The New Testament story retold for young people

Part II THE NEW TESTAMENT STOEY REFERENCE

3btrarc?& of Philip ._

letntrchy of Herod, Antipaa

Stanford's GeoS'.Estab.

I

The Boyhood of Jesus chapter I

HOME LIFE AT NAZARETH

High up among the wild hills of the country that was once called Galilee is a little town, built in a sort of cup or basin that seems to be scooped out of the face of the cliff. If you look at it across the great green plain below, when the sun is shining at noon on its white houses, this little town seems like a patch of snow left unmelted on the dull brown hills. If you climb the steep, winding path among the rocks — a very tiring scramble for a hot day — you will see that the houses are planted on any level bit of ground that can be found, so that when you go out of one house you almost step on the roof of another. There are no regular streets — only narrow lanes, and in some places flights of stone steps leading from house to house. This is Nazareth. At the time of Jesus it was a larger and more important place than it is to-day.

Many hundreds of years ago there lived at Nazareth a kind, quiet man named Joseph, and Mary his good and gentle wife. They were poor, and they had to work hard for their living. Joseph was a carpenter; and while he was in his workshop, Mary would have to busy herself about the house, keeping the place clean and tidy, sewing and mending clothes, baking bread. She would not have much cooking to do : they would live very simply, for the most part on such food as bread and figs, dates and honey and curdled milk and, perhaps, a little fish when the hawkers brought it through the town, and, as a treat, some meat on feast days. Every morning and again every evening, Mary would go down to the well, a spring breaking out of the rock. She would carry her pitcher on her head. At the well she would meet other women of the town who were too poor to keep servants, going to and fro with their pitchers of water. On washing days, she would carry her linen to the stream running out from the well, and rinse it in the sparkling water that splashed among the stones.

There were several boys and girls in the carpenter's cottage. Jesus was the eldest. He was Mary's firstborn. We know that He was also the Son of God. But, when he came into the world as a little baby, He must have looked like any other little baby. His mother had to feed Him and care for Him. If she had not done so, He would have died. But in time He grew tall and strong, as boys will grow. His mind, too, grew wiser, and He came to know more and more as He grew older. Every year He

Woman carrying Child on Shoulder

HOME LIFE AT NAZARETH 209

lived the neighbours learnt to love Him more kindly, and every year He lived God smiled on Him more brightly, so that His heart was full of joy, and His life was full of sweetness.

You may be sure that when He was quite a little boy He could climb the rocks round His home ; for He was always strong and active and healthy, and He loved the mountain heights. Then, as He wandered over the countryside, many a lovely sight would fill His soul with wonder and with praise . to His Father in heaven, who had made all things so beautiful. In spring hosts of flowers came up after the rain — the brightest of them, the blood-red anemones, scattered over the hills like spots of flame. Perhaps green and gold lizards — of which there are many — would dart out from under the rocks, or peep at Him with their bead-like eyes. In ten minutes He could reach the hill -top. There He would have a grand view of snow mountains, and the blue sea with the ships at anchor in the bay, and miles of hill and dale between. Crowning a hill quite near He would see a fortress, with its stern, frowning walls.

A high road from the port to the far-off city of Damascus passed through Nazareth, and the boy Jesus would often see troops of merchants with their wares on camels' backs ; some of them would open their bales in the market-place, and offer their goods for sale.

We are not told how Jesus was taught, but no doubt it was with Him as with other cottage lads. If so, when He was very young He would learn to read and write from lessons given Him by His parents at home. His lesson book would be the Old Testament, which was the Jews' Bible. When He was about five years old, as we may suppose, He was sent to school at the synagogue ; that is the Jewish place of worship, like our church or chapel. This place was used for services on Saturday (the Sabbath of the Jews), and for week-day services on Monday and Wednesday. At other times it was used for meetings, and for school-teaching. The school-teaching was very simple. Jesus never went to college, as Paul did. His best lessons He got from the Bible, from God's book of nature in the lovely scenes round His home, and from the Spirit of God in His own heart.

