011. Chapter 9 - The Influence of the Weather Upon the Ministry of Jesus

Chapter 9 - The Influence of the Weather Upon the Ministry of Jesus

Conversation about the weather, unless an acute change renders life perilous or unbearable, is supposed to be heard only when a sluggish brain or an insufficient acquaintance renders unavailable any important topic. It is significant that the Bible says but little about the weather. The concentration upon matters of eternal portent causes almost all mention of the weather to fade from the picture, except when it plays a vital part in the momentous events recorded. Nevertheless, the careful attempt to reconstruct the ministry of Jesus and to visualize the actual surroundings of His daily life as He labored, traveled, taught, healed and preached, leads one to consider carefully such information about the weather as the New Testament and a study of the land of Palestine afford.

Power of Jesus over Nature When the Bible student begins to reflect upon the ideas of “the weather” and “the ministry of Jesus,” the mind naturally recalls the scene in which Jesus was asleep in the stern of the boat as the disciples crossed the Sea of Galilee. It was toward the close of the day, after He had delivered the great sermon in parables: “And there ariseth a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the boat, insomuch that the boat was now filling. And he himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion: and they awake him, and say unto him, Teacher, carest thou not that we perish? And he awoke, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye fearful? have ye not yet faith? And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mark 4:37-41).

Jesus provoked a similar comment from the disciples when He came to them walking on the water in the midst of a storm: “But the boat was now in the midst of the sea, distressed by the waves; for the wind was contrary….And when they were gone up into the boat, the wind ceased. And they that were in the boat worshiped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God” (Matthew 14:24, Matthew 14:32, Matthew 14:33). But a consideration of these scenes may suggest to the reader the crisp rejoinder to the topic of this essay, that it should be changed to read: “The Influence of the Ministry of Jesus upon the Weather.” One of the amazing proofs of the deity of Christ is the fact that the wind and sea obeyed Him: the very elements of nature were subject to His control. On both of these occasions there were spiritual reasons why Jesus interfered with the course of nature and compelled the elements to obey His immediate orders. But the records of His life lead us to believe that this was entirely exceptional and that the ordinary current of His ministry shaped itself to meet the ordinary difficulties or opportunities which the elements of nature offered. Thus Jesus shared our experience, except when there was some divine reason for Him to rise above and control earthly circumstances. He did not still the tempest for His own comfort or advantage, nor did He walk on the water and cause the storm to cease that night for His own convenience. It was not even to save His own life. It was the desperate need of His disciples that caused Him to control the elements. He rebuked the disciples because, even while they had the faith to awaken Him and appeal to Him to save them, they did not believe that God would care for His Son and not permit Him to perish, no matter how great the storm.

Further reflection is apt to call up the fearful transformation of the heavens when Jesus died: “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour….And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom: and the earth did quake and the rocks were rent” (Matthew 27:45, Matthew 27:50, Matthew 27:51). While we may not solve the reason for the sudden coming of darkness at noonday when Jesus died, there can be no doubt as to its cause: the hand of an almighty Creator. Again the very world of nature was brought in a most amazing fashion into harmony with the supreme events being enacted by God as He gave His Son to die for sinful mankind. But, again, this is the startling exception to the general current of Jesus’ ministry. Did the ordinary course of the weather exercise any perceptible influence on the daily ministry of Jesus? What sort of weather prevails in Palestine? What does the Bible record concerning it? How did the ministry of Jesus fit into “all sorts of weather” which “must be taken in together, to make a year and a sphere”? The weather certainly has a decided influence upon the nature and success of our efforts today to extend the kingdom of God. Often we find our work hampered by weather which renders impossible intensive campaigning and the gathering of large crowds together to hear the gospel. Rain, excessive cold or heat are the things that usually hamper our efforts, and we try to take them into account as far as possible in laying our plans. There are certain indications in the Bible that the weather had an influence on the time and nature of the campaigns that were carried on for God. We usually overlook the fact that the weather was not uniformly favorable for the ministry of Jesus.

