ground without being deemed guilty of trespass or theft. The disciples plucked some ears of the wheat, rubbing them in their hands, and eating the kernels. The Pharisees at once protested against this new infraction of their Sabbath. There was not, so they would argue, so much harm in the act as in what it would lead to. If Jesus might pluck with the hand, the owner might gather with the sickle. If the one might break the kernel in the hand, the other might grind it in the mill. It is impossible to draw the line. Such is still the argument of Pharisaism.* But Jesus always cared more for the liberty of the many than for the perverted consciences of the few. He defended the act by the enunciation of a principle so comprehensive that few fully appreciate, so radical that few fully accept it. He declared, in effect, that ceremonies are never of the essence of religion. Every Sabbath twelve loaves of bread were placed on the sacred table of the Temple. Like the consecrated wafer, they were holy to the Lord. No one but the priest might eat of them. But David ate without condemnation. Nay, every Sabbath was profaned by the priests in the Temple without blame. The law forbade the kindling of a fire. The priests brought the shew-bread smoking hot from the oven on that day. It forbade the bearing of burdens. They carried to and fro the loaves, the sacrifices, and the Temple utensils. It forbade labor. That was the busiest day of all the week to the tribe of Levi. A service that required the slaying of bullocks and of goats involved no little drudgery of toil. Yet the streams that flowed from Mount Moriah ran redder with blood on the Sabbath than at any other time. But the priests were blameless. If the Pharisees had understood the ancient prophets, they would have known that the requirements of mercy are always greater than those of sacrifice, and that for humanity's sake, much *The plucking of wheat on the Sabbath is expressly prohibited by the Talmud.-Lightfoot, quoted in Alford on Matt. xii., 1. 1 Sam. xxi., 6. + Exod. xxix., 32, 33. more than for the Temple's sake, the literal law of the Sabbath may be set aside;* for the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.f This declaration struck at the very heart of ceremonialism. One must be willing to die for a principle. No one ever insisted on this more strenuously than Jesus. "If any man hate not his own life also, he can not be my disciple," passed into a proverb with him. But he need not even suffer a pang of hunger to preserve intact a ceremony; for there is no institution however memorable, no ceremony however sacred, that it is not subordinate to man's use, and subject to modification when it ceases to serve its purpose, or when a higher law or a more imperative need interferes. It was apparently on the same day that Jesus healed the paralytic.§ He was in the synagogue. The Pharisees had accompanied him thither, not for worship, still less for instruction, but to watch for heresies in his discourse. The heresy-hunter is a lineal descendant of the ancient Pharisees. Christ seized the opportunity to give them what they wanted, a ground of accusation. A man was present with a withered hand. The disorder was not serious, probably not painful. The cure might have been left, without harm, till the following day. To cure him on the Sabbath directly violated a Rabbinical precept. Jesus told the patient to stand forth. He then addressed to the Pharisees a very simple question"Is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good, or to do evil; to save life, or to destroy it?" It was a terrible thrust, sharp, quick, keen. They were planning to kill Jesus. Jesus was preparing to heal a paralytic. Which was breaking the Sab * The verse in Matt. xii., 6, "In this place is (one) greater than the Temple," is susceptible of two interpretations. The structure of the sentence seems to justify the meaning ordinarily attached to it, that Christ referred to himself, and indicated his right to modify the Sabbath law. The context, however, indicates the other interpretation-Mercy is greater than the Temple, and if the Sabbath may be set aside for the Temple service, much more for the service of love. + Mark ii., 27. Luke xiv., 26. Compare John xii., 25. I See Townsend's New Test. Notes, part iii., n. 39. § Mark iii., 1-6. bath? No wonder they held their peace. Then he turned upon them with indignation. Not one of you, said he, but would pull your sheep out of a pit to-day; and how much better is a man than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day. Thereupon he told the man to stretch forth his hand whole as the other, while the Pharisees went out to council how they might destroy him.* They were sorely perplexed, however. Christ had not even violated the letter of the Sabbath. He had done nothing. He had simply said "Stretch forth thy hand," and it was difficult to condemn him for mere words. He had not plucked the wheat; and his disciples they cared not for. It was the Rabbi himself they hated. He had openly reviled their religion. He had trampled under foot their Sabbath. He had exposed their insincerity to all the people. He had put them to open shame in the great congregation. Their chief seats in the synagogue had become as criminal benches. They had watched that they might accuse him, and he had turned the tables upon them and become their accuser. They were filled with rage. They verily believed, too, that this new Rabbi who was bringing them to open shame was also undermining the authority of religion, and the faith and institutions of their fathers. To them it seemed that the safety of the Church and of the state demanded the suppression of this horrible heretic. Thus religious rancor added to wounded pride and personal envy. They were conscientious in their persecutions of Jesus. But nothing is so vindictive as a perverted conscience. How far it carried them is evidenced by the fact that they invited their hereditary foes, the Herodians, to their councils. The people, on the other hand, little as they appreciated the spirit of Jesus, openly applauded his dexterity.§ The * The effect of this home-thrust is seen in the fact that, by a subsequent provision of Rabbinical law, it has been forbidden to lift the beast out of the pit, though the owner may lay planks to let him out! (Alford on Matt. xii., 14), or give him food and straw to lie on (Lange's Life of Christ, iii., 170). Mark iii., 6. § See Luke xiii., 17. † Mark ii., 23. populace are always apt to attach themselves unthinkingly in such a controversy to the one who is keenest in thrust and quickest in repartee. That he had silenced the Jewish Rabbis added new lustre to Christ's already increasing fame. Crowds flocked to see and hear him* from all parts of the Holy Land. To them he was no Messiah, but only the last new sensation. He preached strange doctrines and wrought strange cures this was about all they knew. Such fame as this was exceedingly distasteful to Jesus. He retired more within himself. He procured a boat by which he could easily escape from the throng. He cautioned those whom he healed not to bruit their cures abroad.§ But it was impossible for him to escape the publicity of popularity. It is one of the misfortunes of public men to have many adherents and few friends; and between unappreciative homage and appreciative persecution there is but little to choose. It was quite clear that this controversy between the relig ion of the heart and that of ceremony could not be settled in a single life. The time had come when in the bosom of the old Church Christ must organize a new one that should take its place. *Mark iii., 7, 8. Matt. xii., 15. § Matt. xii., 16; Mark iii., 12. CHAPTER XVI. THE MUSTARD SEED.* HE Church of Christ is a growth rather than an organization. This is not our philosophy. It is, in effect, Christ's statement. He compared his Church to a mustard seed," which, indeed," said he, "is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." It is of the planting of that mustard seed we have now to speak. It was clear, as we have said, that the battle which Jesus had initiated could not be carried to its consummation during his earthly life. It must be left an inheritance to others. It was to be a campaign of centuries, which he, indeed, would conduct, but by his spiritual, not his earthly presence. Humanly speaking, all he could do during his brief stay upon the earth was to select a few appreciative disciples, imbue them with his spirit, instruct them in his principles, and leave them to carry on after his death, and under his inspiration, that work, the most powerful instrument of which would be afforded by his cross. He could only give to the world its needed truth in seed forms; others must sow it in tears, pluck out the worldly weeds that choke its growth, water it with their blood, and patiently watch its development through the long centuries. He who had seen from the beginning this necessity, from the beginning had gathered about him a few fitted to be the custodians of this later and more blessed rev * Matt. v., 1; x., 1-4; Mark iii., 13-19; Luke vi., 12-16. |