As the scribes intended, the people began to argue among themselves in small groups about the Messiah and how He would come. The immediate danger was abated. Leaving several guards to take care of any trouble that might arise, Abiathar returned to the chamber of the high priest.
When Caiaphas saw that the captain was empty-handed, his sallow face stiffened with anger. “Why did you not bring the Galilean?” he demanded.
Abiathar reddened at his master’s tone. “No man ever spoke as this one,” he grumbled. “The people would have torn us to pieces if we had harmed Him.”
“Are you also led astray?” Elam demanded contemptuously. “Have any of the rulers believed in this Galilean? Or any of the Pharisees?”
Abiathar shook his head. “I heard none,” he admitted.
“Then it was only this accursed multitude, who do not know the Law.”
“Does our Law judge any man before it hears him and knows what he does?” Nicodemus asked.
Elam turned his anger upon the lawyer. “Are you of Galilee?” he demanded. “Search and look, for no prophet shall rise in Galilee.”
The argument raged bitterly back and forth until Caiaphas, realizing it would achieve no unity of purpose, stopped urging the Council to try to bring Jesus to trial. There were other ways of getting rid of troublemakers, ways he knew well. If they could not catch the Nazarene breaking the Law where He could be arrested privately, an incident must be created to turn the people against Him. If the crowd then stoned the man to death for breaking Mosaic Law, as had happened many, many times in the history of Israel, even the Romans could not hold Caiaphas responsible.
II
No crime except blasphemy deserved more immediate and drastic punishment than adultery. “You shall not commit adultery,” the injunction read. “The man that commits adultery, both the adulteress and the adulterer shall surely be put to death.” Hardly a city existed in all Israel whose walls were not stained by the blood of those executed by stoning for breaking the seventh of the great commandments.
Knowing that the time when He must be put to death and rise from the dead had not yet come, Jesus had deliberately left the temple to avoid stirring up the people, and had withdrawn to a garden called Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives where He often went for prayer and meditation.
After the night of prayer and fasting, He came to the temple early and took His place once again with the other teachers on Solomon’s Porch. And as always, the crowd soon deserted the others and gathered around Him.
Caiaphas had not been idle. Together, he and Abiathar had devised a plan which seemed certain to accomplish their aims. As soon as it was known that Jesus was returning to the temple, guards had been sent to arrest a woman on a charge of adultery. They came now dragging the sobbing victim before Jesus.
“Master,” a Pharisee who had been selected by Caiaphas and Elam to serve as one of the accusing witnesses addressed Him with a great show of humility. “This woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now in the Law, Moses commands us to stone such. What do you say about her?”
Jesus knew quite well why the woman had been arrested and brought before Him. In His teaching He had stressed the willingness of God to forgive sins and His own promise to do so, precepts which had found immediate favor among the common people upon whom the harsh judgment of the Law placed a heavy burden. But the word of the Law was also quite clear and, whatever His answer, the Pharisees obviously intended to make trouble for Him. If He said the woman’s sin could be forgiven and her life thereby saved, they could accuse Him of blasphemy for not obeying the Law of Moses. On the other hand, if He condemned the woman to death forthwith, the people to whom He had promised forgiveness could rightly cry that He did not practice what He preached.
Jesus did not answer at once but did a strange thing. Stooping He began to write in the dust of the floor with His finger, as if He were debating what to do with the woman. When the puzzled Pharisees and scribes pushed closer to see what He had written, He merely went on making these seemingly meaningless marks in the dust. Finally, when all were filled with suspense, He raised His head and said quietly, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”
The agents of Caiaphas, who had been confident that the hated Nazarene could not escape from this trap, were thunderstruck by His answer. The Law of Moses required that the woman be stoned to death if judged guilty. There could be no doubt about her guilt, for the guards had stated that they had taken her in the very act of adultery. Yet no man among them could say he was without sin, for only God could make that claim. He who announced himself free from sin and gained the right to cast the first stone would, out of his own mouth, condemn himself for blasphemy.
Jesus did not look at His critics again but, stooping once more, began to trace the same idle pattern of marks in the dust. He felt rather than saw the discomfiture of those who had been certain they had finally trapped Him. Only when they had slunk away, did He raise His head again to look at the lovely copper-haired woman who remained kneeling before Him.
“Where are your accusers?” He asked her. “Has no man condemned you?”
“No man, lord.”
“Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”
Jesus watched the woman leave, then turned to face the people who still remained before Him. “I am the light of the world,” He told them. “He that follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
Elam had been watching at the back of the crowd; now he pushed his way through. “You bear witness of Yourself,” he accused. “And Your witness is not true.”
“I bear witness of Myself and the Father that sent Me bears witness of Me,” Jesus corrected him.
“Where is Your Father?”
“You know neither Me nor My Father,” Jesus told the Pharisee sternly. “If you had known Me you would have known the Father also.”
Once again He had foiled them in their desire to find reason to seize Him, but He did not stop there. “I go My way and you shall seek Me,” He said. “And whither I go you cannot come.”
“Will He kill Himself?” one listener asked another. “For He said, ‘Whither I go you cannot come.’”
Jesus heard the question and explained His meaning. “You are from beneath and I am from above,” He said. “You are of this world and I am not of this world. I said therefore to you that you shall die in your sins if you do not believe that I am He.” He meant that He was the Messiah and that they could save themselves from death by believing on Him.
But Elam did not choose to understand. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“Even the same that I said to you in the beginning,” Jesus told him. “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you shall know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself. But as My Father has taught Me, I speak these things. He that sent Me is with Me; the Father has not left Me alone, for I do always those things that please Him.”
Perhaps more clearly than at any other time in His ministry Jesus had described the relationship between Himself and His Father in heaven. He spoke so convincingly that even many in the temple believed in Him.
Jesus now turned to these who had accepted Him here where so many sought to destroy Him. “If you continue in My word,” He told them, “you are My disciples indeed. You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”
III
Joachim, the beggar, had never seen light, for he had been blind from the day of his birth. To him the world existed only in terms of what he could touch, hear, or smell. The passing of the seasons revealed to him little of their beauty but only the sensation of warmth and cold upon his skin as he plodded about the city with the other beggars, pleading for alms. He had heard talk of the Nazarene healer and had even thought of trying to reach Him, but the press of the crowd whenever Jesus taught in the templ
e was so great that he could find no one to lead him there. Some said Jesus had actually given sight to the blind. Joachim could hardly believe this, for such a power could come only from the Most High Himself and unless this Nazarene were really the Messiah, such a thing was impossible. And yet he dared to hope that someday God might give him his sight, for help could come from no other source.
Joachim heard the people shouting Jesus’ name as He left the temple. Stumbling along, tapping with a stick on the stone paving of the street to guide himself, he moved nearer. The sound of voices and particularly the rough tones of the fishermen of Galilee who, he had heard, made up most of the Nazarene’s disciples, told him he was approaching the party, but he did not dare call to the Teacher Himself lest he be pushed aside by the crowd and passed by. The only thing he could do was to give his customary warning.
“From the day of my birth I am blind,” he intoned as he tapped along. “Have mercy and give me alms for the love of God.”
Jesus heard the cry, as He always heard the pleas of the afflicted, and stopped beside Joachim. Before He could speak to the blind man, however, one of the disciples asked a question.
“Master,” he said, “who sinned that this man was born blind? He or his parents?”
This was no idle question, for it was written that the Lord said to Moses, “Who hath made man’s own mouth? Or who makes the dumb or deaf or the seeing or the blind? Have not I the Lord?” Obviously then God would not so punish anyone except for sinning.
“Neither this man nor his parents have sinned,” Jesus explained. “He is blind that the works of God may be made manifest in him. I must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day, for the night comes when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
While the disciples pondered what He had said, Jesus knelt beside Joachim. Spitting into the dust, He quickly made a ball of moist clay with His fingers. As He rubbed the clay on the blind man’s eyelids, He told him, “Go wash in the pool of Siloam.” And without saying more, He passed on toward Bethany, leaving Joachim with the clay still sticking to his eyes.
Part of the crowd that had been following Jesus remained behind, expecting a miracle. But when nothing happened, some small boys in the group began to jeer at the blind man because of the dirt on his face.
Something, perhaps the quiet confidence in the voice of the Nazarene Teacher, gave Joachim the courage to start across the city to the pool of Siloam. Descending from the elevated area of the temple where the beggars congregated because worshipers there might be generous with their alms, Joachim made his way across the Lower City toward the pool of Siloam which lay near the Water Gate.
The pool had been built by King Hezekiah at the terminus of a tunnel dug beneath the city to bring the waters of the spring called Gihon in the Kedron Valley to this section so that women could more easily carry water for their families. More recently, Herod the Great had erected a colonnaded building in the form of a hollow square around the pool, so that it was always cool and shady there.
At the edge of the pool, Joachim knelt and washed his eyes with the cool water, as Jesus had instructed him. When he saw the water of the pool, and the faces of the women who were filling their jars reflected in it, he cried out in wonder and got to his feet, stumbling about like a drunken man in the ecstasy of seeing—the beauty of the colonnade, the bright-colored robes of the women, the green of the trees—Joachim was like a man dying of thirst who suddenly finds a pool in the desert. “I see! I see!” he cried, and throwing away his stick, he started running through the streets to go tell his family, shouting as he ran to everyone he passed about the miracle which had given him his vision.
