Jesus went away with His disciples into the "borders of Tyre and Sidon." He did not go to the Pa.s.sover feast, for the anger of the Jews had been growing more violent toward Him and His disciples, and he took the twelve away from the crowded towns around the Lake into the parts that bordered upon a heathen country. He could do far more for the simple-hearted heathen than for Jews who believed themselves to be wise and religious.
When it was known that the young teacher of Nazareth was among them some came to Him who were not Jews. One was a Syrian woman whose daughter was troubled by an evil spirit, and she begged Jesus to have mercy upon her. The disciples were not pleased to have her follow them with strange cries in another language. They believed that the works of Jesus were for the Jews only, and so they begged Him to send her away. Jesus was silent, for He knew all hearts, and saw faith growing in the heart of the poor woman.
He said, trying her faith,
"It is not meet to take the children"s bread and cast it to dogs."
"Truth, Lord," she said, "yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master"s table."
Then Jesus hid Himself no longer from her faith, but said,
"O woman, great is thy faith! be it unto thee even as thou wilt." And her daughter was cured that very hour.
Jesus did not go down by the great sea, though He could see it lying like blue and silver across the west whenever He came to a hilltop as they journeyed, but He went northward to the hills that lie around the mountains of Lebanon. Upon these mountains grew the cedars that Solomon"s servants cut down and carried to Jerusalem for the building of the Holy House. They stopped in the Lebanon villages, and came at length to the foot of Mount Hermon, and to the Jordan, crossing over and pa.s.sing near the place where the great company who followed Jesus had been fed. As they came into Decapolis on the east side of the lake of Gennesaret the people came to Him in crowds again for healing.
There He healed a man who could neither hear nor speak.
Coming to Gadara He found crowds coming with their sick for healing.
Eight months before He had healed a poor man in whom was a legion of devils, casting them out into a herd of swine, and they had begged Him to leave their coast for they were afraid of Him, but now they were glad to come to Him for healing. No doubt the man who had been healed had told them of the gentleness of Jesus, and of His wonderful words, and had brought many to Him.
It was in Bethsaida-Julias that Jesus once opened the eyes of a blind man. He did not see clearly at first, but when Jesus laid His hand a second time upon his eyes he saw quite well, and was so grateful that he wanted to go and tell all his friends about it, but Jesus told him to go quietly home.
Two blind men followed Him also, crying, "Thou Son of David, have mercy on us!" They followed Him into a house and there Jesus asked, "Believe ye that I am able to do this?" "Yea, Lord," they said.
"According to your faith be it unto you," He said, touching their eyes, and their eyes were opened at once.
Though Jesus had said, "See that no man know it," yet they told it through all that country.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH--PETER"S CONFESSION OF FAITH.
Jesus was walking with His disciples one Sabbath day and talking of the Kingdom of Heaven when they came to a field of ripe grain. They had been gathering food for their souls from the teachings of Jesus, and had forgotten to take food for their bodies until they saw the ripe grain and knew that they were hungry. Some of them began to take the heads of wheat (or barley), to rub them in their hands to separate the grain from the chaff, and eat the kernels of wheat.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Jesus in the wheat fields]
Following close after them were some men who had been told to watch Jesus and His disciples, and see if anything could be brought against them.
They held very strict views about keeping the Sabbath, as all Pharisees did, and here they saw something that might be called breaking the Sabbath, for were they not really reaping the wheat, and sifting it through their hands?
"Behold thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath day," they said. "The Son of Man," said Jesus, "is Lord even of the Sabbath day."
Another Sabbath He entered into a synagogue and taught. Among the people stood a man who had a helpless and withered hand. The same Pharisees who had followed Jesus as spies when He walked through the grain-fields were watching Him in the Synagogue to see if He would heal on the Sabbath. He knew their thoughts, and called the man, saying, "Rise up and stand forth in the midst."
The man rose, and while he stood waiting, Jesus turned to the Pharisees who were eagerly watching to see if Jesus would do something that was forbidden in their law, and said,
"Is it lawful on the Sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? To save life or to destroy it?" The Pharisees dared not answer, and Jesus, looking round upon them all, said to the man, "Stretch forth thy hand."
The man obeyed. Although he had not been able to raise his hand, he stretched it forth, and it became as whole and as strong as the other.
