Transcriber's note:
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed.

The King nobody wanted

By NORMAN F. LANGFORD

Illustrated by John Lear

THE WESTMINSTER PRESS

PHILADELPHIA

COPYRIGHT, MCMXLVIII, BY W. L. JENKINS

CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

In a very real and interesting way, The King Nobody Wanted tells the story of Jesus. Where the actual words of the Bible are used, they are from the King James Version. But the greater part of the story is told in the words of every day.

Since you will certainly want to look up these stories in your own Bible, the references are given on pages 191 and 192. You will discover that often more than one Gospel tells the same story about Jesus, but in a slightly different way. In The King Nobody Wanted, the stories from the Gospels have been put together so that there is just one story for you to read and understand and enjoy.

1. Waiting

Two thousand years ago, in the land of Palestine, the Jewish people were waiting for something to happen—or, really, were waiting for someone to come.

"When will he come?" was the question they were always asking one another. "Will he come in five years? next year? Or is he already on his way?"

They were waiting for someone, and when he came they would call him "the Messiah." If they spoke the Greek language, they would call him "Christ." The people thought he would be a great king.

They had one king already. His name was Herod the Great. But Herod was not the kind of king they wanted. Herod was hard and cruel. He poisoned and beheaded those who made him angry. He was not a Jew by birth. The Messiah, when he came, would be a good king. He would be a Jew himself, and a friend to all the Jewish people. One of the prophets said he would be like the shepherds of Palestine, who watched their sheep night and day, and carried the small lambs in their arms.

But the most important thing about the Messiah was that he would drive Caesar and his armies out of the country. Caesar! How they hated his very name! For Caesar was the emperor of the Romans. Some years before, the Romans had occupied the country and begun to rule it. Herod was still king of the Jews, but now he took his orders from Caesar. Everybody had to take orders from Caesar. The Jews were not a free people any more.

"It used to be so different," the older people sighed, "before the Romans came."

Everywhere in Palestine Roman armies went marching. Their shields flashed in the sunlight, and when they were on the march they carried golden eagles which stood for Caesar's power.

The Romans tried to rule the country well. They said that everybody would get justice and fair play. But the Jews could not see the fairness in having to pay taxes to a foreign king who did not even worship God. They did not like to see Roman soldiers whipping people with long leather whips called scourges, into which bits of glass and lead and iron were fastened to make them bite more deeply into some poor Jew's back. They were sick at heart when the Romans began to punish criminals by nailing them up by their hands and feet to big wooden crosses, and leaving them to hang there until they died.

Well, the Messiah would take care of the Romans. He would gather an army from east and west and north and south. Then there would be a great day for the Jewish people, a great day for the nation that was called by the glorious name of Israel! From all over the country the men of Israel would rise up. They would come when their king called them, and he would lead them to victory against Caesar. The Romans would go back where they came from, and Israel would be free and peaceful and rich and happy again.

The Messiah would make Israel into a great kingdom, bigger and more powerful than the Roman Empire ever was. The Jews would rule the world. Everyone, everywhere, would worship the God of Israel, and the Messiah would be King of all the nations of the earth. If only he would come!

It was hard to wait so long. They had waited for him a long time, and their fathers and grandfathers had waited for him too. Sometimes word would go around that he had finally arrived, and in great excitement some of the Jews would get ready to drive the Romans out of Palestine. But always it turned out to be a mistake, and the Jews would be disappointed, and shake their heads, and say, "Will he ever come?"

But when they grew discouraged, they would remember what was written in their Holy Scriptures. For it was surely written there that the Messiah would come someday. There could be no mistake about it. Someday he would come!

And so it went on, month after month, year after year. The people worked, and dreamed, and hoped, and prayed. The rains would fall in October and soften the hard, dry ground after the heat of summer, so that the farmer could do his plowing. And as he plowed the land, the farmer thought about the Messiah, and wondered if he would come before the harvest in the spring. Then spring would come, and the wheat and barley would be growing up in the smiling fields, and all down the hillside the grapevines and the olive trees would be full of fruit. The Romans were still marching through the country, and still there was no Messiah. But the farmer thought that maybe he would come before the next fall rains.

The fisherman would go sailing across the deep-blue Sea of Galilee, and while he waited for the fish to come into his net, he thought of how long Israel had waited for the Messiah to come. The beggars in the city streets, who were deaf, or blind, or crippled, would sit at the corners and ask for money to buy food. They were wondering too if the Messiah would ever come and help the poor folk of Israel.

The shepherds, out on the rocky hills where nothing would grow but grass for sheep and goats and cattle, were also thinking of the Messiah. In good weather and bad they were there, keeping an eye on their sheep, and they had plenty of time to think. When the rain and the snow were in their faces, the shepherds were thinking, When will he come? And when the hot sun climbed overhead, and the heat was like a furnace, or when the east wind came and blew dust in their faces, then too the shepherds thought, When will he come and save us?

