Jesus

by Paul Johnson

  This brings us to two characteristics of Jesus which emerge strongly from the language of the Gospels. The first was his habit of asking questions. He may have acquired this from study of the sacred texts. The Old Testament abounds in questions. God often asks questions, usually awkward ones. The question is part of the artistic form of the book of Job, and is used by Yahweh to convey vast amounts of information and to delineate his power. In chapter 38 of Job alone the Lord asks fifty-eight questions, from “who is this that darkeneth counsel by word without knowledge?” (38 : 2) to “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (38:4). To ask questions was also part of Jesus’s method of teaching. He spoke with great authority and had a great deal to impart, but he was anxious, if possible, to extract the knowledge and thoughts of his auditors, especially his disciples. “Whom do men say that I am?” (Mk 8 : 27) is a characteristic Jesus question. Mark shows him asking questions constantly. Thus before the feeding of the five thousand he asks, “How many loaves have ye?” (6 : 38). On the same occasion, John has Jesus ask Philip, “Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” (6 : 5). Jesus was an inclusive teacher, indeed an inclusive person generally, who constantly sought to draw all those present into the discussion, the elucidation of truth, the perception of reality. In Mark he introduces the parable of the mustard seed by a sharp double question: “Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it?” (4:30). When, at the beginning of his ministry, just after his baptism, he sees Andrew and another following him, he asks, “What seek ye?” (Jn 1 : 38). His questions to his intimates are often profound, poignant, even pleading. When many find his doctrine on the bread of life too difficult—“This is an hard saying; who can hear it?”—and leave, Jesus asks, “Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?” When “many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him,” Jesus said to the Twelve, “Will ye also go away?” (Jn 6 : 60-67). (Immediately afterward, referring to Judas Iscariot, he asks, “Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?” [6:71].) He even asks such questions as “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me?” (Jn 14 : 9). And, finally, “Do you love me?” After the Resurrection, he asks Mary Magdalene, “Woman, why weepst thou? Whom seekest thou?” (Jn 20:15). What all these questions—and there are many others recorded—have in common is that Jesus knows the answers even before he asks them. Their function is to extend a hand in welcome, in interest, in affection. They are a form of embrace, even when they are critical.

  Equally characteristic, though used for a variety of purposes, are Jesus’s silences. Though a teacher, an exponent, a man whose primary duty in life he regarded as discoursing, Jesus made highly effective use of both the question and the silence to get across his message. His questions, as often as not, were statements and conveyed information. Equally his silences were a form of mute speech. And often they carried a weight which words could not. There is a passage in Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus which has a particular application to Jesus’s ministry: “Speech is of time, silence is of eternity. Thought will not work except in silence. Neither will virtue work except in secrecy.” Up to the age of thirty, Jesus was silent, or at least unrecorded—and there is no indication he wished it otherwise. He was silent, virtually, during his temptations, until the end. He was silent during his baptism. He was silent when he changed the water into wine at Cana. Indeed, he was habitually silent during his miracles, except in bidding the lame to walk or the dead to arise. And he enjoined silence about them. He was habitually silent about his powers, except when necessary, and about his divinity, as it was important to establish the nature of his character as a man. When told “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16 : 16), he enjoins silence again. He was usually silent to direct questions. He preferred to answer the thought rather than the words. He expresses the silence of shame when presented with the woman taken in adultery: shame not at her sin but at the sins of those who wished to stone her to death. He prefers to write their shame in the dust rather than speak it. In the whole incident, one of the most vivid and moving in the entire New Testament, he uses only two sentences: “Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?” and “Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more” (Jn 8 : 10-11). He is silent on horrors: at the death of John the Baptist, for instance. He is silent, with indignation, before Caiaphas. He shows the silence of contempt before Herod Antipas. In his physical sufferings he is silent with self-absorption and pity for his assailants and mockers. His silence on the cross was as striking as his rare words, the seven last sayings.

  Jesus the teacher is eloquent but succinct. It is uncommon to find him using two words when one will do. The thoughts, and their intensity, conveyed in his instruction and parables are remarkable for their economy of words. Yet they give no impression of abruptness or brevity. The manner is invariably relaxed. The detail is always there when required. But the silences are an essential part of the ministry, too. His speech was silver, but we weigh his silences in gold.

  VI

  Encounters: Men, Women, Children, the Aged

  ALTHOUGH JESUS constantly addressed crowds in synagogues, in the open, and in packed private houses, he spoke directly to each individual who composed them. It was his gift and also his philosophy. Each human being was a unique, priceless entity loved by God as a person, so that, as Jesus said, “the very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Lk 12 : 7). Jesus’s love of people, as individuals, was in some way his most striking characteristic. He never tired of talking to them and penetrating their secrets. They were drawn to him and only too willing to divulge them. His life was a series of public meetings punctuated by casual encounters which turned into significant events. Jesus not only encouraged these encounters but treasured them. He remembered every word spoken. He clearly recounted them to his disciples, and that is how they reached the evangelists, who recorded them for us. For in most of them Jesus and the individual concerned were alone together—even if a babbling, pushing crowd surrounded them. These episodes, though often brief, form the human core of the New Testament and provide a unique satisfaction to the reader. There is nothing like them in the entire literature of the ancient world, sacred or secular.

