 Preface in Chapter 1 of WHEN THE KING CAME. This tells how once the king of glory came from heaven to visit us here on earth and live amongst us. How he was born in Bethlehem and brought up in Nazareth. How he went about telling people of the heavenly kingdom and doing good, ministering to the sick and the poor. How he was misunderstood and disliked and even hated, till at last they took him in Jerusalem and nailed him to a cross so that he died. And how, after that, he came to life again and went back into heaven, promising to return. Chapter 1. THE YEAR ONE. Once upon a time there was a year one. Strangely enough, it was not the beginning of the years. The world was already very old. Nobody knows how old. People had been living on the earth, time out of mind, in mighty nations, fighting great battles and building great cities. But somehow everything seemed to begin over again that year because that was when the king came. And we have taken it ever since as the most important of all dates. When we say that this present year is 1900 and something, we mean that the year one was just so many years ago. It is always to be remembered about that year that one of its days was Christmas Day. You may not think that strange. Christmas comes so regularly every year, like apples in autumn and snow in winter, that it seems to belong to the order of nature. And one may easily imagine that it has been celebrated always and that it is as old as boys and girls. But the truth is that there was never any Christmas till the year one. Year after year and year after year the evergreen trees grew in the woods and nobody came to get them. Nobody thought of lighting them up with candles or of loading them down with candies. The holly showed its berries of red and the mistletoe its berries of white and nobody paid any attention to them, except perhaps the druids whoever they were, and they had never heard of Christmas. The twenty-fifth day of Christmas came and went, like the twenty-second and the twenty-ninth, and boys and girls were born and grew up into men and women with never a Christmas carol nor a Christmas tree nor a Christmas gift, and without having so much as heard of the singing angels or of the holy child, because that was before the king came. Now in the year one there lived in a quiet little place in a small village hidden among hills, a young girl named Mary. I cannot tell you how old she was, but we will guess that she was at the age when girlhood passes into womanhood. Neither can I tell you how she looked, or whether her eyes were brown, like the earth, or blue, like the sky. But we may be sure that she had a sweet face, because she was very good and gentle, and had a fair and sweet soul. One day Mary was sitting alone in her room. She may have been reading, for we know that she loved to read. A poem, which she wrote, called the Magnificent, is full of the memories of books. Or she may have been sowing, for she was presently to be married and would be getting ready for the wedding. She was to marry a neighbor, the village carpenter, named Joseph. It was a spring morning, and the flowers were in blossom, and the birds were singing, and the sun was shining. Thus she sat, with her heart full of beautiful thoughts. When all of a sudden such a gleam of splendor shone about her, that it seemed as if the sun had been under a thick cloud, and had just come out and begun to blaze in good earnest. Mary turned to see where this new brightness came from, and there beside the door, dressed all in white, stood a resplendent angel. The angel said, Hail, thou art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women. And Mary was afraid, and began to tremble, so that the angel said, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favour with God. Then while she held her breath and listened, he told his wonderful errand. God had seen the sin and sorrow that were upon the earth. He had heard little children, and even grown men and women, fathers and mothers, crying. He knew how people were trying to be good, and making a sad failure of it, because they were ignorant or weak. And now God was about to do what he had long promised. He was to come and live among us. God had indeed lived among men always, as he does today. Always and everywhere we are in the presence of God. But now he was to make himself known in a new way. The king of glory was to take our human nature upon him, and become a man like us. He was to come, not in his royal robes of splendor, not in the garments of the sunset, not with his holy angels with him, but as a little child, to be born as we are, to grow as we grow, and thus by living our life, to teach us how to live. And when the king came in his humility, Mary was to be his mother. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord, Be it unto me according to thy word. Then the angel departed from her. That was the first day of the year one. The King Had Long Been Expected Men of God in the Old Testament had promised that the king should come. They had also promised that before he came, somebody should appear to tell the people that he was coming and to prepare his way. For that was the custom when kings came. Sometimes the road lay over wild lands, and companies of men were sent to make it smooth. They cut down forests, and bridged rivers, and even leveled hills and filled up valleys. All this they did under the orders of the king's herald. One of the Old Testament prophets, Isaiah, had said that when the king of glory came, such a herald should precede him with such orders. The prophet in his vision heard the herald's voice in the wilderness. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his path straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Another prophet, Malachi, had said that the road to be made ready for the king was not laid down on any map, but was in the heart of man, where the valleys are valleys of ignorance, and the hills are hills of pride, and the rough and crooked ways are ways of sin. Malachi said that the king's herald would be like the prophet Elijah. He shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. At last one day, just before the beginning of the year one, a strange thing happened to a priest in the temple. The priest was a very good old man, named Zacharias. He lived with his good old wife, Elizabeth, in a quiet little place among the hills, where they were much respected and loved by all their neighbors. The old people liked the quiet of the village, but they were much troubled by the quiet of their own home. For every day, from morning to night, no sound was there but the sound of their own gentle voices. Many times they had prayed to God to send them a little baby, but their prayers had not been answered. Now the time came when it was the turn of Zacharias to go to Jerusalem, to take his part, with other ministers, in the temple service. Services were going on every day in the year, but there were so many ministers that they had to take turns. And even when a new company came week by week, they had to draw lots to divide the service, one to do this, another to do that. This time it so happened at the drawing of lots, that Zacharias was chosen to burn the incense. That was a great honor, which came only once in a man's life. So Zacharias went in to burn incense. One part of the temple was called the Holy of Holies, and nobody ever went into it except the High Priest, once a year. Just outside the Holy of Holies was the Holy Place. The doors which led into it were covered with gold, and against them hung a heavy curtain colored white and blue and scarlet and purple. Inside there stood on the right a table, and on the left a great candlestick having seven branches, and beside the candlestick was the altar of incense overlaid with gold. Two men went in with Zacharias, one carrying a golden bowl full of incense, and the other a golden bowl full of burning coals. These they put on the altar and went out, leaving Zacharias alone. Outside were all the other priests and many people in great silence praying. Zacharias was to take the incense and sprinkle it on the burning coals, so as to make a thick fragrant smoke, and the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints ascended up before God. Then it was that the strange thing happened. For as this white-haired old man cast the incense on the coals and the place was filled with smoke, suddenly he saw an angel of the Lord standing beside him, and when Zacharias saw him he was troubled and fear fell upon him. But the angel said, Fear not, Zacharias, for thy prayer is heard, and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John, and thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his birth. And he shall go before the Lord. That is, the child thus to be born should be the herald of the king. You remember how Mary answered the angel? She said, Be it unto me according to thy word. But she was young, and it was easy for her to believe in wonders. Zacharias, in his long experience, had learned that life is governed by great universal laws. One of these laws is that little babies are not given to old people, and that was the first thought which came into his mind. I am an old man, he said, and my wife well stricken in years. Indeed, they were now such aged folk that they had given up expecting that their prayer would be heard. But the angel answered, You do not know who I am. My name is Gabriel. I come to you straight from God. He has sent me to tell you these glad tidings. And now, because you do not believe, you shall be done, and not able to speak until this comes to pass. So he vanished out of sight. Meanwhile, the people in great silence waiting without were wondering why Zacharias stayed so long in the holy place. And when he came out and held up his hands in blessing, but was speechless and could only make signs to them, touching his lips and pointing to the sky, they knew that he had seen a vision. So he did the duties of the day, and then went home to tell the great news to his wife. And by and by, that which the angel had promised was fulfilled, the little boy came into the quiet house of Zacharias and Elizabeth, and when he was eight days old, according to the custom, he must be named. All their neighbors and cousins were glad that God had heard their prayer, and on that day they came together to rejoice with the happy father and mother. And they said, Of course, the baby will be named Zacharias after the name of his father. Not so, said Elizabeth, but he shall be called John. Why, the neighbors and the cousins said, There is none of thy kindred that is called by this name, there is not another John in the whole family. And they asked Zacharias, making signs to him, for he seems to have been deaf as well as dumb. And he took a slate and wrote a sentence on it, and they crowded about to see. And the sentence was, His name is John. And at that moment his speech came back, and his mouth was opened immediately, and his tongue was loosed, and he spoke and praised God. And all who were in the house were filled with fear and wonder, and when they came out they spoke to everybody whom they met, saying, Have you heard what has happened in the house of Zacharias? What manner of child shall this be? But Zacharias and Elizabeth knew what he should be. They knew that the child John should be the prophet of the highest, the herald of the king. End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Of When the King Came This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. When the king came, stories from the four gospels, by George Hodges. Shepherds and sinking angels. Months passed after these angelic visits. The green of spring deepened into the green of summer, and lilies grew in the fields, and the fruits ripened, and were gathered into the barns, and the cold nights came on. And one night there were shepherds in a pasture close by the town of Bethlehem, watching their flocks. We seldom see shepherds in this country. The men with sticks who drive sheep through the streets are not true shepherds. Shepherds never drive sheep. They go before and call them. And the sheep know the shepherd's voice and follow him. While the flocks are in the fields, the shepherds stay among them to keep them from straying off and getting lost, and to protect them from wolves and bears in places where such wild animals are found. There are countries where the grass is green all the year round, and where almost the only snow which the people see is on the tops of the mountains. In such countries the sheep can feed in the fields even in the winter. In the old time, in the year one, people, when they went to church on great holy days, carried little lambs with them. That would seem queer nowadays. Imagine a church where everybody had a lamb under his arm instead of a prayer book. I am afraid that most small boys, and even some small girls, would find it hard to sit perfectly still in a church full of frisky little woolly lambs. But in those days they were used to it, and did not mind it. The people brought the lambs to give to God, and they brought the very best lambs, because they wished to give God the very best they had. Some of the lambs came from these Bethlehem Pastors, and they who took care of the church lambs would be good shepherds, gentle and kind men. So it was in the winter night, and the stars were shining, and all was still, and in the fields the flocks were sleeping while the shepherds watched. We may guess that, as they watched. They talked together, and told one another stories, especially about David, who, when he was a boy, had lived at Bethlehem, and had lain out many a frosty night in the very pasture with his sheep, and once had killed a lion and a bear. The lion and the bear had come to get the sheep, and young David had fought with them and killed them. And they sang the shepherd's psalm, The Lord is my shepherd, and they spoke of the king of glory, how he would some time come, according to the promise. And they wondered how he would look, and what he would do when he came. And they said, When he comes he will be seen here in Bethlehem, for that was written in the Bible. Then, as they watched, and talked, and sang, suddenly something happened. All at once a great and wonderful light began to shine, brighter and brighter, in the black sky, till the night was like the day. All the clouds came out in the splendid garments, which they were in the early morning and in the late afternoon. And out of the central shining appeared an angel of the Lord, gleaming like a flame of fire. The shepherds fell upon their faces, not daring to look up, hardly daring to listen or to breathe, while the angels spoke. Fear not, he said, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. The king has come. Tonight he is born yonder in Bethlehem. There shall you find him, sleeping in a manger. And then the sky grew brighter still, as if behind the clouds the gates of heaven itself were swinging open, and out there came angels upon angels, a multitude of the heavenly host, shining and singing. This is what they sang. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. Then the chorus ceased, and the choir went back into heaven, shutting the golden gates behind them, and the night was dark and still again, and the shepherds were alone. So up they leaped, crying one to another with great joy. Let us go to Bethlehem and see. Let us find the king. And off they went, down the frosty road, their eager feet making a great noise in the silent night, and their breath white behind them. Now, all that day, travelers had been journeying in unusual numbers along the ways which led to Bethlehem, for it was the time of a census. Caesar Augustus, emperor of Rome, wished to know how many people were living in that part of the country, so that he could make them all pay taxes. Every man had to go to his own city, that is, to the place in which his family belonged. So there was a great stirrer all about the land, with men going to this place and to that to have their names written in the census books. Among the others, out of Nazareth came Joseph the Carpenter, because he was of the family of David, and with him Mary, his espoused wife, who was to be the mother of the king. Down they came like other poor folk, over hill and dale, till they arrived at Bethlehem. But when they reached the town there was no place where they might stay. Every house was full of guests, and the inn was already crowded. The only shelter was a stable, a common stable, strewn with hay, with dusty cobwebs hanging from the rafters, and occupied by cows and donkeys. There, accordingly, they