CHRIST AT CAPERNAUM

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 3, 1881

CHRIST AT CAPERNAUM.

It appears to have been on a Friday that Jesus summoned Peter and his companions. The day passed, doubtless, in further work for the kingdom. As the sun set, the beginning of the Sabbath was announced by three blasts of a trumpet, from the roof of the spacious synagogue of the town, which the devout commandant of the garrison, though not a Jew, had built for the people. The first blast warned the peasants, in the far-stretching vineyards and gardens, to cease their toil; the second was the signal for the townsfolk to close their business for the week, and the third, for all to kindle the holy Sabbath light, which was to burn till the sacred day was past. It was the early spring, and the days were still short, for even in summer it is hardly morning twilight, in Palestine, at four, and the light is gone by eight.

The morning service in the synagogue began at nine, and as the news of the great Rabbi being in the neighborhood had spread, every one strove to attend, in hopes of seeing Him. Women came to it by back streets, as was required of them; the men, with slow Sabbath steps, gathered in great numbers. The elders had taken their seats, and the Reader had recited the Eighteen Prayers—the congregation answering with their Amen—for though the prayers might be abridged on other days, they could not be shortened on the Sabbath. The first lesson for the day followed, the people rising and turning reverently towards the shrine, and chanting the words after the Reader. Another lesson then followed, and the Reader, at its close, called on Jesus, as a Rabbi present in the congregation, to speak from it to the people.

His words must have sounded strangely new and attractive, for, apart from their vividness and force, they spoke of matters of the most vital interest, which the Rabbis left wholly untouched. He had founded the kingdom of God, and now sought to build it up by realizing its conditions in the souls of men, who should each, forthwith, be living centers of influence on others. But a course so retired, and unknown to the world at large, as that which he followed, of speaking to modest assemblies in local synagogues, makes it easy to understand how his life might be overlooked by the public writers of the age. Yet, in the little world in which he moved, the noiseless words by which he carried on his work created an intense impression. He gave old truths an unwonted freshness of presentation, and added much that sounded entirely new, on his own authority, instead of confining himself, like the Rabbis, to lifeless repetitions of traditional commonplaces, delivered with a dread of the least deviation or originality.

They claimed no power to say a word of their own. He spoke with a startling independence. Their synagogue sermons, as we see in the book of Jubilees, were a tiresome iteration of the minutest Rabbinical rules, with a serious importance which regarded them as the basis of all moral order. The kind and quality of wood for the altar; the infinite details of the law of tithes; the moral deadliness of the use of blood; or the indispensableness of circumcision on the eighth day, were urged with passionate zeal as momentous and fundamental truths. The morality and religion of the age had sunk thus low, and hence the fervid words of Jesus, stirring the depths of the heart, created profound excitement in Capernaum.

Men were amazed at the phenomenon of novelty, in a religious sphere so unchangeably conservative as that of the synagogue. "New teaching," said one to the other, "and with authority—not like other Rabbis. They only repeat the old: this man takes on Him to speak without reference to the past." But if they were astonished at his teaching, they were still more so at the power which He revealed in connection with it.