[These lesson-notes began with The Infant Jesus, in the August issue of this JOURNAL.]
Call of the Fishermen, MATTHEW iv. 17-25.
Parallel Accounts: With verse 17, MARK i. 14, 15 and LUKE iv. 14; with verses 18-22, MARK i. 16-20 and LUKE v. 1-11.
Golden text: The people which sat in darkness saw great light.
MATTHEW IV. 16.
Time: Spring and summer of the year 28, more than a year after the Temptation of Jesus. Passover, that year, was March 29; Pentecost, May 19; the Feast of Tabernacles, September 23.
Place: Galilee, especially towns near the Sea of Galilee. Jesus had just made his home at Capernaum, on the northeastern shore of the lake.
Rulers: Tiberius Caesar, emperor of Rome, fifteenth year of his reign; Pontius Pilate, Governor of Judea, third year of his reign; Herod Antipas ruler of Galilee, thirty-second year of his reign.
Intervening history: From February, a.d. 27, to April, a.d. 28, recorded chiefly in john i. 19—v. 47; in Matthew iv. 12-16; in LUKE iv. 14--32.
After his Temptation Jesus returned to Bethabara, where John the Baptist was still baptizing and preaching. This was the last of February. Here John pointed Jesus out to some of his (John's) disciples as the Messiah. These disciples accepted his Messiahship, and followed him to Galilee.
In Cana of Galilee, Jesus worked his first miracle, turning water into wine, at a marriage-feast. This occurred early in March.
In April Jesus returned to Jerusalem, to attend the Passover feast, which occurred between the ninth and sixteenth days of that month. While there he cleansed the Temple of its obnoxious tradesmen, and had the interview with Nicodemus.
The following summer and autumn he passed in Judea.
In the winter he revisited Galilee, and on his way met the Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well. In Galilee he healed the son of a Capernaum nobleman.
In the early spring he returned to Jerusalem, to attend the next Passover, and healed the impotent man at the Pool of Bethesda.
About this time, March of the year 28, John the Baptist was imprisoned at Machaerus, by order of Herod (MATTHEW iv. 12 and xiv. 3-5) and Jesus hastened back to Galilee. It was during this visit home that the men of Nazareth (LUKE iv. 16-30) ejected Jesus from their synagogue.
John's voice had been silenced. Herod had arrested him, and secured him in a dungeon, in the King's castle at Machserus. Jesus, hearing of this imprisonment, immediately took up the cry of John, "Repent ye!" repeating and enforcing it.
The scene: The words, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men," were spoken to a little band of uneducated fishermen, as they were plying their vocation on the Galilean Sea, men bearing the common names of John, Simon, James. They were inconspicuous citizens of Palestine, engaged in an ordinary occupation, and dressed in the most common apparel. They held no high offices, nor did they mingle with the rich merchantmen of the neighboring towns. Their worldly possessions were probably limited, consisting chiefly of their fishing equipments,—boats, nets, and other paraphernalia.
Such were Jesus' chosen companions, chosen by himself. Why did he not go to the Priests and Scribes, the authorized religious teachers of the day, and lay his spiritual scheme of salvation before them? These Priests and Scribes were the heart and pulse of the people, and swayed them with a mighty impetus. Indeed, these acknowledged leaders were, to the Jews, what their clergy are to our Roman Catholic communities. The people looked up to them as their spiritual superiors, and their orders were to be obeyed. Here were intellectual ability and literary skill; here were power and dignity. The common people would believe whatever these imperious rulers commanded. Why then did Jesus not unfold to them his plan of salvation?
Do you recall Jesus' interview with the Rabbins, some twenty years before, when he tarried in the Jerusalem Temple, and confounded the Doctors with his wonderful queries? Did he not then see their empty and tottering faith? Did he not penetrate, with his keen intuition, the position of those public leaders? Did he not in after years, when he began his great crusade against all forms of error, publicly denounce these rulers, and accuse them of heaping heavy burdens upon their followers, which they themselves would not touch with one of their fingers?
