said, we thus complete a kind of family group, for surely the true servant is one of the family: we have the prayer of a father for a son, of a mother for a daughter, of a master for a servant. Alas! the dearness of this latter bond is not now known as once. There never was a rooted inst.i.tution in parting with which something good was not lost for a time, however necessary its destruction might be for the welfare of the race. There are fewer free servants that love their masters and mistresses now, I fear, than there were Roman bondsmen and bondswomen who loved theirs. And, on the other hand, very few masters and mistresses regard the bond between them and their servants with half the respect and tenderness with which many among the Romans regarded it.

Slavery is a bad thing and of the devil, yet mutual jealousy and contempt are worse. But the time will yet come when a servant will serve for love as more than wages; and when the master of such a servant will honour him even to the making him sit down to meat, and coming forth and serving him.

The next is the case of the palsied man, so graphically given both by St Mark and St Luke, and with less of circ.u.mstance by St Matthew. This miracle also was done in Capernaum, called his own city. Pharisees and doctors of the law from every town in the country, hearing of his arrival, had gathered to him, and were sitting listening to his teaching. There was no possibility of getting near him, and the sick man's friends had carried him up to the roof, taken off the tiles, and let him down into the presence. It should not be their fault if the poor fellow was not cured. "Jesus seeing their faith--When Jesus saw their faith--And when he saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, be of good cheer--Son--Man, thy sins are forgiven thee." The forgiveness of the man's sins is by all of the narrators connected with the faith of his friends. This is very remarkable. The only other instance in which similar words are recorded, is that of the woman who came to him in Simon's house, concerning whom he showed first, that her love was a sign that her sins were already forgiven. What greater honour could he honour their faith withal than grant in their name, unasked, the one mighty boon? They had brought the man to him; to them he forgave his sins. He looked into his heart, and probably saw, as in the case of the man whom he cured by the pool of Bethesda, telling him to go and sin no more, that his own sins had brought upon him this suffering, a supposition which aids considerably to the understanding of the consequent conversation; saw, at all events, that the a.s.surance of forgiveness was what he most needed, whether because his conscience was oppressed with a sense of guilt, or that he must be brought to think more of the sin than of the suffering; for it involved an awful rebuke to the man, if he required it still--that the Lord should, when he came for healing, present him with forgiveness. Nor did he follow it at once with the cure of his body, but delayed that for a little, probably for the man's sake, as probably for the sake of those present, whom he had been teaching for some time, and in whose hearts he would now fix the lesson concerning the divine forgiveness which he had preached to them in bestowing it upon the sick man. For his words meant nothing, except they meant that G.o.d forgave the man. The scribes were right when they said that none could forgive sins but G.o.d--that is, in the full sense in which forgiveness is still needed by every human being, should all his fellows whom he has injured have forgiven him already.

They said in their hearts, "He is a blasphemer." This was what he had expected.

"Why do you think evil in your hearts?" he said, that is, _evil of me--that I am a blasphemer_.

He would now show them that he was no blasphemer; that he had the power to forgive, that it was the will of G.o.d that he should preach the remission of sins. How could he show it them? In one way only: by dismissing the consequence, the punishment of those sins, sealing thus in the individual case the general truth. He who could say to a man, by the eternal law suffering the consequences of sin: "Be whole, well, strong; suffer no more," must have the right to p.r.o.nounce his forgiveness; else there was another than G.o.d who had to cure with a word the man whom his Maker had afflicted. If there were such another, the kingdom of G.o.d must be trembling to its fall, for a stronger had invaded and reversed its decrees. Power does not give the right to pardon, but its possession may prove the right. "Whether is easier--to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, Rise up and walk?" If only G.o.d can do either, he who can do the one must be able to do the other.

"That ye may know that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins--Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house."

Up rose the man, took up that whereon he had lain, and went away, knowing in himself that his sins _were_ forgiven him, for he was able to glorify G.o.d. It seems to me against our Lord's usual custom with the scribes and Pharisees to grant them such proof as this. Certainly, to judge by those recorded, the whole miracle was in aspect and order somewhat unusual. But I think the men here a.s.sembled were either better than the most of their cla.s.s, or in a better mood than common, for St Luke says of them that the power of the Lord was present to heal them.

To such therefore proof might be accorded which was denied to others.

That he might heal these learned doctors around him, he forgave the sins first and then cured the palsy of the man before him. For their sakes he performed the miracle thus. Then, _like priests, like people_; for where their leaders were listening, the people broke open the roof to get the helpless into his presence.

"They marvelled and glorified G.o.d which had given such power unto men"--"Saying, We never saw it on this fas.h.i.+on."--"They were filled with fear, saying, We have seen strange things to-day."

And yet Capernaum had to be brought down to h.e.l.l, and no man can tell the place where it stood.

Two more cases remain, both related by St Mark alone.

