The Crown and the Cross: The Life of Christ (12 page)

Understandably, most of those who heard Jesus in Nazareth that morning found it impossible to believe He was the Messiah. And if He were not, then He was guilty in their eyes of blasphemy for naming Himself the Anointed One. Blasphemy was the one crime that could stir any devout Jew to anger, for the very act of blasphemy was a mortal affront to the Most High God. In the Books of the Law the penalty for the crime was death by stoning, the traditional method of execution for those guilty of the worst of crimes.

Murmurs of anger were already beginning to rise when Jesus spoke again, but the very boldness of His address and His militant bearing kept even the hardiest among them from crying out the dread charge against Him inside the synagogue.

“You will tell the physician to go heal himself,” He said to them. “You will ask why he does not do here in his own city what you hear he has done in Capernaum. Truly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country.”

On these last words, Jesus’ voice had grown sad. But now it rang out challengingly. “But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land; but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath, in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”

Familiar as the congregation was with the ancient stories from the history of Israel, this was more of an insult than they could stand. Naaman was not a Jew nor was the woman of Zarephath, yet because both of them had obeyed the commands of God as spoken through the prophets, they had received God’s favor. At the same time, as Jesus reminded the congregation, Jews had been denied that favor for themselves because they had not deserved it.

The anger of the listeners had been welling up while Jesus talked. At the end of the service they surrounded Him as He left the building, shouting and gesticulating in a frenzy of indignation. When He made no move to justify Himself or retract anything He had said, He was seized and hustled from the yard of the synagogue by a mob of angry men.

Up the winding pathway leading to the summit of the rocky crag jutting out above it the crowd dragged Jesus, pummeling and cursing Him all the way. People who had been His friends and neighbors yesterday spat upon Him now and called Him a blasphemer as He was dragged to the very brow of the crest. Nor was there any doubt about their intention to kill Him; the body of a man pushed or thrown from the crag would be broken and crushed on the rocks below.

At the brow of the hill, however, even the angriest drew back, waiting for someone else to make the first move to shove Jesus over the brink. Bleeding from the many times He had been knocked to the ground, His robe torn and soiled, He faced His executioners calmly. Had He chosen to speak then, Jesus could have convinced them that He was innocent of blasphemy. The miracles at Cana and Capernaum, the fact that John the Baptist had publicly designated Him the Lamb of God, the circumstances surrounding His birth and flight into Egypt—all these would have supported His claim to be the Son of God.

Jesus spoke of none of these things, however, but faced the crowd with His back to the edge of the cliff. Any one of them could have thrust Him over it, but no man moved as He started walking toward the now silent mob. Asked what it was in His manner that cowed them, no one of those facing Him could have said. But as He moved toward them, they drew back and, like guilty children caught in an act of mischief, made a clear way for Him through their midst. Nor did any man so much as reach out to touch Him when He walked past them and started down the path leading to the town and His own house. Only when He had disappeared, did they slink away, silent, to their homes.

Jesus left the next day for Capernaum. Almost as if the rejection by His fellow townsmen were a pattern for the future, He was never again to know any place as a real home.

Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.

Mark 1:17

But fruitful vines and the fat olives’ freight,

And harvests heavy with their fruitful weight,

Adorn our fields: And on the cheerful green,

The grazing flocks and lowing herds are seen. . . .

Perpetual spring our happy climate sees,

Twice breed the cattle and twice bear the trees.

So wrote a Roman poet in praise of his beloved homeland, but almost he might have been writing of the lovely region around the Sea of Galilee, and especially of the Plain of Gennesaret near where the Jordan, icy cold and bluish in color, plunged into the harp-shaped surface of the lake.

Capernaum lay almost at the edge of the plain, and here Jesus began a new phase of the mission He had been allowed to glimpse on the high peak in Judea, where He had been tempted to proclaim Himself king over all the world. In Nazareth a few days before, He had announced Himself as the Messiah and had been rejected. Here in the teeming cities of the lake region He could hope to be better received, but for a while He made no further claims to divinity.

