Ch. 31, Events Leading up to the Capernaum Crisis

“Son of Man: Urantia,” 2nd edition

Chapter 31

Events Leading up to the Capernaum Crisis

Jesus and the others arrived in Capernaum at noon on Tuesday. The news about taming Amos the lunatic had preceded them and a large crowd was waiting for Jesus when he arrived. Among them was the new group of spies that the Sanhedrin had sent down from Jerusalem. As Jesus spoke with the people on the shore, a man named Jairus, one of the leaders of the synagogue, broke through the crowd and rushed up in front of him. Breathless, he went to his knees and grabbed Jesus’ hand saying “Master my little daughter, an only child, is about to die. I pray that you will come to my home and heal her.”

On hearing the father’s request Jesus said “I will go with you.”

The crowd had heard what Jairus said and they followed Jesus to his house. On the way there they had to go through a narrow crowded street with everyone rushing back and forth. All of the sudden Jesus stopped and said “Someone touched me.”

When the people next to Jesus said they had not touched him, Peter said “Master, you can see that we are all pressed together and the crowd is threatening to crush us; yet you say ‘someone has touched me.’ What do you mean?”

Jesus replied “I asked who touched me because I felt living energy go forth from me.” As Jesus looked at the people around him he saw a woman close by, who coming forward knelt at Jesus’ feet and said “For years I have been afflicted with a devastating hemorrhage. I have suffered many things from many doctors; I have spent all of my money but none of them could cure me. Then I heard of you, and I thought that if I could just maybe touch his robe I would certainly be made whole. So I pressed forward with the crowd as it moved along until when standing near you, Master, I touched the border of your garment and I was made whole: I know that I have been healed of my disease.”

Jesus took the woman by the hand, and lifting her up said “Daughter your faith has made you whole; go in peace.” It was her faith—not her touch—that had made her whole.

This case illustrates the many apparently miraculous cures that occurred around Jesus, but that he in no way consciously willed. As time passed it proved that this woman was cured of her illness. Her faith was the type that directly accessed the creative power in Jesus. With the faith she had it was only necessary to approach him, it was not necessary to touch his cloths: that was just the superstitious part of her belief.

This woman’s name was Veronica of Caesarea-Philippi. When Jesus told her that she had been healed he phrased it to correct two errors that may have stayed in her mind or in the minds of the people present. First, he did not want Veronica to go away thinking that her fear—and then her attempt to steal her cure—had been honored. And second, he wanted her and all of the others to know that it was not her superstition—thinking that she was cured by touching Jesus’ cloths—that cured her, but rather it was her pure and living faith that had done so.

At Jairus’ House

Jairus was impatient by the time Jesus was finished talking with the woman, so they picked up the pace and hurried to his house. But even before they entered his yard one of his servants came out and said “Do not trouble the Master. Your daughter is dead.”

Jesus seemed to ignore the servant. He looked over and told the grief-stricken father, “Fear not: only believe,” and then taking Peter, John, and James they entered the house. Inside, the flutists were playing and the mourners and relatives were already weeping and wailing: in most respects it was a tasteless scene. Jesus told the people in the house that the girl was not dead, but they just laughed at him. After he had everyone leave except for the parents and his three apostles, Jesus turned to the mother and said “Your daughter is not dead: she is only asleep.”

Jesus went up to the child, took her by the hand, and said “Daughter I say to you, awake and arise!” When the girl heard these words she immediately stood up and walked across the room. After she had recovered from her daze, Jesus told the parents to give her something to eat because she had been a long time without food.

Since there were already many people in Capernaum who were upset with Jesus, he explained to the family that the girl had just been in a coma after a long fever and that he had only woken her up—that he had not raised her from the dead. In the same way he explained all of this to his apostles, but it was no use. They all believed that he had raised the little girl from the dead. Again Jesus’ explanations had little effect on his followers. They were all miracle-minded and lost no opportunity to put another wonder over to him. After Jesus had specifically ordered all of them to not tell anyone what happened, he and the apostles returned to Bethsaida.

As they left Jairus’ house, two blind men that were being led by a dumb boy followed them crying out to be healed. At this point in his earth career Jesus’ reputation as a healer was at its peak. Everywhere he went sick people were waiting for him. Jesus was by now looking worn out, and his friends were getting concerned that he would work to the point of collapse.