went. And there, while the angels sang and the sky blazed over the pastures of the sheep, the king came. The king of glory came. The mighty God, the maker of all things, the Lord Most High, came to dwell among us. And, behold, he was a little child, and Mary wrapped him warm in swaddling clothes, as the way is with babies, and laid him in the manger. There the shepherds, all out of breath with running, found them, Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger, and they told what they had seen and heard about the singing angels and the king of glory, while Mary listened, remembering the angel who had appeared to her. So the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the wonders of that night. Thus was kept the first Christmas, with carols by the choir of heaven, and God's own Son, the Saviour of the World, coming as a Christmas gift for all mankind. A week went by after the night when the king came, and the day arrived when he should be given a gift which he would keep all the rest of his life. You know what I mean. Many gifts are given to little new babies, some of which they play with till they are torn or broken all to pieces. A few, like spoons and cups, last a long time. But this gift lasts always, and the child carries it with him wherever he goes, even when he becomes a man, and never loses it, no matter what may happen to him. This gift is his name. The naming of a child is therefore a matter of such importance that people may properly make a great occasion of it. In those days it was the custom to pray God to bless the child, much as we do now at baptism. The neighbors and the cousins came together, as they did at the naming of Little John, the son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, and there was much rejoicing. It was time, then, to name the king, who had been laid in the manger. Though he laid no longer in the manger, they had no doubt found a better lodging for him. Far from home as they were there would be some interested neighbors to come in. The shepherds would be there, and for cousins it is quite likely that Zacharias and Elizabeth came, bringing their little boy, the king's herald, now six months old. There was no question as to the name, no need to decide between this good name and that. The angel had told Mary at the beginning what the child should be called, saying, Thou shalt call his name Jesus. Now Jesus was a very common name. One would think that a name which came straight from heaven, brought by an angel, would be uncommonly beautiful. Or at least quite new, such as no mortal had born since the world began. For example, as St. Matthew suggests, the king might have been called Emanuel, which means God with us. But the fact is that there were other children by the name of Jesus. It was a plain, ordinary name, like John or James. The reason why it was so common is that it had been the name of a celebrated general, as boys are sometimes called now after the heroes of the wars. This general is known to us under the name of Joshua. You remember about him, how he led the army of Israel into the promised land, and drove out the people who lived there, fighting brave battles and settling the country, like William the Conqueror. There were two ways of spelling his name. Sometimes they spelled it J-O-S-H-U-A, and sometimes they spelled it J-E-S-U-S. Thus it is spelled once in the second way in the eighth verse of the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. One was the Hebrews spelling, the other was the Greek. That is the only difference. For the king had come to be like us and to live the same life which we live. He did not wish to take a strange name, nor even a royal name, different from us. And Joshua was a good man to be named for, because the king had come to fight hard battles and to lead us against strong enemies and finally to settle us in the kingdom of heaven. You know that when little children are baptized and the minister says, name this child, and the child is given a name, then the minister says, we receive this child into the congregation of Christ's flock, and do sign him with the sign of the cross, in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified. And manfully to fight under his banner against sin, the world and the devil, and to continue Christ's faithful soldier unto his life's end. Thus we are all soldiers striving for the right. Moreover, the name Jesus means saviour. It stands for the whole purpose for which the king came, to save us from our sins. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of When the King Came This Librivox recording is in the public domain. When the king came, stories from the four gospels, by George Hodges, Chapter 5, the king is taken to the temple. The next thing which happened in the child's life took place when he was a little more than a month old. One day when the frost was out of the air and the winter had begun to change into the mildness of spring, his father and mother wrapped him up and took him for a journey. It was his first sight of the world. Where do you suppose they carried him? Six miles they went, over hill and dale, from the little town to the big one, from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. They could see the city a long way off, for it stood on a mountain, and in the midst of the city, with its roof overtopping all the others, shining in the sun, was the splendid church, the holy temple. Joseph and Mary watched it from afar as they made their way along the country road, not only because it was bright and beautiful, but because it was the end of their journey. That was their errand, to take the child to church. There was service every day in the temple, and as Joseph and Mary passed along the city streets, climbing higher towards the sacred place, they saw many other people who were going in the same direction. Some of them were carrying little babies in their arms, for it was the custom to bring every first born child to present him to the Lord. The child was brought to church, and the minister, in the name of God, received him with prayer, and then gave him back again to his father and mother. It was a solemn and beautiful way of saying, all of these little children belong to God, our heavenly Father, and they are to be brought up and cared for and trained and taught as the children of God. Then followed a special service for the mother. The mother brought an offering, which, if she were poor, consisted of a pair of turtle doves, or two young pigeons. The service began with the burning of incense on the golden altar in the holy place as on the day when Zachariah saw the angel. After that, before the door of the holy place, on a great altar made of stone, the sacrifices were offered, while those who brought them stood close by, praying and praising God. The child's part of the service was called the presentation. The mother's part was called the purification. So it was that day. The child was presented to the Lord, and the mother's offering was duly made, and the service was over. Now there was an old man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon. He was a very good and holy man, and like many others, was wondering when the king would come. Simeon did not know that the king had come already, but he was sure that he must soon appear, for he had had a wonderful dream, and in the dream God had spoken to him, and had promised that before he died his eyes should behold the king of glory. And since it was written in the Old Testament that the Lord should appear in the temple, Simeon was all the time expecting him at the daily services. Every day, as he climbed the temple hill, he said to himself, The king may come to-day. Perhaps he thought that the sky would suddenly open, and there would be a great light brighter than the sun, and out of heaven the king of glory would come down. But this morning, as he came into the temple, praying in his heart that his great desire might that day be granted, he heard the voice of a little child, and when he looked, there was a baby in its mother's arms, and as he looked again, for the child was very beautiful, a strange feeling came over him. It seemed as if God were speaking in his heart again, as he had spoken in his dream, and telling him that here at last was the answer to his prayer. He stopped, and took the child up in his arms, and blessed God, and he said, I have seen the king of glory, now let me die in peace, for mine eyes have behold him who shall be the saviour of the world. And while Joseph and Mary marveled at the old man's words, he gave them his blessing, and said, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be spoken against. Then came an aged woman, a widow, whose name was Anna. She was eighty-four years old, and all her time, for many, many years, had been spent in the temple. She was a prophetess, that is, her eyes were wonderfully open to see the will of God, and she gave thanks to God when she saw the child, and spoke of him to all her friends. So the parents went out of the temple with the child who had been thus strangely welcomed, and carried him back over the country road. End of Chapter 5 CHAPTER 6 The Visit of the Wisemen Then the child grew and grew as other little children grow, and for a good while nothing happened except just the ordinary things, but one day there came to the door some very extraordinary visitors. Nobody knows how old the child was when they came. Indeed, St. Luke, who was much interested in the beautiful stories of our Lord's childhood, knew nothing about them. So far as he had learned, Joseph and Mary went back to Nazareth after the presentation in the temple, carrying the child with them. But St. Matthew had heard about the Wisemen. One would think, to read the story in St. Matthew's Gospel, that our Lord was as much as two years old when the Wisemen came. In that case it was at Bethlehem that he learned to walk and to talk, and began to say his prayers and to learn by heart some of the holy words of the Bible. Meanwhile, away in the East, nobody knows where, men were watching the sky. They lived out of doors in those countries much more than we do, and the clouds and the stars were of great interest to them. Every night they looked to see the constellations rise and set, and when a comet blazed across the heavens, they were filled with wonder. They did not know that the stars were other worlds. They thought that they were shining jewels set in the blue roof of the sky. They imagined that they formed mysterious sentences, which one might read, did he but know the celestial language, and thus learned the story of the earth, both past and future. Especially they connected the great stars with the great kings, and one of their number, a magician named Bethlehem, had one day in a vision cried, I see a star and a king, meaning a king of the Jews. These men were called Wisemen. They were very well acquainted with the sky and knew the stars by name, and one night as they gazed, according to their custom, at the lights overhead, behold, there was a new star which none of them had seen before. There it shone, brighter than any of the others, low down in the western sky, and the men said, there is the star, and in that direction, towards the west, is the land of the Jews. There is a king born, let us go and see him. So they started on their long journey. Some say that they were as great as they were wise. That they were kings. That there were three of them, an old man named Casper, and a middle-aged man named Melchior, and a young man named Balthazar. That they rode on camels and had a train of servants with them. Indeed, we may imagine whatever we please, for nobody knows anything about it. On they came, then, over the hard wild ways which led from the east to the west, till at last they reached Jerusalem, and there they stopped to ask their way. Where is he? They said. That is born king of the Jews, for we have seen his star in the east and are come to worship him. But the people knew of only one king of the Jews, and his name was Herod, and he had been born so long ago that even now he was approaching the end of his bad life. That was not the king for whom they were looking. No, there was a new king, a little child. So they went about asking people in the streets, and the news spread, the news of the appearance of these strange visitors and of the strange question which they asked. People said to one another, Have you seen those three dark-faced pilgrims out of the far east? Have you heard what they are saying? And men began to be afraid. They said, Now there will be war. The two kings will fight for the crown. Presently King Herod heard what was happening in the city, and he too was troubled. The thought came into his heart that this new king might perhaps be the king of glory. He knew that the people were waiting for a king, and that promises of his coming were written in the Bible. Herod was not a reader of the Bible, and he had no idea that the king of glory was to come from heaven. All that he had in his mind was a vague knowledge that a great king was expected, and a clear conviction that when the king came there would be no more use for Herod, and he immediately determined that he would find the new king if he could, and kill him in his cradle. So he called the ministers together, and when they came he said, Where is it that the king of whom the Bible speaks will be born when he comes? And the ministers looked into the Bible, and there it was, written down in black and white, long, long before, that the king of glory should be born in Bethlehem. And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the princes of Judah, for out of thee shall come a governor that shall rule my people Israel. Then Herod called the wise men privately, and they came to meet him in his palace, and he asked them any questions. He seemed particularly anxious to find out just how long ago it was when the star appeared, and the wise men, who were better acquainted with stars than they were with kings, answered him in all simplicity. And the king said, You are to go to Bethlehem, go, and search diligently for the young child, and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also. That is what he said, the bad king who meant to kill him. Away they went then out of the king's palace, and made their way towards Bethlehem, and as they went, behold, they saw the strange star shining again in the night sky, as they had seen it in their own land, and they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. The stars seemed to go before them, leading them, and at last to stand still over the little village, and under the star was a house, and in the house the king. The house did not look much like a palace. Joseph was a carpenter, having nothing to live on but his daily wages. He could afford only the umblest lodgings. Neither did the child look much like a king. There he stood, leaning against his mother's knee, looking at the strange visitors with great eyes of wonder, and probably more interested in the wise men's camels than he was in the wise men themselves. But the wise men kneeled before him and worshiped him, and when they opened their treasures, the queer-looking boxes and bundles which they brought with them, they presented unto him gifts, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. These gifts were of no use to the child. Frankincense and myrrh are kinds of fragrant gum which are found on trees and shrubs in the east, somewhat like the sticky substance which we find on pines. They were used to make incense. Frankincense means simply pure incense. That is, when put on burning coals they make a thick smoke with a sweet smell. Such was the incense which Zacharias was placing on the golden altar when he saw the angel. Thus frankincense and myrrh were used in the worship of God. Accordingly the wise men's gift were meant only to express the thoughts of their hearts. As they knelt before the king and spread them out at his feet, they said by these symbols what we say in the Tadeim when we sing, Thou art the king of glory, O Christ. And since the wise men were not Jews but Gentiles, Joseph and Mary may well have recited one to another after they went the great words of the Old Testament. The Gentiles shall come to thy light and kings to the brightness of thy rising. They shall bring gold and incense, and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord. That night before the next day dawned, the wise men had a dream, and in the same night Joseph had a dream also. In the wise men's dream God told them about Herod and warned them not to return to him