At Cana a marriage was to be held, and Jesus with all his followers was invited. In that land, at a marriage, a feast was always given, and all the friends of the newly-married couple, with their friends also, and almost everybody in the village, were expected to come. The feasting and dancing and merry-making often lasted through a whole week.
Before the feast was over they found that the wine, which in those times everybody drank freely, was used up, and those who were giving the feast had no wine to set before their guests. This filled them with alarm, for at such times the wine was expected to flow freely, and not to have wine for the company at a feast was considered almost a disgrace.
The mother of Jesus was there as a friend of the family. She thought of a way to help those who were giving the feast, and called her son aside from the crowd, and said to him very quietly:
"They have no wine."
She knew what very few knew, that Jesus was the Son of God, and that all power was in his hands. He had not yet done any of those wonderful works of curing the sick, making the blind to see and making the deaf to hear, which he did so often afterward; but Mary believed that he could do them if he chose. She thought that perhaps he would use his power to give the wine that was needed. It was with this hope that she said to him, "They have no wine."
The answer that Jesus gave was not such in its words as to encourage her.
"Woman," said he, "what have you to do with me in this matter? My time is not yet come."
His speaking to his mother as "Woman," instead of saying "Mother," as a young man would among us, was not lacking in respect. It was the usage of that time for a son to say "Woman," and not "Mother." She saw in his face a look showing her that she had not spoken in vain. So she turned to the servants who were standing near. "Whatever he tells you to do," she said, "do it."
One of the usages of the Jews was to wash their hands before they sat down to a meal. This washing was not merely to make their hands clean; it was a sort of religious service, and the Jews were very strict in doing it. When so large a company met for a feast, a great deal of water was needed. In the hall were standing six large jars for water, each jar of a size to hold nearly twenty gallons. They were nearly empty, because all the guests had washed their hands before sitting down at the feast. Jesus pointed to these jars and said to the servants:
"Fill all those jars with water."
They obeyed him and filled all the jars up to the brim. Then Jesus said again:
"Now draw out from the jars, and carry what you take out to the ruler of the feast."
Wondering, the servants dipped their pitchers into the great jars which only a few moments before they had filled with water. How surprised they were to find each pitcher as it came out full of red wine! They carried it to the ruler of the feast. He tasted it and saw that it was wine of the very best kind. He did not know how it had been made, but supposed that it had been brought suddenly from some wine merchant. He called the young man who had been married, and in whose honor the feast was being held, and said to him:
"Everybody serves his best wine at the beginning of his feast; and afterward, when people have been drinking some time, he brings wine that is poorer; but you have kept your best wine until now!"
The only ones who knew whence the new wine had come were the servants. But they soon told others, and the word was passed around the company that Jesus of Nazareth, Mary's son, had wrought this wonderful work. His followers, the five or more disciples who had come with Jesus to the wedding feast, now believed more fully than before that their teacher was more than a mere man, that the power of God was upon him and that whatever he should say was the word of God.
Such a work as that of turning the water into wine, a work that no man could do without God's power, was called "a miracle." It showed that the one who wrought it was a man sent from God, doing God's will and speaking God's word. This was the first miracle or work of wonder that Jesus wrought; but after this we shall read of many miracles.
From the wedding feast Jesus went down the mountains of Galilee to the city of Capernaum, which stood on the shore of the Sea of Galilee on the northwest. With Jesus on this visit to Capernaum were his mother, some of his younger brothers and his followers.
You remember that this feast was held to keep in mind how more than a thousand years before God had led the Israelite people out of Egypt, where they had been slaves. It was called the feast of the Passover because on the night of their going-out the angel of death had "passed over" the houses of the Israelites when he brought death to the Egyptian homes. On that night, too, they went out of Egypt in such haste that the women did not have time to wait for the bread to rise before baking it, and all the bread eaten at that time was "unleavened bread," or bread made without yeast.
