Chapter 23 | Table
of Contents | Chapter 25
The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah
Alfred Edersheim
1883
Book III
THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF
TRANSFIGURATION
Chapter 24
CHRIST STILLS THE STORM ON THE LAKE OF
GALILEE.
(St. Matthew 8:18,23-27; St. Mark
4:35-41; St. Luke 8:22-25.)
IT was the evening of that day of new teaching, and once more
great multitudes were gathering to Him. What more, or, indeed, what else, could
He have said to those to whom He had all that morning spoken in Parables, which
hearing they had not heard nor understood? It was this, rather than weariness after
a long day's working, which led to the resolve to pass to the other side. To
merely physical weariness Jesus never subordinated his work. If, therefore,
such had been the motive, the proposal to withdraw for rest would have come
from the disciples, while here the Lord Himself gave command to pass to the
other side. In truth, after that day's teaching it was better, alike for these
multitudes and for His disciples that He should withdraw. And so 'they took Him
even as He was' - that is, probably without refreshment of food, or even
preparation of it for the journey. This indicates how readily, nay, eagerly,
the disciples obeyed the behest.
Whether in their haste they heeded not the signs of the coming
storm; whether they had the secret feeling, that ship and sea which bore such
burden were safe from tempest; or, whether it was one of those storms which so
often rise suddenly, and sweep with such fury over the Lake of Galilee, must
remain undetermined. He was in 'the ship'1
- whether that of the sons of Jonas, or of Zebedee - the well-known boat, which
was always ready for His service, whether as pulpit, resting-place, or means of
journeying. But the departure had not been so rapid as to pass unobserved; and
the ship was attended by other boats, which bore those that would fain follow
Him. In the stern of the ship, on the low bench where the steersman sometimes
takes rest, was pillowed the Head of Jesus. Weariness, faintness, hunger,
exhaustion, asserted their mastery over His true humanity. He, Whom earliest
Apostolic testimony2
proclaimed to have been in 'the form of God,' slept. Even this evidences the
truth of the whole narrative. If Apostolic tradition had devised this narrative
to exhibit His Divine Power, why represent Him as faint and asleep in the ship;
and, if it would portray Him as deeply sleeping for very weariness, how could
it ascribe to Him the power of stilling the storm by His rebuke? Each of these
by themselves, but not the two in their combination, would be as legends are
written. Their coincidence is due to the incidence of truth. Indeed, it is
characteristic of the History of the Christ, and all the more evidential that
it is so evidently undesigned in the structure of the narrative, that every
deepest manifestation of His Humanity is immediately attended by highest
display of His Divinity, and each special display of His Divine Power followed
by some marks of His true Humanity. Assuredly, no narrative could be more
consistent with the fundamental assumption that He is the God-Man.
1. The definite article (St. Mark iv. 36) marks it as 'the' ship - a well-known boat which always bore Him.
2. Phil. ii. 6.
Thus viewed, the picture is unspeakably sublime. Jesus is
asleep, for very weariness and hunger, in the stern of the ship, His head on
that low wooden bench, while the heavens darken, the wild wind swoops down
those mountain-gorges, howling with hungry rage over the trembling sea; the
waves rise and toss, and lash and break over the ship, and beat into it, and
the white foam washes at His feet His Humanity here appears as true as when He
lay cradled in the manger; His Divinity, as when the sages from the East laid
their offerings at His Feet. But the danger is increasing - 'so that the ship
was now filling.'3
They who watched it, might be tempted to regard the peaceful rest of Jesus, not
as indicative of Divine Majesty - as it were, sublime consciousness of absolute
safety - because they did not fully realize Who He was. In that case it would,
therefore, rather mean absolute weakness in not being able, even at such a
time, to overcome the demands of our lower nature; real indifference, also, to
their fate - not from want of sympathy, but of power. In short, it might lead
up to the inference that the Christ was a no-Christ, and the Kingdom of which
he had spoken in Parables, not His, in the sense of being identified with His
Person.
3. St. Mark iv. 37.
In all this we perceive already, in part, the internal
connection between the teaching of that day and the miracle of that evening.
Both were quite novel: the teaching by Parables, and then the help in a
Parable. Both were founded on the Old Testament: the teaching on its
predictions,4
the miracle on its proclamations of the special Divine Manifestations in the
sea;5 and both
show that everything depended on the view taken of the Person of the Christ.
Further teaching comes to us from the details of the narrative which follows.
It has been asked, with which of the words recorded by the Synoptists the
disciples had wakened the Lord: with those of entreaty to save them,6
or with those of impatience, perhaps uttered by Peter himself?7
But why may not both accounts represent what had passed? Similarly, it has been
asked, which came first - the Lord's rebuke of the disciples, and after it that
of the wind and sea,8
or the converse?9
But, may it not be that each recorded that first which had most impressed
itself on his mind? - St. Matthew, who had been in the ship that night, the
needful rebuke to the disciples; St. Mark and St. Luke, who had heard it from
others,10 the help
first, and then the rebuke?
