Four Eventful Days at Capernaum

145:5.1Nei­ther did Je­sus sleep much that Sat­ur­day night. He re­al­ized that the world was filled with phys­i­cal dis­tress and over­run with ma­te­rial dif­fi­cul­ties, and he con­tem­plated the great dan­ger of be­ing com­pelled to de­vote so much of his time to the care of the sick and af­flicted that his mis­sion of es­tab­lish­ing the spir­i­tual king­dom in the hearts of men would be in­ter­fered with or at least sub­or­di­nated to the min­istry of things phys­i­cal. Be­cause of these and sim­i­lar thoughts which oc­cu­pied the mor­tal mind of Je­sus dur­ing the night, he arose that Sun­day morn­ing long be­fore day­break and went all alone to one of his fa­vorite places for com­mu­nion with the Fa­ther. The theme of Je­sus’ prayer on this early morn­ing was for wis­dom and judg­ment that he might not al­low his hu­man sym­pa­thy, joined with his di­vine mercy, to make such an ap­peal to him in the pres­ence of mor­tal suf­fer­ing that all of his time would be oc­cu­pied with phys­i­cal min­istry to the ne­glect of the spir­i­tual. Though he did not wish al­to­gether to avoid min­is­ter­ing to the sick, he knew that he must also do the more im­por­tant work of spir­i­tual teach­ing and re­li­gious train­ing.

145:5.2Je­sus went out in the hills to pray so many times be­cause there were no pri­vate rooms suit­able for his per­sonal de­vo­tions.

145:5.3Pe­ter could not sleep that night; so, very early, shortly af­ter Je­sus had gone out to pray, he aroused James and John, and the three went to find their Mas­ter. Af­ter more than an hour’s search they found Je­sus and be­sought him to tell them the rea­son for his strange con­duct. They de­sired to know why he ap­peared to be trou­bled by the mighty out­pour­ing of the spirit of heal­ing when all the peo­ple were over­joyed and his apos­tles so much re­joiced.

145:5.4For more than four hours Je­sus en­deav­ored to ex­plain to these three apos­tles what had hap­pened. He taught them about what had tran­spired and ex­plained the dan­gers of such man­i­fes­ta­tions. Je­sus con­fided to them the rea­son for his com­ing forth to pray. He sought to make plain to his per­sonal as­so­ciates the real rea­sons why the king­dom of the Fa­ther could not be built upon won­der-work­ing and phys­i­cal heal­ing. But they could not com­pre­hend his teach­ing.

145:5.5Mean­while, early Sun­day morn­ing, other crowds of af­flicted souls and many cu­rios­ity seek­ers be­gan to gather about the house of Zeb­e­dee. They clam­ored to see Je­sus. An­drew and the apos­tles were so per­plexed that, while Si­mon Ze­lo­tes talked to the as­sem­bly, An­drew, with sev­eral of his as­so­ciates, went to find Je­sus. When An­drew had lo­cated Je­sus in com­pany with the three, he said: “Mas­ter, why do you leave us alone with the mul­ti­tude? Be­hold, all men seek you; never be­fore have so many sought af­ter your teach­ing. Even now the house is sur­rounded by those who have come from near and far be­cause of your mighty works. Will you not re­turn with us to min­is­ter to them?”

145:5.6When Je­sus heard this, he an­swered: “An­drew, have I not taught you and these oth­ers that my mis­sion on earth is the rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther, and my mes­sage the procla­ma­tion of the king­dom of heaven? How is it, then, that you would have me turn aside from my work for the grat­i­fi­ca­tion of the cu­ri­ous and for the sat­is­fac­tion of those who seek for signs and won­ders? Have we not been among these peo­ple all these months, and have they flocked in mul­ti­tudes to hear the good news of the king­dom? Why have they now come to be­siege us? Is it not be­cause of the heal­ing of their phys­i­cal bod­ies rather than as a re­sult of the re­cep­tion of spir­i­tual truth for the sal­va­tion of their souls? When men are at­tracted to us be­cause of ex­traor­di­nary man­i­fes­ta­tions, many of them come seek­ing not for truth and sal­va­tion but rather in quest of heal­ing for their phys­i­cal ail­ments and to se­cure de­liv­er­ance from their ma­te­rial dif­fi­cul­ties.

145:5.7“All this time I have been in Ca­per­naum, and both in the syn­a­gogue and by the sea­side have I pro­claimed the good news of the king­dom to all who had ears to hear and hearts to re­ceive the truth. It is not the will of my Fa­ther that I should re­turn with you to cater to these cu­ri­ous ones and to be­come oc­cu­pied with the min­istry of things phys­i­cal to the ex­clu­sion of the spir­i­tual. I have or­dained you to preach the gospel and min­is­ter to the sick, but I must not be­come en­grossed in heal­ing to the ex­clu­sion of my teach­ing. No, An­drew, I will not re­turn with you. Go and tell the peo­ple to be­lieve in that which we have taught them and to re­joice in the lib­erty of the sons of God, and make ready for our de­par­ture for the other cities of Gal­i­lee, where the way has al­ready been pre­pared for the preach­ing of the good tid­ings of the king­dom. It was for this pur­pose that I came forth from the Fa­ther. Go, then, and pre­pare for our im­me­di­ate de­par­ture while I here await your re­turn.”

145:5.8When Je­sus had spo­ken, An­drew and his fel­low apos­tles sor­row­fully made their way back to Zeb­e­dee’s house, dis­missed the as­sem­bled mul­ti­tude, and quickly made ready for the jour­ney as Je­sus had di­rected. And so, on the af­ter­noon of Sun­day, Jan­uary 18, A.D. 28, Je­sus and the apos­tles started out upon their first re­ally pub­lic and open preach­ing tour of the cities of Gal­i­lee. On this first tour they preached the gospel of the king­dom in many cities, but they did not visit Naz­a­reth.

145:5.9That Sun­day af­ter­noon, shortly af­ter Je­sus and his apos­tles had left for Rim­mon, his broth­ers James and Jude came to see him, call­ing at Zeb­e­dee’s house. About noon of that day Jude had sought out his brother James and in­sisted that they go to Je­sus. By the time James con­sented to go with Jude, Je­sus had al­ready de­parted.

145:5.10The apos­tles were loath to leave the great in­ter­est which had been aroused at Ca­per­naum. Pe­ter cal­cu­lated that no less than one thou­sand be­liev­ers could have been bap­tized into the king­dom. Je­sus lis­tened to them pa­tiently, but he would not con­sent to re­turn. Si­lence pre­vailed for a sea­son, and then Thomas ad­dressed his fel­low apos­tles, say­ing: “Let’s go! The Mas­ter has spo­ken. No mat­ter if we can­not fully com­pre­hend the mys­ter­ies of the king­dom of heaven, of one thing we are cer­tain: We fol­low a teacher who seeks no glory for him­self.” And re­luc­tantly they went forth to preach the good tid­ings in the cities of Gal­i­lee.