Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
THE morning after Lazarus's death, Jerusalem's streets were thronged with people hurrying to and fro. Groups of Pharisees, looking joyous and triumphant, formed themselves in the market place and outside the Temple and the principal buildings, and occasionally a Sadducee would stop and make some derisive observation, to which the others would respond with shouts of laughter.
Nor were the higher authorities less preoccupied; now and then, pressing his horse forward till it pranced almost on to the heads of the crowd, rode a centurion with a message from Pontius Pilate or from Caiaphas, summoning a chief ruler or a leading priest, as the case might be. Occasionally some great rabbi would arrest his course to ask news of him; and the soldier would either shake his head, or laughingly make some such answer as the following: "His own friend hath done for him. Lazarus is dead; if the Nazarene could have saved any one He would have saved His beloved Lazarus. But Lazarus is dead, and though the two women, Martha and Mary, sent to Him many times, He would not go."
"I hear," said another, "that He even said to their messengers that Lazarus would not die: 'This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.' How is He glorified?"
"No, Jesus hath failed," joined in another. "I own that, for a time, I almost believed in Him myself; His presence is certainly a most majestic one, and He is some great prophet without a doubt. But Lazarus's death proveth that He is not the Son of God; still, we cannot forget His miracles, for already twenty-eight have been recorded of Him. We cannot, because one man hath died, ignore the marvellous feeding of the five thousand, the restoring of the withered hand, and the healing of the lunatic child."
"Ah," answered another, "thou, Nicodemus, wert ever a believer in the supernatural; I hear that thou hast even visited this Jesus by night, thereby putting thy life in danger, for, if Caiaphas should suspect treachery in thee, a ruler of the Synagogue, before nightfall thou wouldst be in Barabbas's place, or chained beside him. Or, wouldst thou escape by saying that thou wast in love with Martha or with Mary?"
Said another voice, scornfully: "If so, Nicodemus, thou hast but a sorry chance, for both women have, I hear, devoted themselves to the service of this Jesus; and naught but a marriage such as, it is rumoured, was his mother's, will commend itself to them. I fancy thou wouldst not care to be a second Joseph."
But Nicodemus made no answer. His eyes, uplifted towards the hills above Jerusalem, shone with a light of rapture and devotion, as though he strove to pierce the skies and gain enlightenment in its deep blue expanse. He heeded not the mocking words around him. He was lost, as one in a dream. He had just come from the presence of the Nazarene. There still rang in his ears the words: "I am the light of the world. He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."
Oh, for light, more light, to understand! It had all seemed so clear to Nicodemus. He had followed, disguised, it is true, Jesus of Nazareth, ever since the first miracle of the turning of water into wine. He had sought Him out at night, either in the dark silence of the shore of Galilee or in the house of Lazarus at Bethany. He had tried, oh, so hard, to believe. In bewildered wonder he had crept to Jesus' feet and had poured out his doubts, his endless questionings and earthly arguments, that yet had taught him nothing.
"Rabbi," he had said, "we know that Thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that Thou doest, except God be with him; yet, if Thou art the Son of God, why art Thou here in the guise of a poor carpenter? Why doth not the very earth quake beneath Thy feet in obeisance to its Creator? Why is it not filled with angels ministering to Thee? Why, oh, why, cannot I, who have read much and studied deeply, understand?"
Oh, how well he remembered those words, uttered in reply, in solemn, tender pity, for man's want of faith, for his inability of accepting that which he cannot prove by human argument, or by nature's law. It was as though the voice that had answered were full of tears.
"Verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." And, despairing at his impotence to understand, Nicodemus, wrathful at himself, at his own helplessness, impatient almost with the Saviour for speaking to him in parables; bitterly, cynically, yet half grasping Jesus' meaning, had exclaimed: "How can a man be born when he is old; can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born?"
Then the Divine voice had rung out in explanation of His marvellous saying; had shown him that it was no natural birth that He had meant; for all that, a birth not less miraculous, a birth of water and of the spirit, without which no man could enter into the kingdom of God.
Then, wondering and despairing still, mad with his own blindness, as a blinded animal would dash its head against the wall in its impotence and want of comprehension at what had happened to it, so Nicodemus had wailed: "Lord, Lord, how can these things be? I cannot grasp them; they are too wonderful for me."
At which, with a touch almost of irony, the appealing voice had answered: "Art thou a master of Israel and knowest not these things?"