Farmers, fishermen, shepherds—these were not the only people who were thinking of the Messiah. Sometimes along the hot, lonely roads of Palestine, where robbers and wild animals were hiding, a traveler would have dreams. Or the dream might come to someone in sunny Galilee, where camel caravans crossed with their loads of spices and jewels and precious things from Far Eastern lands. But it was most likely to come to a man when he was standing in the great, white, gleaming Temple at Jerusalem, where all good Jews went to worship God.

And the dream would be that the sky opened, and a great light blazed down from heaven. An army came marching down out of the sky, led by a shining warrior whose face was bright as lightning. From his eyes shot flames of fire. His arms and feet shone like polished brass or gold, and when he spoke his voice was like the shouting of ten thousand men. It was King Messiah! "Destroy the Romans!" he would cry. "Burn up their armies! Let not a single one escape!" Fire would pour down from the skies when he gave the order, and the Romans would melt away to nothing, as though they had never been.

Then the dream would fade away. The dreamer would just be trudging along the dusty road, or watching the camel caravans go by, or standing in the Temple with the crowds of unhappy people pushing all around him.

It was just a dream. The Romans were still there. There was no Messiah anywhere to be seen.

If only the King would come!

2. A King Is Born

Nobody saw the lions in the daytime, for they were sleeping in their caves. But at night they might come out to prowl around the rocky hills, looking for a fat sheep to eat. After dark the hyenas and jackals began to howl. Robbers might be somewhere in the darkness too. In the night, when other folk were fast asleep, a good shepherd needed to be awake and on the watch, to see that no harm came to his sheep and lambs.

One night when winter was in the air, some shepherds were huddled together on a stony field not far from the town of Bethlehem. Not many miles to the north lay Jerusalem, the capital city of Palestine. But here in the fields it was quiet, and lonely, and cold.

The shepherds sat upon the rocks, or stood leaning upon their staves. Now and again one of them would see something move, or hear a little rustling sound. He would raise his eyes and peer out anxiously into the darkness to make sure that all was well.

Suddenly, without any warning, the sky was flooded with light from beyond the clouds. Everything had been dark a minute before, but now every stone and tree and hillock in the field showed up bright as day.

The shepherds jumped to their feet. Some were too frightened to speak, and others cried out in terror.

"What is it?"

"What can it be?"

"It's the glory of the Lord," one called out. "Lord, have mercy upon us!"

Suddenly they heard a loud, clear voice.

"Shepherds!"

Silence fell upon the group.

"Shepherds, do not be afraid. I bring you the good news which all the Jews have waited so long to hear. This very day, Christ your Saviour has been born in the city of David. And this is how you will know him: you will find him as a baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger."

The voice broke off, and a great chorus began to sing. The sky rang with the music, and these were the words of the song:

"Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, good will toward men."

As quickly as they had come, the light and the singing were gone. There was just the darkness again, and the far-off howling of wild beasts. Everything was the same as before, except that the shepherds' eyes were still blinded by the light, and their ears were full of the music.

Their excited voices broke the spell as they all talked at once.

"He's come at last—the Messiah's come!"

"Where did the angel say?"

"The city of David—that means Bethlehem."

"Why are we waiting here? Let's go to Bethlehem."

"Yes, let's go to Bethlehem at once, and find out what has happened there."

For the first time in their lives, the shepherds left their sheep to look after themselves. Across the hills and the stone fences and the rocky fields the shepherds scrambled, and hardly stopped for breath till they reached the edge of the town. Everything in Bethlehem was dark as night can be. But no—not everything. One tiny speck of light was flickering in the blackness.

"He must be where the light is," said one of the shepherds.

Down the street they ran, and in through a door.

They were standing in a stable. There were no angels there. Instead of that, the shepherds saw cows and donkeys eating hay. A cold draft of air was blowing in around the cracks of the door and over the dirt floor. Beside one of the mangers they saw a man standing. A young woman was resting close by. She was watching a baby who lay in the straw.

"We came to see the Messiah," one of the shepherds stammered.

The baby cried. The animals munched their food.

There was some explaining to do. The shepherds told the story of what had happened in the field.

The young man beside the manger did not have anything very exciting to tell the shepherds.

"My name," he said, "is Joseph. This is my wife Mary. We used to live here in Bethlehem, but no one remembers us now. I've been working in Galilee for years. I have a carpenter shop there. The only reason we came back to Bethlehem was to have our names entered in the government records.

"We got here only yesterday. We tried to get a room in the inn, but there wasn't any room for us with all the important people here. They said we could sleep in the stable. The baby came tonight. Here he is, if you would like to see him."

The shepherds looked at the baby. They hoped that they would see something unusual about him, but he looked just like any other baby.

Then they remembered the angels' song.

Outside again, the shepherds looked up and saw a faint gray light streaking the blackness in the east. Morning was coming. Soon the people of the countryside would be getting up.

What a story the shepherds were going to tell them! Who would have thought of looking for the Messiah in a manger! The shepherds were the first to learn the secret. As they walked back to their flocks they prayed and gave thanks to God.

Meanwhile, the little family in the stable were gathered in silence around the manger. Mary, the mother, said never a word, but her thoughts were busy with the tale the shepherds had told about her little child.

The shepherds were not the only people to see strange lights in the sky. Many miles away, three men saw a new star. They were Wise Men, and they knew all the stars, but this one they had never seen before.

It was not only a new star, but a moving star. Like a bright fingertip in the heavens, it seemed to beckon them on. The Wise Men were rich and important, and thought nothing of a journey. At once they made ready and set out to see where the star would lead them. For many days they traveled across the desert, and at last they came to Jerusalem.

Although they were not Jews, they had heard that a Messiah was expected someday in Palestine. When they saw that the star had brought them to Jerusalem, they decided that the Messiah must have come.

"We are strangers here," they said to each other. "We had better ask our way."

King Herod was in Jerusalem just then, and the Wise Men went to his palace. Since they were rich and famous, they had no trouble getting in to see the king.

They bowed down respectfully before the king, and Herod received them with courtesy. Then the Wise Men asked:

"Where is the newborn King of the Jews? We have seen his star in the east. We have come to worship him, but we do not know where he is."

Herod was surprised, and then he was angry. A new king of the Jews? Why, Herod himself was the king of the Jews! However, he hid his feelings, and answered,

"I will find out what you want to know."

He left the Wise Men, and hurried off to consult with his advisers.

"The Messiah!" he shouted. "Where do they say the Messiah will be born?"

Solemnly he was told:

"In Bethlehem. An ancient book of the Holy Scriptures tells us that out of Bethlehem shall come a governor to rule the people of Israel."

Fear and jealousy boiled up in Herod. But a king must control his feelings, and Herod was old and wise. When he had called his three visitors to him, he was as smooth and polite as ever. He told them that they would find the child in Bethlehem.

"Go there," Herod said, "and look for him carefully. And when you have found him come and tell me, for I too want to go and worship him."

The Wise Men thanked the king, and set out for Bethlehem. Soon they arrived at the place where Joseph and Mary were staying with the baby. It was very different from Herod's palace.

There the three Wise Men fell down on their knees as they would before a king. They opened their treasures and put their gifts in front of the baby. One brought gold. The others brought sweet-smelling ointments, frankincense and myrrh.

"Hail, Messiah!" they murmured in adoration. "Hail, Christ! Hail, King of the Jews!"

When they were once more outside on the road, one of them spoke:

"I think," he said, "that it would be well for us not to see anything of Herod again. I had a dream...."

The others agreed with him quickly. They had had a dream too.

"God sent that dream to warn us that Herod is dangerous," they said. "Herod means to harm the child. Let us find some other road back home."

The days went by, and soon the baby was given his name. He was to be called Jesus.

One day, when Jesus was about six weeks old, Joseph said to Mary:

"Now that we have a child, we must go up to the Temple in Jerusalem and give an offering to the Lord. We cannot afford a lamb. But we can at least take pigeons or a pair of turtledoves."

So Joseph and Mary left Bethlehem, and carried Jesus with them to Jerusalem, five miles away.

An old man came up to them in the Temple.

"My name is Simeon," he said. "I have been waiting for you a long time. All my life I have been waiting to see the Messiah. And now the day has come."

He took Jesus from his mother's arms, and as he held the baby he began to pray.

"Lord, let me now die in peace," he prayed. "For I have seen the Messiah, the Saviour of all nations and the glory of the Jewish people."

Simeon turned back to Joseph and Mary, who were looking at him in wonder.

"Mary," he said, "this child of yours is going to break your heart. He will make enemies, and cause great trouble in this country. He will suffer, and others will suffer too, because of him. But also he will give joy, and bring many people to God. God bless you now."

With these words the old man handed the baby back to Mary, and turned away. Joseph and Mary never saw him again, but they remembered his words forever after.

They took Jesus, and started on their walk back to Bethlehem. There was so much for them to think about.

First there was the story of the shepherds. Then the Wise Men had come with their wonderful gifts. And now there was this old man with his strange words of blessing and warning.

Everything seemed to tell them that Jesus was the Messiah. They should be happier than anyone in the world. And yet they were not happy. There was trouble in the air. Their baby was going to be King of the Jews. Why should there be any trouble about it? They could not understand.

Trouble was not long in coming. One night Joseph had a dream. When he awoke he called to his wife, and told her that they must leave Bethlehem at once. God had sent the dream as a warning for them to get out of the country. They did not dare to stay there any longer. So Joseph and Mary packed up their belongings, and set out for the far country of Egypt where they would be safe.

They left Bethlehem none too soon. For Herod was exceedingly angry when the Wise Men did not come back. Now he was sure that the Messiah really had been born! He was afraid that soon there would be a new king in Palestine to take his throne away from him.