To keep in mind that great day, the day when Israel became a nation, ruling itself, in the spring of every year all the people gathered in Jerusalem, and for one week ate unleavened bread, that is, bread made without yeast. Great services were held in the Temple on every day of this feast; and on one evening a special dinner of a roasted lamb was eaten by everybody, to keep in mind the last meal which the Israelites ate in the land of Egypt, with their hats on their heads and their cloaks on their shoulders and their shoes on their feet, all ready to march away.
Jesus and the little company of his disciples or followers went up to Jerusalem, walking, as many times before, down the Jordan valley to Jericho, and then climbing the hills to the holy city. For many years Jesus had been coming to the feast of the Passover; but never before had he come as he came now, in the power of the Spirit, as the Son of God.
Around the House of God was a great open court, called the Court of the Gentiles, where foreign people who were not Jews came to pray; since none but Jews or Israelites could enter the inner courts. But the Jews held all Gentiles or foreign people in contempt. They did not look upon the part of the Temple buildings where foreigners prayed as holy; and they had turned this court, the Court of the Gentiles, into a market place. Here Jesus found everywhere sheep and oxen brought there for sale; cages full of doves, which were sold to the poorer people for offerings upon the altar; counters where sat men changing the money of people from other lands into the coins of Judea. There was nothing of the quiet and peace which should be in a place of prayer; all was noise and confusion; the lowing of oxen, the voices of men buying and selling, the jingling of silver on the tables.
These sights and sounds stirred the heart of Jesus. He felt that such work as went on around him was unfit and was wicked in a place set apart for the worship of God. He picked up a piece of rope from the floor and untwisted its cords until it seemed like a whip. Then standing before the buyers and the sellers, he called upon them to stop their trading. They looked up amazed at this stranger whose face glowed with power as though he were a king.
Alone, without help from anyone, he drove all these people out of the court. He bade them lead away the sheep and the oxen; he commanded those who sold the doves to carry out their cages; he overturned the tables of the money-changers and sent their silver rolling upon the floor.
"Take all these things away," he cried out. "This is the house of my Father; you shall not make it a house for buying and selling."
Even the little company of his disciples—Peter, John, Andrew and the others—stood still in wonder as they saw their Master alone, armed only with a piece of rope, driving out the gates this crowd of men, who were frightened at the kingliness of his looks and fled before him, not for one moment daring to resist his will.
But soon came the priests and rulers of the Temple. They ought not to have allowed these men to trade in the Temple Court and to make it a market place. But some of them took a share of the money that was made in that place. One high priest, it is said, owned all the cages of doves and pigeons that were kept in the Temple for sale. These rulers were very angry to have the trading stopped and their gains taken away.
"What right have you to come here," they said to Jesus, "and make trouble? Who are you that you should undertake to rule in this place? Show us some sign or proof that you are Master here!"
"The time is coming," said Jesus, "when I will show you a sign of my power, but not now; and when that sign comes, you will not believe it."
Then, making a motion of his hands as though pointing to himself, he added:
"Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
The Jews were horrified at these words; for they thought that he was speaking of the building on Mount Moriah, and in their mind to speak of pulling down the house where God dwelt was a terrible thing. But Jesus was speaking of himself as the Son of God, in whose body dwelt the Spirit of God. Far more than that building, where men cheated and did evil deeds, Jesus himself was the house of God. The rulers said:
"This Temple has taken forty-six years to build, and it is not finished yet; and will you raise it up in three days?"
Nearly fifty years before, King Herod had begun to rebuild the Temple, which in his time had become old and decayed. The repairs were made very slowly, and in the time of Jesus the building was still far from being finished. It was not finished until more than twenty years afterward.
We know what Jesus meant by those words; that three years afterward, those very men would cause him, the Son of God, whose body was God's dwelling place, to be put to death; and within three days after his death he would rise from his tomb, to be the Temple of God again and forever. The disciples of Jesus heard these words, but at that time did not know what they meant.
Jesus stayed for some time in Jerusalem and talked to the people about the Kingdom of God. He also did some wonderful works, such as curing the sick; and the people who saw these acts believed his words, as from one whom God had sent to men. But the priests and the rulers hated Jesus, because he spoke against their wicked lives, and they did all that they could to turn the people away from him.