When He was old enough, Jesus went to work in the carpenter's shop, and thus He became Himself a carpenter. For fifteen years or more He worked with hammer and saw and plane. An old writer, who lived in the next century, says He used to make ploughs and yokes. Depend upon it, He made them well — His ploughs, smooth and true, so that the ploughmen would have no excuse to turn back grumbling and complaining ; and His yokes easy, so as not to gall the shoulders of the poor patient oxen. In this way He lived till He was thirty years old. To His neighbours He seemed to be an ordinary working-man. And yet, though

HOME LIFE AT NAZARETH 211

He was doing nothing wonderful, there was this great difference between Him and everybody else in Nazareth. There was no evil in Him ; He never did an ill deed; He never spoke a bad word. If you could have seen the secret thoughts of His heart, you would have found them as pure as a garden of white lilies.

THE STORY OF GABRIEL

When a man becomes great and famous, people like to find out all they can about his early days. So it was with Jesus. He only got known beyond the little group of His friends at Nazareth when He came out in public, and then He was about thirty years old. The earliest account of Jesus we have is in St. Mark's Gospel, and that begins at this part of His life. But afterwards the Christians began to inquire about His early days. Perhaps Mary herself then told the wonders she had long kept secret in her heart. The story of Gabriel is one of these wonders. It begins in the old days before Mary was married, when she was a girl at home ; and it tells first of another mother and another child. This is the story.

In the south country, far away from Nazareth, there was living an old priest named Zacharias. He had a wife named Elisabeth, who was Mary's cousin. They were good people ; but they felt sad because they had no child. It happened one day, when Zacharias was taking his turn at the temple in Jerusalem, burning sweet spices that filled the air with scent, that he saw an angel standing by the side of the rising smoke. The sight frightened

THE STORY OF GABRIEL 218

him very much. But the angel said, " Do not be afraid, Zacharias ; because your prayer is heard, and your wife Elisabeth shall have a son, and you shall call his name John" (that means "the Favour of God"). The angel then went on to say how the child was to be brought up. For one thing, he was to have no wine to drink. God had a great work for him to do ; it was to prepare the people for Christ.

This was all too wonderful for Zacharias to believe.

But the angel said, "I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God ; and I am sent to speak to you, to bring you this good news."

When the old priest went out of the temple he was dumb, and all people wondered what had happened.

Some months later, but still before Mary had left her home to go and live with Joseph, the angel Gabriel came to her in Nazareth, and said, " Hail ! you are highly favoured; the Lord is with you." Mary was frightened, and puzzled to think what this could mean. Then the angel said, " Do not be afraid, Mary, for God is pleased with you," and he went on to tell her that she should have a son.

"You must call His name Jesus" — which means " Saviour " — said the angel. " He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High ; and He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end."

Then the angel told her about Elisabeth. So Mary set out to pay her cousin a visit. When they met and talked together about these angel visits, they were both so full of joy that they burst out singing to the praise of God.

Now the angel's words came true. First a baby was born in the house of the old priest. When they were going to give him a name, the friends said he must be named Zacharias after his father. But his mother said, M No ; he shall be called John." Then they made signs to his father to find out what he wanted the child to be called. The priest wrote down, " His name is John " ; and everybody wondered. The next moment Zacharias, who had not spoken a word since he had seen the angel standing by the smoking altar, opened his mouth and began to praise God.

THE SHEPHERDS OF BETHLEHEM

The country in which Jesus lived was part of the great Roman Empire. At the time of the birth of Jesus the head of the empire was Augustus. He was the first of the emperors, and he ruled very well. From time to time he used to give orders for his people to be counted. We should call this counting a "census"; but then it was called an " enrolment," because the names of the families were set down in lists or rolls.

The story of the shepherds of Bethlehem tells us that, for the sake of one of these enrolments, Joseph and Mary had to travel right away from Nazareth in the north, through Jerusalem to the little town of Bethlehem on the other side, a journey of several days; because the families of both of them belonged to that city. The Romans did not care where the families came from. But the Jews were very particular about this matter; and the census was to be taken in a Jewish way.

