Chapter X: Jesus' Last Journey to Jerusalem
I: The Ten Lepers — The Pharisee and the Publican
Luke xvii. 11-37; xviii. 1-14; Matt. xix. 1-2; Mark x. 1.
However much of ungratefulness the land of Israel had shown Him, Jesus dearly loved His native country, as the mother loves the child of her sorrows, and He would not die without revisiting the places where there He had once carried Good News of salvation. So a few weeks before the Paschal-tide, He left Ephrem, wending His way northward, travelled across Samaria and Galilee, and when upon their frontiers wrought one of His last miracles.
On the outskirts of a little hamlet, shrill cries reached His ears: they came from a group of ten lepers who lived together near this spot. They durst not approached closer, for any contact with them, even their passing breath, was a contamination, yet so soon as they recognise the Saviour, they lifted up their voice crying altogether:—
" Jesus! Master! Have pity up on us!"
The Lord granted their hearts' desire:—
"Go," said He, "show yourselves to the priests."
They obeyed instantly, and even as they were on their way to those who could rightfully certify to their cure, they felt a purer life-blood surging up within their veins, the hideous pallor was fast yielding to the swift pulse of health; their malady had disappeared!
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| Christ heals the ten lepers. J-J Tissot. |
But what was it happened by the roadside, and what was the reason they showed such coldness of heart? Was it their own evil natures or some fear of the Jews, or was it the prompting of some foes of Jesus, which held them back from Tim? We do not know; all that the Gospel tells us is that of the ten lepers only one retraced his steps, with a loud voiced glorifying God the while, and that this one was a Samaritan. A denizen of that border-land of Judaea, he had found no difficulty in gaining admittance among these lepers of Israel; the wretched disease which was the common fate of such outcasts always levelled any barriers of rank between fellow-sufferers; but once the affliction was lifted away the barriers arose of themselves. So the nine Jews had left the Samaritan to throw himself alone at the feet of Jesus. Well accustomed as the SavioUr was to all manner of ingratitude, this last token of heartlessness dismayed Him.
"Were not the ten cleansed, " He said; "where then are the nine others? There was none found who returned to give glory to God, save this stranger!"
Only in this last-named soul could Jesus complete the work of grace; already He had touched the Samaritan's heart. He now made him one of His disciples.
"Arise," He said to him, "and go your way: your faith has saved you."
The healing of the lepers attracted the attention of the Galilean Pharisees, which for some months had been diverted from the Christ. The youthful Teacher reappeared before them with all His wonted marks of power, mighty in deed and in word, as of old, continuing always to publish the approach of God's Kingdom, although without any token of preparations for the establishment of a terrestrial empire,— with no signs of royal pomp or splendid victories; meek, gentle, terrible only to the devils, He everywhere yielded to the violence of man, was hunted from town to town, from one land to another. What then was there to hope from a Messiah who was like to be destroyed after this fashion, along with His fruitless promises? Were the preparations for His much-talked-of Coming to be never-ending? Wearied with this prolonged course of deception, as they construed it, the Pharisees approached Him.
"When," they enquired contemptuously, "will the Kingdom of God come?"
The Lord replied that it was needless for them to stand at gaze, waiting for some new marvel to burst upon their ecstatic vision and overcome them "and by outward shows." His Realm was not like those of earth, which are established at the expense of wars and wondrous feats of strength. No glittering court is arrayed around the new King, no wondering throngs, attracted by His gorgeous state, gather about Him shouting "Lo; here He is! Yonder He stands!"
"The Kingdom of God," Jesus said, "is within you,"— plainly visible to the pure of heart, unseen by the eyes of flesh; a heavenly empire, which, for nineteen centuries, has never yet appeared outside the holy sanctuary of the soul, and until today is still denied by the very men who daily see millions of subjects bowing beneath the invisible sceptre of the Christ!1
So for the Pharisees, who were strangers to the Kingdom of God, this response was sufficient; but it was not enough for the disciples, who were its true children. The Master warned them that they were to be persecuted and, as it would seem, abandoned by God; "that they should greatly desire to behold again one of those days" which they had spent in blessed companionship with the Son of Man, but that they should see the like never again. Then would it behove them to remain steadfast and turn a deaf ear to the blandishments of deceivers, who would cry, "Lo, here He is! See! He is there!" Vain and empty clamour! A bootless quest! Jesus shall no more return, until time is at an end, and then with such flashing and crashing of thunderbolts that the deaf and the blind shall wot thereof. This last coming shall be "swift as the lightning," wild and furious "as those great floods which swallowed up Noah's fellow countrymen," terrible "as the showers of fire, in which Sodom was engulfed." Woe to the man who, in that dread day, finds himself unable to disentangle his heart from the burning wreck of the world, and refuses to turn his back upon it, "like Lot's wife" longing to cast one more glance on the habitations of evil! That shall be a season of sickening surprises, heart-rending separations, the night of Eternity, whenas "there shall be two together in the same bed, the one shall be taken, the other left."
Every line in this Prophecy applied in like manner to the judgment which each man must undergo, to the approaching destruction of Jerusalem, and to the last Highly Court which shall doom or deliver the world. At these three or four epochs Jesus declared that God's justice would be equally sudden and unlooked for. But this lofty plane of thought was far above the comprehension of His Apostles; with their minds filled with the imagery of Joel, and the day foretold by the Prophet: "Day of clouds and tempests . . . when the sun shall change into thick darkness, the moon to blood, the earth shall be covered with flame and whirlwinds of smoke." Already their eyes were looking for the Valley of Josaphat, "the Valley of Slaughter, whither, with a roaring out of Sion, Jehovah shall gather all the peoples of the earth."
"Where, Lord?" they cried.
"Where the carcass is, there where the eagles be gathered together," was Jesus' answer.
Thus the Divine Justice knows neither time nor place, but strikes down sin wheresoever it befouls the earth. In that hour, when the measure of the world's wickedness shall be filled to overflowing and nought but the senseless corse of iniquity remains, then the avenging eagles of Divine Justice shall sweep down upon their prey. They shall be gathered together, in the words of the Seer of Patmos,2 "unto the great Supper of God, that they may eat the flesh of Kings, the flesh of chieftains in battle, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, the flesh of all men, freemen and slaves, the little and the great. . . And all the birds were gorged with their flesh."3
This Vision of Judgment froze the disciples' hearts with fear. To reassure them the Master forewarned them that they need not be overtaken by surprise if they would but look steadfastly Heavenwards; and so, by means of two Parables, He taught them all in regard to Prayer.
The first showed them what is the power of perseverance, and that they must "pray always without ever being wearied."
An unrighteous and prevaricating judge for a long time refuses to hear the case of a poor widow; at last he consents, worn out by her ceaseless complaints.
"Even though I have no fear of God," he says, "and care nothing for man, yet because this widow is burdensome to me, I will grant her justice, lest she finally overpower me."
"You hear," added the Lord, "what's the unrighteous judge says. And will not God grant justice to His elect, who cry to Him night and day, and will He impose a long delay upon them? No, I say unto you, He will grant them justice right speedily."
The theme of the second Parable was the humility with which it befits us to pray. The Master could not note the ignorance and the carnal cravings of His disciples' without sorrowing over them.
"Think you," He explained, " that the Son of Man when He returns, shall still find faith on earth?"
Indeed, at this very time when He was fashioning their hearts for prayer, there was nothing but rivalry and dissension in the souls of His followers: each one boasting of his own merits, proud of his own outward semblance of piety; while in their presumption some went so far has even to despise their fellow-men. To these self-conceited spirits, Jesus told a story of two men who went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a publican. In the presence of the Lord, the Pharisee displays all the arrogance of his sect; with his head thrown back proudly, his countenance or complacent and self-satisfied, he stands there, not so much to pray as to seeing his own praises:—
"My God," he says, " I give Thee thanks for that I am not like unto the rest of men, who are violent, unjust, unclean; as also is yonder publican. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes upon all that I possess."
Afar off from the altar, before which the Pharisee had planted himself, the publican stood, not daring so much as to lift up his eyes unto Heaven; with head bowed down he smites his breast, repeating in low voice:—
"Oh God! Have pity upon me who am a sinner!"
And Jesus had added: "I tell you this man went down to his house justified, and not the other, for he who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted."
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| The Pharisee and the Publican. J-J Tissot. |
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