Jesus’ apostles, let alone the common people, could not understand the nature of Jesus the God-man. No later generation has been able to evaluate his life with us, and neither science nor religion can ever validate the remarkable events in his life. Such an extraordinary situation can never happen again—never again on any world in this universe will a celestial being appear in the likeness of mortal flesh, while both embodying his creative energy and possessing the spiritual endowments that transcend time and other material limitations. Never before or since Jesus has it been possible to so clearly see the results of strong and living faith in people. To repeat these events we would have to go into the immediate presence of Michael the Creator, and find him as he was in those days: the Son of Man.

While Jesus’ absence today prevents such material manifestations, you should not place any type of limitation on the possible exhibition of his spiritual power. Though the Master is absent as a material being, he is present as a spiritual influence in people’s hearts. By leaving the world Jesus made it possible for his spirit to live alongside that of his Father that indwells the minds of all people.

Feeding the Five Thousand

Jesus continued teaching the people during the day and working with the apostles and evangelists at night. On Friday, he told everyone to take a week off so they could go and see their friends and family before they all went to the Passover in Jerusalem. But half of the them refused to leave Jesus, and the crowds were getting larger every day; so many people were coming to see Jesus that David Zebedee actually suggested building on another camp, but Jesus said no.

By Sunday morning, March 27^th Jesus decided to get away from the people. He and the twelve apostles made a plan to sneak away unnoticed and go to the other side of the lake. On the eastern shore was a beautiful park just south of Bethsaida-Julias. The area was well known to the people from Capernaum, and it was a favorite place for them to go and rest. Jesus left some of the evangelists at the camp to preach to the crowd and he and the twelve made their escape.

The people were not fooled. As soon as they saw Jesus and the apostles rowing across the lake they hired every boat they could find and set off to catch up with them. Those who could not find room in the boats went by foot around the upper part of the lake; by late afternoon more than a thousand people had caught up with Jesus in the park. Jesus spoke a few words to them, and then Peter took over teaching. Many of these people had brought food, and after eating supper they sat around in small groups learning about the kingdom.

By noon the next day, Monday, the crowd had grown to over three thousand people. More kept coming into the evening, bringing with them all types of disease. Many of these people had previously made plans to stop by Capernaum on their way to the Passover just to see Jesus, and they were not going to be disappointed. By noon on Wednesday, around five thousand people were gathered in this beautiful park: it was close to the end of the rainy season and the weather was pleasant.

Philip had packed a three-day’s supply of food for Jesus and the apostles. Mark, who handled all of the chores for the group, was in charge of the food. They had been there for three days at this point and the mass of people was almost out of food. David Zebedee did not have a tented kitchen set up to care for everyone, and Philip had not planned for the crowds when he packed their provisions. But even though they were hungry, the people would not leave. There were rumors among them that Jesus, wanting to avoid trouble with both Herod and the Sanhedrin, had chosen this quiet spot outside of their jurisdiction to be crowned king.

The crowd grew increasingly excited by the hour. No one said anything to Jesus, but of course he knew what they were thinking. Even the twelve apostles were still tainted with these ideas, but it was especially so with the new younger evangelists. It was one of them, Joab, who was the ringleader of the plot to crown Jesus king. The apostles were split in their opinions over this plan with John, Peter, Simon Zelotes, and Judas Iscariot agreeing with it while James, Andrew, Thomas, and Nathaniel were against it. Philip, Matthew, and the Alpheus twins did not comment either way.

This was the situation when at about five o’clock on that Wednesday afternoon, Jesus asked James Alpheus to go and bring him Andrew and Philip. When the two arrived Jesus asked “What will we do with the crowds of people? They have been with us for three days now, and many of them are hungry. They have no food.”

Andrew and Philip looked at each other for a moment unsure of Jesus’ intent, and then Philip said “Master, you should send these people away so that they can go to the villages close by and buy themselves something to eat.”

Andrew, fearing the plot to make Jesus king, quickly joined with Philip and said “Yes Master, I think it would be best for you to send the people away so that they can go on their own to buy food while you take a break.”

By this time some of the other apostles had joined the discussion. Jesus said “But I do not want to send them away hungry: can you not feed them?”

