And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes; and their net brake.—St. Luke v. 6.
This chapter records a series of those acts which the Evangelists describe as signs or powers of the Kingdom of Heaven, which we commonly speak of as miracles or portents. Before we can know whether their title or ours is the best—which, at least, answers best to the narratives themselves—we should examine those narratives one by one.
(1.) The first is known as the story of the miraculous draught of fishes.’ I do not suppose any of us can be quite satisfied with this account of it. St. Luke brings an actual scene before us. There are two fishing-boats standing by the lake of Gennesareth. The fishermen are gone out of them, and are washing their nets. Jesus is on the shore. The people are pressing upon Him to hear the word of God. He enters one of the boats, and desires Simon, the owner of it, to thrust it a little way from the land. He sits down and speaks to the people from the boat. Then He says, ‘Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.’ Simon Peter says, ‘Master, we have toiled all night, and caught nothing; nevertheless, at thy word, I will let down the net.’ And when they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes, and their net brake. And they beckoned to their partners in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.’
‘This,’ you exclaim, was a miracle; a startling event; a break in the ordinary laws of the universe. ‘Some One was in that ship who could do what had never been done before.’ I do not think that was Simon Peter’s feeling, if he did what Luke says he did. ‘He fell at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.’ He feels that the Person who has caused that net to be filled with the fishes is not One who is there for the first time. He is his judge, his lawgiver; One who knows what is in him; One before whom he trembles. The Power which had enabled him in other days to fulfil his craft, who had made his craft successful, is there. He stands revealed to him. The sense of a Divine Presence which was not of that moment, but of all moments, is awakened in the heart of the poor Galilean. He who has been speaking the word of God out of the ship—He who has been bearing witness of a Kingdom of God that is near them all—He who has been calling them to repent because that kingdom is at hand—He has given this sign and proof of His dominion. He rules the lake, but oh, more wonderful power! He rules the man who has been plying his trade on the lake. That man is face to face with his Lord. And then is heard the sentence so reviving, and yet so awful:—‘Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men.’ ‘I am that ’Lord whom thou takest me to be. I have been with thee in thy common work. I am going to send thee forth on a higher work. Thou art to declare to men that gracious kingdom over their business, over their bodies, over their spirits, which I have awakened thee, by this token, to confess.’
In this instance I think the Evangelist justifies his own nomenclature. He proves that it is far simpler, far more significant, far more distinct, far more comprehensive, than that which we have substituted for it. The fisherman who would have merely stared at a prodigy, who would have derived from it a transitory reverence for a certain human person, is awed, humbled, raised to another level by this indication of a Divine oversight of his work and of him. The draught of fishes becomes an education for him. It becomes an education for every fisherman, for every craftsman of every kind, in after days. It converts every failure and every success in his ordinary business into a sign which he may turn to his profit and to the strengthening of his faith. It becomes an evidence of the Gospel indeed—an evidence that it is from Him and concerning Him who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
(2.) The next narrative refers to a leper. I shall read it to you, often as you have heard it. The manner of relating these stories has to do with the nature and substance of them. By changing them a little, and clothing them in modern phraseology, we can easily make them appear just like the reports of portents in the writers who give us most of such reports. If we take them as they stand, the contrast, I think, must strike all.
‘And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him. And he charged him to tell no man: but go and shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.’
Now consider these facts. The law regarding leprosy formed one of the longest and most elaborate chapters in the code of the Israelites. He believed that the Lord God had cared to preserve him and his people from the peril of this disease; that He had appointed the priests to watch over those who had been overtaken by it; that He had taught them the signs of its approach, the proofs that it had become dangerous, the rules for excluding the infected man from the congregation and from the society of his fellow-citizens, the time when he might safely mix with them again. A man undergoing the penalties which this law had prescribed approaches Christ as One whom he may dare to approach, notwithstanding its decrees; he expresses his confidence that He can do for him what none else can do. Here is an occasion for claiming that kind of power which sets all ordinary laws at defiance. He does respond to the petition of the leper in the most direct, the most authoritative manner:—‘I will; be thou clean.’ But this exercise of will, instead of overreaching law, pays the greatest homage to it. The man is to go and shew himself to the priest. He is to give evidence that he is inwardly healed by the outward tokens which the law has ordained. He is to offer the gifts which accompanied those cures that had taken place by the slowest, most customary process. And he is not to proclaim aloud that which has been done to him. He is to be silently thankful for it. Does not the Evangelist in this case vindicate most strikingly his own mode of considering our Lord’s acts? Is there one of the characteristics of the doer of strange irregular wonders here? Are we not reminded at every step of Him who said, that He did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it? that He came to do His Father’s will? Was He not fulfilling the law by restoring the ordinary health, about which it had been so solicitous? Was He not doing His Father’s will by banishing the diseases which had interrupted the order of His Creation?
Before I pass to the next miracle, I must call your attention for a moment to the fifteenth and sixteenth verses, in their relation to each other. In spite of His command the fame of Him spreads abroad: multitudes come together to hear and to be healed of their diseases. He retires into the wilderness and prays. Those words ‘I will, be thou clean,’ did not then import an assertion of independence. He had disclaimed that when the Devil had tempted Him to shew what He could do by making stones bread and by casting Himself from the pinnacle of the Temple. His will was still the trusting, dependent, praying will. It was mighty to heal and restore, because it was in entire harmony with the will of Him from whom He came.
That reflection will be the best possible preparation for the story of the palsied man.
(3.) ‘And it came to pass on a certain day, as he was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem: and the power of the Lord was present to heal them. And behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy; and they sought means to bring him in, and to lay him before him. And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the housetop, and let him down through the tiling with his couch into the midst before Jesus. And when he saw their faith, he said unto him, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee. And the Scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who was this which speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone? And when Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answering said unto them, What reason ye in your hearts? Whether it is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, he said unto the sick of the palsy, I say unto thee, Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thine house. And immediately he rose up before them and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own house, glorifying God,’
Here we are not, as in the last case, occupied chiefly with the sufferer himself. There is a crowd about Jesus; among them are those who are observing and criticising His acts. The palsied man is brought unexpectedly among them. His friends are desiring a cure for him. The Pharisees and doctors are watching what the Teacher, to whom such powers are ascribed, will say or do. What He says is altogether different from the anticipation of the friends—altogether startling and shocking to the learned men. Man, thy sins be forgiven thee. What sins? Who knew that he had committed any, or that they were troubling him? Those words must have been addressed to the man himself, to the conscience within him; if they met nothing there, they were wasted. If they did meet something there, they came from One who knew what was in man, who could tell what this particular man needed, who was in direct communication with the secrets of his heart. This would be a sign of the Kingdom of Heaven, the sign of that dominion over human beings, of that fellowship with human spirits, which our Lord was announcing in all His discourses. Accordingly it is this speech which provokes the indignation of the scribes. Who is this that speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone? The whole question between Him and them was gathered up into these words: ‘Is there a Son of Man? Is there One who unites man to God? Is there One in whom God is seeking man—seeking to reconcile man to Himself?’ The Scribes believed there was no such Person. They thought there was a God, a very terrible God, who might, perhaps, be induced to forgive the sins of some who could find out the right method of influencing Him. And this forgiveness, what was it? Not the removal of a curse which was crushing the spirit and separating it from goodness and truth, but simply the escape from a certain amount of punishment which it had been decreed should be the recompense for a certain amount of evil doing. Forgiveness in any real sense—in any sense which it bears in the mind of a true father among men, who wins back his child to his home, and puts away out of his thoughts that which has set them at war—this the scribe did not recognise. And therefore he could not practically recognise it in his relations with his fellow-men. Forgiveness towards them meant only the allowing them to escape punishment. Was, then, the act of enabling the palsied man to rise and walk an exceptional act of power, done to shew how Christ had broken through the laws of the universe? According to the Evangelist, it was the vindication of an eternal law of the universe, of a principle in which all human beings, throughout all generations, would be interested. ‘That ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, he said to the sick of the palsy, Arise, and go into thine house.’ That they may know there is a Ruler over their spirits and over their bodies—a giver of peace and life to both; that they may understand He is bringing them a message of reconciliation and Forgiveness from His Father; that He is Himself the bond of this reconciliation and forgiveness; therefore is this man made a sound creature again. A grand Gospel to humanity, if that is so; a deliverance from all the plots and contrivances for purchasing forgiveness of sins which men have devised, and which have been welcomed by sin-sick consciences, not for their relief but for the increase of their torment. And I will add, my friends, a warning to ourselves, whenever we are tempted to use the formula, ‘Who is this that speaketh blasphemies?’ It was used, so the Evangelists tell us, by the most approved doctors of the day against the Son of Man. It was used to condemn the thought that He really expresses the will of His Father towards men. It was used as an excuse for putting Him to death. Let us have an intense dread of blasphemy; but let us keep these things in recollection when we are in haste to charge any brother with it.
In treating these different works of our Lord as manifestations of an abiding invisible power, which is never exerted irregularly, which is always exerted by a Father for the well-being of His children, I have had only to recover those exact New Testament expressions which we have carelessly or wilfully deserted for others far feebler, it seems to me, and suggesting often an opposite sense. But I am also vindicating the common faith of simple people; that which has been continually making itself heard above our noisy arguments. These stories of the draught of the fishes, of the leper, of the palsied man, have been appropriated to their own use by people of every age and country in various circumstances and extremities. They have broken through all opinions and traditions which said that these were peculiar events from which no precedent could be drawn, and which had nothing corresponding to them in ordinary human experience. A true and divine instinct—the instinct of workers and sufferers—has perceived in all these instances the signs of a Son of Man, the witnesses of His presence with them just as much as with those who were gathered about the boats on the lake of Gennesareth, or were met in the room the tiling of which was broken to let down the bed.
(4.) The next words will illustrate my meaning. And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said unto him, Follow me. And he left all, rose up, and followed him.’ How does our Liturgy treat this event? ‘O Almighty God,’ we thus pray in the Collect for the 21st September, who by thy blessed Son didst call Matthew from the receipt of custom to be an Apostle and Evangelist; Grant us grace to forsake all covetous desires, and inordinate love of riches, and to follow the same thy Son Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.’ This is not, in the cant language sometimes adopted by preachers—a language curiously combining vulgarity with profaneness—improving the story of Levi or Matthew to our use. It is grounded on the assumption that the Lord of Matthew is our Lord; that the Lord who called Matthew is calling us; that we have the same temptations as he had; that by trust in that Lord we can resist them as he did… The principle applies in all cases. He shewed forth to Matthew the power which He exerts regularly and habitually over human wills, just as He shewed forth to the leper and the palsied the power which He exerts regularly and habitually over human bodies.
(5.) It will scarcely be questioned that in the next paragraph He announced an unchanging law of His kingdom. The new disciple invited Him to a feast. He ate and drank with publicans and sinners. The Scribes and Pharisees murmured. ‘They that are whole,’ He said, need not a physician; but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. The objection belongs to all times; for the Pharisaic temper reappears in all. I can coin new phrases, and seem to discard—even contemptuously to discard—old ones. But essentially it never changes. And the answer to its arguments is equally unchangeable. None can be invented which is so complete as this, which is not involved in this. There is none which is so cutting and so comprehensive.
(6.) We want some name, if we could find one, to gather up these different lessons; to tell us what that Person was who wielded all these different powers. Before we finish the chapter the name is uttered. The doubt had arisen why our Lord’s disciples did not fast like those of John and of the Pharisees. The answer is, The Bridegroom is with them. That expression contains all that we have been learning, or trying to learn, from the records of our Lord’s work on earth.
The Bridegroom of Humanity had come forth. He was entering into its sorrows and joys, taking upon Himself all its burdens, that He might purify it, and exalt it, and give it a share of His glory. The children of the Bridechamber, those who were told of the great marriage, and were to bear the tidings of it to all kindreds and people, could not fast while they had the discovery of His presence. There might come times, very dark times, when He would seem to be hidden from them, and from their universe. They would have reason for fasting in those days. But even in those days they would be reminded by outward changes in their discipline and mode of life, that what former ages looked for had come to pass; that He who revealed God by His sympathy with man had appeared. His appearing would be the consummation of an old age, the beginning of a new. The vestures of the old time would not be suitable for that which was at hand; it must have a vesture of its own. The old vessels would not be adapted to the new wine; it would require vessels of its own. Is the coming Kingdom then to trample upon the past? Is it not that eternal Kingdom in which the past and the present and the future are united? Is not this the Kingdom which Christ declared by His words and His deeds? Is it not of this Kingdom that we have been made heirs? Oh that God may teach us what our inheritance is, that He may enable us fully to enter upon it!