The Pharisees went away very angry, and tried to make a plan among themselves for bringing Jesus into trouble.
Jesus came to fill the law about the Sabbath full of the spirit of heaven; to teach love and service to the neighbor, as well as the love and worship of G.o.d, but they could not understand Him.
Jesus was near the end of His ministry to the people east of the Jordan in the country called Decapolis. They were not like the Galilean Jews, they were half heathen people who lived among the wild, rocky hills of that region. They were poor and ignorant, yet they were more ready to accept the gospel than the wise and wicked Pharisees had been.
He had been kind to them in their sickness and poverty, and they followed Him with their sick, and lame, and deaf, and blind, leaving them at His feet until they arose praising G.o.d that they had been saved from their sufferings.
Jesus had been teaching in the wild mountain country, and the people would not leave Him to go away to their homes. After three days Jesus said to His disciples, "I have compa.s.sion on the mult.i.tude because they continue with me now three days and have nothing to eat, and I will not send them away fasting lest they faint by the way."
The disciples did not remember the Lord"s power to create bread, and wondered where they should find it in the wilderness to feed such a great mult.i.tude.
But when Jesus knew that they had seven loves of barley bread and a few little fishes He told the people to sit down on the ground, and after giving thanks over the loaves and the fishes, He divided them and gave to His disciples, and the disciples gave to the people. There were four thousand men beside women and children who took the bread that came from the Lord"s hands. After all had eaten and were filled they took up seven baskets of the food that was left.
Jesus, though He could create food for the people, taught them to use it wisely and waste nothing.
When the people had been sent to their homes, Jesus, with His disciples, took a fishing boat and crossed the Lake only to find the Pharisees there ready to question Him, and to tempt Him to show them some great sign from heaven.
He told them that they could read the signs of the coming weather in the sky, but they could not see the signs of the times.
Only a wicked people look for a sign, He said, and no sign should be given except the sign that Jonah gave to the Ninevites--a call to repentance.
Then He left them, for He saw the hardness of their hearts.
Again they took their journey in the little ship to the northern end of the Lake, and after landing, followed the east side of Jordan until they pa.s.sed near the place where the five thousand had been fed by a miracle as they sat on the green hillside.
The disciples found that they had forgotten to bring bread with them.
They remembered, perhaps, that they had here eaten the bread that the Lord had created; but the heart of Jesus was heavy with the thought of the unbelief of the people He had come to save, and He said,
"Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees."
The disciples did not understand Him, and wondered if He spoke thus because they had not brought bread.
Then Jesus, seeing that they had but little faith, reminded them of the supper on the hillside, when more than five thousand were fed, and of that later meal among the rocky hills of Decapolis, when four thousand and more were fed, and that they did not need to be concerned about food for the body so much as to beware of the false teaching of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
They walked still further north, directly toward that beautiful mountain that lifts its head, white with the glistening snow, high above the hills that lead up to it, so that it may be seen over the larger part of Palestine.
They came to Caesarea Philippi, one of the most beautiful places in the world. It lay in the green lap of Mount Hermon high above the sea, and shut in by cliffs and forests. The upper springs of the Jordan are here. They leap out of a great cavern in the side of the mountain--a river of clear, cold water.
The old Greeks loved the place, and built there a temple to the G.o.d of nature, but after the Romans came it was named for the Emperor and Philip the Tetrarch. Here there were more Gentiles than Jews, for it was a gay town in the summer, and people from other towns came to this city of palaces, temples, baths, theatres, and statues. These people did not wish to hear the words of Jesus, but the coolness and beauty of the country around this birthplace of the Jordan made it a fit place to bring His disciples where they could talk over the things of the kingdom without being disturbed by the Pharisees. Here He was able to pray alone, and once, after prayer, He questioned His disciples about Himself.
"Whom say the people that I am?" He asked. They remembered their talks with the people and said, "John the Baptist, but some say Elias, and others say that one of the old prophets is risen again." "But whom say ye that I am?" He asked. Then Peter, the believing disciple, made his confession of faith,--
"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living G.o.d." Jesus was glad to hear this, for many had come to doubt Him, and many had gone away from Him since they knew that He would not be an earthly king.
"Blessed art thou Simon, son of Jonas," He said, "for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in Heaven."