When they reached Bethlehem they first went to the inn. This would not have been at all like one of our comfortable modern inns, where travellers can get both lodging and food. The inn at an Eastern town is only a sort of shelter. There is a yard in the middle, where merchants stack their goods, and where people cook their food. All round are bare rooms where the travellers stay. They have to bring their own food. When Joseph and Mary came to Bethlehem they found that all these rooms had been taken by other people. So they went to the stable where the oxen and asses were put up. It would be quieter than the noisy yard of the inn. Here Jesus was born. His mother laid Him in a manger, a place made for the cattle to feed out of. This was His cradle.

It is said that people kept the sheep for the sacrifices of the temple at Jerusalem in the fields near Bethlehem, and that there shepherds had to watch the flocks all the year round; so that this night when Jesus was born there would be shepherds out near Bethlehem, even if it was winter time, though at other places the sheep would be shut up in their folds. We can fancy we see these shepherds, each sitting on a rock, his head wrapped in a sort of mantle, a sheepskin on his back, a fire of brushwood blazing in the midst to keep off wild beasts. This is the country where David killed the lion and the bear in the olden times; in the days of Jesus there were wolves prowling about over the wild hills round Bethlehem, always ready to pounce on the sheep at night.

As the shepherds watched their flocks, guarding them through the long, quiet hours of that night in which Jesus was born, they had a great fright.

THE SHEPHERDS OF BETHLEHEM 217

An angel stood by them, and a great light shone round about them.

The angel said to them, " Do not be afraid ; for see, I bring you news, news full of great delight. To-day, in the city of David, a Saviour is born for you — Christ the Lord."

Then the angel went on to tell the shepherds how they were to find the Saviour. They were to look for a baby wrapped up and lying in a manger.

Suddenly the angel was joined by a great host

of his companions. They were singing, and this

was their song:

" Glory to God in the highest places, And on earth peace among men in whom He is well pleased."

When the angels were gone away, and all was still again, and the shepherds only saw the quiet stars overhead shining down on them from God's heaven, they said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem, and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us."

They started out in haste, for they were very eager to find the Saviour, whom they had been taught to expect God would send them about this time. They came to the inn stable, and there they saw the babe in the manger as the angel had said. Then they told of what they had seen and heard in the fields, and the people of Bethlehem were astonished; but Mary kept all these things in her mind, pondering them ; and the shepherds went back full of gladness, praising God.

CHAPTER I\

THE TWO DOVES

It was a law among the Jews that when a child was born the mother should make a sacrifice to God. If she could afford it, she was to offer a lamb ; but if she was too poor for that, she might bring two doves. Mary brought the gift of a poor woman; she came up to the temple with two doves. It was also the law that some money should be paid at the temple when a first boy-child was born, as a sign that he belonged to God. Mary brought this money, together with the doves.

Now, in the temple were some old people who spent all their time there, giving themselves up to the praise and worship of God. It had been revealed to one of them, named Simeon — a good old man, whose heart was full of the Spirit of God — that he should not die till he had seen the Lord's Christ. When the child Jesus was brought into the temple by His parents, Simeon took Him in his arms, saying,

" Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart, O Lord, According to Thy word, in peace ; For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation."

He was ready to die now that he had seen Jesus, the promised Christ of God.

THE TWO DOVES 219

While Joseph and Mary were wondering at this, Simeon blessed them ; but he also warned Mary that trouble would come to her when many people turned against her Son. It would be like a sword piercing her soul.

Another of these old people in the temple was a prophetess named Anna. She had been married for seven years when her husband died ; and after that she had lived as a widow for as many as eighty-four years, so she must have been a very old woman indeed. She was accustomed to live in the temple, worshipping God with prayers and fastings night and day.

Anna, the old prophetess, came up just when Simeon was holding the child in his arms, and she, too, gave thanks to God. Then she went to other people, who, as she knew, were waiting and watching for the coming of the deliverance of God, and told them of the child she had seen in the temple.

THE MAGI

From very ancient times there had been living in the East, especially in the neighbourhood of Babylon and Persia, men who studied the stars, and so laid the foundations of the science of astronomy. But they had mixed this true knowledge with strange fancies about the influence of the heavenly bodies on the lives of men and women. In this way came astrology as one of the magic arts. It was held that the position of the stars at the birth of a child determined what his fortune was to be. The learned men of Persia who studied such subjects were called " Magi." In the more ancient times these Magi were honoured as forming a peculiar order almost like the priests among the Jews. But by the time of Christ this was no longer the case. Still there were men who gathered up the wisdom of their fathers, and who also watched the heavens for themselves.

