At eventide there was a great congregation of the afflicted of Capernaum at the house of Simon Peter. Those who had scruples in coming to be healed on the Sabbath now came freely. Those who feared the tyranny of an apostate priesthood came under cover of the lengthening shadows. And prostrate ones, fearful of the fierce rays of a noontide sun, were brought to Jesus in “the cool of the day.” And He who in the garden of Eden sought the guilty pair at eventide as they shrunk abashed from His presence (Gen. 3:88And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. (Genesis 3:8)), had come from heaven to seek and to save their suffering and groaning sons.
The Lord of glory held a great reception that night, but the throng was not such as is found in the courts of the world’s great ones. He was indeed greater than Solomon, but no Queen of Sheba was there with her gifts. Truly the day is coming when all nations shall fall down before Him, but those who did Him reverence then were but a company of invalids. Nor did they seek His face in vain. They found that He whose scepter shall in due time exercise its unchallenged sway over the governments of this world was supremely potent even then in the kingdom of affliction and pain. With the resources of His omnipotence blending with the exquisite sensibilities of His perfect manhood, He passed, while the twilight shadows deepened, through that motley assemblage, laying hands of beneficent healing on every poor sufferer (Luke 4:4040Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them. (Luke 4:40)), and expelling demons with a word (Matt. 8:1616When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: (Matthew 8:16)). How well did Jesus prove Himself that night the Servant of Jehovah! What occasion did He give for Capernaum to exchange the spirit of heaviness for the garment of praise, and to take up the language of the prophetic Psalm and sing to God, “Bless Jehovah, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless Jehovah, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases” (Psa. 103:1-31<<A Psalm of David.>> Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. 2Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: 3Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; (Psalm 103:1‑3)).
We shall do well to reflect upon this vivid picture of the Lord’s loving service, given in all three of the Synoptical Gospels. For we are still in the shadows. We form part of the creation which, in its entirety, groans and travails in pain even yet (Rom. 8:2222For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. (Romans 8:22)), waiting for a deliverance still to come. In our weaknesses we need an all-sufficient One to sustain and to deliver; “until the day break and the shadows flee away.”
Truly we have no warrant for believing that the Lord has secured to His own a present exemption from the physical and mental disabilities common to mankind. Neither have we warrant for believing that the power He exercised in New Testament times over the sick bodies of men is continued to His present witnesses. In those miracles of healing He demonstrated once for all His power as the First Cause, dispensing with all material remedies as intermediaries, accomplishing His purpose with a word or touch. He was pleased to use a plaster of figs for the recovery of Hezekiah, but the king knew that it was Jehovah who had healed him, as he said, “He hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it” (Isa. 38:1515What shall I say? he hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it: I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul. (Isaiah 38:15)). And we, encouraged by the personal activities of Jesus recorded in the holy Gospels, may use our medicinal remedies in the assurance of His equal activity to-day both in sympathy and in power to heal.
“Thine arm, O Lord, in days of old,
was strong to heal and save;
It triumphed o’er disease and death,
O’er darkness and the grave;
To Thee they went, the blind, the dumb,
The palsied and the lame,
The leper with his tainted life,
The sick with fevered frame.
And lo! Thy touch brought life and health;
Gave speech, and strength, and sight;
And youth renewed and frenzy calmed
Owned Thee, the Lord of light.
And now, O Lord, be near to bless,
Almighty as of yore,
In crowded street, by restless couch,
As by Gennesareth’s shore.
Though Love and Might no longer heal
By touch, or word, or look;
Though they, who do Thy work, must read
Thy laws in nature’s book;
Yet heal and quicken, soothe and bless,
With Thine almighty breath;
And be our great Deliverer still,
Thou Lord of life and death.