Geography and Climate of Palestine

Palestine is situated in about the same latitude as the southern part of the United States, but since it is a narrow, mountainous country with a great desert on one side and a great sea on the other, it offers considerable variation as to temperature according to the local situation. The land is fifty to seventy-five miles wide, and the deep crevice (The Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea) which extends through the length of the land (150 miles) and on out into the desert to the south, causes some variation in temperature between Jerusalem (2,600 feet above sea level) and the Dead Sea (1,312 feet below sea level). A rainy season prevails through the winter (November to April). During the seven summer months, when dry weather prevails, the heat is usually alleviated by the wind from the Mediterranean, which blows regularly from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. January is the coldest month and August the hottest. The rain in the winter is not incessant and sometimes in the rainy season there are several days together of beautiful southern Mediterranean spring weather. It gets cold enough to form ice in the mountains, but seldom in the plains. Snow is rare in Palestine, except on locations like the summit of Mount Hermon (over 9,000 feet above sea level). The desert to the south and east of Palestine might be expected to be much warmer in winter, but for the most part it is high, rough tableland. One of the surprises for the reader of Lawrence of Arabia’s fascinating Revolt in the Desert is the description of the bitter cold he had to face traveling on foot and on camel through the ice and snow, and the fierce blizzards that drove the Arabs indoors. One traveler, commenting on how sharp are the changes in the desert, where one burns up by day and freezes by night, even in summer, and often finds ice on his tent in the morning, humorously remarked that the writer of the popular song, “True I will be, to the love I gave thee, till the sands of the desert grow cold,” either had never traveled much or else was an abominable philanderer. The climate of Palestine is much more even and delightful than that of the desert to the east and south. The wilderness about the Dead Sea is, of course, warmer than the desert tableland because the Dead Sea is the lowest-lying body of water in the world and the mountains rise sharply about it, making it like a boiling teakettle.

Winter in Palestine The Bible contains occasional references to the extreme changes of the weather. “Benaiah ...went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in time of snow” (2 Samuel 23:20).“The channel of brooks that pass away; which are black by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow hideth itself: what time they wax warm, they vanish; when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place” (Job 6:15, Job 6:17). “If I wash myself with snow water” (Job 9:30). “Drought and heat consume the snow waters” (Job 24:19). “He saith to the snow, Fall thou on the earth; likewise to the shower of rain, and to the showers of his mighty rain” (Job 37:6). “He giveth snow like wool; he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold? He sendeth out his word and melteth them: he causeth his winds to blow, and the waters flow” (Psalms 147:16, Psalms 147:17). “Fire and hail, snow and vapor; stormy wind” (Psalms 148:8). Proverbs abounds in such references: the extraordinary “cold of snow in time of harvest [April]” (Proverbs 25:13); the fool who “taketh off a garment in cold weather” (Proverbs 25:20); the ideal woman’s weaving heavy garments for winter: “She is not afraid of the snow for her household; for all her household are clothed with scarlet” (Proverbs 31:21). “The sluggard will not plow by reason of the winter; therefore he shall beg in harvest, and have nothing” (Proverbs 20:4). The ground baked hard by the hot, dry season could not be plowed until the first rains of winter softened it; the lazy farmer who refused to face the cold and rain in order to plant his wheat could expect no harvest in the spring.

Ezra’s Assembly

One of the very interesting and illuminating passages in the Old Testament which describes how the weather interfered with a great religious assembly at a critical moment in the history of the nation is recorded in Ezra. Even the remnant of the two tribes had disobeyed the law of Moses and married foreign wives; the purity and perpetuity of the chosen race was imperiled. Ezra called the nation together in the temple area and after great prayer and lamentation pleaded with the people to put away the foreign wives. It was a heartbreaking scene: “It was a very great assembly of men and women and children; for the people wept very sore” (Ezra 10:1). The north wind blew its icy blasts and the rain poured; the people stood helplessly in the elements and listened to the impassioned appeal of Ezra. The people cried Out, promising to carry out the law as Ezra directed, and then appealed to Ezra to dismiss them that they might escape the wild weather: “Then all the assembly answered and said with a loud voice, As thou hast said concerning us so must we do. But the people are many and it is a time of much rain, and we are not able to stand without: neither is this a work of a day or two” (Ezra 10:12, Ezra 10:13). The Jewish Feasts

God made the weather and the land, and chose the people. To them He gave the law which fitted perfectly the varying demands. It is interesting to notice that all three of the great feasts ordered in the law, when all the nation was obligated to come up to the central place of worship, were placed during the dry season. The Passover, in the early spring; Pentecost, fifty days later in the early summer; the Feast of Tabernacles, in the fall. The Feast of Dedication (late December) was added by the Jews to celebrate the rededication of the temple after its defilement by Antiochus Epiphanes during the Maccabean period. The Feast of Purim (February) was also added by them to celebrate the rescue of Jewry by Esther. There was no compulsion from the Old Testament to attend these two feasts. It would have been a great hardship and an unnecessary one for the people to be compelled to make this pilgrimage during the cold, rainy season. The aged and the infirm, who might have come in the summer, would have found it well-nigh impossible in the winter. There is the wail of the north wind and the splash of rain and sleet in the sorrowful prediction of Jesus concerning the destruction of Jerusalem as He warned the disciples to flee from the city before it was besieged by the Romans: “Woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days! And pray ye that your flight be not in winter” (Matthew 24:19, Matthew 24:20). The Desert in Winter