4. Is. vi. 9, 10.
5. Ps. cvi. 9; cvii. 25; Is. li. 10; Nah. i. 4-7; Hab. iii. 8.
6. St. Matt. and St. Luke.
7. St. Mark.
8. St. Matt.
9. St. Mark and St. Luke.
10. St. Mark probably from St. Peter.
Yet it is not easy to understand what the disciples had really
expected, when they wakened the Christ with their 'Lord, save us - we perish!'
Certainly, not that which actually happened, since not only wonder, but fear,
came over them11
as they witnessed it. Probably theirs would be a vague, undefined belief in the
unlimited possibility of all in connection with the Christ. A belief this,
which seems to us quite natural as we think of the gradually emerging, but
still partially cloud-capped height of His Divinity, of which, as yet, only the
dim outlines were visible to them. A belief this, which also accounts for the
co-existing, not of disbelief, nor even of unbelief, but of inability of
apprehension, which, as we have seen, characterised the bearing of the
Virgin-Mother. And it equally characterised that of the disciples up to the
Resurrection-morning, bringing them to the empty tomb, and filling them with
unbelieving wonder that the tomb was empty. Thus, we have come to that stage in
the History of the Christ when, in opposition to the now formulated charge of
His enemies as to His Person, neither His Teaching nor His Working could be
fully understood, except so far as his Personality was understood - that He was
of God and Very God. And so we are gradually reaching on towards the expediency
and the need of the coming of the Holy Ghost to reveal that mystery of His
Person. Similarly, the two great stages in the history of the Church's learning
were: the first - to come to knowledge of what He was, by experience of what He
did; the second - to come to experience of what He did and does, by knowledge of
what He is. The former, which corresponds, in the Old Testament, to the
patriarchal age, is that of the period when Jesus was on earth; the second,
which answers to the history of Israel, is that of the period after His
Ascension into Heaven and the Descent of the Holy Ghost.
11. From the size of these boats it seems unlikely, that any but His closest followers would have found room in the ship. Besides, the language of those who called for help and the answer of Christ imply the same thing.
When 'He was awakened'12
by the voice of His disciples, 'He rebuked the wind and the sea,' as Jehovah
had of old13 - just as
He had 'rebuked' the fever,14
and the paroxysm of the demonised.15
For, all are His creatures, even when lashed to frenzy of the 'hostile power.'
And the sea He commanded as if it were a sentient being: 'Be silent! Be
silenced!' And immediately the wind was bound, the panting waves throbbed into
stillness, and a great calm of rest fell upon the Lake. For, when Christ
sleepeth, there is storm; when He waketh, great peace. But over these men who
had first wakened Him with their cry, now crept wonderment, awe, and fear. No
longer, as at His first wonder-working in Capernaum, was it: 'What is
this?'16 but 'Who,
then, is this?'17
And so the grand question, which the enmity of the Pharisees had raised, and
which, in part, had been answered in the Parables of teaching, was still more
fully and practically met in what, not only to the disciples, but to all time,
was a Parable of help. And Jesus also did wonder, but at that which alone could
call forth His wonder - the unreachingness of their faith: where was it? and
how was it, they had no faith?
12. St. Mark iv. 38.
13. Ps. cvi. 9; Nah. i. 4.
14. St. Luke iv. 39.
15. St. Mark ix. 25.
16. St. Mark i. 27.
17. So literally.
Thus far the history, related, often almost in the same words,
by the three Evangelists. On all sides the narrative is admitted to form part
of the primitive Evangelic tradition. But if so, then, even on the showing of
our opponents, it must have had some foundation in an event surpassing the
ordinary facts in the history of Jesus. Accordingly, of all negative critics,
at most only two venture to dismiss it as unfounded on fact. But such a bold
assumption would rather increase than diminish the difficulty. For, if legend
it be, its invention and insertion into the primitive record must have had some
historical reason. Such, however, it is absolutely impossible here to trace.
The Old Testament contains no analogous history which it might have been wished
to imitate; Jewish Messianic expectancy afforded no basis for it; and there is
absolutely no Rabbinic parallel18
which could be placed by its side. Similar objections apply to the suggestion
of exaggeration of some real event (Keim). For, the essence of the
narrative lies in its details, of which the origin and the universal acceptance
in the primitive belief of the Church have to be accounted for. Nor is the task
of those negative critics more easy, who, admitting the foundation in fact for
this narrative, have suggested various theories to account for its miraculous
details. Most of these explanations are so unnatural,19
as only to point the contrast between the ingenuity of the nineteenth century
and the simple, vivid language of the original narrative. For it seems equally
impossible to regard it as based either on a misunderstanding of the words of
Jesus during a storm (Paulus), or on the calm faith of Jesus when even
the helmsman despaired of safety (Schenkel), or to represent it as only
in some way a symbol of analogous mental phenomena (Ammon, Schleiermacher,
Hase, Weiszäcker, and others). The very variety of explanations
proposed, of which not one agrees with the others, shows, that none of them has
proved satisfactory to any but their own inventors. And of all it may be said,
that they have no foundation whatever in the narrative itself. Thus the only
alternative left is either wholly to reject, or wholly to accept, the
narrative.