Though Israel did not know the Messiah, the demons were inwardly conscious of the personality of this Servant of Jehovah, and would have declared it aloud. This the Lord forbade, as in the synagogue. He did accept the fourfold witness of the Baptist, the Father, His own works, and the Scriptures (John 5:32-4732There is another that beareth witness of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true. 33Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth. 34But I receive not testimony from man: but these things I say, that ye might be saved. 35He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light. 36But I have greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me. 37And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. 38And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. 39Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. 40And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. 41I receive not honor from men. 42But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. 43I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. 44How can ye believe, which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that cometh from God only? 45Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. 46For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. 47But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? (John 5:32‑47)), but He, the Holy One of God, disclaimed all testimony from beneath. In that wisdom which He possessed so perfectly as a Man, He, anticipating the unfounded charge against Him of complicity with Beelzebub in the expulsion of demons, and to give no occasion of stumbling to any of the Father’s “little ones,” publicly renounced all association with the works of darkness, so that all might know that these things were wrought by Him in His Father’s name alone.
MORNING PRAYER
The work of mercy over, the healed ones and their friends retired to their homes. Capernaum was soon wrapped in a healthy slumber not known for many a day. Was it so in the house of Simon Peter with the faithful and devoted Servant of Jehovah? We know not whether the long night-watches were spent by Him in sleep or not. We know He slept in the storm-tossed boat when His disciples were filled with terror. We also know when His apostles fell asleep “for sorrow,” the silence of Gethsemane was broken by His agonized pleadings to His Father. As to this particular night, however, while we recognize that what others did was no rule for Him, since Scripture is silent, it will profit us nothing to speculate further. But this we are informed that He rose up a great while before day, and leaving the sleepers to sleep on, He went away into a place of solitude, and there was praying.
In the parallel passage in Matthew, though no reference is made to the Lord’s morning vigil, a prophecy is cited from the Old Testament which may therefore rightly be considered in this connection. “When the even was come, they brought unto him many possessed with devils; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, “Himself took our infirmities, and bare our diseases” (Matt. 8:16, 1716When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: 17That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses. (Matthew 8:16‑17)).
This passage is taken from the prophecy relating to Jehovah’s righteous Servant, as it was translated from the Hebrew in the Greek Septuagint Version. It is a prophetic utterance of what the believing and suffering Jewish remnant will penitently confess in a future day when they recognize their guilt in rejecting and crucifying their Messiah. “Surely he hath borne our griefs [sicknesses] and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.”
The passage in Isaiah evidently does not refer, as the verses which immediately follow do (Isa. 53:5, 65But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 6All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:5‑6)), to the atoning and substitutionary sufferings of Christ, but to the effects of His service among men which the Jews, blinded by unbelief, regarded as a visitation from God, so that they said, “He is mad”; “this man is not of God”; “He hath a demon,” esteeming Him to be a Gehazi, a Uzziah, “stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.”
The Spirit of God, however, in Matthew records this instance of extensive healing energy at Capernaum as an illustration of the manner in which the prophetic oracle was fulfilled. So that we are left in no doubt as to its true application. In the narrative of His taking, the infirmities and bearing the diseases, there is not only the sense that the Lord removed these things from the sufferers, but also that He took them upon Himself; so that He became a “Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief [sickness]” as stated in the verse preceding the quotation (Isa. 53:33He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (Isaiah 53:3)).
It was thus Jesus was “touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (Heb. 4:1515For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)), and thus that He qualified Himself to be our sympathizing High Priest on high. Not that He took these physical infirmities upon His own body, but He bore them upon His spirit. His acts of healing were not acts of power solely, but acts of sympathy also. He as none else could fully estimate the physical pain, the mental anguish and the moral ruin represented before Him. When the deaf and dumb man was before Him, He looked up to heaven and sighed (Mark 7:3434And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. (Mark 7:34)). At the grave of Lazarus He groaned in the spirit, was troubled, and wept copiously (John 11:33-3833When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, 34And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. 35Jesus wept. 36Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! 37And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? 38Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. (John 11:33‑38)), so that even the Jews said, “Behold, how he loved him.”