When Herod was afraid, he never wasted any time. Somewhere in Bethlehem was a child whom he feared, and somehow that child must be killed. But he did not know which child it was. How could he be sure to find the right one? He thought of a simple plan.

He called his army officers together, and gave them their orders.

"Send your soldiers to Bethlehem," he told them, "and have them kill every boy in the place who is two years old or younger."

The officers sent their men to Bethlehem, and all the little boys they could find there were put to death. No matter who they were they had to die. It did not take the soldiers very long.

In a few hours they were back in Jerusalem. Herod breathed more easily.

That's a good thing, he thought. If every little boy in Bethlehem is dead, the Messiah must be dead along with the rest.

Herod did not know that the baby whom he feared was gone from Bethlehem before the soldiers got there. While the fathers and mothers of Bethlehem were crying because their little ones were dead, Joseph and Mary and Jesus were safely on their way to Egypt.

Herod did not live long enough to find out his mistake. After he died, the little family in Egypt learned that it was safe to go home again.

But this time they did not go back to Bethlehem. They went straight to the town of Nazareth in Galilee, where Joseph had worked before Jesus was born. There they settled down as though nothing unusual had happened.

In Galilee nobody knew that anything strange had happened at all. Nobody there had heard of the shepherds and the Wise Men, and nobody knew what Simeon had said in the Temple. Nobody knew why it was that so many babies in Bethlehem had been murdered. Nobody in Nazareth thought that the Messiah had come.

In Nazareth people only said, "I hear the carpenter has a son." When Jesus began to walk perhaps they said, "Joseph's son is strong for his age." And later they said, "The carpenter's lad is doing well at school."

But there were more interesting things to talk about in Nazareth than the carpenter's family. There was the Messiah to talk about. "When will he come?" the people asked each other.

Nobody in Nazareth had heard the angels sing.

3. Growing

When boys in Nazareth were about six years old, it was time for them to go to school. No girls were there, for the girls stayed home with their mothers. But every day except the Sabbath, the boys went to the school and sat on the floor with their legs crossed, and there the teacher taught them many things that every Jewish boy would need to know.

He taught them their A B C's in the Hebrew language. Instead of A, he showed them how to make a mark like this: א. Instead of B, they learned to make this letter: ב; and so on, through all the alphabet. Then when they knew their letters, they could learn to read. And every Jewish boy had first of all to read the Scriptures.

The teacher taught them what was in the Scriptures. Over and over they said their lessons aloud, talking all at once, until they knew everything they were supposed to know by heart.

The teacher taught them psalms which had been sung for many years in the Temple of Jerusalem.

He taught them also about the prophets. The prophets were preachers whose words had long ago been written down in the sacred Scriptures. These books were long pieces of skin, which were kept rolled up when no one was reading them. There were many prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Malachi, and many others. Little by little the boys began to discover what these preachers had said.

The teacher also made sure that they knew about that part of the Scriptures called the Law. The Ten Commandments were in the Law, and many other sayings which told people what they must do and what they must not do in order to please God. The boys learned how God gave the Commandments to Moses, while lightning flashed and thunder crashed, at the far-off mountain of Sinai.

The teacher told them stories of all that had happened to the Jewish people in the years gone by. But the most important was the story of the Passover. This story explained why their parents went to Jerusalem each spring.

Now this was what every Jewish boy had to learn about the Passover, and remember always:

Once there was a time, hundreds of years before, when the Jews did not live in Palestine. They lived in Egypt, where they were slaves. They wanted to escape, so that they might have a country of their own where they could be free.

One spring night God sent a disease into Egypt, and thousands died of it. There was not an Egyptian home where the oldest child in the family did not die. But none of the Jews died. Therefore, they said that God passed over their doors that night.

Then there was a great uproar and clamor in Egypt, with the Egyptians weeping, and nursing their sick, and burying their dead. The time had come for the Jews to get away. Under their leader, Moses, they began their long journey toward Palestine.

The Jewish people never forgot what God did for them in Egypt. So in the spring of each year was held the Feast of the Passover, to give thanks to God for the help he had given them long ago. They gathered together and sang:

"O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: For his mercy endureth for ever."

To the Passover feast every family brought a lamb to be killed as a sacrifice to God. Only the best could be given to God. They chose a lamb that was white, and pure, and fine, and precious. Then they roasted the lamb, and ate it. What a feast they had, so solemn and so joyful, as they remembered all that God had done!

Everyone knew the best place to hold the Passover feast was at Jerusalem. Therefore, every year, when spring came round, the people said to one another, "It is Passover time," and as many as could leave their homes went up to the great city.

When the boys heard the story, they understood why their parents went there in the spring.

When Jewish boys were twelve years old, and could read the Hebrew language, and knew the psalms, and understood the prophets, and were learning to obey the Law—then they were practically grown up. At this age a boy could be called "a son of the Law." He could go along with his parents to Jerusalem when it was Passover time.