  Jesus’s encounter with Andrew, immediately after his baptism, is a foretaste. It was Andrew who came up to him (with a companion who is nameless). There was something about Jesus’s appearance, the way he held himself, the steadiness of his gaze, which attracted people. They felt he was open, that he would receive them as a friend and talk to them. Indeed, Jesus’s manifest and responsive friendliness was his most striking quality, and it was apparent from the start. He directed it to all, but made each feel selected and treasured. Yet there was nothing professional about it. It came from his heart—there could be no mistake about that. According to John 1:37-42, when Andrew and his friend followed Jesus, he turned and said, “What seek ye?” Andrew said, “Master, where dwellest thou?” To which Jesus replied, “Come and see.” They “abode with him that day: for it was about the tenth hour.” The exact time when Andrew met Jesus is not obviously relevant, yet somehow it seems so. The friendship ripened immediately, and Andrew introduced his brother Simon to Jesus the next day. There was an instant rapport, so that Jesus immediately gave Simon a new name, or nickname, Cephas (or Peter), meaning solid as the rock. He gave John and James, another pair of brothers, a nickname, too: “sons of thunder” (Mk 3:17). Jesus loved such names as a pledge of friendship or intimacy. Their use among themselves sealed their comradeship in their immense task of turning the world upside down, making spiritual values triumph over material ones. It is curious to think that this haphazard and unplanned meeting with Andrew was to begin a long story which was to end, for him and his brother, as well as for Jesus, with death on the cross: Simon Peter pinned upside down, at his request, so as not to compete with his divine master in the dignity of deat
h; Andrew martyred at Patras in Achaea—bound, not nailed, so as to prolong the agony, on a cross whose peculiar shape has become the symbol of Scotland.

  Jesus’s summoning of Matthew from his busy tax collector’s bench at the frontier with Syria is another striking encounter. This official, powerful but hated, followed immediately. It was an instant friendship, silent—no exchange of words is recorded—but strong, and it brought Jesus into the center of another world. For Matthew, clearly at Jesus’s invitation, brought many of his colleagues and friends to an impromptu feast at the house where Jesus was staying. It was a huge success and attracted critical attention from the orthodox Jews and Pharisees, who asked the disciples, “Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?” (Mt 9 : 11). To which Jesus replied, “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

  This calling, followed by a feast, illustrated Jesus’s habit, springing from his partly private, partly gregarious temperament, of mingling close encounters with communal ones. He loved to teach at mealtimes. So many of his images concerned bread and its breaking and distribution, as well as the cup and its drinking. The Last Supper was merely the awesome climax of these sacred convivialities. With the exception of spreading news of his miracles, Jesus was always open. He enjoyed food. The wine circulated. The talk flowed. But he respected the need of others for privacy, even secrecy. One of the most striking of his encounters was with Nicodemus, a Jew of high position, a Pharisee and a spiritual ruler who was prominent in the hierarchy (Jn 3 : 1-21). He “came to Jesus by night,” so as not to jeopardize his position, and Jesus did not rebuke him for cowardice. On the contrary, he received him kindly and explained to him, in memorable words, much of his inner message. A man must be “born again” to see the Kingdom. Nicodemus asked, “How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?” Jesus’s answer was a plea for faith: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but should have everlasting life.” He told Nicodemus that he had not been sent “to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” But, he hinted, he must sooner or later come into the open. He must not shun the light: “For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.” Nicodemus should “cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest.” This advice was eventually taken, for when Jesus’s body was taken down from the cross, Nicodemus “brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pounds weight.” With this Jesus was anointed, and his body wound “in linen clothes with the spices” and buried in “a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.” We assume that Nicodemus had prepared it for himself (Jn 19 : 39- 42), though it may have belonged to Joseph of Arimathaea, who also assisted at the burial and had the stone rolled in front of the tomb. He, too, was a Jewish dignitary, a member of the Sanhedrin, or governing body of the community, who was a secret disciple.