The Galileans were a many-sided people composed of diverse types and nationalities. In the cities of the lake one might meet in the short space of an hour representatives from at least half the countries of the empire. Jews from the strong peasant stock of the region, almost militantly devout, yielded to no one. Pharisees and scribes from Judea walked the streets, their heads held high in contempt for the often defiled
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or common people, their tasseled robes much in evidence and phylacteries, small boxes containing portions of the holy writings, prominently worn upon their foreheads and wrists. Romans in togas and military trappings rubbed elbows with tall Nabateans from the east in flowing robes, hooded men with dark skins who kept proudly aloof. Swarthy Syrians from Antioch and the cities to the north argued with fat merchants from Damascus. Lean Phoenician sailors from the seacoast discussed the prices of precious stones and spices with Persians from the lands to the east. A giant Nubian, the slave of a Roman officer, stood head and shoulders above the crowd, his ebony-black skin shining in the always bright sunlight. Merchants, artisans, caravan drivers, traders—men of every occupation and ancestry rubbed elbows with beggars and with women whose bright garments and jingling ornaments proclaimed their profession. In fact, the small arc where the Way of the Sea, the Via Maris of the Romans, followed the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee before bearing westward again, was truly a crossroads of the world, joining the ancient east of the Persians to the brawling west of the Romans, the sophistication of Egypt in the south to the peasant simplicity of the Jews from the Galilean villages among the hills to the north.

Near the eastern boundary of Galilee, separating it from the domain ruled over by the tetrarch Philip, the mountainous backbone of land that rose steadily as one traveled eastward from the Great Sea, dropped suddenly in the form of a great divide at the bottom of which flowed the River Jordan. Arising on the western side of Mount Hermon, the Jordan flowed for only a short distance at a level above that of the Great Sea to the west. Dropping steadily in the deep rift at Lake Huleh, sometimes called Lake Semechonitis, where it first spread out for a short distance, the river was only about the height of a tall man above the level of the Mare Nostrum, as the Romans called the Great Sea. South of Lake Huleh the river again descended to plunge into the Sea of Galilee, more recently renamed by Herod Antipas the Lake of Tiberias in honor both of his new city located upon its western shore and the Emperor Tiberius in Rome. Here the lake bed was more than six hundred feet beneath sea level.

On the eastern side of the lake the hills rose to a high plateau upon which stood several Greek cities belonging to the Decapolis. Roman villas lined a part of this eastern shore, with terraced gardens descending the hillsides and marble stairways leading down to the water where sumptuous pleasure barges awaited their owners. Because of the hills surrounding the lake, the winds often spilled down upon it suddenly, setting up storms which made the trade of the fisherman a hazardous one.

A number of cities surrounded the Sea of Galilee. Located at its extreme northern tip was Bethsaida, often called “Fish Town.” Built by the tetrarch Philip and also named Julias to curry favor with the Romans, it was located a short distance from where the Jordan entered the lake. A populous center, Bethsaida was the seat of Philip’s court during most of the year. A group of springs in the hills behind it poured their water through a Roman aqueduct to supply the city, the overflow cascading into the lake. Striking the cold stream of the Jordan from the north as it plunged into the lake, this current set up a swirling motion and, perhaps because of the sharp change in water temperature at this point, fish in huge numbers frequented the area. A traveler on the Via Maris could easily see them leaping in great shoals and often the water seemed almost alive.

A short distance westward from Bethsaida was the customs house marking the boundary between the domain of Philip and Herod Antipas. Beyond this lay the beautiful and lush Plain of Gennesaret and the bustling city of Capernaum, where the great caravan road from Damascus bore westward away from the lake to the seacoast.

Southward from Capernaum along the shore lay Magdala and a little beyond it Herod’s magnificent new city of Tiberias. Shunned at first by devout Jews because it had reputedly been built on the site of an old cemetery, Tiberias was now a busy government center. A few miles south of it another group of springs, hot and heavily mineraled, burst from the rocky hillside. Here the sick, particularly those with inflamed or stiffened joints, came to bathe.

All along the western shore of the lake the pungent odor of drying fish rose from sheds built at the water’s edge. Many women worked in the sheds, splitting, cleaning, and drying fish caught by the men who plied the boats on the lake or fished along the shore. The greatest single business in all the lake region, the drying of fish gave Galilee a product highly prized as far away even as Jerusalem.

It was in this busy, often turbulent region that Jesus began to preach.

Accustomed to the hills of southern Galilee from whose peaks He could watch the sun dip into the Great Sea beyond Mount Carmel, Jesus found the depression between the hills where the lovely, harp-shaped Sea of Galilee lay an entirely different world. Alternately storm-tossed and glassy smooth, the lake dominated the scene as it dominated the lives of the people around it. Pelicans dropped like plummets from clear skies to seize unwary fish. Graceful black cormorants stalked in the shadows, now and then stabbing their beaks into the water to seize their prey. Boats of every size with sails of every color floated on the water, while the occupants busied themselves fishing.

Jesus could not help missing the olive groves of the Nazareth region, the locust-bean trees, and the beauty of the iris. But here among the jagged piles of black volcanic rocks that sequestered small grassy areas, thistle, wild fennel, and yellow chrysanthemums grew. And beside the brooks that came tumbling down from the rocky hillsides stood heavy thickets of oleander and chaste trees.

