A Child's Life Of Christ. Stretton Hesba

" Who art thou? What sayest thou of thyself?" The crowd was listening, and Jesus, standing amongst them, was also listening for his reply. " I am a voice," he said, " the voice spoken of by Isaiah the prophet, crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the ways of the Lord." The priests were disappointed with this answer, and asked, " Why baptizest thou then? " They had not given him authority to appear as a prophet, yet here he was drawing great multitudes about him, and publicly reproving the most religious sect of the nation, calling them a generation of vipers, and bidding them bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. From that time they began to throw discredit upon the preaching of John the Baptist, and spoke despitefully against him, saying, " He hath a devil." Nothing is easier than to fling a bad name at those who are not of our own way of thinking.

      Two days after this, John the Baptist pointed out Jesus to two of his disciples as the Messiah whose coming he had foretold. These two, Andrew and a young man named John, immediately followed Jesus, and being invited by him to the place where he was staying, they remained the rest of the day with him; probably took their first meal with him, their hearts burning within them as he opened the Scriptures to their understanding. The next morning Andrew met with his brother Simon, and said, " We have found the Messiah," and brought him to Jesus. The day following, Jesus was about to start home again to Galilee, and seeing Philip, who already knew him, he said to him, " Follow me! " Simon and Andrew, who were Philip's townsmen, were at that time with Jesus; Philip was ready to obey, but he first found Nathanael, and said to him, " Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph, is he of whom Moses and the prophets did write! " " Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? " cried Nathanael, doubtingly; but he went to Jesus and was so satisfied by the few words he spoke to him, that he exclaimed, " Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel! "

      With these five followers Jesus turned his steps homewards, after an absence of nearly two months. All of them lived in Galilee; and Simon Peter and Andrew, who had a house in Capernaum, at the head of the lake of Galilee, appear to have turned off and left the little company at the point where their nearest way home crossed the route taken by the others. Jesus went on with the other three: Philip, whom he had distinctly called to follow him Nathanael, whose home in Cana of Galilee lay directly north of Nazareth; and John, who was hardly more than a youth, and as yet free from the ties and duties of manhood. A pleasant march must that have been along the valleys lying south of Mount Tabor, with the spring sun shining overhead, and all the green sward bedecked with flowers, and the birds singing in the cool, fragrant air of morning and evening.

      But they did not find Mary at Nazareth. She was gone with the cousins of Jesus to a marriage at Cana in Galilee, the town of Nathanael, where he had a home, to which he gladly urged his new-found rabbi to go. He could not have foreseen this pleasure; but now, as they went on northward to Cana, the Messiah was his guest, and, with Philip and John, was to enter into his house. But no sooner was it known that they were come into the village than Jesus was called with his friends, one of whom was an old neighbor of the bridegroom, to join the marriage feast.

      There was very much that Mary longed to hear from her son after this long absence; but the circumstances could not have been favorable for it. In his beloved face, worn and pale with his forty days of temptation and fasting in the wilderness, her eyes saw a change which told plainly that his new life had begun in suffering. He looked as if he had passed through a trial which set him apart. Perhaps he found time to tell her of his hunger in the desert, and the temptation which came to him to use his miraculous powers in order to turn stones into bread for himself. It seems that, in some way or other, she knew that, like Elijah and Elisha, the great prophets of olden times, he could and would work miracles as a sign to the people that he came from God; and she felt all a mother's eagerness that he should at once manifest his glory.

      So when there was no more wine she turned to him, hoping for some open proof to the friends about her that he possessed this wonder-working power. Besides, she had been accustomed to turn to him in every trouble, in any trifling, household difficulty; casting all her cares upon him, because she knew he cared for her. So she said to him quietly, yet significantly, " They have no wine." Some of Elisha's miracles had been even more homely; he had made the poisoned pottage fit for food, and had fed a company of people with but a scanty supply of barley-cakes. Why should not Jesus gladden the feast and save his friends from shame, by making the wine last out to the end?

      A few days before our Lord had been in the desert, amid the wild beasts, with the devil tempting him. Now he, who was to be in all things one with us, was sitting at a marriage feast among his friends; his mother and kinsfolk there, with his new followers; every face about him glad and happy. It was not the first marriage he had been at, for his sisters, no doubt, were married, and living at Nazareth; and he knew what the mortification would be if the social mirth came too suddenly to an end. He cared for these little pleasures and little innocent enjoyments, and would not have them spoiled. The miracle he refused to work to satisfy his own severe hunger he wrought for the innocent pleasure of the friends who were rejoicing around him. There were six water-pots of stone standing by for the use of the guests in washing their hands before sitting down to the table, and he bade the servants first to fill them up again with water to the brim, and then to draw out, and bear to the ruler of the feast. Upon tasting it he cried out to the bridegroom, " Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; but thou hast kept the good wine until now."

      So Christ changes water into wine, tears into gladness, the waves and floods of sorrow into a crystal sea, whereon the harpers stand, having the harps of God. But he can work this miracle only for his friends; none but those who loved him drank of that wine. It was no grand miracle of giving sight to eyes born blind, or raising to life a widow's son. Yet there is a special fitness in it. He had long known what poverty, and straitness, and household cares were, and he must show that these common troubles were not beneath his notice; no, nor the little secret pangs of anxiety and disappointment which we so often hide from those about us. We are not all called to bear extraordinary sorrows, but most of us know what trifling cares are; and it was one of these small household difficulties the Son of man met by his first miracle.

      After this, Jesus, with his mother, and brethren, and disciples, went down to Capernaum for a few days, until it was time to go on their yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to the feast of the Passover, which was near at hand. Peter and Andrew were living there, and might join them in their journey to Judaea; though they do not seem to have stayed with our Lord, but probably returned after the Passover to their own home until he considered it a fit time to call them to leave all and follow him.

      CHAPTER III. The First Summer.

      FOR the first time Jesus went up to Jerusalem with his little band of followers, who knew him to be the Messiah; and his cousins, who did not yet believe in him, but were apparently willing to do so if he would act as they expected the Messiah to act. If he would repeat his miracle on a large scale, and so convince the mass of the people, they were ready enough to proclaim him as the Messiah.

      Would not John the Baptist be there too? He as a priest, and as a prophet, would no doubt be looked for, as Jesus afterwards was, at the feast of the Passover. He must have had a strong impetuous yearning to see him who had been pointed out to him as the Lamb of God that should take away the sin of the world. Maybe he ate the paschal supper with Jesus and his disciples. We fancy we see him, the well-known hermit-prophet from the wilderness, in his robe of camel's hair, with its leathern girdle, and his long, shaggy hair, and weather-beaten face, following closely the steps of Jesus, through the streets, and about the courts of the temple, listening to his words with thirsty ears, and calling himself " the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoicing greatly because of the bridegroom's voice." It was the last Passover John the Baptist would ever celebrate; though that he could not know.

      Upon going up into the temple, Jesus found the court of the Gentiles thronged with sheep, and oxen, and doves, animals needed for the sacrifices, but disturbing the congregation, which assembled in the court of the women, by their incessant lowing and cooing. Money-changers were sitting there also; for Roman coins were now in common use instead of the Jewish money, which alone was lawful for payment in the temple. No doubt there was a good deal of loud and angry debate