FOR 1800 years the Jews have ignored Jesus. They have given Him no place in their religious or national life. His name has never been allowed to be mentioned. If it was found necessary to speak about Him, He was referred to as “the Nazarene.” For 1800 years no orthodox Jew has written a single line about Him. Mohammed and Buddha have often been mentioned and discussed by the most pious Jews, but Jesus has been ignored. The Jews have tried very hard to forget Jesus, but the more they have tried to forget the harder it has become not to remember. And now, with the evolution of time and national character, they are beginning to realise that they cannot forget, that they must face and settle the problem which He presents. These men, zealous in their religion, pious and monotheistic, leaders of their race, are feeling their way cautiously round the Gospels, anxious to prove innocent their nation from the crime of the Crucifixion, ready to acclaim Jesus as a national prophet and a great teacher of ethics. It is one of the outstanding phenomena of our time that the Jews are seeking to find the right place which Jesus should occupy in their religion and nation.
Dr Klausner, Professor of Hebrew in Jerusalem University, has published in Jerusalem itself a “Life of Christ” written in Hebrew. It is the first time an orthodox Jew has attempted such a work with neither satiric nor apologetic bias. It is an honest attempt by a very great scholar to find a place for Jesus in Judaism. Dr Klausner is broad-minded, and refuses to write under any dogmatic bias. Speaking of Jesus, he says:—”In His ethical code there is a sublimity, distinctiveness and originality in form unparalleled in any Hebrew ethical code, neither is there any parallel to the remarkable art of His parables. Fifteen years ago a great Hebrew scholar and editor of a philosophical Hebrew quarterly, the late S. J. Hurwitz, was nearly lynched for having published an essay in which a positive attitude was taken towards Jesus. Now another great Hebrew scholar is able to publish in the Holy City itself, not an essay, but a “Life” of Christ.
This alone should be a fact startling enough, but even more remarkable was the news contained in a short paragraph in the “Daily Express” of December 31st, 1925. It was headed, “Rabbi’s Advice to Jews,” and told of a sermon which had been preached in New York by a Rabbi on Dr Klausner’s “Life of Christ.” The preacher was Dr Stephen S. Wise, Secretary of the
American Zionists, and one of the most popular and scholarly Rabbis in America. During the course of his sermon he said:—”The Jews must accept Jesus as a Jewish teacher and accept His ethical code. The Jew can carry on the teaching of Jesus better than the Christians.”
This remarkable statement makes us turn to the prophecies of over 2000 years ago. “In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer” (Is. liv. 8). “Neither will I hide my face any more from them, for I have poured out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord God” (Ezek. xxxix. 29). “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication; and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born” (Zech. xii. 10).
Missions to Jews will have the unique opportunity of speaking to eager, unbiased listeners, Jews who will, by the Spirit of God, see the vision of a Messiah pierced by themselves, and will mourn and call upon His Name. It is in these coming days that God speaks to all Christians, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.” Now, when Jews are seeking Christ as the greatest of the prophets and a national hero, pray that they may find also their Messiah and a Saviour of the world. “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and uncleanness” (Zech. xiii. 1). “They shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, it is my people: and they shall say, the Lord is my God” (Zech. xiii. 9).—P. S. S., in “Immanuel’s Witness.”