This was too much for Philip’s patience, and he quickly spoke up and said “Master, where in this place in the countryside can we buy bread for this many people? Two hundred denarii would not be enough to pay for the lunch.”

Before the other apostles could say anything, Jesus turned to Andrew and Philip and said “I do not want to send these people away. Here they are like sheep without a shepherd. I want to feed them. What food do we have with us?”

While Philip was talking with Judas and Matthew, Andrew went looking for the Mark boy to find out how much food was left. When he reported back to Jesus, he said “Mark only has five loaves of barley left, and two dried fish,” and then Peter quickly added, “And we have not eaten yet this evening.”

For a moment Jesus stood in silence; there was a faraway look in his eyes. The apostles remained quiet. Then Jesus suddenly turned to Andrew and said “Bring me the fish and the loaves.” When Andrew brought Jesus the basket, the Master said “Tell the people to sit down on the grass in groups of one hundred, and appoint a leader over each group while you bring all of the evangelists here with us.”

Jesus took the loaves in his hands, and after he had given thanks he broke the bread and gave it to his apostles who passed it on to their helpers who in turn carried it out to the groups of people. Jesus in the same way broke and gave out the fish, and the people ate and they were filled. When they had finished eating, Jesus said “Gather up the broken pieces left over so that nothing is lost.” When they had finished gathering up the pieces they had twelve basketfuls. About five thousand men, women, and children took part in this extraordinary feast.

This is the first and only nature miracle that Jesus performed on purpose. It is true that his disciples tended to call many things miracles that were not, but this was a genuine supernatural act. We were taught that in this case Michael multiplied food elements like he always does, except for the elimination of the time factor and the visible life channel.

The King-Making Episode

The case of feeding the five thousand people using supernatural energy was another of those times when Jesus’ human pity plus his creative power combined to result in what happened. Now that the people had been well fed, and since Jesus’ fame was then and there multiplied by this astonishing wonder, the idea to seize the Master and make him king needed no more urging. The thought seemed to spread on it is own like wildfire through the crowd. The people’s reaction to this sudden spectacular meeting of their hunger was profound and overwhelmed them. Central to the Jewish faith was believing the son of David would come again, cause the land to flow with milk and honey, and gift them with the bread of life like manna from heaven supposedly fell on their ancestors in the wilderness.

Were not all of these expectations now fulfilled right before their eyes? When this hungry undernourished mass of people had finished gorging itself with the miraculous food, there was but one unanimous reaction—“Here is our king.” Israel’s wonder working deliverer had arrived. In these simple minded people’s eyes the power to feed carried with it the right to rule. No wonder then that the horde, when it had finished feasting, rose as one person and shouted “Make him king!”

This mighty shout excited Peter and the apostles who still held hopes of seeing Jesus assert his right to rule. But their false hopes did not last long. The crowd’s mighty roar had hardly ceased to eco from the nearby rocks when Jesus stepped up on to a huge stone and commanding their attention said “My children, you mean well but you are short-sighted and material-minded.”

There was a brief pause as this fearless Galilean was majestically posed in the western twilight’s enchanting glow. He looked every inch a king as he continued to speak to this breathless horde of people. Jesus said “You want to make me king not because your souls have been lighted with an important truth, but because your stomachs have been filled with bread. How many times have I told you that my kingdom is not of this world? This kingdom of heaven that we announce is a spiritual brotherhood that no one rules over from a material throne. My Father in heaven is the all-wise and all-powerful ruler over this spiritual brotherhood of the sons of God on Earth. Have I so failed in revealing to you the Father of spirits, that you would make a king of his Son in the flesh! All of you go back to your own homes. If you must have a king, let the Father of lights be enthroned in each of your hearts as the spirit ruler of all things.”

Jesus’ words sent the crowd away stunned and disheartened. That day many who had believed in Jesus turned back and no longer followed him. The apostles were speechless. They stood in silence gathered around the twelve baskets filled with bits of food: only the Mark lad spoke up and said “And he refused to be our king.” Jesus, before going off to be alone in the hills turned to Andrew and said “Take your comrades back to Zebedee’s house and pray with them, especially for your brother, Simon Peter.”

