RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Jesus Christ
3. Message and
usurpation. The rite of baptism itself, foreign as it is to the Mosaic code, and spontaneous in its symbolism, justifies this view of the movement of John. The epithet " friend of publicans and sinners," flung at Jesus by his foes the synagogue authorities, the scene of his early ministry, the very class in society to which he belonged, make it apparent that the beginning of Jesus' ministry in Galilee had exactly this character of protest in the name of the " little ones " whose poverty alone would have made the yoke of the law, ever heavier as the scribes were making it, a yoke which in Peter's words (Acts xv. 7) " neither we nor our fathers were able to bear." It was sociological, and ethico-religious. Jesus did more than merely carry on the baptism of John. He renewed John's preaching of repentance in view of the coming kingdom, but instead of awaiting in the wilderness those whom curiosity or conscience might drive to him, he carried the message where the lost Miracles, sheep of Israel were most numerous. He enlisted the aid of fishermen, publicans, wage-earners like himself to proclaim it. He went from Capernaum to the towns of Gennesaret, from Gennesaret to the villages of Galilee. He preached in the synagogues and in the streets. Baptism itself was for the time being left behind, since physical conditions made it impracticable. The message also was infinitely bolder, and at the same time infinitely more hopeful than John's. Fortunately much of it is preserved in substantially original form. The repentance itself of the sinful was to Jesus a proof of that divine forgiveness for the attainment of which the repentance had been demanded (Matt. xxi. 28-32 = Luke xv. 11-32, vii. 36-50). He declared in the name of the great Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that there was access to him, forgiveness, adoption, life in the kingdom, for those who " did the will "; not in the sense of scribe and Pharisee, but by simple imitation of the spirit of the loving God of nature (Q, Matt. v. 43-48 = Luke vi. 27-36). He welcomed such to spiritual brotherhood with himself (Mark iii. 35 and parallels). Inward, not outward, purity was made the condition of " seeing God "; and the essence of the law simple-hearted devotion to God, and God-like goodness to one's fellow men, " even to the unthankful and the evil." This was much more than all whole burnt-offering and sacrifice. The immense effect of Jesus' preaching was not due alone to the reawakening in the land of the voice of prophetic authority, with its moral imperative, " thus saith the Lord "; but to certain startling accompaniments, which at their first appearance were the occasion to Jesus of one of his vigils of prayer (Mark i. 35-39), but were ultimately welcomed by him as a divine aid and seal upon his proclamation of forgiveness. His stern rebuke of an outcry from a " possessed " person in the synagogue in Capernaum resulted in an involuntary exorcism. The " demon " went out. In Peter's house immediately after, a " healing " took place on the appeal of the inmates that he would lay hands upon the patient. Straightway Jesus was besieged with the importunities of the sick in body and mind, with the result that he appears divided
between the desire to give physical help, and the vivid appreciation of the danger involved of being forcibly diverted from his higher aims. A whole cycle of marvels of healing and exorcisms, even the subduing of the demons of wind and storm, appears at this point of the Petrine tradition. Q, with more sobriety, presents Jesus' attitude on the subject in contrast with the malignant interpretation of the scribes. The " mighty works " are the evidence of God's gracious intervention to overthrow the power of Satan. Such evidence would have led Tyre and Sidon, Sodom and Gomorrah, to repentance; but to that hardened generation they were simply an occasion of " stumbling in him." In point of fact he was accused by leading scribes of collusion with Beelzebub.
Before relating the irrepressible conflict with the scribes into which Jesus was led by his championship of the " people of the land," a few words must be devoted to a cycle of narratives presented in duplicate by Mark and Matthew, occupying a central
position in every one of the Gospels. 4. Break- The chief feature of thege is the feed.
™s ° ing of the multitude. They owe their conspicuous position, as appears from the features on which they dilate, to their etiological significance, as explaining and defining the order of the church rite of the breaking of bread; and the very existence from earliest times of this institution, with its significant name of Agape or Love-feast (qq.v.; Acts vi. 4; I Cor. xi. 20-34; Jude 12), proves the fundamental historicity of the tradition. True, Mark's narrative is controlled by the idea of a prodigy outstripping the miracle related of Elisha in II Kings iv. 42-44, and the later evangelists follow this lead. Still the original motive is different. It inculcates that wonderful spirit, of absolute abandon in self-denying service which formed one of the primitive " gifts of the Spirit " (I Cor. xiii. 3; Acts ii. 44-46, iv. 32-37), and which was rightly attributed to the influence of Jesus. The multitude gathered about Jesus in the wilderness had hung upon his words until the hour of the evening meal. Yet instead of dismissing them to find shelter and food as they best could in the neighboring villages, as the disciples urged, Jesus directed that the whole stock of their common resources be set before them. He not merely made the multitude thus materially his guests, but took them formally into the very circle wherein he was himself wont to act as house-father, " blessing and breaking the bread." The results in even a physical sense seem to have filled his followers with amazement, but became far more memorable after Jesus on a later occasion had exemplified the same spirit in the surrender of his very life-blood. Paul is the witness (I Cor. xi. 24) that on the night of his betrayal Jesus asked the continuance of this custom of the breaking of bread as a fitting memorial of the life which was being laid down to open the kingdom of heaven to the spiritually disinherited. *
* In I Cor. xi. and John vi. the two rites, agape and Eucharist, are inextricably interwoven; for church practise had already taken this inevitable course. But in Luke xxiv. 35 men who know nothing of the latter recognize the practise of the former.
Jesus Christ