Each year Joseph and Mary liked to be in Jerusalem for the Passover. When Jesus was twelve years old, he was "a son of the Law," like other boys his age, and for the first time he went with them. Many friends and relatives kept them company as they started on the road.

Now from Nazareth it was more than eighty miles to Jerusalem, and eighty miles is a long way to walk.

It would have been easier to ride in a cart; but nobody traveled that way in Palestine. The roads were too rough and narrow for anything but walking. Donkeys and horses might carry the heavy luggage, but the people went on foot. There were no bridges, and so the only way to get from one side of a river to the other was to find a shallow place and wade across.

It would take two or three days to go from Nazareth to Jerusalem. When the travelers were tired at night, there was not likely to be any place to sleep along the road, except under the open sky and the stars.

There were three stages to their journey. The first was the pleasant part, through Galilee. When the travelers left Nazareth that day, the sky was clear and the air was fresh. The fields lay lovely in the sunlight. The roads were full of people from many countries. There were always merchants on the road traveling from the East to Greece and Egypt, and back to the East again. Galilee was beautiful, and Galilee was busy.

Sooner or later the time must come to leave pleasant Galilee behind. But which way would they go from there? Should they go straight south through Samaria? That would have been the shortest and the easiest way. The only thing against it was that the people of Samaria were not friendly to Jews. Long years before, Samaria had been the home of many of the Jewish people. But foreigners came and settled among them. Then their ways became so different that the people of Jerusalem said they were not Jewish any more. They were bitter rivals of the Jews, and it was hardly safe to go among them.

So the travelers chose, for the second stage of their journey, the long road down the valley of the river Jordan. But they did not find this very pleasant, either. High above the river stood the banks, and it seemed as though the river itself were at the bottom of a great, deep ditch. And down there was the road they had to take. In some places they came to slime and mud, and dead trees and twisted roots. But sometimes there were farms and villages. It was hot at the north end of the Jordan, when first they came to it; and the farther south the travelers went, the hotter grew the weather.

Very hot, very tired, and very thirsty, they finally reached the last stretch of the journey—across country from the Jordan to Jerusalem. They were nearly there. But the last part of the trip was the hardest of all. Around them stretched a dreary desert. There were bleak hills, and ugly rocks, and hardly a drop of water anywhere to drink. No wonder nobody went to Jerusalem, except Jews and Roman soldiers! There were no gay caravans of Eastern merchants here. Galilee seemed very far away.

Up one side of a hill, and down another, and then another higher hill to climb! Up and up, over stones and bare earth and bushes and thorns, until they were high above the Jordan—that was the road to Jerusalem. Would they ever get there? What they would have given just to sit down and wash the sand off their hot, tired feet!

Then all at once they saw it. From the top of the hill they saw it, walls and roofs and towers gleaming in the morning sun. A shout of joy went up. Every man and woman and child joined in the shouting. Jerusalem, the city of David! King David built that city, a thousand years ago. The enemies of God had come and burned it to the ground, but the Jews built it up again. They were sure that it could never be destroyed. It would always be there, for ever and ever. Someday the Messiah would come, and all the peoples and nations of the world would come to see Jerusalem, as these poor folk from Galilee were doing now.

The travelers began to march again, but faster this time; forgotten were the weary miles behind. They marched, and as they marched they sang. They sang one of the psalms that the boys had learned at school. Everyone took up the song:

"'I was glad when they said unto me,
Let us go into the house of the Lord.
Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem....
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
They shall prosper that love thee.'"

There were so many visitors in Jerusalem that they could not all find a place to stay in the city. Some of them stayed in the villages near by, and others slept in tents out in the open air. At an ordinary time of the year, there would be only about thirty thousand people living in Jerusalem. But at the Passover there might be twice that, or even more.

Even the Roman governor was in Jerusalem at Passover time. He lived in another city, but he always came to Jerusalem for the great feast. It was not that he cared about the Passover. It was because he was afraid that with such great crowds in Jerusalem there might be trouble unless his Roman soldiers were on guard. It would be especially bad if anyone showed up claiming to be the Messiah. All the people might make him king, and rebel against Rome, and great numbers would be killed.

With such crowds in the city, it was hard for the people from Nazareth to get through the narrow streets. All along the streets they saw shops. Some of the shopkeepers were selling goods that had been brought down from Galilee—fish and oil and wine and fruit. Besides the merchants there were shoemakers, butchers, carpenters, tailors. On the side streets gold-smiths and jewelers were making things for the rich people. Here and there was a merchant selling fine silks which had been brought from the Far East. A man could buy almost anything he wanted in Jerusalem, provided that he had the money.

The travelers from Galilee pushed their way through the crowded streets, and on up to the Temple on the hill. Here was God's own house! How large it was! Herod the Great had built this Temple. Ten thousand men had worked many years to build it, and it was not quite finished yet. Eight gates led into the beautiful building with the white walls and the golden towers. Inside there was room for many thousands of people.