It was therefore not only Omnipotent Power, but Infinite Love concerning itself intimately with the physical disabilities of our race, coming into contact therewith, and exhibiting His matchless sympathy. There was a partial expression of this loving regard in the Old Testament, when Jehovah brought His people through the wilderness. “In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old” (Isa. 63:99In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old. (Isaiah 63:9)). More could not be till the incarnation, and Jehovah was now present in Israel in the person of the sorrowing and sympathizing Son of man. How keenly affected therefore was His spirit as the suffering Galilaeans crowded to Him as their great Physician for healing. It was an evening of sorrow, and how much there was for Him to do and to suffer before the morning came, the morning without clouds. Did not He look on to that morning of liberty and glory? Did He not say, “I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished?” (Luke 12:5050But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! (Luke 12:50)).
Was then this burden upon the Lord’s spirit throughout the long night-watches? Were the Psalmist’s words fulfilled in Him; “I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with tears” (Psa. 6:66I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears. (Psalm 6:6))? and again, “My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up” (Psa. 5:33My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. (Psalm 5:3))?
This may have been so, but the specific subject of this early communion between the Servant and the One who sent Him is not revealed, only the fact is certain, that He sought the solitudes “to pray.” As on another occasion He was “alone praying” (Luke 9:1818And it came to pass, as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him: and he asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am? (Luke 9:18)), exemplifying what He also taught—the importance of secret prayer (Matt. 6:66But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. (Matthew 6:6)). This privacy was only to be secured by such an act of self-sacrifice as this. The needy crowd surrounded Him in the evening, and a similar throng would seek Him in the early morning. The Lord therefore went out into the night-chills, always keenest in the hour before the dawn, to secure a period free from interruptions, thus subordinating the activities of His service to the confession of His dependence upon God. What an example for us in the strenuous life of to-day!
The following extract relates to our subject: “Here also we have the dependence of the Lord in all this. We must modify this by no specious pretext, as if the Lord’s prayers were the only untrue ones ever offered among the assembly of saints. His arm was not shortened; He clothed the heavens with blackness, and made sackcloth their covering; He dried up the sea, so that their fish stank; He could do what He pleased, but this state of things [shown by the Lord’s prayers] is easily and blessedly explicable. The Lord God had given Him the tongue of the learned, that He might know how to speak a word in season to him that was weary. He wakened His ear morning by morning. He opened His ear to hear as the learned, and now, with this early-wakened ear He went forth to hear, and to hold that blessed communion with the Father, where, in a world of evil, alone His soul could find delight and refreshment, and where He renewed the strength of His joy—the conscious ground of His coming forth into the world; and in the apprehensions of His soul, all [this] passed in intercourse with His Father. [It is] the most blessed, perhaps the most interesting, part of all our Savior’s life, and where He brings us in spirit with Him, into His Father’s presence, into His Father’s bosom, where He pours all His request, and passes through the evil [of the world] in the strength of it. Oh, it is a blessed portion! Are we to suppose the Savior the only Man who never had it?”
POPULARITY SHUNNED
Simon Peter the host was disturbed to find his gracious Master had departed. And he with others sought His whereabouts with an anxiety we can well imagine. A crowd also collected from near and far, all anxious for further knowledge of the Prophet who had wrought such mighty and merciful deeds of healing for the sons of Israel.
When the ardent disciple found the Lord, he said to Him in his excited impetuous way, “All are seeking thee.” Bright visions of the glorious kingdom were before this newly-called fisher of men. Did it not say in the prophets that all should know the Lord, from the least even unto the greatest? His exuberant fancy saw in the Capernaum crowd the earnest of the thousands of Israel flocking to confess themselves subjects of the Savior-King. The Lord did not rebuke Peter for vain thoughts, or crush his enthusiasm as ill-timed and misplaced.
But the Lord’s hour of triumph had not yet come, and He knew what was working in the hearts of the populace, while Peter did not. Jesus did not commit Himself to men in Galilee any more than in Jerusalem (John 2:23-2523Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. 24But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, 25And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man. (John 2:23‑25)). Not seeking popularity or importance in the eyes of men, He expressed His will to go forward in the service of His Father. “Let us go elsewhere into the next towns that I may preach there also; for to this end came I forth.” Preaching, not miracles, was the chief end of His mission, and accordingly we find Him continuing His blessed service throughout the synagogues of Galilee, preaching and casting out demons. [W. J. H.]