Among the rulers, however, were a few men who listened to Jesus and believed his words. One of these was a man named Nicodemus. He wished to have a talk with Jesus and learn more of his teachings. But he was afraid to be seen with Jesus in the day-time, knowing that the other rulers were so strongly against Jesus. So he went quietly one night, unknown to everybody, and had a meeting with Jesus. Nicodemus began by saying:
"Teacher, we all know that you have been sent by God to speak to us, because no one could do these wonderful things that you are doing unless God were with him to give him power."
Jesus said to him:
"Let me tell you and all your people one thing. No man can have any part in the Kingdom of God unless he is born again from God."
Nicodemus did not know what this meant, and he said, "How can a man be born again after he is grown up?"
"Every man," said Jesus, "must become a new man and have the Spirit of God dwelling in him, if he is to come into the Kingdom of God. Do not be surprised that I say to you, 'You must be born anew.' There are many things that you cannot understand. Listen to the wind blowing! You can hear it, but you cannot tell from what place it comes nor to what place it goes. Just so is it with every one who is born of God's spirit."
What Jesus meant in these words was that every one who would be a follower of Christ needs to have a new heart and to live a new life; and this new heart and new life God alone can give to him.
One great sentence was spoken by Jesus at this time. Here it is.
"God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life."
But after a time Jesus heard that John the Baptist had been put in prison by Herod Antipas, the wicked ruler of Galilee and Perea. Herod had stolen from his brother Philip his wife, named Herodias, and was living with her. John said to him:
"It is against the law of Moses and of God for you to take away your brother's wife."
This made Herod angry with John, and Herodias even more angry. She wished to have John put to death for his bold words, but Herod, though he was not a good man, was unwilling to have John slain, and partly to keep him safe from the hate of his wife, he ordered that he should be put into prison. To a man like John, used to the free life of the wilderness, and not even willing to live in town or village, it must have been hard to be shut up in a prison cell, within four walls, and to be able only to see the outside world through grated windows.
As soon as Jesus learned that John the Baptist was shut up in prison, he ended his work in Judea, and with his disciples started for Galilee, his old home in the north. On this journey he did not go the way of the river Jordan, but took the most direct road, which would lead him through the land of Samaria. He knew that the Samaritan people who lived in that land hated the Jews and often robbed them when they traveled through their country. Still, Jesus made up his mind to go through Samaria.
Leading the little company of his followers, he walked northward from Jerusalem, past Bethel, where long before Jacob lying on his pillow of stone had his wonderful dream of the ladder reaching up to heaven; past Shiloh, where once the holy Ark of God had been kept in the Tabernacle in the days of Samuel; and over mountains where battles had been fought and victories won.
Early one morning, after walking in the night, Jesus and his disciples came to an old well, about two miles from the city of Shechem. Nearby was a little village, named Sychar, which could be seen from the well, and although it was a Samaritan village the followers of Jesus went to it to buy some food. This well was very old. It had been dug by Jacob, the early father of all the Israelite people, more than eighteen hundred years before Jesus came to that place. And it is still there, a well dug out of the solid rock nearly one hundred feet deep, and even now having water in it ten months of the year, but apt to be dry in the summer. That well is now nearly four thousand years old, yet every traveler who visits it may look down into its depths, may see a bucket of water drawn and may have a drink from it.
In that time a well did not have with it a pump for bringing up the water, nor was there even a rope to let down into it; but each one who came to draw water—and it was generally a woman—brought a rope and a water-jar. As Jesus sat beside the well, very tired and hungry and thirsty, he had nothing with which to draw water. As the Son of God upon the earth, he could have made the water come to him, but he would not, for you remember that in the desert Jesus would do no wonderful work, no miracle, merely for his own need.
Suddenly Jesus heard the sound of someone coming. He looked up and saw a woman, with her water-jar and rope, standing by the well. From her dress he knew that she was not a Jewish but a Samaritan woman, and being the Son of God, he saw more. He knew at once all her life, which had not been a good life. But he looked into her heart and saw that she had a longing after God and after good. He said to her:
"Will you give me a drink of water from this well?"