It is very evident why Jesus turned from the Rabbins, and sought followers among the unlearned. He would not trust his hope, his secret, in the hands of such people. Carefully he studied the hearts that were to beat in unison with his own. Carefully he weighed the words that fell from his companions' lips, seeking for coadjutors who would give utterance to convictions like his own, and not earth-born thoughts. Jesus turned from the Scribes and Priests. His words of love glanced from their flinty hearts, like hail from an ironclad monitor. The supercilious despotism of the Rabbins was too apparent to Jesus for him to risk his divine revelation with such biassed minds. He sought no counsel from these rulers; he offered them none. He simply turned from them, and sought for his companions, and the future expounders of his faith, these fishermen.
Little did these toilers by the sea dream that the man who accosted them with the words follow me would make their simple names immortal. The ecclesiastics, who chanted their solemn canticles through the corridors of the Temple, and worshipped in the presence of the Most High Jehovah, behind the Temple veil, have for centuries slept in unknown and unhonored graves, but those Galilean fishermen have ever continued to cast their nets into the sea of mortal thought, truly becoming fishers of men.
It was on the shores of the Galilean Sea that the incident recorded in this lesson took place. The natural features of this lake at the present time, are not strikingly beautiful, and the interest connected with it is due mostly to its associations with our Master's earthly pilgrimage. In the days of Jesus' earthly career, populous villages flourished around this lake; but now they are reduced to uninhabitable ruins. The thickly peopled shore is almost deserted, and the landscape is far different from what it was of old.
The city of Tiberius, then so grand, has vanished, with its splendid palaces, its magnificent public buildings, its fortifications, its minarets glistening in the sunshine. This once royal city is now a small decaying town, like a host of places under Turkish rule. The towns which once lined the shores of the lake, and were mirrored in Gennesaret's waters, have faded away with the years. The once busy fleets of fishing-boats have rotted away and sunk into oblivion. The richly wooded hills and verdant fields are now barren. The emerald plains are overgrown with thistles and thorns. The famous warm springs, at Tiberius, are deserted. In the water, rank weeds and rushes abound, and pelicans and other birds haunt these gloomy places. Occasionally a turtle-dove flutters overhead, that bird so dear to even Jew.
In the days of Jesus the landscape was beautiful in the extreme. Close by this lake lay Capernaum, where he abode, a beautiful spot for his earthly home. It seemed as if nature adorned herself with her loveliest costume, to tempt our Master to tarry with her beauties, and not seek for the unseen. Genesaret and its surroundings constituted an earthly rival to Jesus' unworldly and spiritual paradise.
Jesus' home was in the midst of this bewitching beauty. Here Jesus performed most of his wonderful miracles. In and about Galilee nearly all his manifestations of divine potency took place. In the plains and valleys, and on the uplands, he related his parables. From the customs of the day and the peculiarities of that country he drew his metaphors and illustrations. On the sloping fields were the vineyards, with their encircling hedges and wine-presses. On the sunny hillsides the old vines had grown, and the new wine was already ripening for the vintage, — that new wine, which Jesus told the husbandman must be put into new bottles.
On the plains of Genesaret bloomed thousands of lilies, the same lilies which Jesus declared were robed in glory surpassing Solomon's gorgeous array. On the same plains grew the grass, which in winter was cut down and cast into the oven. In the pastures and the valleys the shepherd left the ninety-and-nine sheep, and sought the wandering one.
The raven, who gathered neither into storehouse nor barn, daily flapped his wings over the hilltops; and from time to time, from the neighboring cliffs, emerged the hawk, so terrifying to the hen that she called her little brood together, and protected it beneath the shelter of her wings.
In the orchard grew the figtree on which, for three successive years, the husbandman found no fruit. Here the little grain of mustard-seed became the mammoth shrub.
Through the hilltops was seen the setting sun and the western sky, which acted as telltales to the Rabbins, by which they foretold the possibilities of the weather, though they could not tell the signs of the times.
In the bazaars at Capernaum the pearl-seeker bartered for more precious gems, which were brought from distant Ceylon, or from the farther Ind.
All these familiar illustrations were verified around the Galilean Sea in Jesus' day.
17. From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say : Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
Jesus had won the right to declare the Kingdom of Heaven at hand. He had outwitted the scheming Tempter in all his plots. He had won the Kingdom of Heaven, and was about to organize a heavenly community, into which only those could enter whose garments had been washed white. This new kingdom was only at hand. More preparation was necessary before one could be numbered among its glorious citizens. Repentance was the price to be paid. All error and material belief must be abandoned before their rights as citizens could be established, and the city of God grow.
