(Matthew 8:16.) When all who were now present here with Me had eaten the evening meal, and Judas lay fast asleep on a bed of straw in the entrance hall, those same Jews from Capernaum who had put the priests, scribes and Pharisees to the test the previous day brought a multitude of possessed people and a multitude of other sick people afflicted with all manner of ailments, and most earnestly asked Me to heal them all.
But I asked them with loving earnestness whether they really believed that the carpenter’s son from Nazareth could do such a thing. For these people knew Me, so to speak, from birth.
But they answered and said, ‘What does the carpenter’s son have to do with us in this matter!? If the carpenter’s son was chosen by God, then he is a prophet, even if he were a carpenter’s son a thousand times over; for every person is what he is from God, but never what his parents were! And therefore we all firmly believe, without doubt, that firstly you are a true prophet instructed by God, and therefore secondly you can help us all, just as you helped the governor’s son and the captain’s servant.’
And I answered them, ‘Well then, since you have such faith in Me and such a judgment concerning Me, let it happen to you all as you have believed!’
At this word all the spirits went out of the possessed, and those afflicted with all manner of pestilences and diseases also became well in the same instant.
That after such a deed there was no lack of amazement and expressions of thanks scarcely needs to be mentioned in greater detail.
Extremely apt yet bitingly sharp remarks were also made about the entire Jewish priesthood. But I rebuked the speakers for this and showed them that it was very unwise to awaken a sleeping brood of vipers; for as long as it remains in its rigid winter sleep, it is harmful and dangerous to no one. But if it is awakened, it is more dangerous than at any other time when it is not asleep.
‘The temple servants, full of cunning and malice, had likewise been sleeping until now like a brood of vipers in winter; but through your bold demand you have now forcibly awakened them from their sleep. Therefore take care that they do not now harm you! For this adulterous kind takes delight in being able to do harm anywhere.’
All recognize the truth of this teaching and regret having brought about such an evil through their thoughtlessness. But I reassure them and tell them that in Capernaum they must say nothing of these signs performed here, except to a few of the most proven friends of truth who also know how to keep silent. And they promised Me this.
But there was one among them who, although he did not belong to the priesthood, was nevertheless very well versed in Scripture.
He stepped before the crowd and spoke in a very earnest tone: ‘Listen, dear friends and brothers! I have now found something in this deed that means more than if you merely say, “Look, this man is a true prophet!” I believe this deed has now taken place so that what the prophet Isaiah prophesied may come to its fullest fulfillment before our eyes (Matthew 8:17), when he said, “He has taken our weakness upon Himself, and our pestilence He has borne!” Do you perceive nothing? Do you really perceive nothing of where this leads?’
The people stare wide-eyed at the speaker, for they do not understand him. But he repeats his question once more, and when the people still do not grasp what he had quoted from Isaiah, he says, ‘It is hard to preach to the blind about the colors of the rainbow!’
I say to him, ‘Be calm; it is better that these people do not grasp this for the present. For if these people were to grasp it now, they would run to the priests and begin to dispute with them most vehemently there, and from the standpoint of My teaching that would be good neither for you nor for Me. But when the right time comes, then they too will grasp and seize with their hands what the prophet has spoken!’
The speaker is content with this answer, and the people whose possessed and sick I healed on this evening now leave together with their completely recovered companions.
But when the people come home to Capernaum, they nevertheless make a great commotion among their acquaintances. And the next morning, when it is scarcely growing light, Peter’s house is already surrounded by an immense crowd wanting to see Me, who have performed such an incomprehensibly great miraculous deed in the evening. But Peter asks Me what is to be done, since there are ever more people around the house.
I say, ‘Make the largest boat ready! And we shall go all the way to the other side of the sea, otherwise we shall have an uproar here. (Matthew 8:18.) The people are here with the best intentions, it is true; but the priesthood too will come creeping up behind them, and for the present we wish to have nothing to do with it!’
Peter immediately makes the largest boat ready; we soon board it and, with a favorable wind, began rowing swiftly across the sea.
But before I entered the boat with the disciples, a scribe from Capernaum came up to Me and said (Matthew 8:19), ‘Master, allow me also to follow you wherever you go!?’ But I immediately saw that the secret reason for which he really wished to follow Me was by no means praiseworthy, and that he cared little for My teaching or any of My deeds, but entirely for provision for his belly and, if something could also be gained from it, for secret betrayals. So I shook My head and said to him (Matthew 8:20), ‘The foxes have dens and the birds under heaven nests; but the Son of Man does not own even a stone in this world upon which to lay His head.’
And the scribe understood Me, turned away and went home. For by this I had given him to understand that he too was a cunning fox and therefore had his den (a salaried position), and that birds of his kind, which dwell under heaven—that is, far beneath purely divine truth and love—have their nests, that is, feeding and resting places where they devour their prey. But with the Son of Man none of all these worldly deceits is to be found, not even a so-called political emergency trick (stone) upon which one might rest the head of one’s inner disposition from time to time. Thus the scribe understood Me correctly and, as already mentioned, quickly returned to Capernaum without addressing another word of reply to Me.