When Jesus was a boy of twelve years old, He did not seem to have one enemy in the whole wide world. Herod was dead; Archelaus had been deposed; Joseph's sleep was untroubled by dreams; and no one appeared to associate the growing lad with the Babe of Bethlehem, who vanished into obscurity with the old King's final massacre. Thus it was that, when He visited Jerusalem on what we to-day should call a Bank Holiday, He was allowed by His parents to wander about that turbulent city without let or hindrance, unafraid of the cosmopolitan crowds or of the garrison of rough, foreign soldiers. There was not one circumstance to suggest that here was the city which had already hatched a plot to destroy Him; nor, when He met the Rabbis, would anyone have imagined that this was in fact the tribunal which, at length, would demand His execution as a felon, guilty of blasphemy.
What impressed the writers of the Old Testament was too often the magnificence of Jerusalem, her gates and her walls, the gold and purple of her Temple, and the silver trumpets that sounded in her courts. To all this was now added the pomp of Rome. Jesus was ever conscious of greater glories than these; He spoke of angels and God's throne and of the many mansions reserved for us in heaven, as familiarly as we speak of streets and shops and gardens. Hence when, years later, His disciples asked Him to notice the Temple, which to them, though not to Him, was so wonderful a spectacle, His only comment was that not one stone should be left on the other, since all would be thrown down. He measured that mighty edifice in terms, not of years but of centuries, and so reduced it, as He reduced all human institutions, to the perspective of eternity. When left to His own devices, what interested Him, whether as boy or man, was not the Temple as such, but the people inside the Temple--the doctors, the money-changers, and the sinful woman; and He realized that even if the Temple were destroyed, like our cathedrals, by the shock of war, the soul of man would rise triumphant above the ruins.
Resolver of Perplexities
Paul, when a boy, went to the Temple and sat as a disciple at the feet of Gamaliel, as if the only authority to be recognized by youth is the authority of the past. Jesus sat at no man's feet. Wherever He went, whether it be to a synagogue, a wedding feast, the seaside, a lonely mountain, the river Jordan, the judgment hall, the Upper Room, or Calvary, our Lord always seemed to be the Central Figure of the scene ; and here in the Temple, appearing as an equal in the midst of the Rabbis, He asserted by His presence that the future has its claim, as sacred as the claim of the past, for which future every boy and every girl is the appointed trustee. It is the business of a trustee to ask questions; not to be satisfied until he understands all about the inheritance for which he is responsible; what wrongs there are that should be righted; what burdens that are unequally distributed; what customs are hindering instead of helping; what beliefs are imperfectly apprehended. Since that day in the Temple, Jesus has been the central problem for the historian, the philosopher, the scientist, the scholar, the politician, and the social reformer, of every generation. He constantly asks questions; and just as we do not read that the doctors of Jerusalem supplied any answers--indeed, what astonished them was the answers of Jesus--so in every generation all the wisdom of the world has to return to Him as the only Resolver of perplexities. He is the Eternal Child, ever in our midst; not only trustful, not only innocent, but also observant, listening to what we say more carefully than we say it, and then quietly but irresistibly asking us the reason why. The slum, the public-house, the war--He watches them all, and would have our explanations. He does not say in so many words that war is wrong or slavery is wrong; but He asks us--Is war right? Is slavery right? What He desires to stimulate is our own conscience, which He would arouse to activity until it beats as sensitively as His own.
And it is His custom to test all that we do by its effect on the children in our midst. He sees them outside the swing doors of the pUb1ic-house. It is with their eyes that He watches the pictures that we show them. He feels every hurt that war inflicts on them. He insists on reducing all theology to terms that they can understand.
All through His ministry Jesus taught by questions. We lay down creeds and tell people to repeat them. Jesus drafted a catechism in which each of us is left to fill in the replies. He did not seek, like a drill-sergeant, to command assent, for this would have blighted initiative. He preferred to evoke our assent, so that all who follow Him--as the one supreme Inspirer of education--do so of their own free will. He might have asserted that He was sinless. He chose to ask which of us can convict Him of sin; and though millions have heard the challenge, no one has yet come forward to respond to it. He might have told His disciples plainly : " I am the Son of God." Instead, He asked them what men were saying on the matter, and, with special emphasis, what their own view was. He might have proclaimed aloud His risen majesty. He preferred to inquire of Mary Magdalene: "Why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? "His inquiries were a holy office in which there was no torture, no dungeon, but only candor, sympathy, and the light of day. His was a propaganda devoid of rancor or persecution. His saving of men is a personal negotiation between the individual and Himself--that or nothing--and the only infallibility that we need recognize is His voice, as each man or woman hears it.
