The people in the synagogue at Capernaum had seen and had borne witness that Jesus was “mighty in words;” they had also to behold that He was likewise “mighty in deeds.”
There was at Capernaum a man known by all the inhabitants to be possessed by “an unclean spirit.” Into the facts attending such possessions we shall not this evening inquire, as other instances lie farther on, upon which such an inquiry may more advantageously be grounded. This. man was in the synagogue when Jesus was there, or perhaps entered it towards the close of his discourse. It may excite some surprise that he was admitted to that place. But the Jews were careful that a man thus afflicted should suffer as little as possible on account of his misfortune. He was allowed to go where he pleased, and no restraint was laid upon him, so long as his conduct was not dangerously violent. Such persons were indeed allowed many licenses that would not have been permitted in a man responsible for his conduct. There was no particular reason for excluding them from synagogues more than from any other places; for the Jews did not transfer to the synagogues any of those ideas of sanctity which belonged to the temple at Jerusalem, nor accounted them as in any way sacred places.
The unclean spirit knew that Holy One, and trembled at his presence. He cried out, through the voice of the man whom he held captive, “Let us alone. What have we to do with Thee, Thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art Thou come to destroy us? I know Thee who Thou art, the Holy One of God.” Here, then, the powers of hell avouch the character and mission (“to destroy the work of the devil”) to which Heaven had already borne its testimony. But earth gave no responsive recognition. Heaven had spoken—Hell had spoken—but Earth still was mute.
Jesus himself, indeed, repelled this testimony, as He did on other occasions. We are told that He rebuked the unclean spirit, and imposed silence upon him: “Hold thy peace, and come out of him.” And He was obeyed. After casting the man upon the ground in strong convulsions, the unclean spirit departed reluctantly from him with horrid cries of abortive rage.
How the wonder-workers of that age—for there were many who pretended to cast out devils—would have gloried in any such testimony to their power as those which Jesus silenced and deprecated! It may, indeed, be conceived, from some points of view, that this testimony might have been useful in promoting the reception of his ministry; and it may be inquired, Why it was always checked and suppressed by Him? Some take it to have been the cry of abject fear, that with fawning and flattery, sought to avert the impending doom; others compare the exclamations before us to those of a fugitive slave, who dreams of nothing but stripes and torments when he meets his well-known lord, and would then, by any means, turn away his anger. But our Lord’s promptitude and decision in silencing this testimony, would seem rather to suggest that He saw it was intended for mischief, and could in the end accomplish nothing else. From such a source, whatever might be its immediate effect, it was likely to injure the estimation of Him in whose behalf it was borne; for the truth itself might come into discredit when the “father of lies” bore witness to it. It might have given ground for, or sanction to, the charge, that his miracles were wrought by collusion with demons, or by unlawful necromantic arts. As it was, this charge did eventually arise, and is believed by the Jews to this day. It appeared even in his own time, and was more than once cast in his teeth. “He casteth out devils by Beelzebub the prince of devils”—a charge which He met with such awful indignation as may well suggest the importance for evil which He attached to it, and explains the care He took to repress the insidious declarations in his favor of the unclean spirits whom He cast out.
This miracle—the first of the kind—struck the people with amazement; and rightly recognizing miracles as evidence of Christ’s doctrine and mission, they exclaimed one to another “What thing is this?—what new doctrine is this?—for with authority commandeth He even the unclean spirits, and they do obey Him.” In fact, a strong enthusiasm was excited about “the Prophet of Nazareth,” not only in this neighborhood, but throughout Galilee; and this was no unsuitable preparation for that almost triumphant progress which He soon after made in this region.
Peter and Andrew, although of Bethsaida, had their abode at Capernaum, and dwelt together in a house there. To that house Jesus repaired to partake of their noon-tide meal, after He left the synagogue. It was then that Jesus heard that the mother of Peter’s wife lay in the house ill of a fever; on which, with benevolent anxiety to relieve her from her peril, and to release his friends from their anxiety on her account, He arose and desired to be led to her. Approaching the place where she lay, He took her by the hand and lifted her up; and immediately the “great fever” departed from her; and instead of being, as is usual when one recovers from a fever in the natural way, left with exhausted energy and prostrated strength, the woman found herself not only cured but so invigorated by that touch, that she immediately left her bed and hastened to give her aid in providing what was needful for the entertainment.
The news of this soon got out into the town, and, together with the miracle of the morning, excited a most lively sensation through all its streets. One thought seemed at the same time to take possession of the minds of every sick person in the city—that now at last the means of cure for them—of release from their sufferings—were offered, and that they had only to hasten to Peter’s house to obtain relief from Jesus of Nazareth. With their notions, they dared not go, much less could those who could not go themselves be carried, until the Sabbath day had reached its close. But never, perhaps, was the ending of a Sabbath-day more anxiously waited for. We can conceive how many mounted to the house tops, or put their heads out of the lattice, to see how near the sun was to its setting; and no sooner did its last beams cease to redden the still waters of the lake, and its broad disc disappear behind the up-lands of Galilee, than the houses seemed to empty out all their inmates into the streets, along which presently the sick, the lame, the blind, the paralytic, the possessed—walking, led, supported by crutches, or carried in their beds—attended by numerous friends, streamed along, converging to that one street which contained the obscure dwelling of the two fishermen. Here the crowd became so great that, as the narrator emphatically remarks, “all the city was gathered together at the door.” They came not in vain, nor was any one sent disappointed home. Jesus healed them all. And had it been possible for the sick of all the world, instead of all the city, to have assembled before that door, they could as easily have been healed by Him, who even “himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.”
The sun which had set upon an expectant crowd of miserable creatures, arose next morning upon a city from which disease had fled.