The story of the Magi tells how some of these people came from far to see the infant Jesus. It has been imagined that there were three of them, that their home was Arabia, that they were kings. They have even been named and described as Melchior, an old man with long white hair and a sweep-

THE MAGI 221

ing beard ; Caspar, a beardless youth with a ruddy face ; and Balthasar, with the black skin of an African. All this is imaginary. The story as we have it in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, the only place where it is found in the New Testament, simply tells how some Magi, we do not know how many, came from " the East," we do not know exactly where.

These men had heard that a great king of the Jews was to appear about this time. A Latin writer tells us that there was spread all through the East an expectation that some great one would arise. When they saw a star, which they took to be a sign of the birth of the king, the Magi followed the direction of this star till they came to Jerusalem. There they sought out Herod, the reigning king, and asked him where they were to find the child who was born to be king of the Jews. Herod turned for advice to the learned Jews about him, and these men found an old prophecy, from which they learnt that the Christ was to be born in Bethlehem.

So the Magi set out for Bethlehem, and, as they went on their way, they were delighted to see their star again, and they followed it till it stood over the house where the young child was. When they had found the child, they gave Him presents of gold and precious spices.

Herod was a cruel tyrant. He had a rival of his beheaded, and two young men of whom he was jealous strangled; he had his brother-in-law drowned in a bath at Jericho, and even one of his wives killed. The older he lived the more gloomy and suspicious, the more cruel and terrible he became. Now he had asked the Magi to come and tell him where they found the young child, that he might go and offer Him homage. But since they were warned in a dream to do no such thing, they went home quietly without returning to the king.

This greatly enraged Herod, and he ordered all the baby boys under two years old in and about Bethlehem to be killed. Joseph was warned of the danger in a dream, and he fled with the young child and His mother into Egypt, where they stayed till Herod was dead, when they would have gone back to Bethlehem ; but on hearing that Herod's son, who took after his father, was now ruling, they went to Nazareth.

THE BOY IN THE TEMPLE

Every year Jesus' parents used to go up to Jerusalem to a great feast of the Jews called " The Passover." When Jesus was twelve years old they took Him with them for the first time. They travelled with their friends in a great company. In this way the members of a family might very easily get separated from one another.

When it was time to start back on the journey to Nazareth, the boy Jesus was missing. But as His parents thought He was somewhere in the crowd, they set out without Him.

So they travelled for the first day's journey ; and at night they looked for Him among their friends and relations, quite expecting to see Him. He was not there. Naturally they were alarmed, and they turned back to Jerusalem to look for Him.

This took another day, and then they had a weary search through the narrow streets and crowded bazaars of the great city. In all that moving sea of strange faces they looked in vain for the one face they hungered after. And so again a day passed. This was the third day since His parents had last seen Jesus. How tired and distressed they must have been ! No doubt they blamed themselves now for having started without their child.

At length they went into the temple. Now it was the custom for learned Jews, called Rabbis, to teach their pupils in the courts and porticos round about the temple. Sometimes they had open classes, which anybody might attend without becoming a regular pupil. The Rabbi would sit on a carpet spread on the ground, cross-legged, as perhaps you have seen a tailor sit at his work, and his scholars would sit on the same carpet in a circle about him. The Rabbis would put questions to their classes, and they liked their scholars to put questions to them.

To their astonishment Joseph and Mary found their lost child in one of these classes of the rabbis at the temple. Never was there so eager a scholar. Everybody, teacher and taught, was astonished at Him — He put such searching questions ; He gave such startling answers !

But His mother was vexed at what she saw ; partly, perhaps, because He seemed so happy in the busy studies of the class, while she and Joseph were hot and tired and flustered from their vain hunt up and down the streets.

So she cried, "Child, why have you treated us in this way? See, your father and I have been looking for you with sorrowing hearts."