  Friendship with Nicodemus and Joseph illustrates the range of Jesus’s circle, which included everyone who was drawn to him, irrespective of their social position or lack of it. A good example of his friendliness is the case of the royal official in Herod Antipas’s service who comes to beg for the life of his little son (Jn 4:46-53). At first he beseeches Jesus to come in person, but then accepts that a mere word from Jesus will effect the miracle of healing. Jesus assures him that his faith is sufficient, and so it proves. This touching story is told by John with great tenderness, which reflects Jesus’s own words spoken to the apostle and evangelist, for no one else heard the exchange. At the other end of the scale is the pathetic example of the elderly cripple who had haunted the pool of Bethesda for thirty-eight years (Jn 5 : 1-15). This medicinal pool, with its five flights of steps, or porches, into the waters, had an intermittent mineral spring, and when the waters “moved” (attributed to an angel) a cure was more likely, so there was competition to be the first in the flow after a “movement.” The old man had no servants to drag him there quickly and so had had to watch, year after year, while others were cured and he remained “impotent,” as John puts it. Jesus saw him there and seems to have known all about him, that he was a bit of a rogue, but was nevertheless moved to pity. He said, “Wilt thou be made whole?” The cripple said, “Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down into the pool before me.” Jesus said, “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.” The man was cured “immediately.” Jesus later ran into him in the Temple and recognized him. He said, “Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.” The man talked eagerly about his cure, as well he might, and that aroused the ire of the orthodox, for the miracle had occurred on the Sabbath. Some interpret the passage as a sign of ingratitude: the former cripple betrayed Jesus by talking to the Jewish officials. But that is surely wrong. The man had been unable to get about for nearly forty years, and suddenly he was free and active. Naturally he went everywhere telling his tale to whoever would listen.

  There is a similar encounter in John 9 : 1-38 when Jesus meets and cures a young man blind from birth. He was poor and of no importance, and when he tried to tell people that a marvelous thing had occurred, they bullied him. Was it not the Sabbath when he was cured? How did it happen? Who did it? Was not it a Sabbath-breaking sinner? The orthodox said, “Give God the praise: we know that this man [Jesus] is a sinner.” At this point the young man exclaimed in exasperation, “Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” They argued with him, bringing in Moses and whatnot, until he said, keeping in the forefront the one thing that mattered to him—sight—that restoring the sight of someone born blind had never been done before in the history of the world: “If this man were not of God, he could do nothing.” They shouted at him, “Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us?” then “they cast him out.” When Jesus heard about this, he found the young man and asked about his beliefs. The young man answered, “Lord, I believe.” And John concludes: “he worshipped him.” Here is another touching story of a brief encounter, with sight giving a perfect metaphor for knowledge of the truth.

  Jesus’s encounters with women had a particular significance. Women were almost invisible in the ancient Near East. They had little or no status unless they married rulers, and then their place was precarious. They might be discarded—“put away” was the term used in legal documents—at their husbands’ whim. If they were poor and old, they were nothing. But not to Jesus. His keen eyes sought them out amid the multitude of figures who crowded round him. That is how he spotted the old widow putting her two mites into the collection box at the Temple. He commended her as an example of how even the poorest could possess generous hearts. Charity was not the easy prerogative of the rich but was a particular virtue of the needy and humble. We are left to speculate whether the widow, having given her daily coins, would have gone without food until the next morning. She and her mites thus pass into the literature of goodness just as surely as she passed into the Kingdom. Jesus could also sense goodness, even when he could not see it. Thus he became aware of the old woman who touched his garment believing her debilitating complaint would thus be cured. He felt her faith. Her spiritual need pulsed into him, and his power passed out and into her in response. So he identified that woman and praised her, and she knelt down and acknowledged his divinity. She was cured but, even more important, she passed into the spiritual repertoire of the humble believers, those whose faith in goodness towers over their insignificance.

  But some of Jesus’s encounters with women are more complicated than these simple instances. One of the most fascinating is his meeting at the well of Sychar, in Samaria, with a local woman who has come to draw water (Jn 4 : 4-42). The well had been dug by the patriarch Jacob and stood outside the town. Jesus and his disciples had to travel thro
ugh Samaria every time they moved from Galilee to Judaea or vice versa. Jews were commanded to have no dealings with Samaritans, who were held to be accursed: though Hebrews by descent, they had their own shrine and religious customs. But that was exactly the kind of religious dogma Jesus held to be cruel and unreasonable. Being tired, he stopped at the well while his disciples went into the town to buy food. When he saw the woman he looked through her, and into her, as was his habit and his genius. He asked her for a drink of water from the well and got into conversation. She saw he was a Jew and thought it strange he was willing to talk to her. But she was happy to respond and was immediately fascinated by the distinction he drew between the water of the well, which soon left one thirsty again, and the spiritual water of truth, which was everlasting. She said, “Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.” He said, perhaps smiling wryly to himself, for he knew all about her, “Go, call thy husband, and come hither.” She replied, “I have no husband.” This was what Jesus had been waiting for. He told her, “Thou hast well said, I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.” The woman was astounded. But she was not a timid creature—Jesus had sensed this from the start—and had self-possession enough to respond, “Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.” That gave Jesus the chance to explain to her that, however orthodox Jews and Samaritans might differ, they both had nothing in common with what he called “the true worshippers” who “shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” For, he added, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” The question of rival shrines was irrelevant. The woman responded eagerly. She knew the Messiah was coming, she said, and “when he is come he will tell us all things.” Jesus was beginning to explain—“I that speak unto thee am he”—when his disciples, arriving with the food they had bought, interrupted. They were very surprised indeed to find him talking to the woman, but they did not like to say so. Instead, they asked him to eat, but he declined: “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” He meant, of course, that his encounter with the woman had given him food for thought: how in doing “the will of him that sent me” (as he put it) he would include outsiders like the Samaritans who were eager to learn.