Reflection upon these facts stirs a tremendous amount of speculation about the ministry of Jesus. When He went into the desert to be tempted of the devil, what suffering did He undergo from the elements without home or protection of any kind? It was evidently in the rainy season of winter, for while the baptism can not be definitely dated, an approximate count of time backward from the first cleansing of the temple at the Passover (April) through the brief stay at Capernaum, the wedding feast at Cana, the calling of the six disciples by the Jordan, and to the forty days of temptation in the wilderness, forces the date well back into the winter. And yet there is not a syllable of all this physical suffering suggested in the Scripture, except the two words, “he hungered.” The spiritual agony which Jesus endured was so great that rain or cold and lonely wandering fade into the background. John the Baptist grew up “in the deserts,” and what hardships did he endure? How rugged and powerful was he of body as well as soul! He began his ministry in the wilderness of Judaea, in the section just north of the Dead Sea where the Jordan River flows for some eight or ten miles through that wilderness. This was a most fitting place to begin, both by reason of his life in the desert, his message, the Jordan River, and the proximity of the capital, Jerusalem. But since he evidently began in the fall or winter, was it not also strategic because of the balmy weather which usually prevails about the Dead Sea even in winter? The wise minister plans his revival when and where the people can attend, and the location of John’s opening ministry probably was in part based upon this principle.

Preaching in the Rainy Season

What did Jesus do and where did He go when the weather was cold and rainy — in the winter? To whom did He preach? Here is a problem concerning the life of Christ which has been generally overlooked. Three conclusions seem probable: (1) The seasons of great revival, the times of the great multitudes crowding about Jesus in the outdoors, were in the dry season when the people found it possible to come together in this fashion. (2) The evangelistic work of the rainy season was for the most part confined to work indoors — teaching in the synagogues, preaching in the homes of the people, healing and ministering wherever an opportunity offered. (3) A great amount of traveling and reaching untouched places was done even in the rainy season, with occasional gatherings of multitudes in the open when the weather permitted. Considerable evidence confirming these conclusions appears in the Gospel narratives. Counting the ministry of Jesus as about three and a half years, we have nearly nine-tenths of the days of His ministry concerning which nothing is recorded. There doubtless were many thrilling scenes and great campaigns and wonderful miracles enacted during these days, but there were also many “rainy days,” when the time was devoted to personal work in the homes of the people. This was the work in which Jesus delighted and excelled, even as in the preaching to great crowds. Look through the narratives and see how many conversations are recorded. The ministry at Sychar was in midwinter (December — “four months and then cometh the harvest” — John 4:35). Here He talked with the Samaritan woman and had a stirring, but brief, ministry. This had been preceded by a ministry in Judaea which was gaining great momentum in spite of the early winter season (John 3:22; John 4:1). But an entirely different type of winter weather seemed to be influencing the method of Jesus in John l0:22ff. Again it was December; Jesus was preaching in the temple; but notice how He is pictured: “And it was the feast of dedication at Jerusalem: for it was winter; and Jesus was walking in the temple in Solomon’s porch. The Jews therefore came round about him, and said unto him,...“For it was winter.” How sublimely brief, but significant, that clause! Rain and cold; Jesus preaching in Solomon’s porch, which afforded protection from the rain; Jesus walking as He preached (like the Peripatetic philosophers of Athens), and thus enabling those about to resist the cold as they listened; His enemies crowding in about Him to question and oppose. And thus the gospel was preached, whether in fair weather or in foul, whether to many or to few. What an example this is to us! When we picture Jesus traveling from place to place in His eager, but patient, ministry, we seldom think of His going through rain and cold, buffeted by the elements. Has any artist so presented Him, even though we have so many hundred famous paintings? Studdert Kennedy, in his touching poem, “Indifference,” contrasts the raging fury of those who long ago crucified Jesus with the cruel indifference of those who reject and pass Him by today. He pictures men today as they scornfully go their way and leave Jesus out in the winter rain: And still it rained the winter rain that drenched Him through and through; The crowds went home and left the streets without a soul to see, And Jesus crouched against a wall and cried for Calvary. This poetic representation of the rejection of Jesus by men today may well have been actually enacted many times as men refused to receive Him into their midst, even though the elements raged. We pass over with a gesture of impatience and regret the incident when James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritan village that refused to permit Jesus to spend the night in their midst. But has anyone really seen below the surface in that passage? What was the weather like as they hastened by forced march to the Feast of Tabernacles? What dire necessity did the apostles feel as they sought a refuge for their blessed Master? If we knew all the circumstances, we probably should marvel less at the sudden rashness of James and John, and more at the infinite gentleness and longsuffering of the Son of God. Rugged campaigners were these Jesus gathered about Him. How many things they must have endured as they traveled over mountain and plain, over rivers and deserts, accompanying their tireless and inspired Leader! What a stirring example our Master has left us!