(Rough draft)
Jesus and the apostles arrived in Capernaum Tuesday evening, January 13th. As usual, they made Zebedee’s house in Bethsaida their headquarters. The news spread quickly about town, and on hearing that Jesus had returned Mary took off and went to Nazareth to tell Joseph.
Now that John the Baptist was dead, Jesus started preparing his apostles to go out in their first open efforts to preach to the people in Galilee. He spent the next three days working with the twelve, and quite a few other believers who came to see him with their questions, while Andrew went and got permission for Jesus to speak in the synagogue on Saturday, the sabbath.
Late Friday evening, Ruth, Jesus’s baby sister, came in secret to visit him. They went to the lake and took a small boat a way off shore and talked in private for almost an hour. No one, except John Zebedee, ever knew about Ruth visiting Jesus that night, and he was told to never tell anyone what he knew. Throughout Jesus’s time on Earth, Ruth was his number one fan; she was his main comfort, with regard to his family, during the trial, rejection, and crucifixion. Little Ruth was the only one of the family that never once in her life waivered in her belief that Jesus was the son of God.
A Full Net of Fish
The morning of that Friday that Ruth came by to visit Jesus, he had been teaching down on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The crowd of people had gotten so big that they pushed Jesus right up to the water’s edge. So there was a fishing boat a little way off shore that Jesus signaled to come over and get him. When they pulled up, Jesus got in the boat and the crew held her steady for over two hours as Jesus kept on talking to the people amassed on the beach. This boat was named, “Simon,” and used to be Simon Peter’s. Back in the day, Jesus had actually built this fishing boat with his own hands. But that day, David Zebedee and a couple of his friends were using it. They had been out all night fishing with no luck what-so-ever, and they’d been taking care of their nets when Jesus called them over.
So after Jesus finished up with the people and sent them home, he went over to David Zebedee and said, “Since you were held up because you were helping me, now let me help you. Let’s go fishing. Drop your nets in that deep hole out there, and we’ll do well.”
But one of David’s buddies, by change a guy also named Simon, said, “But Master, it’s useless. We fished all night, and we didn’t catch a thing.” About that time, Simon caught a look from David to agree with Jesus, and then he said, “But no worries, we’ll go back out and drop our nets.” And when they did, they ended up with so many fish that they thought their nets would break. So they waved to shore for help, and ending up with three boats overloaded with fish to the point of almost sinking. When they were all done, David’s friend, Simon, fell down on to knees in front of Jesus and said, “Leave me, Master, because I’m a sinner.” He, David, and the other fishermen involved were amazed at what happened, and from that day on they all gave up fishing to follow Jesus.
But this wasn’t a miraculous event. Jesus was a fisherman, and he’d studied nature and knew the habits of the fish in the Sea of Galilee. Nothing supernatural happened, just good fishing, though everyone else kept thinking it was a miracle.
Afternoon at the Synagogue
The Thursday evening during these three days, Andrew had taught in the synagogue on, “The New Way.” That Saturday, or Sabbath, morning, Simon Peter taught on, “The Kingdom,” and then that afternoon, Jesus preached on, “The Will of the Father in Heaven.” At this point in time, Jesus had more followers in Capernaum than in any other city on Earth.
That Saturday afternoon in the synagogue, Jesus followed Jewish custom and read the first text from the law, and from the Book of Exodus, he read, “And you shall serve the Lord, your God, and he shall bless your bread and your water, and all sickness shall be taken away from you.”
Jesus chose his second text from the Prophets, and read from Isaiah, “Arise and shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. Darkness may cover the earth and gross darkness the people, but the spirit of the Lord shall arise upon you, and the divine glory shall be seen with you. Even the gentiles shall come to this light, and many great minds shall surrender to the brightness of this light.”
In this sermon Jesus tried to emphasize his teaching that religion is a personal experience between a son or daughter and their father; it’s not a group event. Among other things, Jesus told the people, “You know well that while a kind father loves his family as a whole, it’s because he loves each person in that family. No longer go to the Father in heaven as a child of Israel, but rather as a child of God. Yes, as a group you’re all the children of Israel, but you are also, each and every one of you, a child of God. I haven’t come to show the Father to the children of Israel, but to show his love and mercy to each person as their own genuine experience.