"A master of Israel"; yes, he, Nicodemus, had set himself up as a teacher and ruler of Israel, he who could not even understand the teaching of this carpenter. How poor, how mean he had felt in the presence of this Man, clad in coarse attire and standing barefoot on the shore of the lake! No moon had illumined the dark night around, and the gloom had seemed to Nicodemus an apt setting to the blindness of his brain and soul. Yet around the Lord there had seemed to hover a faint shimmer as of glory emanating from His presence. With infinite tenderness and pity He had gazed on the Jewish rabbi, so mortified and abased; then, sadly and with deep persuasiveness, the voice had risen once more out of the darkness and rolled in waves across the still water of the lake, like strains of floating music:
"If I have told you earthly things and ye believed not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?"
Then, gazing full at Nicodemus, Jesus had pronounced words which neither he nor any other man, having once heard them, could forget: "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God."
Each word had stung Nicodemus's soul as with a lash; he, too, had loved darkness. Fear, physical fear of derision first and of death afterwards had kept him from openly confessing his belief in Jesus as the Son of God. He, too, was one of those who had feared the light, who had stolen stealthily by night to glean salvation from the teachings of the Nazarene. What a coward he had felt himself, how he had despised himself, and yet he had muttered to himself, when he had left the Lord: "If, after all, His teachings are but the outpourings of a madman or a wilful deluder if, after all, He is a blasphemer, calling Himself the Son of God, and being but a poor human being like myself, where, then, would the honoured Nicodemus, the mighty ruler, be, if he believed Him? Deprived of power in this world, scoffed at and derided, perchance doomed even to a shameful death. That would be his portion in this world; in the next to be condemned by the real God for having believed and acted on the ravings of a blasphemer."
So, in the darkness, stumbling at every step of the homeward way, sorrowful and puzzled at the words of salvation that still rang in his ears, Nicodemus, the great ruler, had taken the road outside Jerusalem and reached his home by one of the terraces that lay beyond the walls, lest his attendants should hear him enter at that hour of the night. Then, once within his own walls, he had cast himself on his bed, seeking in vain for sleep, and starting up at almost every watch of the night, to call out in mental agony, "Truly, truly, this is the Son of God."
And now just when the germs of belief seemed about to start into being in his heart, just when miracle after miracle was striking terror to his soul, in the intensity of its wonder, and just when the words of the Nazarene, with their sad persuasiveness and their clear, truthful intonations, were beginning to unfold to his heart what can only be realised through revelation, but never evolved from man's philosophy; just when his flitting thoughts and wavering heart seemed to be catching hold of truths that had seemed impossibilities before; just at this moment Jesus appeared to have lost the power of working miracles. How easy it would have been, argued this human brain, to prove to the world that He was all that He professed Himself! One little word, even from a distance, if all was true that the disciples said, would have sufficed. The Jews themselves were looking for this miracle, the chief priests dreading it. With the death of Lazarus seemed buried the hopes of all the believing world. His resurrection would be the death warrant of Jesus of Nazareth. How often already had Caiaphas foretold His death, either through the gift of prophecy, or because, as High Priest, he knew that he himself would bring about the doom of Him who drew so many to Him! There was no room for Caiaphas, no room for any High Priest, either if Jesus were the Son of God, or, if not being so, the people believed in and followed Him as such.
Already the attitude of the Jewish people was becoming dangerous. They were divided into many parties, some calling Jesus a prophet, others persuaded that He was the Christ indeed, and selling all they had to follow Him. Already some of the leading rabbis had issued orders that He was to be captured and brought before them; but the order had been but a half-hearted one, and the soldiers who were sent to execute it knew the spirit of the populace so well, that they feared them more, if they should lay hands on Christ, than the rulers, if they should fail to take Him. Indeed, although they did not dare speak openly about it, yet it was a matter of great wonder that the preaching of Jesus was allowed.
"So He speaketh boldly, and they say nothing to Him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is the very Christ?" It was rumoured in Jerusalem that both Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate believed in the Nazarene, both as the Son of God and as the King of the Jews; or, at all events, that they did not dare deny it. It became a matter of superstition amongst the poorer people that he who should first lay hands on Him would die a terrible death. This fear communicated itself to the very soldiers who were sent out to fetch Him. To the question: "Why have ye not brought Him?" they would answer: "Never man spake like this Man." Yet all the Pharisees durst answer was: "Are ye also deceived? Have any of the rulers of the Pharisees believed on Him? but this people, who knoweth not the law, are cursed, and they alone believe."