Hurlbut's Life Of Christ For Young And Old Part 12

"Woman, believe me," answered Jesus, "there is coming a time when men shall worship G.o.d in other places besides this mountain and Jerusalem.

The time is near, it has even now come, when the true worshippers everywhere shall pray to the Father in spirit and in truth. G.o.d is a Spirit, dwelling everywhere, and those who worship him, must worship in spirit and in truth."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Jesus sat beside the well, very tired and thirsty, but he had nothing with which to draw water. Suddenly he heard the sound of someone coming, and looking up saw a Samaritan woman with her water jar.]

The woman said to Jesus:

"I know that Messiah is coming, the Christ sent from G.o.d to be our King. When he comes he will explain everything to us."

Then Jesus said to her, "I who am now speaking to you am he, the Christ!"

Just at that moment the followers of Jesus, John and Peter, and the others, came back from the village with the food which they had bought.

They were surprised to find their Master talking with a woman, but they said nothing.

The woman had come to the well to draw water, but in her interest in this wonderful stranger she forgot all about her errand. Leaving her water-jar she ran back to the village and said to everybody whom she met:

"Come with me and meet a man who told me everything I have done in all my life! Is not this man the Christ whom we are looking for?"

After the woman went away toward her home, the disciples urged Jesus to eat some of the food which they had brought. A little while before Jesus had been hungry, but now in talking with the woman and leading her mind to the truth, he had forgotten his own needs.

"I have food to eat," said he, "that you know nothing of."

They looked at each other and said:

"Can it be that someone has brought him something to eat?"

But Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of my Father who sent me into the world, and to finish the work that he gave me to do. Do you say that there are four months before the harvest time will come? I tell you to look on the fields, and find them already white for the harvest.

You shall reap and gain a rich harvest, gathering grain for everlasting life."

Jesus meant that this woman, bad though she may have been before, was now eager to hear his words and to come to G.o.d. So his disciples would soon find the hearts of men everywhere, like a field of ripe grain, ready to be won and to be saved.

Soon the woman came back to the well with many of her people. They all asked Jesus to come to their village and teach them. He went to the town of Sychar and stayed there two days, talking to the people about the Kingdom of G.o.d and showing them how they might enter into it. Many of the people in that place and near it believed in Jesus as the Christ, the King sent from G.o.d, and they said:

"Now we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is really the Saviour of the world."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Scene in Damascus, showing houses on the walls]

THE n.o.bLEMAN'S BOY

CHAPTER 21

[Ill.u.s.tration: Jacob's well as it is at the present time]

AFTER STAYING two days in Sychar, the village near Jacob's well, Jesus and his disciples went on their way northward to the land of Galilee.

They walked across the great plain where so many battles had been fought in the old times, and climbed the mountains beyond it. Nazareth, where Jesus had lived for so many years, was on his way, but Jesus did not at this time stop there, for he had in his mind to visit it a few weeks later. With his followers, Jesus came for the second time to Cana, the place where a few months before he had turned the water into wine.

When Jesus was at Cana at his first visit, very few people had heard his name. But now everybody was talking about him, for all the people who had come home from the Feast of the Pa.s.sover told their friends and neighbors of the wonderful young Prophet who had been preaching in Jerusalem, and had driven the men buying and selling out of the Temple, and had wrought wonders in curing the sick.

About twenty miles from Cana was the city of Capernaum, on the sh.o.r.e of the Sea of Galilee. At Capernaum was living a man of high rank, an official of King Herod Antipas. This n.o.bleman was in deep trouble, for his son was very ill with a great fever and lying at the point of death.

The news that Jesus was again in Galilee, and only twenty miles away, brought to the n.o.bleman a hope that perhaps this Prophet might be willing to come down from Cana to Capernaum and cure his son.

[Ill.u.s.tration: In the court of a village home in Cana of Galilee]

At once he made up his mind to go to Jesus and ask him to come and help him. It was a hard journey from Capernaum to Cana, twenty miles of mountain climbing; but this anxious father started very early in the morning, and came to Cana at about one o'clock in the afternoon. He found Jesus, told him how ill his son was, and begged him to come to Capernaum and cure him. Jesus did not seem very willing to go. He said to the n.o.bleman:

[Ill.u.s.tration: Site of Capernaum]

"Unless you people are always seeing me do wonderful works you will not believe in me."

"Oh, sir," pleaded the troubled father, "do come down quickly or my son will die!"

"There is no need for me to come," said Jesus. "You may go home, for your son will live and will get well."

These words would make a heavy trial to this man's faith in Jesus. For how could he know that his son would be well, without any sign given him by Jesus? And how could he understand that Jesus by a word could cure someone who he had not seen and who was twenty miles away? But the father at once believed the promise of Jesus. He did not even hurry home to see if his boy was cured, but waited until evening before starting upon his journey.

The next day, as he was nearing home, his servants met him with the glad news:

"Your son is living and is very much better."

"At what time," said the n.o.bleman, "did he begin to improve?"

"It was yesterday," they told him, "at about one o'clock when the fever left him."

The man was not surprised, for it was just as he had expected. That hour, one o'clock, was the very time that Jesus had said to him, "Your son will live."

This miracle, or work of wonder, was much talked about and led not only this n.o.bleman, but all his family with him, to believe that Jesus was the Saviour and the King of Israel who had been promised so long.

The Carpenter in His Home-town

CHAPTER 22

SOON AFTER the visit to Cana, and the cure of the n.o.bleman's son, Jesus walked over to his old home at Nazareth, which was only six miles away.

He thought of his sisters in that city, who were now grown women with children of their own, and he longed to see them. He thought, too, of the boys with whom in other days he had played and had sat in the school, now men with families; of his former neighbors, whom he had not seen for nearly a year. His heart was full of love for his own people, and he felt that out of the power G.o.d had given him he could speak to them words that would do them good.

Of course, the people of Nazareth had heard wonderful stories about their former townsman; that he had suddenly come forth as a great teacher, speaking truths such as never had been heard before; and especially, that he had done wondrous works of curing the sick at Cana and at Capernaum. All these reports were surprising to the people of Nazareth, because among them Jesus had never shown any signs of greatness. He had sat in his seat in the church, but had never spoken from the pulpit; and they had known him as a good young man, kind and gentle toward all, and an honest, skilful workman at his trade. But they had never thought of him as a teacher, or a prophet bearing a message from G.o.d, or as a worker of wonders, such as they had heard of his doing in Cana and Capernaum.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The people in the synagogue at Nazareth did not care for the words of Jesus. In their rage and fury they leaped from their seats and dragged him out of doors.]

It was expected that Jesus on the Sabbath day would speak in the church at Nazareth (they called their church "the synagogue," a word that means "a meeting of the people"); and everybody was present to see him and to hear him. In a gallery on one side were his sisters, looking and listening, but unseen, because the women's gallery in all Jewish churches was covered with a lattice-work. There on the floor, seated on rugs or mats, were his neighbors and the people who had seen him grow up from a boy to a man. They were present, not to learn, but to listen and judge his words, and especially to see what great things he might do.

Jesus walked up to the platform, and the officer in charge handed him the rolls on which were written the lessons for the day. This officer was at the same time the janitor or keeper of the building and the teacher of the school held there during the week. This man may have been the teacher who had taught Jesus as a boy to read. One of the lessons for that day was in the sixty-first chapter of the book of Isaiah the prophet. A part of it read thus: