1. The zeal of James for the Christ had at first more of heat than of light, and nothing in the world is more dangerous than a blind zeal which takes the form of religious fanaticism. St. Paul testifies that the Jews of his time had a zeal for God, but “not according to knowledge,” and the words well describe the zeal of the two sons of Zebedee at the beginning of their career as followers of Jesus.
That it was an intemperate and misguided zeal is proved by the familiar story of their passing with the Lord through Samaria on the way to the Holy City. He sent messengers to a village of the Samaritans which lay in His path, to make ready for His coming, i.e., to seek lodgings for the night, and the villagers would not receive Him, simply because His face was directed towards Jerusalem. Their refusal of hospitality was no unheard-of rudeness, but one of those acts of resentment and retaliation which were constantly occurring in the Holy Land. If the Jews, whether of Galilee or of Judæa, would have no dealings with the Samaritans, the Samaritans could equally refuse to have any dealings with the Jews. Against Jesus personally they had no possible grudge, and had they known Him better, had they welcomed Him for a night, they would have found out how friendly were His feelings to the Samaritans. But they did not know Him, and it was enough for them that He belonged to the hated race. When therefore He came through their territory, seeking shelter and rest and food, they could not deny themselves the spiteful pleasure of bidding Him go and seek entertainment among His own countrymen. The feud of Jew and Samaritan was centuries old, and very little was ever needed to fan the embers of strife into a new flame. And on that particular evening it almost appeared as if there were no fiercer fanatics among all the Galilæan pilgrims than the two sons of Zebedee. But it was not any theological dispute or racial difference that roused their wrath; it was jealousy for the honour of their Lord. The night was falling fast, and they could not brook the idea of their Master spending it under the stars, or trudging on weary foot till He came to some more hospitable hamlet or village. And they felt that people who could be so insufferably rude to the best of men deserved no mercy. “Wilt thou,” said James and his brother in their blazing wrath, “that we bid fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”
It is one thing to be a Son of Thunder, another to become a father of lightning. Some even edifying examples must be copied, though in the spirit yet not in the letter: thus what Elias did St. James must forbear to do. When Christ sends down fire upon His flock it is for salvation not for destruction, as St. John Baptist aforetime prophesied: “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire”; a promise both visibly and invisibly fulfilled to the Apostles, when at Pentecost the Holy Ghost descended upon them in the likeness of fiery tongues. For us to covet and compass revenge might make us indeed like lightning: but how? by making us like Satan, who “as lightning” fell from heaven.1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, Called to be Saints, 344.]
2. The two brothers had in their hearts that evening the very spirit of persecutors, who do not hesitate to inflict pain and death in the name and for the sake of Jesus. They did not yet realize what depths of mercy were in their Master's great soul, or how wide a gulf still separated His spirit and theirs. He never made fire or sword the instrument of His will. He said on one occasion that He could have summoned twelve legions of angels to be His bodyguard, but He did not summon them. He saw that evening, as clearly as the sons of Zebedee did, how cruel, how vindictive, how inhuman the Samaritans were; but to His mind the only victory worth gaining over such men was the victory of love. Fire could never work His will, for it was not His will that any should perish; He “came not to destroy men's lives but to save them.” (Whether these words are part of the original text or a marginal comment, they at any rate rightly represent the tenor of the passage.) And in rebuking His jealous disciples, Jesus rebuked the persecutors of all ages, teaching that it is His purpose to win mankind without coercion, by that sweet reasonableness, that Divine patience, that redeeming love, which beareth, hopeth, believeth, and endureth all things, and never faileth.
“Oh, for a two-edged sword, my God,
That I may swiftly slay
Each foe of Thine-that I may speed
Thy universal sway!”
“Put up thy sword within its sheath;
My gift is life; would'st thou deal death?”
“Oh, for the fire from heaven, my God,
That it may fiercely burn
All those who, following not with me,
To other masters turn”;
“With scorching flame would'st thou reprove,
But I must win by fire of love!
“My son, art thou above thy Lord?
A greater one than He?
When called I for fire or sword?
Thou hast not learnt of Me:
Make ‘truth thy sword, and love thy flame,
Then battle in thy Master's name.' ”1 [Note: W. Chatterton Dix.]
“I beseech you,” said Paul, “by the mildness and gentleness of Christ.” The word which our Bible translates by “gentleness” means more properly “reasonableness, with sweetness,” “sweet reasonableness.” “I beseech you by the mildness and sweet reasonableness of Christ.” This mildness and sweet reasonableness it was which, stamped with the individual charm they had in Jesus Christ, came to the world as something new, won its heart and conquered it. Every one had been asserting his ordinary self and was miserable; to forbear to assert one's ordinary self, to place one's happiness in mildness and sweet reasonableness, was a revelation. As men followed this novel route to happiness, a living spring opened beside their way, the spring of charity; and out of this spring arose those two heavenly visitants, Charis and Irene, grace and peace, which enraptured the poor wayfarer, and filled him with a joy which brought all the world after him. And still, whenever these visitants appear, as appear for a witness to the vitality of Christianity they daily do, it is from the same spring that they arise; and this spring is opened solely by the mildness and sweet reasonableness which forbears to assert our ordinary self, nay, which even takes pleasure in effacing it.2 [Note: Matthew Arnold, St. Paul and Protestantism.]
3. As “it was the custom of the Galilæans, when they came to the Holy City at the festival, to take their journey through the country of the Samaritans” (Josephus, Antiq. xx. vi. 1), it seems somewhat strange if the mere fact of Jesus' face being directed towards Jerusalem was the sole occasion of the Samaritan rudeness; and Dr. A.B. Bruce suggests that “perhaps the manner of the messengers had something to do with it. Had Jesus gone Himself the result might have been different. Perhaps He was making an experiment to see how His followers and the Samaritans would get on together.” If the experiment failed, it may have been because the disciples had not yet enough of the mind and spirit of the Master. Their devotion to Him was unquestionable, but there was still too much unchristian heat, unholy fire, in their fervour. They had not yet discovered that the Christian wins his triumphs, not by returning evil for evil, but by overcoming evil with good. They had still much to learn and unlearn before they could understand the precept, “Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you.”
In a sense it was, of course, quite natural that James and his brother that evening should feel their hearts grow hot within them, and that their indignation should flame out so fiercely against the churlish Samaritans. In a sense it is always natural for strong men to be intolerant of those who oppose and thwart them. But things are not always right because they are natural. The end and aim of true religion is to transcend the natural by the supernatural, to lift us above ourselves by making us partakers of the Divine nature, to subdue the wrath of man by giving him a vision and an experience of the love of God. When James and his brother had that vision and that experience they fulfilled their destiny, not by seeking to destroy the lives of others, but by giving their own lives, as Christ gave His, and so helping to create that new spirit of brotherly love which will in the long run break down all the barriers between Jew and Samaritan, Greek and barbarian, Slav and Magyar, Celt and Teuton, black man and white, making them all one man in Christ Jesus. To-day it may seem almost as impossible as it seemed twenty centuries ago. But with God all things are possible, and all things are possible to them that believe. “That stupid word impossible,” said Napoleon, “is not in my vocabulary”; but he had to admit it at last. Christ alone has never admitted it. Listen to His language: “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove,” and again, “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye would say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou rooted up, and be thou planted in the sea; and it would have obeyed you.”
Faith, no larger than the tiniest mustard-seed, but able to toss the mountains, as pebbles, from their foundations, into the sea, is the determination to do the thing chosen to be done or to die-literally to die-in the trying to do it. Death is farther from most of us than we fancy, and if we would but risk all, to win or lose all, we could almost always do the deed which looks so grimly impossible. Those who have faced great physical dangers, or who have been matched by fate against overwhelming odds of anxiety and trouble, alone know what great things are to be done when men stand at bay and face the world, and fate, and life, and death, and misfortune, all banded together against them, and say in their hearts, “We will win this fight or die.” Then, at that word, when it is spoken earnestly, in sincerity and truth, the iron will rises up and takes possession of the feeble body, the doubting soul shakes off its hesitating weakness, is drawn back upon itself like a strong bow bent double, is compressed and full of a terrible latent power, like the handful of deadly explosive which, buried in the bosom of the rock, will presently shake the mighty cliff to its roots, as no thunderbolt could shake it.1 [Note: F. Marion Crawford, The Cigarette-Maker's Romance, chap. ix.]
