Part 6 (1/2)

Once more we find the two pair of brothers on the sh.o.r.e of Gennesaret, not together, but within hailing distance. All night long they have toiled at fis.h.i.+ng without any reward. The morning has dawned. Wearied and with the marks of labor on their persons and their garments, their empty boats drawn upon the beach, they are mending their nets which have been torn by the waves, and cleansing them from the sand which has been gathered instead of the fishes they sought.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JACOB'S WELL _From Photograph_ Page 91]

Meanwhile a mult.i.tude of people in the neighboring field is listening to the Master. The fishermen may hear His voice, but their nets must not be left in disorder; they must be put in readiness for another trial, which, though they know it not, will be most abundantly rewarded.

They cannot go to Him, but He comes to them with a greeting and a command, ”Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.”

The time had come for Him to gather His first disciples more closely about Him for instruction and preparation and service in His kingdom.

They had seen proofs of His Messiahs.h.i.+p. They had been with Him long enough to know something of His work and teachings, and what was included in His call to follow Him. They understood it meant leaving their boats and nets by which they had earned their daily bread, and even leaving their homes, and going with Him wherever He went, trusting Him for support, ready to do anything to which all this would lead them.

Their belief in Him, and their love for Him, were enough to secure immediate obedience to the new command.

In their faithfulness in their duties in their former life, in the carefulness in mending their nets, in the patience and perseverance during the nights of fruitless toil, in their thoughtfulness, skill and experience in catching fish--in such things Christ found likeness of what He would make them to become--fishers of men. From their old business He would teach them lessons about the new,--of His power, the abundance of His store, and the great things they were to do for Him and their fellow-men. Before they leave it, He makes Himself a kind of partner with them. Having used Simon's boat for a pulpit for teaching, He tells him to launch out into the deep and to let down his net. It encloses a mult.i.tude of fishes. Andrew and James with their brothers whom they had called to Jesus, the first company to follow Him from the Jordan, are the first to do so in a new and fuller sense from the sh.o.r.es of Gennesaret, where they first learned of Him.

There is something touching in the special reference to the call of the sons of Salome, whose relation to Mary first interested us in them. It is said of Jesus, ”He saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother and He called them. And they immediately left their father in the s.h.i.+p with the hired servants. They forsook all and followed Him.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES _Old Engraving_ Page 94]

What reminders do we here have of the past! James and John, true brothers in childhood, united in business in early life, now hand in hand commence life anew. Having become the help, and much more the companions of their father they must leave him to the companions.h.i.+p of hired servants. But in this hour of sundering family ties, the loving father and loving sons rejoice in Jesus as their Master whom they all willingly obey.

He chose twelve whom He called Apostles. Such was the glorious company, composed of young men, the most honored in all earthly history, to be His closest companions, His missionary family. During the remainder of His life He would train them; and when leaving the world trust their faithfulness and devotion in extending His kingdom. The two pair of brothers and their early friend Philip are the first named of the Apostles. The early Bethsaidan group composed almost one-half of the apostolic company. But within that circle there was another. Three of the twelve were chosen by the Lord for closer intimacy. They were to be special witnesses of His greatest power, His most radiant glory, and His deepest sorrow upon earth. They were Peter, James and John. Two of the three, Peter and John, were to be united in special service for their Lord while He was with them, and so continue after He was gone. But of the twelve Jesus drew one closest to Himself, most loved and the most glorious of them all: it was John.

In seeking a reason for Christ's fixing the number of His disciples, some have found a fancied one in the twelve precious stones of Aaron's breastplate. The most precious stone would represent John, the chosen one of the Great High Priest. In his own vision of the new Jerusalem ”the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones.” ”And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them twelve names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.” It was that Lamb of G.o.d to which he had been pointed on the Jordan, and to which he points us as he beholds Him by the ”gla.s.sy sea.” As John read those names did he not recall the day when Jesus chose twelve whom ”He named Apostles”?

_CHAPTER XV_

_John in the Home of Jairus_

”He suffered no man to follow with Him, save Peter, and James, and John. And they came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue.”

”And taking the child by the hand, He saith unto her, Talitha c.u.mi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel I say unto thee, Arise. And straightway the damsel rose up, and walked.”--_Mark_ v. 37, 38, 41, 42.

The first scene in which we find John as one of the favored three is in the house of mourning. It was the home of Jairus in Capernaum. He was a ruler of the synagogue. ”He had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a dying.” He hastened to Jesus, fell at His feet, wors.h.i.+ped Him, and besought Him saying, ”Come and lay Thy hands on her that she may be healed; and she shall live.”

Did he not have in mind Peter's wife's mother, living in the same town, and how Jesus ”came and took her by the hand and lifted her up; and immediately the fever left her”? Jesus started for the house, followed by a throng, some doubtless full of tender sympathy for their townsman, and some curious to see what the wonder-worker would do.

A messenger from Jairus' home met him saying, ”Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master.” But the father's faith in Jesus was not limited to the power to heal. Could not the hand that had already touched the bier of the widow's only son, be laid on his only daughter, with life-restoring power? Could not the command spoken in Nain ”I say unto thee, arise,” be repeated in Capernaum, and in like manner be obeyed?

Without heeding the messenger's question about troubling the Master, he cried out yet more earnestly, ”My daughter is even now dead; but lay Thy hand upon her, and she shall live.” But the father's entreaty was unnecessary, for Jesus was already responding to the messenger's words as, turning to Jairus, He said, ”Fear not, only believe.”

How eagerly the curious crowd hastened toward the ruler's home, because of a possible miracle, even raising the dead. But they were not to be witnesses of such display of Divine power. Yet even if the throng be excluded, might not the Twelve, following close to Jairus and Jesus, expect admission to the home? What was the surprise and disappointment of nine of them to be forbidden admission by Him whom they were following. But so it was. ”When He came to the house He suffered not any man to enter in with Him, save Peter, and John and James, and the father of the maiden, and her mother.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: RAISING THE DAUGHTER OF JAIRUS _H. Hofmann_ Page 99]

This is the first we know of this distinction in the apostolic band. We almost hear the nine saying, ”Why is this?” Can it be that, in that hour, at the door of this house of mourning, there was awakened the feeling of jealousy which afterward appeared? Did it inspire in the three a sense of superiority, and ambition to be higher in position than the rest in the kingdom of their Lord? Did James and John especially hope for promotion above the nine, and even the ten including Peter? So it will appear. But all this was to pa.s.s away when the band better understood the nature of their Lord's kingdom, and possessed more of His spirit.

The death-chamber was too sacred a place for numbers, even for the nine, whose admittance would be more fitting than that of the hired mourners whom Jesus excluded with them. He had His own wise reasons for the choice of the three. We do not wonder that John was one of them. With all his manifest failings--which he at last overcame--he was the most like his Master. In that death-chamber the Lord was to show His ”gentleness and delicacy of feeling and action” such as John could understand, and with which he could sympathize.

”And taking the child by the hand, He saith unto her, Talitha, c.u.mi.” We are glad that Mark has preserved for us the very words that must have thrilled the heart of John. They had been interpreted, ”My little lamb, my pet lamb, rise up.” In them was a lesson for John. They were a revelation of his Master's tenderness toward childhood. It was a needed lesson, which he finally learned.