Then the boy Jesus told of the terrible plagues that fell upon the land of Egypt; of the last and greatest sorrow, the death of the oldest son in every house; how the Israelites sprinkled their door-posts with the blood of the slain lamb and were pa.s.sed over by this death-angel; how they ate the lamb on that night, dressed for their journey; and how they went out of Egypt and marched through the Red Sea.
The family were in Jerusalem for a week, and every day Jesus went up to the Temple to worship in its services and to learn what he could from its teachers. The last day of their visit came, and at its close the families going to Galilee met together for their homeward journey. A horn was blown and the caravan or company started northward. Mary missed her son, but thought that he was somewhere in the crowd, talking with other boys of his own age. But when night came, the company stopped to rest and Jesus did not appear. Mary was alarmed. They looked through all the crowd, but no Jesus was to be found.
Then in great trouble, Joseph and Mary hastened back to Jerusalem, looking for their boy. They asked for him among the friends at whose house they had stayed, but he had not been there. They wandered up and down the narrow streets, but while they saw many groups of boys, their boy was not among them. At last, on the third day, they looked for him in the Temple. In one of its courts a crowd of people were listening to the teachers who seemed to be talking with someone. They drew near, and Mary"s heart began to beat as she suddenly heard a boy"s voice sounding from the middle of the throng. She knew that voice, in its clear, rich, honest tone! She pressed her way in; and there stood her boy, the center of a company of the learned scholars. He was asking questions of these men, and they in their answers were asking him questions in turn, while all around were people listening and wondering at this boy"s deep knowledge of the truth.
Mary hastily rushed up to Jesus, and said:
"My son, why have you treated us so unkindly? Your father and I have been looking for you, in great trouble, for three days!"
Jesus looked up at his mother"s face, with surprise, and said:
"Why should you look for me? Did you not know that I would be in my Father"s house?"
Evidently on the last day of their stay, he had slipped away for one more visit to the Temple; and once there his mind and heart had been so full that no thought of the home-going had come to him. He had just stayed there in the courts of the Lord"s house without a thought of the outside world.
Where had he slept on those two nights? Who had given him food during those three days? He might have lain down, as thousands did during the feast, under the olive trees on the Mount of Olives. Some stranger may have seen him and invited him to a meal. But it would not be strange if in his deep, whole-souled interest, he had never thought of food and had eaten nothing during those three days.
But without a word he took his mother"s hand and walked out of the Temple. He made the journey home to Nazareth, saying little but thinking much of all that he had seen and heard. One great, precious truth at least had come home to his heart. He felt that the Lord G.o.d of Israel was his own Father and he could trust fully the Father G.o.d.
The Young Woodworker
CHAPTER 13
FOR EIGHTEEN years after the visit to the Temple, Jesus was living in Nazareth, growing up from a boy to a young man. A Jewish boy generally left his school at about thirteen years of age, and began working at some trade or business. Jesus went into Joseph"s shop and helped in the work, making plows and ax-handles and rakes and the plain furniture for the houses. Whatever Jesus did was done well, and we cannot doubt that in his trade he soon became a skilful worker. His ax-handles and plows were as good as the best; and if he made a bushel measure, it was a true one, for Jesus was a boy that could be trusted.
As a boy, he was like other boys, playing happily in play-time and working heartily in work-time. Some boys like to be alone, reading and thinking and dreaming; but Jesus was not one of that kind. All through his life he liked to have people around him, and as a boy we may be sure he had many friends among other boys. He was strong, in good health, could run and jump and climb trees. With his boy friends he wandered among the mountains and upon the great plain just over the hills from his town. The Sea of Galilee was only twenty miles away, and we do not doubt that Jesus with his friends went fishing in its blue waters and brought home to his mother the fish which he had caught.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Jesus went into Joseph"s shop and helped in the work, making plows and ax-handles and the plain furniture for the houses.]
After a time, Joseph, the husband of Mary, died, and Jesus was left to care for his mother and her large family of children. It is no light load for one just coming out of boyhood and just beginning to be a man, to have laid upon him the earning of enough money to buy food for a mother and at least six younger brothers and sisters; and this was the load which the young Jesus took up. But although Joseph who had been a father to him was gone, Jesus knew that his heavenly Father was still with him, and he could call upon him for help in every need.
Jesus worked hard all the long days, but when the Sabbath day came, which among the Jews was Sat.u.r.day, his shop was shut up and he sat on the floor of the village church, listening to the reading of the Old Testament and joining in the songs of praise. He took his turn as the reader at the desk, and as he read the lesson in Isaiah or Micah or Hosea, he saw meanings in the verses that others could not see, for in the long hours of the workshop he was thinking and praying and listening to the voice of G.o.d.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Tools of an oriental carpenter. 1, 3, 4. Drills. 2.
Chisel. 5. Handle of a drill. 6. Nut held in the hand while the drill revolves. 7. Saw. 8. Punch. 9. Horn of oil. 10. Mallet. 11. Bag for nails. 11. Basket to hold tools.]
