Galilee.- The Land of a Thousand Messiahs

Jesus came to Capernaum with his followers,                                                
and on the Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and taught.
The people were astonished at his teaching,
for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.
In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit;
he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?
I know who you are–the Holy One of God!" 
Jesus rebuked him and said, "Quiet! Come out of him!"
The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.
All were amazed and asked one another, "What is this?
A new teaching with authority.
He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him."
His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.

I have never been to Isreal but I am told that the most beautiful part of the country is the region of Galilee. At the time of Jesus, it had a reputation for being a hot hotbed of political intrigue and its major export was messiahs.   The term Galilean was also used to describe "an outsider." Jim Bishop in "The Day Christ Died" says that a Galilean was proud to be from Galilee but those from Jerusalem thought of Galileans as country bumpkins who smelled like fish.   The inhabitants of Galilee believed that God was their government, an attitude that was somewhat tolerated by the Romans up to a point. Josephus, the great historian relates stories of messiahs gathering a following and taking them into the desert to await some sign from God.  Very often the sign that these false messiahs received was a brutal beating by a troop of Roman soldiers sent to disburse the group because the Romans did not agree with  the concept of  "freedom of assembly."  Any large group smacked of political intrigue against Rome, which was outlawed and had to be nipped in the bud and the Romans were not shy about teaching lessons to their wayward populace.

So, it was here that our story takes place. Jesus enters the synagogue on the Sabbath and amazes the people at the wisdom of his teaching.  He taught in the first person.  In other words, He did not teach the different nuances of what this rabbi said or that rabbi said, He taught as an authority of His own on the ways of God and the meaning of scripture.  The crowd noticed a different attitude.  Then a person with an unclean spirit approaches and shouts out that he (the spirit) knew that Jesus was the Messiah.  An evil spirit making this proclamation would never do. Jesus told the spirit to be quiet and to come out of the man.  The man had a convulsion and was cured as the unclean spirit left him.  This action on the part of Jesus impressed the crowds even further. None of the previous messiahs had done this sort of work.  Jesus started to get a reputation in the area and began to develop a following.  How soon would it be that the Romans would take notice of Him?  Jesus would prove to be a thorn in the side of both the Temple establishment and the Romans. We will see as the story develops that this teaching with authority will endear Jesus to the masses and will make Him a prime candidate for stoning if the temple had anything to say about it and a crucifix if the Romans got involved.  A messiah was the last thing either of these groups needed.  The Romans and the high priests had a Roman imposed spirit of cooperation. The robes that the high priest wore at the various festivals and holy days were in the possession of the Romans. The high priest had to go to the procurator and request use of the garment. If the procurator was in a good mood because there was peace in the city, the robes would be fetched and given to the high priest to use. The understanding was that the robes would be returned to the procurator right after the festival.  On the other hand, if there was some sign of insubordination the procurator at his whim could refuse to release them.  So, if the high priest wanted to keep Yahweh's temple operating, a smile and a bow to Rome went a long way.  

When we read the scriptures, twenty centuries later,  we can still hear the authority in what Jesus was saying.  He was not giving an opinion, he was giving guidance and that guidance was coming from the mouth of God. We have been taught over the last twenty centuries that Jesus is Lord, the Son of God, and was the Messiah that was to come. So, we take this authority as a given but the crowds in the first century country of Israel heard these things with open-mouth astonishment and some of them harbored in their hearts the hope that this, at last, just maybe, was the Messiah that they longed for. 

Purgatory is proof positive that our Father in heaven loves us. He wants all of us to be with Him. Please pray for the poor souls in Purgatory today.