the
deputation that was sent from Jerusalem by the official leaders of the
nation, down to the Jordan bottoms where John the witness was drawing
such great crowds. John modestly answers their questions about himself,
and then the next day with dramatic intensity points out the Man for
whom the whole nation has been looking for so long.

The only response from deputation and officials is a most significant
disappointing silence, a silence fully understood both by John[18] and
by Jesus.[19] But five Galileans in the crowd listening to John's reply
seek out, or are brought into personal questioning touch with, Jesus,
and then yield Him unquestioning belief and personal devotion. And these
five come, in after years, to be leaders known wherever Christ's name is
known.[20] So there begins the sharp contrast running throughout these
pages, between the two sides into which Jesus' presence divides the
crowds.

Then John traces the simple way in which the faith of these five men ran
its tiny but tough tenacious tendril-roots down into their very vitals.
A simple neighbourhood wedding occasion up near the old Nazareth home
drew Jesus thither with His kinsfolk and His new-made friends. And then
He meets the need of the homely occasion by helping out the shortened
supply of wine in such an unusual way as reveals His character. And the
conviction takes great fresh hold upon these five men that they have
made no mistake. This Man is all they had taken Him for, and He is
immensely more than they had thought into at first.[21]

Then comes a little connecting link. After the Cana visit, Jesus runs
into the near-by town of Capernaum with His kinsfolk and friends for a
few days, a sort of continuation of the neighbourhood courtesies.[22]

And then at once John goes to the intensest, and the most significant
incident of this whole section of the book. It is the drastic turning
out, by Jesus, of the traders in the temple-area at Jerusalem. This
touched at once the national leaders' most sensitive nerve, and touched
it roughly. It never ceased aching. This turning of the temple-area into
a common market-place, which so jarred on the holy atmosphere of the
place, and on Jesus' fine spirit, this was by arrangement with these
leaders, and yielded them large profit. Here was the sore spot.

With one deft stroke John lays bare the secret of the intense hatred of
Jesus by these national leaders, with which these pages teem, and which
came to