Very God, very human.

CHAPTER 4. EARLY DAYS IN GALILEE.
From the Arrest of John the Baptist to the Appointment of the Twelve.
AD 29 to 30 (probable dating).

Luke 4:31-6:16 Mark 1:14-3:19

Parts of Matthew 4:12 to 9:38 and 12:1-21. Matthew’s grouping of events is logical not chronological.

(John 5 also belongs to this period)

TIMING.
It was the arrest of John the Baptist which finally triggered the beginning of public life for Jesus. He had left Judea rather than overshadow the baptist. The group of disciples who had formed His team in Judea disbanded and returned to fishing; but He remained in contact with them. With John’s arrest He recalled the team, enlarged it and moved into action.

Capernaum was already His chosen base and remained so for about one and three quarter years; the period of the Baptist’s imprisonment. At some point in the middle of this phase Jesus chose and appointed the twelve apostles.


4.1 PICKING UP THE THREAD.
(Luke 4:31-44. Mark 1:14-15 & 21-34. Matthew 4:12-17, 8:14-17)
“Repent - turn your lives round - the Kingdom of God is here,” the baptist had proclaimed, adding that he had come to prepare the way for Messiah.

Now the baptist was gone and the new preacher who succeeded him was saying much the same thing.

“The time is fulfilled - this is the time you have been waiting for - God’s kingdom is right here beside you - turn your lives round and believe the good news.”

Jesus picked up where John had left off, but now there was practical evidence that God’s kingdom was operating - with power to heal. John had done no miracles (except the personal miracles of changed lives). Jesus carried in Himself the authority of the kingdom He proclaimed.

Matthew was fond of relating the events to Old Testament prophecies and quoted from Isaiah 9:1-2 - “in Galilee of the nations the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”

Mark, interested in action, plunges in with a series of events all demonstrating Christ’s authority. Speaking in the synagogue He taught as one who had authority - not like the theologians (scribes) who were constantly quoting others to back up their statements. First it was the message and His confident delivery of it. Next it was His authority in the spirit world.

Someone interrupted the sermon, not (as was usual) with a question, but with wild shouting from a man the people probably knew well. He is described as having an “unclean” spirit. He was probably dirty outside. He was certainly dirty right through to the centre of his being. The evil spirit recognised Jesus as “The Holy One of God” and screamed out in terror.

Jesus only had two things to say to that spirit. He only ever had the same two things to say to evil spirits. The first was “Be quiet!” The second was “Get out!” This was the authority of the Kingdom of Heaven directly confronting the Kingdom of Satan. The man was healed.

After the synagogue service He went back to Peter’s home to find Peter’s wife struggling to cater for a crowd without the help of her mother. Peter’s mother-in-law was sick with fever. Jesus healed her, and the healing was so immediate that she promptly went to the kitchen to take over from her daughter.

That evening crowds gathered round the house. Capernaum was a health resort and had more than its share of sick people. The new healer was the best asset such a resort could have.

4.2 UP AND AWAY.
(Mark 1:35-39. Matthew 4:23-25)
Early next morning, Jesus slipped away from the town and walked into the hills. He wanted to pray in solitude. There was much to pray about. In Nazareth he had met with rejection but here in Capernaum He was very much wanted. He could simply have stayed and revelled in success and public acclaim; but by the time His friends found Him He had come to a decision. Capernaum would be His home base, but He would move out from it repeatedly, travelling around towns and villages with a message of hope and power to heal. This was to be the pattern of His life for a couple of years.

The events which follow are not necessarily in strict order, but all belonged to this same period.

4.3 THE CALL.
(Luke 5:1-11. Mark 1:16-20 Matthew 4:18-22)
There were always crowds. Thronging masses had become and were to remain a feature of Christ’s life. Occasionally He slipped away and climbed into the hills for some all-too-brief moments of quiet and calm and solitude, otherwise life was people, people, people.

The synagogue was too small. The best place to speak to a crowd was the hillside sloping down to the lake. Voices carry better uphill than down; so it made sense to seat the people on the slope and speak from below them. Acoustics, however, require a gap between the speaker and the bottom of the slope. The principle in a theatre is the same, tiered seats beginning a little way from the stage. Each listener can then see the speaker directly and hear the voice unmixed with the sounds of ground level.