What a clatter and a clamor and a tumult there was! It seemed as though all the world were there. Doves and cattle, as well as lambs, were offered in the Temple as a sacrifice to God. You could hear the poor creatures calling out—the cows lowing, the lambs bleating, the doves singing their sweet, sad song. Money was clinking on the tables. Only one kind of coin could be used as an offering, and travelers had to exchange those they were carrying for Jewish money. The men who made the exchange often cheated the visitors.

The people from Galilee separated when they came to the Court of the Women. The women and girls could go no farther, but the men and boys went up some steps into the Court of Israel. There they watched the priests of the Temple taking the doves and lambs and cattle that the worshipers had brought, and offering them up as a sacrifice. The priests killed the animals, and let the blood drip on the altar where the sacrifices were given to God.

The Court of Israel was as far as anyone could go, unless he were a priest. There was another room called the Holy Place, which only priests could enter. To the people it was a place of great mystery. Then farther on was a still more mysterious room called the Holy of Holies. Even a priest did not dare to step inside that door. That was the secret place of God. Only the high priest, who was head of all the priests, could enter there. And he could go in only once a year.

The visitors from Nazareth saw a priest coming toward them. Anyone could tell from his clothes that he was wealthy. He came from one of the families that were known as the Sadducees. The Sadducees were the only people who were at all friendly with the Romans. The reason for this was that they were better off than most other people and well-satisfied with things as they were. They thought it wise to stay on good terms with Caesar. Nobody liked the Sadducees very well, but everyone had to admit that they were certainly very important. They sat in a high council and governed everything that went on around the Temple.

And here was a Pharisee, looking very well pleased with himself! Jesus had seen Pharisees before, around Nazareth, and they always seemed to have that look. The word "Pharisee" meant "someone who is different." What made the Pharisees different was that they were always talking about the Law, and claiming that they obeyed it better than anyone else. They were kindly folk, on the whole, and very well respected, but they did not have any official position, like the Sadducees. All they did was study the Law and tell other people about it. The Pharisee whom the visitors were watching began to pray so that everyone could see him. It seemed as if he were saying, "O Lord, I thank thee that I am better than these other people here!"

Most of the great throng crowding the Temple were not priests, or Sadducees, or Pharisees. They were plain people who had come to bring their sacrifices, or to talk about the Scriptures, or simply to be in the Temple because they loved God's house.

Nobody was paying much attention to Jesus. He was just a young boy, lost in the crowd.

The days went by, and the lambs were killed and eaten. The prayers were said and the hymns were sung. It was all over at last, and the time had come to go home.

Joseph and Mary did not see Jesus the morning they all were supposed to leave. They did not wait to find him, for the other travelers from Nazareth were anxious to get started on the long journey back to Galilee.

Joseph and Mary said to each other:

"Jesus is safe enough. There are so many of us from Nazareth that he can't get lost. No doubt he is somewhere in the party."

The Nazareth people said good-by to the Temple for another year, and started off for home. Out through the city gates they went, and back into the desert through which they had come. They walked a whole day, and still Joseph and Mary saw no sign of Jesus. This was beginning to seem strange. Surely they would see him somewhere!

At last it dawned upon them. He wasn't there at all!

They were frightened now. What could have happened to Jesus? What would become of him in Jerusalem? There was nothing to do but to leave the party, and turn back alone to the city. But Jerusalem was a big place, and they hardly knew where to hunt for Jesus. How would they ever find one boy among all those thousands of people?

They went to the Temple. But even if he were here, it would not be easy to find him quickly. Walking through one of the courts, they noticed a group of people gathered around a rabbi. There was nothing unusual about that. There were a great many teachers in the Temple, and a visitor often saw groups gathered around them to listen to their teaching.

But there was something different about this group. Most of the men in it were Pharisees who were themselves rabbis. And the strange thing was that they were not doing all the talking as they usually did. They were listening too. And they were not listening to a rabbi, but to the voice of a boy.

Joseph and Mary moved closer. There could be no mistake about it—it was Jesus who was talking! He was asking questions; he was answering questions. The long-bearded rabbis were standing there, their mouths open in astonishment. Jesus was not just a boy in the crowd any longer. Men old enough to be his grand-father were listening to what he had to say.

Mary's surprise turned to anger. She pushed her way through the crowd and took Jesus by the arm.

"Why did you do this?" she cried. "Your father and I have been looking for you everywhere."

Jesus stood just where he was. It was as though he belonged there. He said:

"Why did you come to look for me? Don't you know that I must be looking after my Father's business?"

Joseph and Mary stood there too, not knowing what to make of their boy or of what he said.

They waited to see what he would do.

And then, in a minute, Jesus turned and went with them. They did not have to ask him again. The three of them went home to Nazareth.

Jesus knew that someday he would go back to the Temple. But he was not ready for that yet. He must do his duty to his parents. He must obey God at home. Then he would always know how to obey God in the wide world beyond Nazareth.