On the Plain of Gennesaret, however, palms, figs, walnuts, olives, vines heavy with grapes, citrons, and all manner of delicate fruits and vegetables flourished. Grain, stalks were bowed almost to the ground at harvest time, and even during winter the shores were green and in spring roses could be picked on every hillside. For three of the four seasons the climate was pleasant and mild, never cold as in the higher elevations of northern Galilee. Only in summer, when the rays of the sun poured down into the cup in which the lake lay and no breeze swept the area, was the climate in the least oppressive. Then all who could retired to the hillsides for a season.

One of the busiest centers along the lakeshore, Capernaum possessed the largest synagogue in that region, built for the people by a respected Roman centurion named Paulos who lived there. It was here that Jesus began to teach on the Sabbath, and, because the people were more tolerant in their thinking than the villagers of Nazareth, He immediately began to excite comment.

Isaiah had foretold the coming of the Messiah to this land in one of the most beautiful passages among his often lyrical writings:

The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali . . .

By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan,

In Galilee of the Gentiles.

The people who walked in darkness

Have seen a great light;

Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death,

Upon them a light has shined.

Jesus’ coming to Galilee was in every sense a fulfillment of this prophecy, especially during the first months of His ministry. When not teaching during the Sabbath and weekday services in the synagogue, He went about the city and along the surrounding shoreline, speaking to any who would listen. His favorite spot soon came to be a small cove along the shore north of Capernaum, beside the road leading to Bethsaida-Julias. Here He could be heard, not only by the crowds who followed Him but by the fishermen who waded in the shallows near the shore with their robes tucked up while with skillful movements they threw out the broad circular nets used for shallow-water fishing.

A larger net was used by the boats which usually fished in pairs at night. Ordinarily one or more nets were spread out by two boats and then dragged together so that the trapped fish could be hauled into the boats along with the nets. Still other fishermen worked along the shore using hooks of iron fastened to long cords which they tossed out into deeper water. The catch was either put into a pouch hanging from the waist, or strung on a cord attached to the fisherman’s foot.

One day when Jesus walked along the shore as was His custom, an unusually large group of people followed Him. In their eagerness to hear, they spilled over the confines of the small natural amphitheater and threatened to push Him into the shallows of the lake. Simon Peter and Andrew, with James and John, the sons of Zebedee who were their fishing companions, had been fishing all night but had caught nothing. Now they had brought their boats into the shallows and were standing in the water washing out the nets before spreading them on the shore to dry. While they worked, they listened to Jesus, as the fishermen often did when He taught on the shore of the lake.

The press of the crowd becoming too great, Jesus stepped into Simon’s boat and asked him to pull out a little way from the shore. From this vantage point He could still be heard, for the walls of the cove were almost like an amphitheater. Sitting there in the gently rolling boat, He spoke to the crowd, teaching them the same lessons of tolerance, understanding, and love for each other that He had taught the children of Nazareth. To these He added the stirring message He had brought to the synagogue in His home city, that the kingdom of heaven was at hand and that in order to prepare themselves for a place in it, people should repent of their sins. But He did not stress here, as He had in Nazareth, His own identity as the Messiah.

When Jesus had finished teaching, He turned to thank Simon Peter who had been holding the boat motionless with an oar pressed against the bottom. Peter was tired; all night long he had cast out and drawn in the heavy nets, weighted at the edges to make them sink and trap the fish, with but little result. His discouragement at having worked fruitlessly through the night showed in his face, and Jesus was moved by it.

“Launch out into deep water,” He said, “and let down your nets for a catch.”

Peter hesitated. “Master,” he protested, “we have toiled all night and caught nothing.”

Jesus did not answer but continued to look at him levelly, almost as if He were testing him. The two had not been together much since they had journeyed back to Galilee from Bethabara and had attended the wedding feast at Cana. Some of Peter’s enthusiasm for following Jesus may even have waned, especially after Cana, for nothing else of a startling nature had happened and he had heard how Jesus’ own people at Nazareth had rejected Him.

Whatever doubts Simon Peter felt, however, they evaporated now before the quiet look in Jesus’ eyes. “Nevertheless at Your word,” he said, “I will let down the net.”

Andrew brought the nets, which had been drying in the sun, and the two brothers began to row the boat out upon the lake. Fishing with boats was almost always carried on at night, and since it was already well into the day, they could not have much hope of a catch. Notwithstanding, they let their nets down into the water as Jesus directed, paying them out in the circular pattern used to trap the fish.

Though to a master fisherman like Simon Peter, it might have seemed a foolish waste of time, it did not take long for him to realize that something unusual was happening. The circle of water encompassed within the confines of the net suddenly began to boil with fish, and when the two men tried to draw in the net, the fibers of the cords started to part under the weight of their catch.