18. And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon, called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for, they were fishers.
19. And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
20. And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.
21. And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he called them.
22. And they immediately left the ship and their father, and followed him.
Peter and Andrew, and probably John also, had accpeted the Messiahship of Jesus more than a year before (JOHN i. 35-42) and had accompanied him to Cana as his disciples; but they did not then receive a formal call to abandon their daily business and follow him, and they had probably returned to their regular occupation as fishermen.
On the shore of the lake was a boat, which had lately been drawn up on the white beach. Near by were two fishermen, who had come ashore after a fruitless night's labor. They were busily engaged in washing and mending their nets. Jesus came by and accosted the fishermen. He entered the boat of Simon, and asked him to "thrust out a little from the land." Soon he requested him to "launch out into the deep." As if to repay him for the use of the boat, Jesus bade Simon let down the net for a draught of fishes.
Although the fishermen had but just returned empty-handed, after a toilsome night, they hesitated not, but quickly let down the nets, which were filled to repletion with denizens of the sea,—so full, indeed, that the boatmen cried aloud to their companions for necessary aid.
What a lesson is here! "Thrust out a little from the land,"— the first command. Thrust out a little from the old material beliefs. Cast off the anchor which has held you fast to material claims. Thrust out a little is the first order; and then the order comes, "Launch out into the deep," into the deep things of God; let down your nets for a draught. This lesson is symbolic of the moral fishery upon which these men were about to enter. Jesus saw in these sturdy toilers less hypocrisy, deceit, and fickleness; hence he turned to these simple fishermen, and said, ''Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."
Before them lay the burdened net, which had nearly burst its meshes with precious freight. This temptation stared them in the face. It whispered in their ears, that in the neighboring city an open market awaited their "fruit of the great unplanted sea." But no! they had seen enough. They had before caught fish which lay in their death-throes. Now the Saviour had called them to catch men, that they might save them from death, and show them the way to obtain eternal Life.
This was enough! Jesus had touched their hearts. Henceforth they were his followers and disciples. The rich gain, which formerly they would have prized so dearly, sunk into insignificance. Then and there they abandoned everything, and followed Jesus. They became fishers of men, whose nets are being filled even unto our own day.
Why did Jesus happen by the Lake Genesaret at such a timely season? Was it luck? Was it mere chance? Not so! Something called him! Jesus is the perfect Idea of Truth, and only reveals himself to searching friends. The disciples called Jesus, — called him by calling themselves to Truths. "God so loved the world that He sent His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting Life." God sent His perfect Idea to the three fishermen. This Idea is constantly appearing to all seeking it. To the disciples the Christ appeared as a man, like unto themselves. This was their conception of the Son of God.
The fishermen were in a state which attracted the Master. Jesus could not help coming that way. He could no more help going down to the Galilean Sea to meet the disciples than he could help going through Samaria to meet the Samaritan woman at the well. "He needs must go through Samaria," the Gospels declare. But God, not the Samaritan woman, guided Jesus.
The disciples were mending their ways. It was this that drew the Master to them.
What was the difference between the disciples who toiled and found nothing, and the disciples who gathered such a supply that their boats were ready to sink? Were they not the same men? Whereas they once toiled in darkness, they now toiled in the sunlight; yet the fault was not in the sea, but in themselves. When any human being reaches the point of apprehension where he can seek the support of manhood and womanhood, not in a material sea, but in moral and spiritual conditions, there will come to him no disappointment, for "God giveth the increase."
23. And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.
24. And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.
25. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan.
Galilee signifies Circle. Truth touches with divine potency all within the circle of understanding, lifting the thought to spiritual aspirations. Purity of heart transcends ritualistic modes of worship, and touches the hem of the garment of Truth. Diseased minds and vexatious thoughts are pacified by the touch of Truth. Physical and mental derangements are dispersed by heavenly grace. Wide-spreading is the flame of Truth, truly giving "light unto all who are in the house." Moral lepers, unclean desires, torments, diseases, and such works of Satan, flee before the hallowed light of Truth. Thus Truth proceeds, attracting those whose thoughts are susceptible thereto, and leading them upward to the New Jerusalem, whither they shall come from east, west, north, and south.