So Jesus asked His fishermen friends for the loan of a boat, tied a short distance from the shore, used as a floating pulpit. With this as His regular pattern whenever He was in the town, His friendship with the fishermen grew deeper. Peter, Andrew, James and John had accompanied Him on that first campaign in Judea, now they were His regular assistants and heard all He said.

One morning after an unsuccessful night’s fishing, they brought the boats in and as usual made one of them, Peter’s, available to Jesus while James and John tidied up theirs. When Jesus had finished He told Peter to go out and try again.

Weary from a frustrating night, Peter nearly did not go. He and Andrew still had to tidy their nets, a chore which their partners James and John had had time to finish. He almost said to Jesus, “Look we do not presume to teach you carpentry, or preaching, but when it comes to fishing, we are professionals.” What Peter actually said was, “We have worked all night and caught nothing, but if you say so we will try once more.”

As it turned out, James and John might as well have saved themselves the trouble of sorting the nets, they had to do it again because Peter and Andrew made such a massive catch that the second boat was needed to bring it all in. The fish had to be sorted and counted and a troublesome tax return made on it to Matthew-Levy the local tax official whom they knew all too well. But in the middle of all this hassle, Peter exercised his uncommon knack of saying the exact opposite of what he really meant.

“Depart from me for I am a sinful man, Lord.” - I am not good enough for you and your mission. Better leave me out.

Jesus responded with the call, “Follow me, in future you will catch people.”

Once again the different personalities of the Gospel writers comes over in the differences between their stories. Mark, writing under Peter’s influence or even maybe to his dictation, cuts the story short. Peter was too involved in it emotionally to want to go into detail. Matthew, when reporting action rather than teaching, follows Mark’s lead. The only thing that does come out from their two accounts is that Peter and Andrew were called as fishermen (still on the job, they had not had time to clear up), while James and John had been tending their nets.

It is Luke who gives the full story, dug out by questioning the eye witnesses.

4.4 AUTHORITY TO FORGIVE.
(Luke 5:12-26. Mark 1:40-45, 2:1-12. Matthew 8:1-4, 9:1-8)
Travel was Jesus’ lifestyle now and His new team of assistants travelled with Him. They walked the hills of Galilee and its surrounding districts, always returning to Capernaum as their base.

On one such journey, Jesus healed a man with a skin disease. That community had a special fear of skin diseases - indeed most people do. The slow spread, the disfiguring effect, the fear of contagion, all contribute to a part-rational part superstitious revulsion which leaves the sufferer outcast from society.

Jesus did not always touch people in order to heal them. This time He did. The man needed a human touch as well as a divine healing. It was a touch of acceptance, a refusal to regard the sufferer as an outcast. Healing followed, and the instruction to go for the necessary medical examination and religious ceremony to re-admit him into the community.

Jesus also told him to keep quiet about it. Publicity would hamper the man’s return to normal life and also add even more to the pressure of crowds which Jesus had to live with. In fact the man could not keep quiet about his healing and the effect was as expected. Jesus could not even get into some of the towns, so great were the crowds which blocked His way.

Back in Capernaum, it was just as bad. The brief but welcome comfort of Peter’s home where He was staying was rudely invaded by yet more pressing crowds. This was winter now and less suited to great outdoor gatherings - especially as this congregation was not quite the same. It contained religious leaders, Pharisees and theologians, some from as far away as Jerusalem, others from surrounding towns. The common people who always “heard Him gladly”, for once did not have Him to themselves. Their culture required them to give pride of place to their superiors.

When four men arrived carrying a paralysed friend on a simple stretcher made of a sleeping mat roped at the corners, they could not come near. Even the doorway was packed with people. But they were resourceful.

Up the outside stairs and onto the flat roof they carried the helpless patient. It may be the house was built round a square courtyard which was partially open, but alas, there was a kind of veranda roof, blocking the way. They could not simply lower their friend into the courtyard. Nothing daunted, they broke through. The dignitaries who had come to check up on this new preacher’s theology had front seats for the drama which unfolded. Even they may have admired the audacity of the four stretcher bearers as they saw the paralysed man lowered to the spot in front of Jesus.

There is something in every human being which shrinks back from receiving anything from God; an inner conviction that “I can not have that. I am not good enough.” This sense of guilt has nothing to do with any religious belief or moral philosophy. It is just part of human nature. We feel that we can not ask God for what we want because we do not deserve it. The paralysed man was no exception. So Jesus began by saying, “Cheer up, your sins are forgiven.”

The theologians immediately formed their conclusion. This man might be a remarkable healer and a fine orator; but to claim the right to forgive sins put Him outside the pale. That right belongs to God alone. How dare He usurp God’s authority.

Jesus knew perfectly well what they were thinking. “You don’t like that? Well how about this? Get up and walk!”

The man was healed and the critics temporarily silenced but not satisfied. The common people were impressed as usual, but the religious leaders went away trying to think up some explanation of how the same man could heal paralysis and also be a blasphemer.

4.5 THE SON OF MAN.
(Luke 5:24. Mark 2:10. Matthew 9:6. Daniel 7:13-14)
Not only had Jesus offended them by forgiving sins, He had also used for the first time in public, the term He was to use most for Himself - The Son of Man.

His hearers knew well the quote from Daniel.

“I saw in a vision one like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of Heaven. He was brought before the Ancient of Days. There was given Him dominion and glory and a kingdom that all people, nations and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and His kingdom shall not be destroyed.”

He was quoting this prophecy every time he used the term “The Son of Man.”

The context of Daniel's words was a nightmare vision of hideous monsters representing various evil powers, suddenly relieved by a welcome and familiar human form. The human defeated the evil forces and was given the everlasting kingdom. The Son of Man was the supremely human one; reassuringly human as opposed to frightening monstrosities. Here is the head of humanity who will defeat the powers of evil and reign for ever.

By claiming this title Jesus identified Himself with the Jewish Messiah and equally the hope of the gentiles. Yet it remained an enigma, mysterious enough to leave people guessing, not quite sure whether it could really mean all that it seemed to mean. Jesus was not yet ready for that very public assertion of His identity which would eventually lead Him to the cross. The claim, at this point, was so framed as to keep people curious. While people are curious they may go on seeking and eventually find, but if they are presented with a certainty they may well close their minds against it without investigation.

4.6 THE QUISLING TAX COLLECTOR.
(Luke 5:27-39. Mark 2:13-22. Matthew 9:9-17)
The Roman conquerors employed Jewish tax collectors. As usual in subjugated countries, the collaborators were hated more than the foreign oppressors. A Roman soldier was only doing his duty to his country, but Jews who worked for them were outcasts; rich outcasts but still outcasts.

Even honourable tax collectors are not the most popular of bureaucrats, and of all the trades which suffered their attentions, fishermen had most to complain about. The tax on fish was not only a slice out of their profits, it was a slice out of their time and energy. At the end of a hard night’s fishing, who wants to make a tax return!

The fishermen knew Matthew Levi well, too well. He taxed their catches.

Matthew had been a spectator of all the interesting events in Capernaum that summer. Now the new preacher was collecting a permanent team to travel with Him. Four fishermen had left their business in the hands of old Zebedee and no doubt some new apprentices. They still used the boat to ferry Jesus round the lake as well as to preach from. Matthew had watched Jesus rise to fame and at this point He was still at the peak of popularity. Capernaum hardly noticed the stirring of opposition among the religious leaders down south. Here He was their number one celebrity.

“If only I were not a tax collector,” Matthew may have reflected, “I could be among those followers. But the great man will not look at me now. I shall have to plough the furrow I have chosen, wealthy but unwanted by God or man.”

That was when Jesus called him. “Follow me!”

It was the most dramatic of all the calls. The four fishermen had been friends of Jesus for over six months, maybe a year, before He called them to make the final break. Matthew simply left his tax booth - the Romans would never take him back after such a desertion - nor would respectable Jews accept him back into their society. For Him it was Jesus or nothing.

Being rich, he next invited Jesus and the other disciples home, sparking the bitter comment that Jesus was a friend of sinners. He replied that only sick people need a physician. “I have not come to call good people, but sinners.”

Jesus had deliberately put His popularity at risk.

Matthew, Mark and Luke all record this event, and here we have the one internal clue which might identify Matthew the tax collector with the Matthew who wrote the Gospel. Mark and Luke both say that they went to Matthew’s home, but Matthew simply says “home” as if it were his own. Not perhaps enough evidence to be certain, but evidence none the less.