All of the prophets taught you that Yahweh cares for his people; that God loves Israel. But I’m here to tell you a greater truth, one that a lot of the later prophets understood. And that’s that God loves you, every one of you, as individuals. For all of your past you’ve had a national, a racial, religion. Now I’m here to give you a personal religion.
“But this isn’t even a new idea. Many of you who are more spiritually attuned know this truth, and some of the prophets have taught this. Haven’t you read in the scriptures where the Prophet Jeremiah says, ‘In those days they shall no more say, the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge. Every man will die for his own crimes; every man who eats sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge. Wait and see, the day will come when I’ll make a new contract with my people, not the same as the promise that I made with their fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, but the new way. I’ll even write my law in their hearts. I’ll be their God, and they will be my people. In those days they won’t say, one man to another, do you know the Lord? No! For they will all know me personally, from the least to the greatest.’
“Haven’t you read these promises? Don’t you believe the scriptures? Don’t you understand that the prophet’s words are fulfilled in what you see this very day? And didn’t Jeremiah insist that you make religion an affair of the heart; to relate yourselves to God as an individual? Didn’t the prophet tell you that the God of heaven would search your individual hearts? And weren’t you warned that the human heart is deceitful above all things and oftentimes desperately wicked?
“Haven’t you read also where Ezekiel taught even your fathers that religion must become a reality in your individual experience? No more will you use the proverb that says, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ ‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘behold all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son. Only the soul that sins will die.’ And Ezekiel even foresaw today when he spoke in behalf of God, saying: ‘A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.’
“No more should you fear that God will punish a nation for the sin of a person; and neither will the Father in heaven punish one of his children for the sins of a nation. That said, the individual members of any family a lot of time suffer the material consequences of family group mistakes. Don’t you realize that the hope of a better nation—or a better world—is bound up in the progress and enlightenment of the individual?”
Then Jesus showed them that after a man realizes his spiritual freedom, God wants him to respond to the divine urge to know God and seek to be like him, and to begin the eternal ascent to Paradise.
This sermon did a lot to help the apostles, and they all better understood that the gospel of the kingdom is for the individual, not the country. Even though the people of Capernaum were familiar with Jesus’ teaching, they were still astonished at this sermon. Jesus wasn’t teaching like one of the scribes, but rather like a person with authority.
Just as Jesus finished speaking, a young man in the congregation had a violent epileptic attack and cried out loud enough for everyone to hear. When the seizure was over and he was still out of it and slowly regaining consciousness, he said, “What are we going to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? You are the holy one of God; have you come to destroy us?”
Jesus motioned to the people to be quiet, and then taking the young man by the hand, Jesus said, “Come out of it,” right about the time the boy became fully awake.
This man wasn’t possessed by a demon; he had an ordinary case of epilepsy. But he’d been taught that he was sick because he was possessed by an evil spirit. He believed this, and behaved accordingly when it came to his disease. Back then, everyone believed sickness was the result of possession by evil spirits. So, of course, they all believed that Jesus had cast a demon out of this young man.
But Jesus didn’t, at that time, cure his epilepsy; it wasn’t until later after sundown that he was healed. A long time after the day of Pentecost, the Apostle John, who was the last of the apostles to write of Jesus’ life, avoided all reference to these so-called acts of “casting out devils.” He did this in light of the fact that cases of demon possession never occurred after Pentecost.
News of Jesus casting the devil out of this man spread like wild fire throughout the area, and a lot of the people believed the story.
In the Zebedee household, which was fairly large, Simon Peter’s wife and her mother, Amatha, did most of the cook and housework. On the way back from the synagogue, Jesus and some of the others stopped by Peter’s house to visit because Amatha had been sick with chills and a fever for several days. Now, just as fate would have it, the fever left this woman at the same time that Jesus was there holding her hand and encouraging her. And of course, since it was right after what happened with the epileptic guy in the synagogue and them all remembering what happened with the wine in Cana, some of the people at the house with Jesus rushed out to tell everyone in the city before he could stop them.
Peter’s mother-in-law, Amatha, was suffering from malaria. Jesus didn’t heal her at this time. It wasn’t until several hours later, after sundown, that she was cured in connection with the extraordinary events that took place Zebedee’s front yard. But these cases show how that wonder-seeking and miracle-minded generation grasped at anything to say Jesus had done another miracle.
Bob