Simon Peter’s Night Vision

The apostles, sent off by themselves without Jesus, boarded the boat and in silence rowed toward Bethsaida on the western shore of the lake. None of the twelve was so crushed as Simon Peter. They hardly spoke a word: they were all thinking about Jesus alone in the hills. Had he given up on them, they wondered? He had never before sent them all away and refuse to go with them: what did all this mean?

The night grew dark. A strong headwind had come up that made progress almost impossible. As the night and hard rowing persisted, Peter got tired and fell into a deep exhausted sleep. James and Andrew put him down on the cushioned seat in the boat’s stern. While the other apostles toiled against the wind and the waves, Peter had a dream—he saw a vision of Jesus coming to them walking on the sea. When the Master seemed like he was going to keep walking on by the boat, Peter cried out “Save us, Master, save us,” and the apostles who were in the rear of the boat heard him say some of this.

As this vision continued in Peter’s mind he dreamed that he heard Jesus say “Be of good cheer. It is me: do not be afraid.”

For Peter’s disturbed soul those words were like the rare healing perfume known as Gilead’s balm; it soothed his troubled spirit so that in his dream he cried out to Jesus and said “Lord if it is you ask me to come and walk on the water with you.” And when Peter in his dream started to walk out on the water the crashing waves frightened him, and as he was about to sink he cried out “Lord, save me!” and many of the twelve apostles heard this.

Then Peter dreamed that Jesus came to his rescue, and stretching out his hand took hold and lifted Peter up saying “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” Peter, still asleep and dreaming, stood up from where he was sleeping in the stern and stepped off of the boat and into the water waking-up as John, James, and Andrew hauled him back inside.

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For Peter, this experience was real: he sincerely believed that Jesus had come to them that night. He only partly convinced John Mark of this, which explains why Mark left a portion of the story out of his narrative. Luke the physician, who carefully looked into these matters, decided that Peter just had a vision so he refused to put the story into his accounting of Jesus’ life.

Back in Bethsaida

Thursday morning before dawn they anchored offshore near Zebedee’s house and slept until noon. Andrew was the first to wake up, and going for a walk along the shore he found Jesus with their chore boy sitting on a large rock by the water’s edge. Just after midnight Jesus and the Mark lad had started walking around the lake and across the river back to Bethsaida. Even though many people had searched for him, they had not found him.

Of the five thousand people who were miraculously fed—and who when their stomachs were full and their hearts empty would have made Jesus king—only about five hundred continued to follow him. But before everyone realized that Jesus was back in Bethsaida, he asked Andrew to bring together the apostles and others, including the women. When everyone was present, Jesus said “How long will I bear with you? Are you all slow of spiritual comprehension and lacking in living faith? All these months I have taught you the truths of the kingdom and yet you are dominated by material motives instead of spiritual considerations. Have you not read in the scriptures where even Moses urged the unbelieving children of Israel, saying ‘Fear not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord’? Said the singer, ‘Put your trust in the Lord.’ ‘Be patient, wait on the Lord and be of good courage. He will strengthen your heart.’ ‘Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you. Trust him at all times and pour out your heart to him, for God is your refuge.’ ‘He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High will abide under the shadow of the Almighty.’ ‘It is better to trust the Lord than to put confidence in human princes.’

“Now can you all see that working miracles and performing wonders will not win souls for the spiritual kingdom? We fed the people, but it did not lead them to hunger for the bread of life or to thirst for the waters of spiritual righteousness. When their hunger was satisfied they did not seek to enter into the kingdom of heaven, but instead tried to make the Son of Man king like the kings of this world only so that they could continue to eat bread without having to work for it. And all of this that many of you more or less participated in does nothing to reveal the heavenly Father or to advance his kingdom on Earth. Do we not have enough enemies among the religious leaders without doing what is likely to also upset the civil rulers? I pray that the Father will open your eyes so that you can see and open your ears so that you can hear so that in the end you will have full faith in the gospel that I have taught you.”

Jesus said that he wanted to rest for a few days with just his apostles before they all went to Jerusalem for the Passover. He forbid any of the disciples or the other people to follow them, and then they took a boat to Gennesaret for three days. Jesus was preparing for a momentous crisis, and needed to spend time in communion with the Father in heaven.

The news of feeding the five thousand people and the attempt to make Jesus king spread throughout Judea and Galilee arousing the people’s curiosity and stirring up the fears of both the civil and religious leaders. While this remarkable miracle did not further the gospel of the kingdom in the souls of material minded half-hearted believers, it did bring the miracle seeking and king craving tendencies of Jesus’ immediate group of apostles and disciples to a head. This spectacular episode brought an end to Jesus’ early era of healing, training, and teaching; it prepared the way for his last year declaring the higher and more spiritual phases of the new gospel of the kingdom: divine sonship, spiritual liberty, and eternal salvation.

At Gennesaret

While in Gennesaret Jesus rested at the home of a wealthy follower and held informal talks with the twelve apostles every afternoon. The ambassadors of the kingdom were a sober, serious, and humbled group of disillusioned men. But even after all that had happened, they were still not done believing some of their inbred and long cherished ideas about the coming Jewish Messiah. The events of the last few weeks had moved too quickly for these astonished fishermen to grasp their full significance. It takes time for people to change their philosophy, social conduct, and religious convictions.

In less than one month’s time the excited hordes of Jesus’ followers who numbered more than fifty thousand in Galilee alone had shrunk to less than five hundred people. Jesus wanted his apostles to experience how unreliable popularity could be; after he left he did not want them to be tempted to rely on these fleeting moments of religious excitement. He only partly succeeded in this effort.

The second night at Gennesaret Jesus again told the apostles the parable of the sower, this time adding “You see my children, the appeal to human feelings is short lived and completely disappointing. Appealing only to people’s intellect is also fruitless. It is only by appealing to the spirit that lives in the human mind that you can bring about those marvelous transformations in a person’s character that will be seen by others to be the genuine fruits of the spirit that come when moving from the darkness of doubt to the light of faith—from entering the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus taught that appealing to the emotions was a technique to focus and arrest the mental attention. He said that a mind aroused like that was the gateway to the soul where the spiritual nature of the person has to recognize the truth and respond to the spiritual appeal of the gospel to permanently transform their character. In this way Jesus was preparing his apostles for the coming shock: the crisis brewing in the people’s attitude toward him that was going to happen in a few days. Jesus explained to the twelve that the religious rulers of Jerusalem were going to conspire with Herod Antipas to destroy them.

The apostles began to realize that Jesus was not going to sit on David’s throne; they better saw that spiritual truth was not advanced by miracles. They began to realize that feeding the five thousand and then the people wanting to make Jesus king was the peak of his popularity and the people’s expectations of miracles. The apostles sensed the coming times of spiritual sifting and cruel adversity. These twelve men were slowly realizing the true nature of being ambassadors of the kingdom, and they began to strengthen themselves for the hardships they would meet in Jesus’ last year on Earth.

Before leaving Gennesaret, Jesus taught the apostles about the miracle of feeding the five thousand. He told them why he engaged in this extraordinary manifestation of creative power, and he also assured them that he did not give into his sympathy for the crowd until he was sure that it was “according to the Father’s will.”

At Jerusalem

On Sunday, April 3^rd Jesus and only the apostles headed out from Bethsaida to Jerusalem. To avoid the people and not attract attention to themselves they took the route through Gerasa and Philadelphia. Jesus forbid anyone from doing any teaching on this trip or while they were staying in Jerusalem. They arrived at Bethany outside of Jerusalem late Wednesday evening, April 6^th. For the first night they stayed at Lazarus’ house with Mary and Martha but they left the next day. Jesus and John stayed with Simon, a believer whose home was nearby Lazarus’ house. Judas Iscariot and Simon Zelotes went to some friend’s house in Jerusalem, and the other apostles split up into twos and stayed at other homes in the area.

Jesus only went into Jerusalem once during this Passover, and that was on the major day of the feast. But many of his followers who lived in Jerusalem came out to Bethany with Abner to meet him. During this stay at Jerusalem the twelve learned how bitter the people now were toward Jesus, and when they left Jerusalem they all believed that a crisis was imminent.

On Sunday, April 24^th Jesus and the apostles left Jerusalem and returned to Bethsaida. On the way they traveled through the coastal cities Joppa, Caesarea, and Ptolemais and then walked overland through Ramah and Chorazin arriving at Bethsaida on Friday, April 29^th. Jesus then sent Andrew to talk with the head of the synagogue and get permission for him to speak the next day, the Sabbath: Jesus was well aware that would be the last time he would ever be permitted to speak in the Capernaum synagogue.