The first purpose of Christ seems to have been to take the more direct road to Jerusalem, through Samaria, and not to follow that of the festive pilgrim-bands, which travelled to Jerusalem through Peræa, in order to avoid the band of their hated rivals. But His intention was soon frustrated. In the very first Samaritan village to which the Christ had sent beforehand to prepare for Himself and His company, [3860] His messengers were told that the Rabbi could not be received; that neither hospitality nor friendly treatment could be extended to One Who was going up to the Feast at Jerusalem. The messengers who brought back this strangely un-Oriental answer met the Master and His followers on the road. It was not only an outrage on common manners, but an act of open hostility to Israel, as well as to Christ, and the Sons of Thunder,' whose feelings for their Master were, perhaps, the more deeply stirred as opposition to Him grew more fierce, proposed to vindicate the cause, alike of Israel and its Messiah-King, by the open and Divine judgment of fire called down from heaven to destroy that village. Did they in this connection think of the vision of Elijah, ministering to Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration - and was this their application of it? Truly, they knew not of what Spirit they were to be the children and messengers. He Who had come, not to destroy, but to save, turned and rebuked them, and passed from Samaritan into Jewish territory to pursue His journey. [3861] Perhaps, indeed, He had only passed into Samaria to teach His disciples this needful lesson. The view of this event just presented seems confirmed by the circumstance, that St. Matthew lays the scene immediately following on the other side' - that is, in the Decapolis. [3862]
It was a journey of deepest interest and importance. For, it was decisive not only as regarded the Master, but those who followed Him. Henceforth it must not be, as in former times, but wholly and exclusively, as into suffering and death. It is thus that we view the next three incidents of the way. Two of them find, also, a place in the Gospel by St. Matthew, [3863] although in a different connection, in accordance with the plan of that Gospel, which groups together the Teaching of Christ, with but secondary attention to chronological succession.
It seems that, as, after the rebuff of these Samaritans, they were going' towards another, and a Jewish village, one' [3864] of the company, and, as we learn from St. Matthew, a Scribe,' in the generous enthusiasm of the moment - perhaps, stimulated by the wrong of the Samaritans, perhaps, touched by the love which would rebuke the zeal of the disciples, but had no word of blame for the unkindness of others - broke into a spontaneous declaration of readiness to follow Him absolutely and everywhere. Like the benediction of the woman who heard Him, [3865] it was one of these outbursts of an enthusiasm which His Presence awakened in every susceptible heart. But there was one eventuality which that Scribe, and all of like enthusiasm, reckoned not with - the utter homelessness of the Christ in this world - and this, not from accidental circumstances, but because He was the Son of Man.' [3866] And there is here also material for still deeper thought in the fact that this man was a Scribe,' and yet had not gone up to the Feast, but tarried near Christ - was one' of those that followed Him now, and was capable of such feelings! [3867] How many whom we regard as Scribes, may be in analogous relation to the Christ, and yet how much of fair promise has failed to ripen into reality in view of the homelessness of Christ and Christianity in this world - the stranger ship of suffering which it involves to those who would follow, not somewhere, but absolutely, and everywhere?