They brought him a man partially deaf and dumb. He led him aside from the people: he would be alone with him, that he might come the better into relation with that individuality which, until molten from within, is so hard to touch. Possibly had the man come of himself, this might have been less necessary; but I repeat there must have been in every case reason for the individual treatment in the character and condition of the patient. These were patent only to the Healer. In this case the closeness of the personal contact, as in those cases of the blind, is likewise remarkable. "He put his fingers into his ears, he spit and touched his tongue." Always in present disease, bodily contact--in defects of the senses, sometimes of a closer kind. He would generate a.s.sured faith in himself as the healer. But there is another remarkable particular here, which, as far as I can remember, would be alone in its kind but for a fuller development of it at the raising of Lazarus. "And looking up to heaven, he sighed."

What did it mean? What first of all _was_ it?

That look, was it not a look up to his own Father? That sigh, was it not the unarticulated prayer to the Father of the man who stood beside him?

But did _he_ need to look up as if G.o.d was in the sky, seeing that G.o.d was in _him_, in his very deepest, inmost being, in fulness of presence, and receiving conscious response, such as he could not find anywhere else--not from the whole gathered universe? Why should he send a sigh, like a David's dove, to carry the thought of his heart to his Father?

True, if all the words of human language had been blended into one glorious majesty of speech, and the Lord had sought therein to utter the love he bore his Father, his voice must needs have sunk into the last inarticulate resource--the poor sigh, in which evermore speech dies helplessly triumphant--appealing to the Hearer to supply the lack, saying _I cannot, but thou knowest_--confessing defeat, but claiming victory. But the Lord could talk to his Father evermore in the forms of which words are but the shadows, nay, infinitely more, without forms at all, in the thoughts which are the souls of the forms. Why then needs he look up and sigh?--That the man, whose faith was in the merest nascent condition, might believe that whatever cure came to him from the hand of the healer, came from the hand of G.o.d. Jesus did not care to be believed in as the doer of the deed, save the deed itself were recognized as given him of the Father. If they saw him only, and not the Father through him, there was little gained indeed. The upward look and the sigh were surely the outward expression of the infrangible link which bound both the Lord and the man to the Father of all. He would lift the man's heart up to the source of every gift. No cure would be worthy gift without that: it might be an injury.

The last case is that of the blind man of Bethsaida, whom likewise he led apart, out of the town, and whose dull organs he likewise touched with his spittle. Then comes a difference. The deaf man was at once cured; when he had laid his hands on the blind man, his vision was but half-restored. "He asked him if he saw ought? And he looked up and said, I see the men: for like trees [Footnote 7: Could it be translated, "_As well as_ (that is besides) trees, I see walkers about"?] I see them walking about." He could tell they were men and not trees, only by their motion. The Master laid his hands once more upon his eyes, and when he looked up again, he saw every man clearly.

In thus graduating the process, our Lord, I think, drew forth, encouraged, enticed into strength the feeble faith of the man. He brooded over him with his holy presence of love. He gave the faith time to grow. He cared more for his faith than his sight. He let him, as it were, watch him, feel him doing it, that he might know and believe.

There is in this a peculiar resemblance to the ordinary modes G.o.d takes in healing men.

These last miracles are especially full of symbolism and a.n.a.logy. But in considering any of the miracles, I do not care to dwell upon this aspect of them, for in this they are only like all the rest of the doings of G.o.d. Nature is brimful of symbolic and a.n.a.logical parallels to the goings and comings, the growth and the changes of the highest nature in man. It could not be otherwise. For not only did they issue from the same thought, but the one is made for the other. Nature as an outer garment for man, or a living house, rather, for man to live in. So likewise must all the works of him who did the works of the Father bear the same mark of the original of all.

The one practical lesson contained in this group is nearer the human fact and the human need than any symbolic meaning, grand as it must be, which they may likewise contain; nearer also to the const.i.tution of things, inasmuch as what a man must _do_ is more to the man and to his Maker than what he can only _think_; inasmuch, also, as the commonest things are the best, and any man can do right, although he may be unable to tell the difference between a symbol and a sign:--it is that if ever there was a Man such as we read about here, then he who prays for his friends shall be heard of G.o.d. I do not say he shall have whatever he asks for. G.o.d forbid. But he shall be heard. And the man who does not see the good of that, knows nothing of the good of prayer; can, I fear, as yet, only pray for himself, when most he fancies he is praying for his friend. Often, indeed, when men suppose they are concerned for the well-beloved, they are only concerned about what they shall do without them. Let them pray for themselves instead, for that will be the truer prayer. I repeat, all prayer is a.s.suredly heard:--what evil matter is it that it should be answered only in the right time and right way? The prayer argues a need--that need will be supplied. One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. All who have prayed shall one day justify G.o.d and say--Thy answer is beyond my prayer, as thy thoughts and thy ways are beyond my thoughts and my ways.

VII. THE CASTING OUT OF DEVILS.