The Crisis at Capernaum

153:2.1Je­sus in­tro­duced this ser­mon by read­ing from the law as found in Deuteron­omy: “But it shall come to pass, if this peo­ple will not hear­ken to the voice of God, that the curses of trans­gres­sion shall surely over­take them. The Lord shall cause you to be smit­ten by your en­e­mies; you shall be re­moved into all the king­doms of the earth. And the Lord shall bring you and the king you have set up over you into the hands of a strange na­tion. You shall be­come an as­ton­ish­ment, a proverb, and a by­word among all na­tions. Your sons and your daugh­ters shall go into cap­tiv­ity. The strangers among you shall rise high in au­thor­ity while you are brought very low. And these things shall be upon you and your seed for­ever be­cause you would not hear­ken to the word of the Lord. There­fore shall you serve your en­e­mies who shall come against you. You shall en­dure hunger and thirst and wear this alien yoke of iron. The Lord shall bring against you a na­tion from afar, from the end of the earth, a na­tion whose tongue you shall not un­der­stand, a na­tion of fierce coun­te­nance, a na­tion which will have lit­tle re­gard for you. And they shall be­siege you in all your towns un­til the high for­ti­fied walls wherein you have trusted come down; and all the land shall fall into their hands. And it shall come to pass that you will be driven to eat the fruit of your own bod­ies, the flesh of your sons and daugh­ters, dur­ing this time of siege, be­cause of the strait­ness where­with your en­e­mies shall press you.”

153:2.2And when Je­sus had fin­ished this read­ing, he turned to the Proph­ets and read from Jeremiah: “‘If you will not hear­ken to the words of my ser­vants the proph­ets whom I have sent you, then will I make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city a curse to all the na­tions of the earth.’ And the priests and the teach­ers heard Jeremiah speak these words in the house of the Lord. And it came to pass that, when Jeremiah had made an end of speak­ing all that the Lord had com­manded him to speak to all the peo­ple, the priests and teach­ers laid hold of him, say­ing, ‘You shall surely die.’ And all the peo­ple crowded around Jeremiah in the house of the Lord. And when the princes of Ju­dah heard these things, they sat in judg­ment on Jeremiah. Then spoke the priests and the teach­ers to the princes and to all the peo­ple, say­ing: ‘This man is wor­thy to die, for he has proph­e­sied against our city, and you have heard him with your own ears.’ Then spoke Jeremiah to all the princes and to all the peo­ple: ‘The Lord sent me to proph­esy against this house and against this city all the words which you have heard. Now, there­fore, amend your ways and re­form your do­ings and obey the voice of the Lord your God that you may es­cape the evil which has been pro­nounced against you. As for me, be­hold I am in your hands. Do with me as seems good and right in your eyes. But know you for cer­tain that, if you put me to death, you shall bring in­no­cent blood upon your­selves and upon this peo­ple, for of a truth the Lord has sent me to speak all these words in your ears.’

153:2.3“The priests and teach­ers of that day sought to kill Jeremiah, but the judges would not con­sent, al­beit, for his words of warn­ing, they did let him down by cords in a filthy dun­geon un­til he sank in mire up to his armpits. That is what this peo­ple did to the Prophet Jeremiah when he obeyed the Lord’s com­mand to warn his breth­ren of their im­pend­ing po­lit­i­cal down­fall. To­day, I de­sire to ask you: What will the chief priests and re­li­gious lead­ers of this peo­ple do with the man who dares to warn them of the day of their spir­i­tual doom? Will you also seek to put to death the teacher who dares to pro­claim the word of the Lord, and who fears not to point out wherein you refuse to walk in the way of light which leads to the en­trance to the king­dom of heaven?

153:2.4“What is it you seek as ev­i­dence of my mis­sion on earth? We have left you undis­turbed in your po­si­tions of in­flu­ence and power while we preached glad tid­ings to the poor and the out­cast. We have made no hos­tile at­tack upon that which you hold in rev­er­ence but have rather pro­claimed new lib­erty for man’s fear-rid­den soul. I came into the world to re­veal my Fa­ther and to es­tab­lish on earth the spir­i­tual broth­er­hood of the sons of God, the king­dom of heaven. And not­with­stand­ing that I have so many times re­minded you that my king­dom is not of this world, still has my Fa­ther granted you many man­i­fes­ta­tions of ma­te­rial won­ders in ad­di­tion to more ev­i­den­tial spir­i­tual trans­for­ma­tions and re­gen­er­a­tions.

153:2.5“What new sign is it that you seek at my hands? I de­clare that you al­ready have suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to en­able you to make your de­ci­sion. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to many who sit be­fore me this day, you are con­fronted with the ne­ces­sity of choos­ing which way you will go; and I say to you, as Joshua said to your fore­fa­thers, ‘choose you this day whom you will serve.’ To­day, many of you stand at the part­ing of the ways.

