First let us notice a trait of nature in the recital which shews the hand of an eye-witness. The [pg 284] words “Master, carest thou not that we perish” exactly express the irritation of alarm, which turns against those who remain undisturbed. No fabricator would in those days have hit on this trait; and a compiler from tradition, unless he had felt constrained by his authority, might have preferred to pass it by.
It is not quite clear from the account whether the disciples hoped for superhuman help from our Lord or not. The works of His which had most gained notice had been cures, and that He should have power over the winds and waves had probably never entered their minds. Still, it is obvious, that they turned to their Master in peril, as a child does to its parent, expecting at least to find Him solicitous about them. If our Lord had asked them, as soon as the wind rose, “Shall you, if a storm should come, feel safe because I am with you?” they would have answered, and answered truly, that they would. But their Oriental disposition to panic lay deeper in them than their newly born confidence in their Master, and the sudden emergency brought the depths to the surface. Their trust, we may be sure, advanced after that night both in intensity and breadth.
The miracle in the country of the Gadarenes, into which our Lord went, brings out one point which belongs to my subject.[195] This miracle I [pg 285] regard as a practical illustration of the lesson of the parable of the Tares, inasmuch as both one and the other bear on the great puzzle of God's tolerance of evil in the world. While the parable and interpretation are yet fresh in the minds of the Apostles, the case of this Demoniac comes before them. It may have struck them—as it must often have struck ourselves—how often after having learnt something one day we come, unaccountably, on an instance or illustration of it on the next. The circumstance was this, an evil agency was, so to say, taken prisoner by our Lord; should it be deprived of existence, or at any rate of activity at once? Men generally would answer “Yes.” They would regard it as something that had escaped God's eye and which God's servants ought to destroy whenever they could. This is not Christ's view. Evil is not regarded by him as an oversight of God. God has allowed it to exist in the world, and so it has probably some function to perform. It is not to be extirpated with ruthless hand. The tares are to grow until the harvest. On the same principle our Lord will not send the Spirit into the pit. He is the Son of Man, and men he has come to deliver; of the man therefore this evil agency must loosen his hold; but, saving this, he may pursue the vocation he was following when Christ crossed the Lake. Our Lord rescues the [pg 286] man, because to do good unto men He was sent, but for property he is not concerned. If the Demon must be about some evil, but will be content with turning to the swine, to the swine he is at liberty to go; he is not sent to them, but neither is he interdicted. The plague on men is, as was observed above, turned into a murrain among swine.[196] The destruction of the swine was the act of the Divine government only in the same sense that the losses by the cattle plague are so now. As we go on we read:
“And they began to beseech him to depart from their borders.”[197]
It would be hard upon this people to say that they counted the deliverance of their brother a less matter than the loss of their swine; they were terror-stricken at the display of superhuman power, and they wished to be rid of their cause of fear.
In the above verse we find the first instance of indifference or aversion among those to whom our Lord went.
The schooling of the Apostles leads them steadily on; step by step they advance into the rougher ground of actual life, and one such step is noted here.
It was well, as I have said, that a glow of success should at starting rest upon their path, [pg 287] but they could never grow into hardy wayfarers if all the ways were smooth and all the weather bright; there were in them many qualities, good and hard, which could only take their proper lustre by rubbing against what was rough. So they were early taught to expect opposition, and they saw in what spirit it was dealt with by our Lord. Men, thinking only of the contest, are apt to lose sight of the matter in debate, and make it a point of honour not to give way. They are often made obstinate by being opposed. Our Lord counts the fact that opposition exists to be material in the case and allows it its weight. Here the people pray Him to go and He goes. He could do them no good by staying against their will. He returns at once to the western side of the Lake, and soon after his arrival we read of the raising of Jairus' daughter. With the miracle itself I have nothing to do; I am concerned with the choosing of Peter, James and John, to witness the miracle,[198] but this is an instance of the principle which will form the subject of the next chapter and will there be discussed.
After this, according to my view of the chronology, our Lord paid a second visit to Nazareth accompanied by His disciples. He may have supposed that the news of His doings would have turned His townspeople towards Him; but the old impression is still strong among them. A man [pg 288] from God, they thought, must come they knew not whence, whereas Jesus and His brothers they had known all their lives; and although it seems that His mother and brethren had gone to live at Capernaum,[199] His sisters were still among them in Nazareth. We may gather from these two events that the faith of the disciples had by this time grown strong enough to encounter opposition without harm. A strong conviction is confirmed by attack; it takes up a firm position on its bases of support; while a stripling faith bends and quivers at every gust of disbelief.
It was soon after this rejection at Nazareth, and possibly from the neighbourhood of that place, that our Lord sent forth the Twelve on their mission journey, giving them the very remarkable injunction, which I print below. St Luke tells us of another mission of seventy disciples; how long a time elapsed between the two missions, or whether the Apostles were among the seventy, we do not know; inasmuch as the circumstances of the two journeys, and the directions given are very similar, and the educational purport of the two is alike, I shall print both the narratives here, and consider the two events together. St Mark's account is as follows: