(Rough draft)
It was a little before noon on Tuesday when Jesus’ boat docked at Capernaum. The news about curing the Kheresa lunatic, Amos, had already reached there and Bethsaida, and a large crowd was waiting for Jesus when he arrived. Among the people were also the new spies that the Sanhedrin had sent down from Jerusalem, who were there to catch Jesus doing something against the Jewish law for which they could arrest him.
As Jesus spoke with the people who had gathered on the shore to meet him, a man named Jairus, who one of the rulers of the synagogue, broke through the crowd and after rushing up to Jesus he went to his knees in front of him, grabbed Jesus’ hand, and said, “Master, my little daughter, an only child, lies in my home at the point of death. I pray that you will come and heal her.”
When Jesus heard this father’s request, he said, “I will go with you.”
People heard what Jairus had said to Jesus, so a large crowd hoping to see what was going to happen followed the group to Jairus’ house. Before they got there, they had to make their way through a narrow street that was crowded with people rushing back and forth. All of the sudden, Jesus stopped and said, “Someone touched me.”
When the people right around Jesus said they hadn’t touched him, Peter spoke up and said, “Master, you can see that we are all pressed together and the crowd is threatening to crush us, and yet you say ‘someone has touched me.’ What do you mean?”
Then Jesus said, “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 near-by, who, coming forward, knelt at Jesus’ feet and said, “For years I have been afflicted with a devastating hemorrhage where I lose lots of blood. I have suffered many things from many doctors; I have spent all 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. And so I pressed forward with the crowd as it moved along until, 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.”
When Jesus heard this, he 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, and not her touch, that had made her whole.
This case is a good illustration of many apparently miraculous cures that happened during Jesus’ time on Earth, but that he in no way consciously willed. As time passed, it proved that this woman really was cured of her problem. Her faith was the kind that directly accessed the creative power in the Master. With the faith she had, it was only necessary to approach the Master’s person. It was not at all necessary to touch his cloths: that was just the superstitious part of her belief.
When Jesus spoke to this woman, her name was Veronica of Caesarea-Philippi, he did so to correct two errors that might have stayed in her mind, or that might have stuck in the minds of those who saw her being healed. One, he did not want Veronica to go away thinking that her fear, and then her attempt to steal her cure, had been honored. And two, 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 was effective, but rather that it was her pure and living faith that had done so.
At Jairus’s House
Jairus was getting more impatient by the moment as all of this went on, so everyone now picked up the pace and hurried to his house. But even before they entered his yard, one of his servants came out and said, “Don’t trouble the Master. Your daughter is dead.”
But Jesus seemed to ignore what the servant said, and taking Peter, James, and John with him, he turned and said to the grief-stricken father, “Fear not: only believe.” When Jesus entered the house, he found the flute-players were already there along with the mourners, who were causing a pretty tasteless scene, and the child’s relatives who were already weeping and wailing.
After Jesus had all of the mourners go outside, he, the mother and father, and his three apostles went into the room. He had told the mourners that the girl was not dead, but they laughed at him. Jesus now turned to the mother, and said, “Your daughter is not dead: she is only asleep.”
And after everyone in the house had quieted down, Jesus, going up to the child, took her by the hand and said, “Daughter, I say to you, awake and arise!” And when the girl heard these words, she immediately rose up and walked across the room. And soon, after she had recovered from her daze, Jesus told the others that they should give her something to eat because she had been a long time without food.
Since there were already a lot of people in Capernaum that were upset Jesus, he called the family together and explained to them that the girl had been in a coma after a long fever, and that he had merely aroused her; 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 he had raised the little girl from the dead. Jesus’ explanations had little effect on his followers. They were all miracle-minded, and lost no opportunity to put another wonder to Jesus. After Jesus had specifically ordered all of them to not tell anyone what had happened, he and the apostles returned to Bethsaida.
When they left Jairus’s house, two blind men led by a dumb boy, a kid who couldn’t speak, followed him and cried out to be healed. By this time Jesus’ reputation as a healer was at its very peak. Everywhere he went sick people were waiting for him. The Master was now looking worn-out, and all of 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 this God-man. Neither has any later generation been able to evaluate what took place on Earth with Jesus of Nazareth. And there can never be an opportunity for either science or religion to check up on these remarkable events for the simple reason that such an extraordinary situation can never again happen, either on this world or on any other world in Nebadon.
Never again, on any world in this entire universe, will a supernatural being appear in the likeness of mortal flesh, at the same time embodying all of his creative energy combined with spiritual endowments that transcend time and most other material limitations.
Never before Jesus was on Earth, nor since, has it been possible to so clearly see the results that can come from the strong and living faith of mortal men and women. 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.
Likewise, today, while his absence prevents such material manifestations, you should not place any sort 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 the hearts of men. By leaving the world, Jesus made it possible for his spirit to live alongside that of his Father, which indwells the minds of all humanity.
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 left for the Passover in Jerusalem. But half of the crew refused to leave Jesus, and the crowds were getting larger every day. It had gotten to the point that David Zebedee actually suggested building on another camp, but Jesus said no.
Jesus got little rest over that weekend’s sabbath, so the next morning, Sunday March 27, Jesus had to get away from the people. He and the twelve apostles made a plan to sneak away unnoticed to the other side of the lake, where on the eastern shore, there 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 to talk to the people, and he and the crew made their escape.
But the people were not fooled. When they saw Jesus and the others heading across the lake, they hired every boat they could, loaded them people, and set off to catch up with Jesus. The people who could not find room in the boats headed out on foot to walk around the upper part of the lake.
By late afternoon, more than a thousand people had caught up with Jesus in the park. He spoke to them for a bit, and then Peter took over the teaching. A lot of these people had brought some food with them, and after eating their supper they sat around in little groups while the apostle and disciples taught them about the kingdom.
By noon the next day, Monday, the crowd had grown to over three thousand people. And they kept coming way into the evening, bringing with them all types of sick people. Many of these people had already made plans to stop by Capernaum to see Jesus on their way to the Passover, and they were not going to be disappointed. So, by noon on Wednesday, around five thousand people were gathered together in this beautiful park. This was close to the end of the rainy season, and the weather was pleasant.
Philip had packed three day’s worth of food for Jesus and the apostles. Mark, the lad who pretty much handled all of the chores for the group, was in charge of the food. This get together had been going on for three days now, and the mass of people was almost out of food. David Zebedee didn’t have a tented kitchen here set up to care for the people, and Philip hadn’t planned for the crowds when he had packed their provisions. But the people, even though they were hungry, would not leave. There were rumors going among them that Jesus, wanting to avoid trouble with both Herod and the Sanhedrin, had chosen this quiet spot outside of his enemies jurisdiction to be crowned king.
The people were getting more and more excited by the hour. No one said anything to Jesus, but of course he knew what was happening. Even the twelve apostles were still tainted with these kinds of ideas, but especially so the new younger evangelists. It was one of them, Joab, who was the ringleader of the plot to crown Jesus as king. The apostles were split about all of this, with Peter, John, Simon Zelotes, and Judas Iscariot agreeing with the idea, and Andrew, James, Nathaniel, and Thomas against it. Matthew, Philip, and the Alpheus twins didn’t comment about it all.
This was the situation, when about five o’clock on that Wednesday afternoon, Jesus asked James Alpheus to go and get Andrew and Philip. When the two arrived, Jesus said, “What will we do with the crowds of people? They have been with us now for three days, and many of them are hungry. They have no food.”
Philip and Andrew looked at each other for a moment, and then Philip said, “Master, you should send these people away so that they can go to the villages around here and buy themselves something to eat.”
And Andrew, fearing the plot to make Jesus king, quickly joined with Philip and said, “Yes, Master, I think it best that you send the people away so that they can go on their own and buy food while you take a break for a while.”
By this time some of the other apostles had joined the talk. Then Jesus said, “But I do not want to send them away hungry; can you not feed them?” This was too much for Philip, and he spoke right 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 Matthew and Judas, Andrew went looking for the lad, Mark, to find out how much food they had left. Andrew then went back to Jesus, and 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 said nothing. Then Jesus suddenly turned to Andrew and said, “Bring me the fish and the loaves.” And 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. And when they had finished eating, Jesus said to the disciples, “Gather up the broken pieces left over so that nothing will be lost.” And 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 as a result of conscious preplanning. 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
Feeding the five thousand people by supernatural energy was another of those cases where Jesus’ human pity, plus his creative power, equaled what happened. Now that the crowds of 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 personal direction. The thought seemed to spread on it is own like wild-fire through the crowd. The people’s reaction to this sudden and spectacular meeting of their physical needs was profound and overwhelmed them. For a long time the Jews had been taught that the Messiah, the son of David, would again come and cause the land to flow with milk and honey, and that the bread of life would be gifted to them like manna from heaven was supposed to have fallen on their ancestors in the wilderness.
And 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 wonder-food, there was but one unanimous reaction, “Here is our king.” Israel’s wonder-working deliverer had come. 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 man 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 these false hopes did not live long. The crowd’s mighty shout had hardly ceased to eco from the near-by rocks when Jesus stepped up on to a huge stone and, lifting up his right hand to command their attention, said, “My children, you mean well, but you are shortsighted and material-minded.”
There was a brief pause; this fearless Galilean was majestically posed in the eastern twilight’s enchanting glow. He looked every inch a king as he continued to speak to this breathless horde of people. He said, “You want to make me king, not because your souls have been lighted with a great 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 proclaim is a spiritual brotherhood, and no man rules over it seated upon a material throne. My Father in heaven is the all-wise and the 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! Now 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 chore boy, the Mark lad, spoke up saying, “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, got in the boat and in silence began to row 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 the Master alone in the hills. Had he given-up on them? He had never before sent them all away and refuse to go with them. What did all this mean?
It got dark. A strong headwind had come up that made progress almost impossible. As the night and hard rowing went on, Peter got tired and fell into a deep exhausted sleep. Andrew and James 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 to keep on walking 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 these words. As this vision continued in Peter’s mind, he dreamed that he heard Jesus say, “Be of good cheer. It is me: don’t be afraid.”