153:2.6“Some of you, when you could not find me af­ter the feast­ing of the mul­ti­tude on the other side, hired the Tiberias fish­ing fleet, which a week be­fore had taken shel­ter near by dur­ing a storm, to go in pur­suit of me, and what for? Not for truth and righ­teous­ness or that you might the bet­ter know how to serve and min­is­ter to your fel­low men! No, but rather that you might have more bread for which you had not la­bored. It was not to fill your souls with the word of life, but only that you might fill the belly with the bread of ease. And long have you been taught that the Mes­siah, when he should come, would work those won­ders which would make life pleas­ant and easy for all the cho­sen peo­ple. It is not strange, then, that you who have been thus taught should long for the loaves and the fishes. But I de­clare to you that such is not the mis­sion of the Son of Man. I have come to pro­claim spir­i­tual lib­erty, teach eter­nal truth, and fos­ter liv­ing faith.

153:2.7“My breth­ren, han­ker not af­ter the meat which per­ishes but rather seek for the spir­i­tual food that nour­ishes even to eter­nal life; and this is the bread of life which the Son gives to all who will take it and eat, for the Fa­ther has given the Son this life with­out mea­sure. And when you asked me, ‘What must we do to per­form the works of God?’ I plainly told you: ‘This is the work of God, that you be­lieve him whom he has sent.’”

153:2.8And then said Je­sus, point­ing up to the de­vice of a pot of manna which dec­o­rated the lin­tel of this new syn­a­gogue, and which was em­bel­lished with grape clus­ters: “You have thought that your fore­fa­thers in the wilder­ness ate manna—the bread of heaven—but I say to you that this was the bread of earth. While Moses did not give your fa­thers bread from heaven, my Fa­ther now stands ready to give you the true bread of life. The bread of heaven is that which comes down from God and gives eter­nal life to the men of the world. And when you say to me, Give us this liv­ing bread, I will an­swer: I am this bread of life. He who comes to me shall not hunger, while he who be­lieves me shall never thirst. You have seen me, lived with me, and be­held my works, yet you be­lieve not that I came forth from the Fa­ther. But to those who do be­lieve—fear not. All those led of the Fa­ther shall come to me, and he who comes to me shall in no­wise be cast out.

153:2.9“And now let me de­clare to you, once and for all time, that I have come down upon the earth, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. And this is the fi­nal will of Him who sent me, that of all those he has given me I should not lose one. And this is the will of the Fa­ther: That ev­ery one who be­holds the Son and who be­lieves him shall have eter­nal life. Only yes­ter­day did I feed you with bread for your bod­ies; to­day I of­fer you the bread of life for your hun­gry souls. Will you now take the bread of the spirit as you then so will­ingly ate the bread of this world?”

153:2.10As Je­sus paused for a mo­ment to look over the con­gre­ga­tion, one of the teach­ers from Je­ru­sa­lem (a mem­ber of the San­hedrin) rose up and asked: “Do I un­der­stand you to say that you are the bread which comes down from heaven, and that the manna which Moses gave to our fa­thers in the wilder­ness did not?” And Je­sus an­swered the Phar­isee, “You un­der­stood aright.” Then said the Phar­isee: “But are you not Je­sus of Naz­a­reth, the son of Joseph, the car­pen­ter? Are not your fa­ther and mother, as well as your broth­ers and sis­ters, well known to many of us? How then is it that you ap­pear here in God’s house and de­clare that you have come down from heaven?”

153:2.11By this time there was much mur­mur­ing in the syn­a­gogue, and such a tu­mult was threat­ened that Je­sus stood up and said: “Let us be pa­tient; the truth never suf­fers from hon­est ex­am­i­na­tion. I am all that you say but more. The Fa­ther and I are one; the Son does only that which the Fa­ther teaches him, while all those who are given to the Son by the Fa­ther, the Son will re­ceive to him­self. You have read where it is writ­ten in the Proph­ets, ‘You shall all be taught by God,’ and that ‘Those whom the Fa­ther teaches will hear also his Son.’ Ev­ery one who yields to the teach­ing of the Fa­ther’s in­dwelling spirit will even­tu­ally come to me. Not that any man has seen the Fa­ther, but the Fa­ther’s spirit does live within man. And the Son who came down from heaven, he has surely seen the Fa­ther. And those who truly be­lieve this Son al­ready have eter­nal life.

153:2.12“I am this bread of life. Your fa­thers ate manna in the wilder­ness and are dead. But this bread which comes down from God, if a man eats thereof, he shall never die in spirit. I re­peat, I am this liv­ing bread, and ev­ery soul who at­tains the re­al­iza­tion of this united na­ture of God and man shall live for­ever. And this bread of life which I give to all who will re­ceive is my own liv­ing and com­bined na­ture. The Fa­ther in the Son and the Son one with the Fa­ther—that is my life-giv­ing rev­e­la­tion to the world and my sav­ing gift to all na­tions.”

153:2.13When Je­sus had fin­ished speak­ing, the ruler of the syn­a­gogue dis­missed the con­gre­ga­tion, but they would not de­part. They crowded up around Je­sus to ask more ques­tions while oth­ers mur­mured and dis­puted among them­selves. And this state of af­fairs con­tin­ued for more than three hours. It was well past seven o’clock be­fore the au­di­ence fi­nally dis­persed.