While Jesus was living this quiet life in the home and the shop some changes were going on in the land. The ruler in Galilee was Herod Antipas, the son of that wicked Herod who killed all the babies in Bethlehem; and he was very little better than his father. In Judea, the part of the land around Jerusalem, Archelaus, another son of Herod, ruled so badly that all the people sent to the Emperor Tiberius at Rome asking to have him taken away. The Jews hoped that they might then have rulers of their own people; but the Emperor sent them a Roman governor, whom they did not like but dared not make angry. In many places through the land, especially in Galilee, where Jesus was living, some of the people refused to pay their taxes to the Roman empire, and began fighting against the rulers. They could not battle with the Roman armies, and hid in the woods and caves and mountains, but came out in bands and robbed the people on the roads. All through the land, north and south, were fear and trouble. The people were not contented with their rulers, and all hoped that the time was near when the Kingdom of G.o.d would come and their Roman officers and tax-gatherers would be driven away. They looked for a kingdom like the one over which David reigned a thousand years before, a kingdom with armies and victories over its enemies and a palace for the king.
But they did not know that in that little one-room house on the hillside of Nazareth, the King was waiting for his call to go forth and bring in the true Kingdom of G.o.d.
The Voice by the River
CHAPTER 14
WHILE JESUS was still living in Nazareth and working in his carpenter shop, suddenly the news went through all the land that a strange man was preaching in the desert country of Judea, not far from Jerusalem; and that all the people were going out of the cities and villages to hear him.
This man was John, the son of the old priest Zacharias and his wife Elizabeth. You remember that an angel came to Zacharias while he was standing by the altar in the Temple, and told him that he should have a son, and that his name should be John. John had now grown up and was a young man about thirty years old. He had lived out in the desert places away from the cities and their crowds, so that he could be alone and think and pray and listen to the voice of G.o.d. And G.o.d had spoken to him in the desert and he had told him to preach to the people and tell them how to get ready for the Kingdom of G.o.d, which was soon to come.
[Ill.u.s.tration: John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness]
John was preaching beside the river Jordan, at the foot of the mountains; and from the cities and villages everywhere the people went to listen to his words. John did not look like the men of his time. He had never cut his hair, and it hung upon his shoulders in a long black ma.s.s. His black beard, too, was very long, for it had never been trimmed. His clothing was a skin torn from a beast or a mantle woven from the rough, s.h.a.ggy hair of the camel, fastened by a leather belt around the waist. He had lived out of doors in the sun and the winds and the rain, so that his face and arms and legs and his bare feet were all brown and hard. He ate for his food the locusts which he could pick up in the fields and the woods and the honey to be found in the hollow trees. When the people looked at him, they thought of the great prophet Elijah, who many hundred years before had gone up to heaven in a chariot of fire near that very place where John was preaching, and they said wonderingly to each other:
"This must be Elijah, the fiery prophet, who has come back to earth."
A prophet among the Israelites was a man who brought to the people the word which G.o.d had given him to speak. The books of the Old Testament, which all the people knew almost by heart, told of many prophets, such as Moses, who brought water for his people by striking the rock; Samuel, whose prayers saved the people from their enemies; Nathan, who spoke bold words to David the king; and Elisha, who had made the bitter waters of a spring sweet, had cured the leper Naaman and wrought many wonderful works. Of all the prophets, they thought Elijah the greatest, and they remembered that in the last book of the Old Testament, the book of the prophet Malachi, it was written:
"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great day of the Lord shall come."
And when the people looked at this strange man who was preaching by the river, they thought that the day of the Lord was surely coming, and that here was the prophet Elijah as had been promised.
John said to the people, in his preaching, that the Kingdom of G.o.d was near at hand and that every man must be ready for it. To make themselves ready, they were to confess their sins, to stop doing wrong and to begin to do right. As a sign of their willingness to cease from evil and to serve the Lord, they were baptized by John in the river Jordan. John said to them:
"I baptize you with water, but there is one among you, of your own people, one whom you do not know, who is greater than I, so much above me that I am not worthy to stoop down and tie his shoestrings. He will come soon; and when he comes, he will not baptize with water as I do. He will baptize you with fire and with the Spirit of G.o.d."
[Ill.u.s.tration: The river Jordan]
He spoke further about this Greater One who was coming so soon, and said:
"He shall deal with the people as the farmer deals with his grain on the threshing floor. He will sweep the floor most carefully; the wheat he will put in his barn and the chaff he will burn up with a fire that cannot be put out."
The people came to John and said to him:
"What shall we do to make ready for the coming of this Great King?"
John answered them:
"Let everyone do what he can to help those who are in need. If any of you have two coats, give one of them to some poor man that has no garments; and those of you who have wheat and barley, give to those who are hungry something to eat."
Some of the men who gathered the taxes from the people for the Roman rulers came to John and said:
"What would you have us do to make ready for the coming of the King?
Shall we tell the people that they are to pay no more taxes?"
"No," answered John. "Let the people pay their taxes as before; but see that you do not make them pay more than is right, and do not rob them."
For many of these tax-collectors (who were called publicans) took from the people more than they had a right to take, and used the people"s money for themselves. They made themselves rich by robbing the people.
Everywhere the people hated these tax-collectors, and called them "sinners."
The soldiers and policemen came to John and said, "And what shall we do?"
John said to them: