The Crisis at Capernaum

153:5.1Time and again had Je­sus dashed to pieces the hopes of his apos­tles, re­peat­edly had he crushed their fond­est ex­pec­ta­tions, but no time of dis­ap­point­ment or sea­son of sor­row had ever equaled that which now over­took them. And, too, there was now ad­mixed with their de­pres­sion a real fear for their safety. They were all sur­pris­ingly star­tled by the sud­den­ness and com­plete­ness of the de­ser­tion of the pop­u­lace. They were also some­what fright­ened and dis­con­certed by the un­ex­pected bold­ness and as­sertive de­ter­mi­na­tion ex­hib­ited by the Phar­isees who had come down from Je­ru­sa­lem. But most of all they were be­wil­dered by Je­sus’ sud­den change of tac­tics. Un­der or­di­nary cir­cum­stances they would have wel­comed the ap­pear­ance of this more mil­i­tant at­ti­tude, but com­ing as it did, along with so much that was un­ex­pected, it star­tled them.

153:5.2And now, on top of all of these wor­ries, when they reached home, Je­sus re­fused to eat. For hours he iso­lated him­self in one of the up­per rooms. It was al­most mid­night when Joab, the leader of the evan­ge­lists, re­turned and re­ported that about one third of his as­so­ciates had de­serted the cause. All through the evening loyal dis­ci­ples had come and gone, re­port­ing that the re­vul­sion of feel­ing to­ward the Mas­ter was gen­eral in Ca­per­naum. The lead­ers from Je­ru­sa­lem were not slow to feed this feel­ing of dis­af­fec­tion and in ev­ery way pos­si­ble to seek to pro­mote the move­ment away from Je­sus and his teach­ings. Dur­ing these try­ing hours the twelve women were in ses­sion over at Pe­ter’s house. They were tremen­dously up­set, but none of them de­serted.

153:5.3It was a lit­tle af­ter mid­night when Je­sus came down from the up­per cham­ber and stood among the twelve and their as­so­ciates, num­ber­ing about thirty in all. He said: “I rec­og­nize that this sift­ing of the king­dom dis­tresses you, but it is un­avoid­able. Still, af­ter all the train­ing you have had, was there any good rea­son why you should stum­ble at my words? Why is it that you are filled with fear and con­ster­na­tion when you see the king­dom be­ing di­vested of these luke­warm mul­ti­tudes and these half­hearted dis­ci­ples? Why do you grieve when the new day is dawn­ing for the shin­ing forth in new glory of the spir­i­tual teach­ings of the king­dom of heaven? If you find it dif­fi­cult to en­dure this test, what, then, will you do when the Son of Man must re­turn to the Fa­ther? When and how will you pre­pare your­selves for the time when I as­cend to the place whence I came to this world?

153:5.4“My beloved, you must re­mem­ber that it is the spirit that quick­ens; the flesh and all that per­tains thereto is of lit­tle profit. The words which I have spo­ken to you are spirit and life. Be of good cheer! I have not de­serted you. Many shall be of­fended by the plain speak­ing of these days. Al­ready you have heard that many of my dis­ci­ples have turned back; they walk no more with me. From the be­gin­ning I knew that these half­hearted be­liev­ers would fall out by the way. Did I not choose you twelve men and set you apart as am­bas­sadors of the king­dom? And now at such a time as this would you also desert? Let each of you look to his own faith, for one of you stands in grave dan­ger.” And when Je­sus had fin­ished speak­ing, Si­mon Pe­ter said: “Yes, Lord, we are sad and per­plexed, but we will never for­sake you. You have taught us the words of eter­nal life. We have be­lieved in you and fol­lowed with you all this time. We will not turn back, for we know that you are sent by God.” And as Pe­ter ceased speak­ing, they all with one ac­cord nod­ded their ap­proval of his pledge of loy­alty.

153:5.5Then said Je­sus: “Go to your rest, for busy times are upon us; ac­tive days are just ahead.”