4.7 OPPOSITION BEGINS TO HARDEN.
(John 5. Luke 6:1-19. Mark 2:23-28, 3:1-12. Matthew 12:1-21)
At some time in this period Jesus went to Jerusalem for one of the feasts. Such journeys were a regular part of life for all Galileans. It is John who records this visit in Chapter 5, John being the writer who, for whatever reason, concentrated mainly on events in Jerusalem. (Possibly because the other writers had already written up the Galilee events and John wanted to fill the gaps).

During this visit Jesus healed a man on the sabbath day. Not only did He heal him but also actually told him to pick up his bedding mat and walk. The religious leaders promptly complained that the man was carrying his bed on the sabbath. Jesus was condemned as a sabbath breaker and a wave of opposition struck Him.

The sabbath was a good idea. It had been commanded by Moses and the imposition of one day’s compulsory holiday a week ensured that workers were not exploited, families not neglected and a healthy balance between work and rest was maintained. Modern society would benefit from Mosaic sabbath rules.

But the Pharisees and theologians who interpreted Moses’ laws had no idea where to stop. Everything was taken as both literal and rigid and applied with a degree of petty-mindedness Moses never intended.

(The incident in Jerusalem led to a long discussion of theology which provoked yet more antagonism.)

There were other sabbath incidents; a man healed of a withered hand - not only on the sabbath day but actually in the synagogue service. To make matters worse Jesus had openly challenged the opposition. “You would pull your sheep out of a pit on the sabbath day. A man is worth more than a sheep.”

God is not Petty.
But the incident which most incensed the Pharisees was by a cornfield. The law of Moses asserted that people were free to pluck and eat from any standing crop provided they picked by hand and ate on the spot. It was a friendly law which valued human beings more than property and ensured no one starved amidst plenty.

Some of Jesus’ followers were plucking ears of ripe corn, rubbing out grain in their hands and eating it as they went along. Seeing that these were with Jesus and anxious to find fault wherever possible, His critics complained that they were reaping and threshing on the sabbath - the day when work was forbidden.

Jesus could have argued. The case was arguable. Moses plainly forbade as theft the reaping of another’s field. So this was not reaping. Moses had made the distinction and the Pharisees had interpreted him wrongly. If Jesus had given that answer the whole issue would have become a theological argument such as the Pharisees loved and even if they disagreed with Him, they would not have been driven to blind murderous fury.

His answer was on quite another level. “Remember how David broke the rules. He and his colleagues needed food and they ate the temple bread which was supposed to be only for the priests.”

God is not petty. His rules are reasonable and have to be applied reasonably. Those who know Him as David did, know how to apply them and when the letter of them can be broken.

The combination of these incidents resulted in a combined plot, Pharisees joining forces with Herodians and scheming to kill Jesus.

Hardening opposition, however, did not mean loss of popularity. He returned to the shore of Lake Galilee and was thronged by what seemed to be the most massive crowd yet. Mark tells us it came from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond Jordan, Tyre and Sidon - virtually the whole country. So thick was the crowd that there was real danger of crushing as people struggled to get near Him. The disciples brought the boat up behind Him in case they needed to take Him off the shore.

4.8 THE TWELVE APOSTLES CHOSEN.
(Mark 3:13-19. Luke 6:12-16)
Jesus’ response to the new situation was to spend a whole night on a hillside, praying. Official opposition was hardening and would grow worse. Popularity was spiralling out of control. It was time for a change of policy.

From this time on Jesus gave first priority to training and delegation, preparing His team for the future. His closest colleagues were Simon Peter, James and John, all fishermen, all included in that first short-term team which He had taken to Jerusalem at the beginning. The other three from that team were Andrew, Philip and Nathanael Bartholomew.

To these He added six more to make the team of twelve apostles. There was also an outer group of followers which included Matthias (who later replaced Judas) and a number of women.

Mark and Luke both record this selection, placing it after the opposition hardened and before the Sermon on the Mount. (Matthew only mentions it later at the time when the twelve were sent out in pairs.)

Mark states that He chose the twelve, first so that they might “be with Him.” Leaders can be lonely. It was to these men, chiefly, that Jesus looked now for companionship. They were also trainees. He would teach them by a combination of example, instruction and delegation. The world has never found a better method of training.

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