True Manliness / From the Writings of Thomas Hughes

by Thomas Hughes

Whatever may have been his hopes in the earlier part of his career, by this time he had no longer a thought that mankind could be redeemed without his own perfect and absolute sacrifice and humiliation. The cup would indeed have to be drunk to the dregs, but not here, nor now. This must be done at Jerusalem, the centre of the national life and the seat of the Roman government. It must be done during the Passover, the national commemoration of sacrifice and deliverance. And so he withdraws, with a handful of disciples, and even they still wayward, half-hearted, doubting, from the constant stress of a battle which has turned against him. From this time he keeps away from the great centres of population, except when, on two occasions—at the Feast of Tabernacles and the Feast of the Dedication—he flashes for a day on Jerusalem, and then disappears again into some haunt of outlaws, or of wild beasts. This portion of his life comprises something less than the last twelve months, from the summer of the second year of his ministry till the eve of the last Passover, at Easter, in the third year.

In glancing at the main facts of this period, as we have done in the former ones, we have to note chiefly his intercourse with the twelve apostles, and his preparation of them for the end of his own career and the beginning of theirs; his conduct at Jerusalem during those two autumnal and winter feasts, and the occasions when he again comes into collision with the rulers and Pharisees, both at these feasts, and in the intervals between them.

The keynote of it, in spite of certain short and beautiful interludes, appears to me to be a sense of loneliness and oppression, caused by the feeling that he has work to do, and words to speak, which those for whom they are to be done and spoken, and whom they are, first of all men, to bless, will either misunderstand or abhor. Here is all the visible result of his labor and of his travail, and the enemy is gathering strength every day.

This becomes clear, I think, at once, when, in the first days after his quitting the lake shores, he asks his disciples the question, “Whom do the world, and whom do ye, say that I am?” He is answered by Peter in the well-known burst of enthusiasm, that, though the people only look on him as a prophet, such as Elijah or Jeremiah, his own chosen followers see in him “the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

It is this particular moment which he selects for telling them distinctly, that Christ will not triumph as they regard triumphing; that he will fall into the power of his enemies, and be humbled and slain by them. At once the proof comes of how little even the best of his own most intimate friends had caught the spirit of his teaching or of his kingdom. The announcement of his humiliation and death, which none but the most truthful and courageous of men would have made at such a moment, leaves them almost as much bewildered as the crowds in the lake cities had been a few days before.

Their hearts are faithful and simple, and upon them, as Peter has testified, the truth has flashed once for all, and there can be no other Saviour of men than this man with whom they are living. Still, by what means and to what end the salvation shall come, they are scarcely less ignorant than the people who had been in vain seeking from him a sign such as they desired. His own elect “understood not his saying, and it was hid from them, that they perceived it not.” Rather, indeed, they go straight from that teaching to dispute amongst themselves who of them shall be the greatest in that kingdom which they understand so little. And so their Master has to begin again at the beginning of his teaching, and, placing a little child amongst them, to declare that not of such men as they deem themselves, but of such as this child, is the kingdom of heaven.

The episode of the Transfiguration follows; and immediately after it, as though purposely to warn even the three chosen friends who had been present against new delusions, he repeats again the teaching as to his death and humiliation. And he reiterates it whenever any exhibition of power or wisdom seems likely to encourage the frame of mind in the twelve generally which had lately brought the great rebuke on Peter. How slowly it did its work, even with the foremost disciples, there are but too many proofs.

Amongst his kinsfolk and the people generally, his mission, thanks to the cabals of the rulers and elders, had come by this time to be looked upon with deep distrust and impatience. “How long dost thou make us to doubt? Go up to this coming feast, and there prove your title before those who know how to judge in such matters,” is the querulous cry of the former as the Feast of Tabernacles approaches. He does not go up publicly with the caravan, which would have been at this time needlessly to incur danger, but, when the feast is half over, suddenly appears in the temple. There he again openly affronts the rulers by justifying his former acts, and teaching and proclaiming that he who has sent him is true, and is their God.

It is evidently on account of this new proof of daring that the people now again begin to rally around him. “Behold, he speaketh boldly. Do our rulers know that this is Christ?” is the talk which fills the air, and induces the scribes and Pharisees, for the first time, to attempt his arrest by their officers.