The woman glanced at Jesus, and knowing from his dress and his manner of speaking that he was a Jew, said to him:
"How is it that you, who are a Jew, ask drink from me, a Samaritan woman?"
The Jews looked down upon the Samaritans, never asked any favors of them, and would not drink from a cup or pitcher that a Samaritan had handled. The woman knew this, and was greatly surprised that this strange young man of the Jewish race should speak to her. Jesus answered her:
"If you knew what God's free gift is, and who he is that is asking you for a drink, you would have asked him instead, and he would have given you living water."
As Jesus said these words, very thoughtfully, the woman looking and listening felt that this was no common man. She thought that he might be a prophet, a man whom God had sent to do mighty works and speak the words of God. She said, very respectfully:
"Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is very deep. Where can you get your living water? Are you a greater man than our father Jacob, who dug this well and gave it to us, and drank of its water himself, with his sons and his sheep and oxen?"
Jesus answered her:
"Anyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but anyone who drinks the water that I will give him will never thirst any more. The water that I will give him will turn into a well of water springing up to everlasting life."
"Oh, sir," said the woman, "give me some of your living water, so that I need not be thirsty nor come all this road to draw water."
Jesus looked earnestly at the woman's face, and then said to her:
"Go home; call your husband, and come here again."
The woman's face clouded, her eyes dropped, and she looked as if she felt ashamed, while she answered in a low voice, "I have no husband."
Jesus looked at her steadily, and said:
"You have spoken the truth. You have no husband. But you have had five husbands, and the man with whom you are living now is not your husband. You spoke the truth in those words."
The woman was filled with wonder as she heard the stranger speak. She saw at once that here was a man who knew everything. She was sure that God had spoken to this man and given him this knowledge of her. "Sir," said she, "I see that you are a prophet of God. Tell me, then, whether our people or the Jews are right. Our fathers have worshipped God on this mountain; but the Jews say that Jerusalem is the place where all should go to worship God."
As she spoke, she pointed to the mountain that was standing near, Mount Gerizim, on the top of which was the temple of the Samaritans.
"Woman, believe me," answered Jesus, "there is coming a time when men shall worship God 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. God is a Spirit, dwelling everywhere, and those who worship him, must worship in spirit and in truth."
The woman said to Jesus:
"I know that Messiah is coming, the Christ sent from God 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 God. 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 God 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 God, and they said:
"Now we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is really the Saviour of the world."
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 Passover 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 shore of the Sea of Galilee. At Capernaum was living a man of high rank, an official of King Herod Antipas. This nobleman 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 nobleman a hope that perhaps this Prophet might be willing to come down from Cana to Capernaum and cure his son.
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 nobleman:
"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 nobleman, "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 nobleman, but all his family with him, to believe that Jesus was the Saviour and the King of Israel who had been promised so long.
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 God, or as a worker of wonders, such as they had heard of his doing in Cana and Capernaum.
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:
While Jesus was reading from the Bible, he stood up, and all who were present also stood, for the Jews showed their respect for the Bible by standing whenever it was read. When he had finished the reading, he folded up the roll, handed it back to the officer, and sat down, and the people also sat down likewise. Often the man who preached in the synagogue or church was seated while speaking. Jesus began by saying:
"Today this word of the prophet has come to pass in your hearing."
And he went on to tell in simple, gentle words how he had been sent to preach to the poor, to set the prisoners free, to give sight to the blind and to bring the news of God's goodness to men. At first the people listened with the deepest interest, and their hearts were touched by his kind and tender words.
But soon they began to whisper among themselves. One said, "Why should this carpenter try to teach us?" And another, "This man is no teacher! He is only the son of Joseph the carpenter! We know his brothers, and his sisters are living here." And some began to say, "Why does he not do here some of the wonderful things that they say he has done in other places? We want to see some of his marvelous cures with sick people!"
Jesus knew their thoughts, but he would not do wonders merely to be seen by men. He said to them:
"I know that you are saying, 'Let us see some wonderful work, like that on the nobleman's son in Capernaum.' I tell you in truth, that no prophet or teacher has honor among his own people.
"You remember that in the days of Elijah the prophet, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months, and no rain fell, there was a great famine in the land and a need of bread. At that time there were many widows in the land of Israel, yet Elijah was not sent to any of these, but to a widow woman in Zarephath of Zidon, a foreigner and a Gentile. And in the time of Elisha the prophet after Elijah, there were many lepers in the land of Israel, yet none of these was made clean of his leprosy, but only Naaman the Syrian."
These words, telling how God had chosen foreigners instead of Israelites for his works of wonder, made the people in the church very angry, for they did not care for the words of Jesus; they only wished to see him do some miracle or wonderful act. They would not listen to him; in their rage and fury, they leaped from their seats; they rushed upon the platform; they seized hold of Jesus and dragged him out of doors. They took him up to the top of the hill above the city, and would have thrown him down its steep side to his death. But the time for Jesus to die had not yet come. By the power of God, Jesus slipped quietly out of their hands and went away. He walked away very sadly from Nazareth, for he had longed to bring the good news of God's blessings first of all to his own people.
But Capernaum was a Jewish city, and Jesus felt that his work was to be among the Jews. At least four of the early followers of Jesus lived in Capernaum; two pair of brothers, Simon and Andrew, the sons of Jonas; and James and John, the sons of Zebedee. These four men were partners with Zebedee in the fishing trade. They owned a number of fishing boats and had men working for them. The lake was full of fish, and many people all around it lived by fishing. The fish in the Sea of Galilee were good food, and were sent to all the nearby cities. It is said that one emperor at Rome, not long after this time, had sent to him every week a barrel full of fish from the Sea of Galilee, for his table in the palace.
The people of Capernaum had heard of Jesus, for all those who went up to the feasts in Jerusalem brought home reports of this wonderful teacher and healer of the sick. Wherever Jesus went, crowds gathered around him to listen to his words, and especially eager to see if he would do any of his wonderful works.
One morning while Jesus was walking on the beach, he met some of his followers. Having now come to their own home, these men had gone back to their old work, as fishermen, and their boats were lying upon the shore. The men had been fishing in the night before, and they were now washing their nets upon the beach. Jesus spoke to one of his followers, Simon Peter, to push his boat a little way out into the water. He did so, and then Jesus sat down in the boat, while a great crowd stood on the shore, but within reach of his voice. Then from the boat as a pulpit he talked to the people on the shore. What he said at that time was not written down; but it was very much like his teachings as given in the Sermon on the Mount, which may be read in the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of the gospel by Matthew. There is no doubt that in his talks in many places to different crowds, Jesus often gave the same teachings over and over again.
After Jesus had ended his speaking to the people, he said to Simon, who with the other fishermen was standing beside him:
"Push out into the deep water, and let down your nets for a catch of fish."
"Master," answered Simon, "we worked all last night and caught not a single fish. However, if you tell us to try again, I will let down the nets."
They did so, and now their nets took in a great shoal of fish, so large a number that the nets began to break. Then they beckoned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. They came, and helped to pull up the nets and to empty the fish into the boats. So many were the fish that they filled both the boats so full that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw all this, he was struck with wonder and with fear, for he felt that this had been done by the power of God. He fell upon his knees in the boat to Jesus, saying:
"O Lord, I am full of sin, and am not worthy of all this! Leave me, O Lord!"
But Jesus said to him and to the other three men with him:
"Do not be afraid; come after me; and from this time you shall be fishers of men."
He meant that they were now to leave their nets and their boats, to stay with him; and after learning from him, they were to go out and show men the way out of sin into the Kingdom of God.
As soon, therefore, as they had brought their nets and their fishes to the land, they left them with Zebedee, the father of James and John, and with the hired men.
From that day these four men stayed with Jesus and went with him on all his journeys, listening to his words, until from hearing them often, they learned them and could repeat them to others.