There is in this story what we might call a list of the conditions of a miracle.
(1) There is the eye that sees. There is no need to think that Jesus created a shoal of fishes for the occasion. In the Sea of Galilee there were phenomenal shoals which covered the sea as if it was solid for as much as an acre. Most likely Jesus’ discerning eye saw just such a shoal and his keen sight made it look like a miracle. We need the eye that really sees. Many people saw steam raise the lid of a kettle; only James Watt went on to think of a steam engine. Many people saw an apple fall; only Isaac Newton went on to think out the law of gravity. The earth is full of miracles for the eye that sees.
(2) There is the spirit that will make an effort. If Jesus said it, tired as he was Peter was prepared to try again. For most people the disaster of life is that they give up just one effort too soon.
(3) There is the spirit which will attempt what seems hopeless. The night was past and that was the time for fishing. All the circumstances were unfavourable, but Peter said, ‘Let circumstances be what they may, if you say so, we will try again.’ Too often we wait because the time is not opportune. If we wait for a perfect set of circumstances, we will never begin at all. If we want a miracle, we must take Jesus at his word when he bids us attempt the impossible.
TOUCHING THE UNTOUCHABLE
Luke 5:12–15
While Jesus was in one of the towns – look you – a man who was a severe case of leprosy saw him. He fell before him and besought him, ‘Lord, if you are willing to do so you are able to cleanse me.’ Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be cleansed.’ Immediately the leprosy left him. Jesus enjoined him to tell no one. ‘But,’ he said, ‘go and show yourself to the priest, and bring the offering for cleansing, as Moses’s law laid it down, to prove to them that you are cured.’ Talk about him spread all the more; and many crowds assembled to listen to him and to be cured of their illnesses.
IN Palestine there were two kinds of leprosy. There was one which was rather like a very bad skin disease, and it was the less serious of the two. There was one in which the disease, starting from a small spot, ate away the flesh until the wretched sufferer was left with only the stump of a hand or a leg. It was literally a living death.
The regulations concerning leprosy are in Leviticus, chapters 13 and 14. The most terrible thing about it was the isolation it brought. Lepers were to cry ‘Unclean! unclean!’ wherever they went and were condemned to live alone in a dwelling ‘outside the camp’ (Leviticus 13:45–6), banished from society and exiled from home. The result was, and still is, that the psychological consequences of leprosy were as serious as the physical.
Dr A. B. MacDonald, in an article on the leper colony in Itu, of which he was in charge, wrote, ‘The leper is sick in mind as well as body. For some reason there is an attitude to leprosy different from the attitude to any other disfiguring disease. It is associated with shame and horror, and carries, in some mysterious way, a sense of guilt, although innocently acquired like most contagious troubles. Shunned and despised, frequently do lepers consider taking their own lives and some do.’
Lepers were hated by others until they came to hate themselves. The leper came to Jesus; he was unclean; and Jesus touched him.
(1) Jesus touched the untouchable. His hand went out to the man from whom everyone else would have shrunk away. Two things emerge. First, when we despise ourselves, when our hearts are filled with bitter shame, let us remember that, in spite of all, Christ’s hand is still stretched out. The writer Mark Rutherford wished to add a new beatitude: ‘Blessed are those who heal us of our self-despisings.’ That is what Jesus did and does. Second, it is of the very essence of Christianity to touch the untouchable, to love the unlovable, to forgive the unforgivable. Jesus did – and so must we.
(2) Jesus sent the man to carry out the normal, prescribed routine for cleansing. The regulations are described in Leviticus 14. That is to say a miracle did not dispense with what medical science of the time could do. It did not absolve the man from carrying out the prescribed rules. We will never get miracles by neglecting the gifts and the wisdom God has given us. It is when human skill combines with God’s grace that wonder happens.
(3) Verse 15 tells us of the popularity Jesus enjoyed. But it was only because people wanted something out of him. Many desire the gifts of God but repudiate the demands of God – and, there can be nothing more dishonourable.
THE OPPOSITION INTENSIFIES
Luke 5:16–17
Jesus withdrew into the desert places and he continued in prayer. On a certain day he was teaching and, sitting listening, there were Pharisees and experts in the law who had come from every village in Galilee and from Judaea and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was there to enable him to heal.
THERE are only two verses here; but as we read them we must pause, for this indeed is a milestone. The scribes and the Pharisees had arrived on the scene. The opposition which would never be satisfied until it had killed Jesus had emerged into the open.
If we are to understand what happened to Jesus we must understand something about the law, and the relationship of the scribes and the Pharisees to it. When the Jews returned from Babylon about 440 BC they knew well that, humanly speaking, their hopes of national greatness were gone. They therefore deliberately decided that they would find their greatness in being a people of the law. They would bend all their energies to knowing and keeping God’s law.
The basis of the law was the Ten Commandments. These commandments are principles for life. They are not rules and regulations; they do not legislate for each event and for every circumstance. For a certain section of the Jews that was not enough. They desired not great principles but a rule to cover every conceivable situation. From the Ten Commandments they proceeded to develop and elaborate these rules.
Let us take an example. The commandment says, ‘Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy’; and then goes on to lay it down that on the Sabbath no work must be done (Exodus 20:8–11). But the Jews asked, ‘What is work?’ and went on to define it under thirty-nine different headings which they called ‘Fathers of Work’. Even that was not enough. Each of these headings was greatly subdivided. Thousands of rules and regulations began to emerge. These were called the oral law, and they began to be set even above the Ten Commandments.
Again, let us take an actual example. One of the works forbidden on the Sabbath was carrying a burden. Jeremiah 17:21–4 says, ‘For the sake of your lives, take care that you do not bear a burden on the sabbath day.’ But, the legalists insisted, a burden must be defined. So definition was given. A burden is ‘food equal in weight to a dried fig, enough wine for mixing in a goblet, milk enough for one swallow, oil enough to anoint a small member, water enough to moisten an eye-salve, paper enough to write a customhouse notice upon, ink enough to write two letters of the alphabet, reed enough to make a pen’ . . . and so on endlessly. So for a tailor to leave a pin or needle in his robe on the Sabbath was to break the law and to sin; to pick up a stone big enough to fling at a bird on the Sabbath was to sin. Goodness became identified with these endless rules and regulations.
Let us take another example. To heal on the Sabbath was to work. It was laid down that only if life was in actual danger could healing be done; and then steps could be taken only to keep the sufferer from getting worse, not to improve their condition. A plain bandage could be put on a wound, but not any ointment; plain wadding could be put into a sore ear, but not medicated. It is easy to see that there could be no limit to this.
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