The Year of Popularity
The Year of Popularity
Attending the synagogue service one Sabbath day in his hometown Nazareth, Jesus was given the scroll of Isaiah from which to read:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach the good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4:18–19)
During the sermon which followed, Jesus dared to claim that he was himself the fulfillment of this Scripture. At first the congregation was amazed at his gracious words. But when he went on to suggest that his ministry, like that of the prophets Elijah and Elisha, would be more acceptable to the Gentiles than to Israel, they were so infuriated that they drove him out of the city and tried even to push him over the nearby hill. It was a foretaste of his coming rejection, and forced him to move his home and headquarters from Nazareth to Capernaum on the northwest shore of the lake.
From Capernaum during the rest of this second year Jesus made innumerable journeys throughout Galilee. Matthew sums up what form his ministry took:
Jesus went through Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. (Matt. 4:23; cf. 9:35)
First, he preached. Mark says that the topic of his preaching was “the gospel of God,” summarized in these words:
The time has come…. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news! (Mark 1:14–15)
This divine kingdom was the personal reign of God in the lives of men, and he (Jesus) had come to inaugurate it. Its arrival was in fulfillment of Old Testament expectation, and in order to “receive,” “enter” or “inherit” the kingdom men must repent and believe, humbly accepting its privileges and submitting to its demands like little children.
Next, he taught. That is, he did more than announce the gospel of the kingdom and call men to enter it; he went on to teach his disciples the law of the kingdom. Of this we have no better summary than the “Sermon on the Mount,” perhaps consisting of instruction given over a protracted period. Its integrating theme is the call to his disciples to be different from both pagans and Pharisees. “Do not be like them,” he said. If they were to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth, their righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. They must not try (like the casuists) to dodge the law’s demands, or (like the hypocrites) to practice their piety before men, but realize that God sees in secret and looks on the heart. His disciples must be quite different from the Gentiles as well, in their love, their prayers and their ambition. They must love their enemies as well as their friends, renounce vain repetitions in prayer for an intelligent approach to their Father, and seek first, as the supreme good, not their own material necessities but the rule and the righteousness of God.
The people were astounded by Jesus’ authority, for he taught neither like the scribes (who invariably quoted their authorities), nor even like the prophets (who spoke in the name of Yahweh), but with his own authority and in his own name, declaring “truly, truly, I say to you.”
Moreover, he enforced his teaching with unforgettable parables, which illustrated the love of God for sinners (for example, the prodigal son), the necessity of humble trust in God’s mercy for salvation (for example, the Pharisee and the publican), the love which we ought to have for each other (for example, the good Samaritan), the way God’s Word is received and God’s kingdom grows (for example, the sower and the mustard seed), the responsibility of disciples to develop and exercise their gifts (the pounds and the talents), and the judgment of those who reject the gospel (for example, the wheat and the tares).
Thirdly, he healed. He performed other miracles too, exhibiting his power over nature by stilling a storm on the lake, walking on water and multiplying loaves and fishes. But his commonest miracles were healing miracles, effected, now by a touch of the hand, now by a bare word of command. From one point of view, the sufficient explanation of his healing ministry is his love, for he was moved to compassion by the sight of every form of suffering. But, in addition, his miracles were “signs” both of God’s kingdom and of his own deity. They signified that the Messiah’s reign had begun, as the Scriptures had foretold. It was with this evidence that Jesus sought to reassure the doubts of John the Baptist in prison:
Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. (Luke 7:22)
Similarly the miracles were signs that the forces of evil were in full retreat before the advancing kingdom of God:
But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you. (Luke 11:20)
The miracles were also signs that Jesus was the Son of God, for each was an acted parable, dramatizing one of his divine claims. The feeding of the 5,000 set forth visibly his claim to be the bread of life, his healing of the man born blind his claim to be the light of the world, and his raising of the dead his claim to be the resurrection and the life.
In this threefold work of preaching, teaching and healing, Jesus also involved the Twelve. He seems to have chosen and called them early in this second year of his public ministry and, by surnaming them “apostles,” to have indicated the work to which they were being commissioned. I shall enlarge on this in a later chapter when we consider their unique authority. In human terms they were a motley and unpromising group, including four fishermen, one tax collector, at least one political zealot and another who proved to be a traitor. Yet he kept them with him, training them by what they saw and heard, and sent them out two by two, endowed with his authority to preach and to heal like him.
During the Galilean ministry the crowds kept growing. The whole countryside became tense with excitement and expectation:
Crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. (Luke 5:15)
The high tide of Jesus’ popularity seems to have been reached at the time of the feeding of the 5,000. It took place just after the beheading of John the Baptist, an ugly omen of the turn of the tide. Since the 5,000 were all men, apart from women and children (Matt. 14:21), the total crowd must have been more than double that number. When the hunger of all had been satisfied as a result of the miraculous multiplication of five barley loaves and two pickled fish, the buzz of excitement reached fever pitch. The word began to go round the crowd, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” And as the rumor spread, the people made up their minds. They were determined to come and make him king by force, that is, their national leader to liberate them from the dominion of Rome. But Jesus caught wind of it, and “withdrew again to a mountain by himself” (John 6:14–15).