The lambs went quietly to the Temple when they were taken there to be offered to the God of Israel. Jesus must be obedient like a Lamb of God.

4. Jesus Goes to Work

When Jesus was thirty years old, people began to talk about the great man who had come to Palestine.

"This man is so great," they said, "that he may be the Messiah."

But it was not Jesus they were talking about. It was his cousin, John.

John was a preacher. He was afraid of no one, and as a result everyone was a bit afraid of him. John was a rough, strong man. Next to his skin he wore leather, and over that he wore a cloak of camel's hair. Honey and locusts were his food.

Every day John preached down by the river Jordan. The people flocked out from Jerusalem and from all the countryside round about to hear him preach. It was a wild and dreary place to come to, but when John preached everybody wanted to be there.

This was how he preached:

"Give up your sins, and begin a new life at once, for God is coming to rule over men! I am a voice crying in the wilderness. I tell you—prepare for the Lord!"

And when the people heard him, they were afraid. Many of them cried out, "We have sinned!" and came forward out of the crowd. John led them down the bank into the river and baptized them as a sign that they wanted to be cleansed of their sins and begin a new life. Thus John came to be known as "John the Baptist."

But when John thought that a man was not in earnest, then he refused to baptize him. Some of the Pharisees and the Sadducees came to be baptized, and John would have nothing to do with them. They might be great men in Jerusalem, but John called them "snakes in the grass." He told them:

"I've seen the snakes out here in the wilderness, wriggling for dear life to get out of the way when the grass catches fire. That's what you remind me of. You're scared. You think that something terrible is going to happen, and so you're pretending to be good people so that it won't go so hard with you. You will have to show me that you want to be something different from what you are! And don't think that you amount to anything just because you are Jews. God could make as good Jews as you are out of these stones."

That is how John the Baptist talked to some of the great men of Jerusalem. It made people think more than ever that he might be the Messiah. Who except the Messiah would dare to talk that way to Pharisees and Sadducees?

But others shook their heads and said, "No—this couldn't be the Messiah!" For they thought that when the Messiah came he would drive the Romans out of the country; and many people said that the only way to do that would be to get an army together. Some men were meantime killing all the Romans they could. They were called "Zealots," because they were so much filled with zeal about killing off the Romans. A few even carried daggers with them, and stuck the daggers into Romans whenever they got a chance.

"The Romans will not be overthrown," they said, "just by preaching. You will have to get out and kill the Romans."

John himself said that he was not the Messiah.

"There is someone coming who is greater than I," he told the people. "Someone is coming whose shoe-laces I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. Compared to him, I am nobody. I am just preparing the way for the Messiah."

One day there was a great crowd, as usual, down by the Jordan, and John was busy baptizing the people as fast as they came to the water. One after another they came. It went on for hours.

John had just baptized one man and helped him to the bank. The next one was coming forward. John looked up to see who it was. He was looking into the face of Jesus of Nazareth.

"You! Not you!" John spoke in a hoarse whisper. "No! I can't baptize you. You must baptize me instead!"

Before anyone could notice that anything was wrong, Jesus stepped to the water's edge.

"Don't say anything about it, John," he said softly. "Treat me just like the rest of them. We shall all be baptized together into a new life."

Jesus went forward into the river and John baptized him. In a moment Jesus was up the bank and lost in the crowd. The next man was coming forward.

John stared after the vanishing figure of Jesus. The crowd made way for Jesus, thinking, There goes another man who came to be cleansed of his sins.

But John said: "When I baptized him, I saw the Spirit of God come down out of heaven like a dove, and light upon him. Jesus is the Son of God. I am nothing. He is everything. He is the Messiah. He is the Lamb of God!"

The next man was coming down the bank toward John. John stood peering into the crowd. Jesus was nowhere to be seen.

Jesus had gone away to be alone, as God wanted him to do. He went into the loneliest part of the desert, where there were only the wild animals to keep him company.

I am the Messiah, he thought. There is no doubt that I am the Messiah. I must save my people. How should I begin?

There was nothing to eat in the wilderness, and Jesus grew hungry. He looked around him, and saw that the stones were shaped like loaves of bread.

There seemed to be a voice inside him which was not his own. The voice said:

"If you really are the Messiah, you oughtn't to be hungry. If you really are the Messiah, you would just have to say the word and these stones would be turned into bread. Then you would have plenty to eat for yourself, and, besides, you could go and give bread to all the hungry folk out there who are waiting for you to help them."

It was very quiet in the wilderness. The voice spoke up again.

"But maybe you are afraid to try. Suppose you said to the stones, 'Stones, become bread!' and then nothing happened! That would prove that you weren't the Messiah, wouldn't it?"