"Things added"
What He organized was a Church, every member of which was individually to search the Scriptures, scan the horizon of history, study the mystery of pain and disease, and apply His Spirit of Truth to every relation of life. And this is why Christianity in every era unlooses the energies of men, sending them forth as pioneers, now into the depths of the coal-mine, then, again, aloft, as on wings, above the clouds; then to the chill solitudes of Arctic ice; yet not forgetting the pathless forests of Equatorial Africa. The telescope is Christian; the microscope is Christian; the locomotive is Christian; telegraphy is Christian; steamships are Christian; Christian, that is, in ultimate origin--the things that are added unto those who first seek the Kingdom of God. To what uses we devote these gifts is a matter on which we must give our answer before His judgment-seat. And one reason why we are constantly cursed with wars is that sometimes nations have used for aggressive ends those great powers of the mind which He liberated from superstition and barbarism. He cannot offer us the plowshare without also offering us the sword. On Christendom lies the choice which shall be grasped. In Him is Science; with us is the question whether Science shall slay or heal.
Not one detail our Lord's first conversation with the Rabbis has been recorded. These men of the letter that killeth let slip every syllable of His first wonderful teaching. They were astonished, not by His truth, which is everlasting, but by His youth, which was accidental. If they had had their way with Him, they would have advertised His precocity, accepting Him, not as the Lord of Life, but as an infant prodigy--a boy preacher, a religious sensation. And when--if I may set out a hypothesis--He had grown to man's estate, their interest would have waned, for not one of them accepted Him as Messiah--not one, by which I mean that not one of them submitted himself to the will of our Lord: they discussed Him--they admired Him--but obedience--No!
When Mary burst in on Him, she had apparent cause for complaint. The feast days were ended. Jesus must have known that it was time to return to Nazareth. They had sought for Him anxiously, first among kinsfolk, then among acquaintances; and they had returned a whole day's journey to Jerusalem. Why had He thus dealt with them? Theirs was the usual complaint of parents, who habitually blame their children less for doing wrong than for giving trouble! Joseph and Mary loved Jesus dearly, were ready to feed Him and clothe Him and teach Him, but were apt to overlook His aim in life. The two questions which Jesus addressed to them were His earliest recorded words. However careless the Rabbis might be, Mary did not forget to commit those questions to memory. Her heart at least was not stony, but good ground. Why was it that she and Joseph had to seek Him so sorrowfully? Because they had left Him to live His inner life alone. And why had His earthly guardian been thus alienated? Because he had forgotten that the supreme duty of man is the business of a Heavenly Father--that the Son of Man is also Son of God.
The Practice of Obedience
Throughout our Lord's life, there was about "the third day" a mysterious and deliberate splendor. He spoke of Jonah's three days and three nights in the whale's belly, and said that so would the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. He said that if they destroyed the Temple, in three days He would rebuild it in His own body. It was on the third day after His call of the first disciples that, at the marriage feast, He revealed Himself in miracle. It was on the third day that He set forth to raise Lazarus from the dead. The third day was His day of resurrection; and when, on the third day, His parents returned to Jerusalem--the hope of His Messiahship buried beneath years of disappointment--He raised that hope from the grave and inspired them once more with His greatness. The great acts of His life were thus unhurried. Instant as was the working of His mind, there were supreme decisions at which He declined to arrive until, for days and nights, He had waited upon the will of His Father.
After this visit to the Temple, He went down with His parents,--what an expressive phrase!--descending, as it were, from the high tableland of dogma to the plains of duty, and turned His back on Jerusalem and His face to Nazareth, without one person suggesting that here surely was a sacrifice of priceless opportunity which ought somehow to be avoided. During that apprenticeship, Jesus was not a king, but--in Scriptural words--"a subject." Until He had spent that long period upon the practice of obedience, He did not venture on public work. Insight, eloquence, ambition--how easy are these accomplishments, compared with humility, self-restraint, perseverance! As He obeyed, so He grew, thus becoming a favorite, not by caprice, nor by accident, but by merit. Also, He was a growing favorite. As His stature increased, so did His faculties, and every faculty was devoted to worship and service. Like the Rabbis who talked with Him, the neighbors also admired Him; but, like the Rabbis, they did not feel His personal claim on them. They did not accept Him.
Till the end of His days Christ might (as some hold) have lived as an Example--dignifying consecrating disease, glorifying old age, calmly enduring a natural death; but He achieved greater things. Such lives teach us great lessons. Joseph, the husband of Mary, lived precisely thus, and thus he died. But Jesus knew that man was created in the image of God, and that while his limbs were molded for labor, his soul was inspired for dominion. To avoid evil, to suffer disease, to endure death, to accept the grave, was not enough. Evil, and disease, and death, and the grave must be subdued, conquered, trampled underfoot. Adam with his spade had been overcome; Christ must wield the sword. Adam had named the universe; Christ must judge it. To serve men was good, but to win them was better; while to enable them to win one another was best of all. If there had been any doubt about it, this doubt would have been dispelled by the challenging voice of John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea. To the echo of that trumpet-call Jesus listened; listening, He recognized "word of God." He laid aside His tools for ever; He walked to the banks of the Jordan.