18. The supposed Rabbinic parallels in Wetstein (Babha Mez. 59 b) and Wünsche's
(Chull. 7 a) works are quite inapplicable.
19. The strangest commentation, perhaps, is that of Volkmar (Marcus, pp. 307-312). For I cannot here perceive any kind of parallelism with the history of Jonah, nor yet see any references to the history of St. Paul's shipwreck.
If our judgment is to be determined by the ordinary rules of
historical criticism, we cannot long be in doubt which of these propositions is
true. Here is a narrative, which has the consensus of the three
Evangelists; which admittedly formed part of the original Evangelic tradition;
for the invention of which no specific motive can possibly be assigned; and
which is told with a simplicity of language and a pictorial vividness of detail
that carry their own evidence. Other corroborative points, such as the
unlikeliness of the invention of such a situation for the Christ, or of such
bearing of the disciples, have been previously indicated. Absolute historical
demonstration of the event is, of course, in the nature of things impossible.
But, besides the congruousness to the Parabolic teaching which had preceded
this Parabolic miracle, and the accord of the Saviour's rebuke with His mode of
silencing the hostile elements on other occasions, some further considerations
in evidence may be offered to the thoughtful reader.
For, first, in this 'dominion over the sea,' we recognise, not
only the fullest refutation of the Pharisaic misrepresentation of the Person of
Christ, but the realisation in the Ideal Man of the ideal of man as
heaven-destined,20
and the initial fulfilment of the promise which this destination implied.
'Creation' has, indeed, been 'made subject to vanity;'21
but this 'evil,' which implies not merely decay but rebellion, was directly due
to the Fall of man, and will be removed at the final 'manifestation of the sons
of God.' And here St. Paul so far stands on the same ground as Jewish theology,
which also teaches that 'although all things were created in their perfectness,
yet when the first Adam sinned, they were corrupted.'22
Christ's dominion over the sea was, therefore, only the Second and Unfallen
Adam's real dominion over creation, and the pledge of its restoration, and of
our dominion in the future. And this seems also to throw fresh light on
Christ's rebuke, whether of storm, disease, or demoniac possession. Thus
there is a grand consistency in this narrative, as regards the Scriptural
presentation of the Christ.
20. Ps. viii. 4-8.
21. Rom. viii 20.
22. Ber. R. 12.
Again, the narrative expresses very markedly, that the
interposition of Christ, alike in itself, and in the manner of it, was wholly
unexpected by, indeed, contrary to the expectation of, the disciples. This also
holds true in regard to other of the great manifestations of Christ, up to His
Resurrection from the dead. This, of course, proves that the narrative was not
founded on existing Jewish ideas. But there is more than this. The gratuitous
introduction of traits which, so far from glorifying, would rather detract from
a legendary Christ, while at the same time they seriously reflect on the
disciples, presumably the inventors of the legend, appears to us wholly
inconsistent with the assumption that the narrative is spurious.
Nor ought we to overlook another circumstance. While we regard
the narrative as that of an historical occurrence - indeed, because we do so -
we cannot fail to perceive its permanent symbolic and typical bearing. It were,
indeed, impossible to describe either the history of the Church of Christ, or
the experience of individual disciples, more accurately, or with wider and
deeper capability of application, than in the Parable of this Miracle. And thus
it is morally true to all ages; just because it was historically true at the
first.23 And as we
enter on this field of contemplation, many views open to us. The true Humanity
of the Saviour, by the side of His Divine Power; the sleeping Jesus and the
Almighty Word of rebuke and command to the elements, which lay them down
obedient at His feet: this sharp-edged contrast resolved into a higher unity -
how true is it to the fundamental thought of the Gospel-History! Then this
other contrast of the failure of faith, and then the excitement of the
disciples; and of the calm of the sleeping, and then the Majesty of the
wakening Christ. And, lastly, yet this third contrast of the helplessness and
despondency of the disciples and the Divine certitude of conscious Omnipotence.
23. A fact may be the basis of a symbol; but a symbol can never be the basis of a fact. The former is the principle of Divine history, the latter of human legend. But, even so, legend could never have arisen but for a belief in Divine history: it is the counterfeit coin of Revelation.
We perceive only difficulties and the seemingly impossible, as
we compare what may be before us with that which we consciously possess. He
also makes this outlook: but only to know and show, that with Him there can be
no difficulty, since all is His - and all may be ours, since He has come for
our help and is in the ship. One thing only He wonders at - the shortcomings of
our faith; and one thing only makes it impossible for Him to help - our
unbelief.
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