Jesus shook his head, to get rid of the thought. Some words from the Scriptures came into his mind. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." No, it would not do to try playing tricks with stones. It would not matter if he did turn them into bread. Bread was not the most important thing in the world. People might think that there was nothing so important as eating, but there were bigger things in life than that. People might think that what the Messiah ought to do was to make the country prosperous, but that would not help them so much as they thought. That was not the kind of Messiah he was going to be.

But what was the best way to prove that he was the Messiah? The tempting voice inside tried again.

"Maybe the best idea," it said, "is to go to Jerusalem and climb up on the tower and jump down! Everyone says that the Messiah is going to come suddenly out of heaven. You would come down suddenly enough that way! And nothing would happen to you. It says in the Scriptures that God will send his angels to hold you up and keep you from being hurt. Surprise the whole city by jumping off the Temple, and everybody will worship you at once!"

Again Jesus shook the thought away, and again he thought of what the Scriptures said.

"Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." I can't go and put God to the test, to see whether he will keep me from being hurt. And it won't make me the Messiah just to cause a big sensation in Jerusalem. That's what everyone is expecting, but that is not the right way at all. There must be some other way.

And the voice spoke up again.

"There is something else you could do. What the world needs is a ruler like you. Everybody says that the Messiah is going to be a world ruler, great and good. Don't let the people down! You are a great man. You could be anything you wanted to be—a general, a governor, a king."

Jesus thought, That's Satan tempting me, that's the devil himself talking!

He spoke out loud:

"Go away from me, Satan! For the Scriptures say, 'Thou shall worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve!'"

The voice said no more. A great quietness came over Jesus. There was no great thing that he needed to do right away. He was the Messiah, but he did not need to make the country wealthy. He did not need to jump from the Temple, and he did not need to command an army or rule an empire.

There was one thing that he would have to do, but he could not tell anybody about it yet. It was going to be his secret for a while. But someday everybody would see what he was doing. Someday it would be understood.

And now it was time to be on his way. He had been in the wilderness forty days, and that was long enough. He found the trail back to the outside world, and soon he was on the road to Galilee.

When Jesus got home to Galilee, he began to preach to people in the streets. What he said at first was very much like what John the Baptist said:

"Give up your sins, and begin to live a new life, for God has come to rule over you!"

But the crowds that heard Jesus were not so large as those that went to the Jordan to hear John.

Jesus needed some followers now who would be with him all the time, and learn everything he had to tell them. John the Baptist had his followers; "disciples" was what they were called. Jesus began to look for disciples of his own.

One morning he went down to the shore of the Sea of Galilee. When he came back to the town, he had four disciples with him.

Two of them were brothers named Simon and Andrew. Andrew remembered Jesus, for he had once been a disciple of John the Baptist. He had seen John point to Jesus, and heard him say, "He is the Lamb of God!" Andrew had told Simon all about it.

When Jesus came to them along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he found them putting a net into the water, for Andrew and Simon were fishermen.

Jesus said to them,

"Come and follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."

Fishing was good business, but Simon and Andrew were ready to give it up to follow the man John had called "the Lamb of God." They came away with him at once.

Farther along the shore was another pair of brothers. One of them had also been with John the Baptist. Their names were James and John, and they were with their father, Zebedee. They had done so well at fishing that they could afford to have servants to help them. But when Jesus called them they also came at once, and left their father and the servants behind.

That was four to start with, and soon he had eight others. But no one of them was a very important person, and people said that one of them was wicked. That was Levi, who was also called Matthew. The trouble with Levi was that he was a taxgatherer. Everybody hated taxgatherers. They were called "publicans," and it was thought that no one could be much lower than a publican.

The publicans worked for the Roman government. They were not Romans themselves, but Jews, which made it all the worse. They were looked upon as traitors, for they collected the taxes for the hated Romans, and made a fortune for themselves by cheating the people.

Levi's job was to collect the fee for traveling along the road, and what he could collect over and above the amount he ought to have charged, he kept for himself. Then Levi heard Jesus preaching. He heard him say that he ought to give up his sins, and begin to live a new life. When Jesus came to Levi's table one day, and said, "Follow me," just as he had said it to the honest fishermen by the lake shore, Levi was ready to come away. Without a word Levi got up and left his taxgathering behind, and all his fortune. Levi became a disciple like the other eleven, and was treated like the rest.

But other people were shocked when they saw a publican with Jesus, and tongues began to wag. No one seemed to notice that Levi had stopped collecting taxes. He had been a publican once, and no one except Jesus was ready to give him a second chance.

Other publicans sometimes came to have dinner with Jesus and his disciples, along with many people who were looked down upon in the community.

The Pharisees in particular were angry when they saw the company that Jesus kept. One day they came to one of these dinner parties, and told the disciples that they did not care for Jesus' choice of friends.

"How is it," they asked, "that your master eats and drinks with publicans and sinners?"

Jesus heard them, and replied:

"It is not well people who need a doctor, but the sick. I didn't come here for the sake of the good people, such as you think that you are, but for the sake of sinners—to lead them into a new life."