This was like the Gilead’s balm to Peter’s disturbed soul; it soothed his troubled spirit, so that (in his dream) he cried out to the Master and said, “Lord, if it really is you, ask me to come and walk on the water with you.” And when Peter, still 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!”
A lot of the twelve apostles heard him cry out. Then Peter dreamed that Jesus came to his rescue and, stretching out his hand, took hold and lifted him up, said: “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 falling into the water, waking-up as Andrew, James, and John hauled him back into the boat.
.
For Peter, this experience really happened. 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 had only had a vision, so he refused to put the story in his narrative.
Back in Bethsaida
Thursday morning, before dawn, they anchored offshore near Zebedee’s house and slept until about noon. Andrew was up first and, going for a walk by the sea, he found Jesus with their chore boy sitting on a stone by the water’s edge. Even though many of the people, and the young evangelists, had searched all night and a lot of the next day for Jesus around the eastern hills, they hadn’t found them. A little after midnight, Jesus and the Mark lad had started walking around the lake and across the river, back to Bethsaida.
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 after him. But before these people heard that he was back in Bethsaida, Jesus asked Andrew to gather together the twelve apostles and the others, including the women. And when everyone was ready, 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 even read in the scriptures where 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.’
“And now can you all see that working miracles and performing wonders will not win souls for the spiritual kingdom? We fed the masses, 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 rather tried to make the Son of Man king like the kings of this world, only so that they might continue to eat bread without having to work for it. And all this, in which many of you more or less participated, does nothing to reveal the heavenly Father or to advance his kingdom on earth. Have we not enough enemies among the religious leaders in the land 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 then told them that he wanted to take off for a few days of rest with just his apostles before they all got ready to go to Jerusalem for the Passover. He forbid any of the disciples or the other people to follow him. Accordingly, they took a boat to Gennesaret for three days to rest. Jesus was preparing for a great crisis, so he spent a lot of time in communion with the Father in heaven.
The news about feeding the five thousand people, and the attempt to make Jesus king, spread throughout Galilee and Judea arousing the people’s curiosity and stirring up the fears of both the civil and religious leaders. While this great miracle did not further the gospel of the kingdom in the souls of material-minded and halfhearted believers, it did bring to a head the miracle-seeking and king-craving tendencies of Jesus’ immediate group of apostles and disciples. This spectacular episode brought an end to his early era of teaching, training, and healing and prepared the way for the start of Jesus’ 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 at Gennesaret Jesus rested at the home of a wealthy follower, and he 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, and as we will see later, these twelve men were still not done believing in parts of their inbred and long-cherished ideas about the coming of the 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 people to make big changes in their basic ideas of social conduct, philosophic attitudes, and religious convictions.
While Jesus and the twelve were resting at Gennesaret, the crowds of people left, some of them going to their homes and others heading off to Jerusalem for the Passover. 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.
Jesus wanted to give his apostles an experience that showed them how unreliable popularity could be, so that after he was gone they wouldn’t be tempted to rely on these fleeting moments of religious excitement that happen with the general population. He only partly succeeded in this effort.
The second night they were at Gennesaret, Jesus again told the apostles the parable of the sower and added these words, “You see, my children, the appeal to human feelings is short-lived and completely disappointing. And, appealing only to man’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 naturally come when moving from the darkness of doubt to the light of faith, entering the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus taught that appealing to the emotions was a technique to arrest and focus the mental attention. He said that a mind aroused like that was the gateway to the soul, where the spiritual nature of man has to recognize the truth and respond to the spiritual appeal of the gospel in order for him to permanently transform his character.
In this way Jesus was trying to prepare 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 more fully realize (though not yet completely) that Jesus was not going to sit on David’s throne. They were better seeing 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 Jesus’ 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 coming to realize the real nature of being ambassadors of the kingdom, and they began to strengthen themselves for the hardships they’d meet in Jesus’ last year on Earth.
Before they left Gennesaret, Jesus taught them 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 given in to his sympathy for the crowd until he was sure that it was “according to the Father’s will.”
At Jerusalem
On Sunday, April 3, Jesus and just the twelve 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 got to Bethany outside of Jerusalem late Wednesday evening, April 6. For this 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 with a house close to Lazarus’s home. Judas Iscariot and Simon Zelotes went to some friends 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 great day of the feast. But many of the believers in the kingdom that lived in Jerusalem came out to Bethany with Abner to meet Jesus. During this stay at Jerusalem, the twelve learned how bitter the people were getting toward Jesus. They all left Jerusalem believing that a crisis was imminent.
On Sunday, April 24, Jesus and the apostles left Jerusalem and headed back to Bethsaida. On the way, they went through the coastal cities Joppa, Caesarea, and Ptolemais Then they went overland through Ramah and Chorazin arriving at Bethsaida on Friday, April 29.
As soon as they got home, Jesus sent Andrew to talk to the chazan at the synagogue and get permission for him to speak the next day, Saturday, the sabbath, at the noon service,
And Jesus was well aware that that would be the last time he would ever be permitted to speak in the Capernaum synagogue.
Bob