“How were your eyes opened?” one of the neighbors asked.
“A man called Jesus made clay and anointed them!” Joachim explained. “Then He said, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.’ I washed as He said and immediately I received my sight!”
Some of the neighbors had been in the temple that morning and had heard the Pharisees arguing with Jesus. They now persuaded Joachim to go with them to Elam with the story of how he had regained his sight.
The Pharisee questioned the beggar closely but he told the same story about what had happened and would not change it. He realized that Elam was particularly eager to establish the fact that the healing had taken place on the Sabbath, but he did not understand the reasons for his concern until Elam and another Pharisee began to argue between themselves.
“This man is not of God because He does not keep the Sabbath day,” Elam said.
“But how could a sinner perform such things?” the other asked.
Elam turned back to Joachim. “What do you say of Him that opened your eyes?” he asked.
“He is a prophet,” Joachim said confidently.
Elam did not question Joachim further but turned to the beggar’s father and mother who had come with him. “Is this your son who you say was born blind?” he demanded. “How then does he now see?”
Joachim’s parents were reluctant to antagonize the Pharisee, for it was rumored in the city that anyone who acknowledged the Nazarene as the Christ would be thrust from the synagogue.
“We know this is our son and that he was born blind,” the father said respectfully. “But we do not know by what means he now sees, or who opened his eyes. He is of age. Ask him and he shall speak for himself.”
“Give God the praise,” Elam commanded Joachim. “We know that the man is a sinner.”
“Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know,” Joachim said quietly. “One thing I do know, that whereas I was blind, I now see.”
“What did He do?” the Pharisee demanded, hoping to make Joachim give a different story from the one he had first told and thereby discredit him before the people.
“I have told you already and you did not listen,” Joachim answered. “Why would you hear it again? Will you also be His disciple?”
Elam drew himself up angrily at the effrontery of this beggar. “We know God spoke to Moses,” he said. “As for this Nazarene, we do not know from whence He comes.”
“Herein is a marvelous thing,” Joachim scoffed. “You do not know from whence He came and yet He opened my eyes. We know that God does not hear sinners, but if any man be a worshiper of God and does His will, he shall be heard. Since the world began, has it been heard that any man opened the eyes of one born blind? If the Nazarene were not of God, then He could do nothing.”
IV
Angry at Joachim for arguing that Jesus was divine and refusing to believe his testimony or that of the people who had known Joachim when he was blind, Elam took steps to have him driven from the city in disgrace as a perjurer.
When Jesus heard how Joachim had been exiled from Jerusalem, He sought him out. “Do you believe on the Son of God?” He asked.
Joachim had never seen Jesus and so did not recognize Him. “Who is He, lord,” he asked, “that I might believe in Him?”
“You have seen Him. It is He who talks with you.”
Then the eyes of Joachim’s soul were opened also and he fell to his knees crying, “Lord, I believe!”
Jesus put His hand on Joachim’s shoulder and lifted him to his feet. “For judgment I come into this world,” He said gently, “that they who see not might see, and that they who see might be made blind.”
Some of those who had followed Joachim now came up to Jesus. “Are we blind also?” they asked.
“If you were blind you should have no sin,” Jesus told them, meaning that if they had not possessed sight, they could be forgiven for not recognizing and acclaiming Him. “But now you say, ‘We see’; therefore, your sin remains.”
Turning to those who stood nearby, Jesus spoke to them, using a parable. “Truly I say to you, he that enters not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs up some other way, the same
is a thief and a robber. But he that enters in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter opens and the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he puts forth his own sheep, he goes before them and the sheep follow him for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers.”
When He saw that they did not understand His meaning, He went on to explain: “The thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy, but I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. But he who is a hireling and not the shepherd, and who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees. Then the wolf catches them and scatters the sheep. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care for the sheep, but I am the good shepherd and know My sheep and am known by them. As the Father knows Me, even so know I the Father, and I lay down My life for the sheep.”
V
While Jesus was at Bethany, teaching and healing in the towns of Judea around Jerusalem, the seventy whom He had sent out returned to Him and reported joyfully, “Lord, even the devils are subject unto us in Your name.”
“Behold I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you,” Jesus told them. “Notwithstanding, do not rejoice that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”
A lawyer had listened closely while Jesus was talking. “Master,” he asked now. “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
“What is written in the Law?” Jesus asked him. “How do you read it?”
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”
The Crown and the Cross: The Life of Christ Page 23