But Jesus answered, "How is it that you were

THE BOY IN THE TEMPLE 225

seeking for Me ? Didn't you know that I must be in my Father's house ? "

This, then, was the explanation. Jesus had not been thoughtless or unkind. He had taken it for granted that His parents would have guessed where He was. What was more natural to Jesus, who always lived in the joy of His Father's presence, than that He should be in His Father's house? But even Mary did not really understand her wonderful Son.

Still, though He was the Son of God, and though His Father's house was His true home, Jesus went quietly back to Nazareth with His earthly parents, and lived in obedience to them.

II The Baptism

When John, the son of Zacharias the priest and Elisabeth his wife, grew up to be a man, he took to strange ways of living. He went away into the wild country, among the rocks and the caves where bears and jackals had their dens. He did not dress like other Jews, in a long white tunic and rich-coloured cloak. He wore a very rough mantle woven from camel's hair, like a piece of sackcloth, the sort of stuff the Arabs use for covering their tents. And for food he just had whatever he could find in the wild country — honey from the bees that built their combs in cracks of the rocks or hollow trees, and even insects — locusts, like our grasshoppers.

People used to go out from all parts to see this strange man. Then he would preach to them, and what he said was very startling. He told them that the Kingdom of God, which some of them had heard of, and some of them had read about, as

THE BAPTISM coming in the wonderful future, was close at hand. And he said Someone was coming after him, so great a person that John was not worthy to unbuckle His sandal. Then he went on to say that they must be prepared for all this by leaving their bad ways and turning their minds to better things. He would get very fierce in his

Arab Sandals preaching, calling his hearers "an offspring of vipers." He said that the axe was already lying at the root of the tree, and that every tree that was not bringing forth good fruit would be cut down and thrown into the fire.

This very much frightened the people. So they cried out, " What must we do ? "

John answered, " He that has two coats, let him give to him that has none ; and he that has food, let him also share it."

Taxgatherers, who used to be hard on the people, cheating and robbing them, came, asking, " Master, what shall we do ? "

John answered, "Don't force people to pay more than is due from them."

Soldiers came, saying, " And we, what must we do ? "

"Do not be rough and violent," said John ; " do not accuse people falsely ; be content with your wages."

John took those people who wished to be prepared for the coming of the Kingdom of God down to the River Jordan, and there he baptized them, as a sign that they wished their sins to be washed away. To baptize means to wash in a religious service and as a sign. Because John did this he was called "The Baptist," that is, "The Washer."

Among the many people who came to John to be baptized by him was Jesus. Now, John did not know that Jesus was the Son of God and the Saviour of the world, the very Person whose coming he had preached about. But he knew something of Him. We read in the stories of their childhood how they were distant relations, cousins of some degree, and how their two mothers knew one another and had met. At all events, John knew enough about Jesus to feel that He did not need the washing of repentance.

THE BAPTISM 229

But Jesus made John baptize Him, to show that He, too, wished to belong to the Kingdom.

Then they both went into the water, and John baptized Jesus. As He was coming up from the water Jesus saw a vision — it looked like the sky being torn open, and the Spirit of God coming through and descending on Him like a dove, while a voice came out of the sky, saying, " Thou art My beloved Son ; in Thee I have been well pleased."

THE TEMPTATION

If you were to go to the valley of the Jordan, near to where the city of Jericho stood in the olden times, and then look up one night to the mountains behind which the sun had set, you would see lights twinkling here and there in what had seemed in the daytime a wild and desolate region. They are the lights of the hermits, who live in caves among these mountains, because it has been supposed that this is the very place where Jesus went directly after His baptism.

The Spirit of God, that came upon Him as He went up with John the Baptist from the Jordan, drove Him into the wild country. There He was for forty days without food. This country is the haunt of wild beasts, and Jesus lived among them. They found that He had not come, as other men came, to hunt and kill them. He was so gentle ; they could not long be afraid of Him. But it was a hard and terrible time for Jesus, and dark thoughts came into His mind.

In His baptism Jesus had publicly given Himself to the service of God. We may suppose He would want to think out the course of His great life-work. After we have given ourselves to God, it is right