but to go back to their own country another way. In Joseph's dream the angel of the Lord appeared and said, Arise and take the young child and his mother and flee into Egypt and be thou there until I bring thee word, for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. So the wise men rose up and, avoiding Jerusalem, went to their homes far in the east, and Joseph also waked and aroused Mary, and they made a hasty preparation for a long journey, and before it was light were a good distance on the road which led from Bethlehem toward the south. And when the day came Herod too opened his eyes, and he remembered the wise men and their errand. This morning, he said to himself, I shall know about the king. But the morning passed and the afternoon also, and no word came from the wise men, and at last Herod saw that he would hear nothing more from them, and he was very angry. But he knew that Bethlehem was the place where the king should be born, and he knew, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men, that the king could not be more than two years old. So he sent men who killed all the little children in that village, all who were under two. And there was lamentation and weeping and great mourning in Bethlehem among the poor mothers and fathers. But meanwhile the king was on his way, all safe and sound, to Egypt. CHAPTER VII The Good Angel had promised Joseph that he would be sure to let him know when it was safe for him to come out of Egypt. So one night he appeared again in a dream and told him that Herod was dead. Arise, he said, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel, for they are dead which sought the young child's life. Out of Egypt they came then, very gladly, riding part of the way and walking part of the way, the child walking too, passed Bethlehem and then passed Jerusalem, and so to their own town of Nazareth. Nazareth is an inhabited place even to this day, and not only are there still to be found both fathers and mothers and little children in it as they're worth in, but they are still living in much the same way, for life changes very slowly in the east. Nazareth is among the hills which rise about it on all sides, like a sheltering wall. The streets run across the bases of the hills, probably on the old lines. For few things which men make last so long as a street. There is a town well, a clear spring of cold water, which is still the center of the life of the place, as it was when our Lord was a lad there. Twice a day all the women and girls go there with earthen pots on their heads, bringing them empty and carrying them away full, and every week they meet by the side of the stream which flows from the spring and have a good neighborly time doing their family washing. So years went by and the child Jesus grew, and there were other children. The house was full of them. There were James and Joseph and Jude and Simon, our Lord's brothers, and at least two sisters. The house in which they lived was a white building, perhaps made of clay, having a flat roof. The roof was reached by an outside stairway. When the weather was good, the family all slept on the roof, each wrapped in a blanket under the stars. One of the psalms tells how the grass grew on the roof and how the hot sun withered it. The house had no window in it. All the light and air came from the wide door. Once Jesus told about a woman who lost a piece of money, and she took a broom and a candle to find it, for the corners were dark even in the daytime. He had seen his mother looking for things with a candle and a broom. There was not much furniture in the house. Joseph may have had his carpenter's bench on one side, but he probably did most of his work out of doors, except when it rained. There would be a big chest on the other side for rugs and blankets. The room had a stove in it and a tall lamp made of earthenware, which was kept burning day and night. There was a mill in which Mary ground grain to make flour for bread, the little girls helping her. The little boys helped their father at his bench. For dinner they had large round flat loaves of bread, like crackers, with butter or cheese and milk and honey. Sometimes they had eggs, sometimes fish from the lake of Galilee, with a dessert of grapes or figs. There was commonly a central dish of curds or porridge in which all dipped their broken pieces of bread. Sometimes the children would gather locusts and their mother would roast them and grind them up with flour and bake them into nice grasshopper cake. The children played among themselves, or with the children of the neighborhood, before the doors and in the street. They had a game in which they pretended they were dancing at a wedding, and another in which they pretended they were crying at a funeral. And sometimes some of the children would be offended and say that they would not play. All this Jesus remembered and spoke of it when he became a man. Every little child was taught to say his prayers and learned sentences of the Bible. The first words which Jesus, like all the others, learned by heart, were these. Here, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might. As he grew older he committed to memory eighteen other verses and recited them at the beginning and the ending of every day when he said his prayers. That was the custom in all good households. These verses he presently learned to read and then to write. Then his mother taught him the meaning of the words and told him the beautiful stories of the old time which were written in the Bible about the faith of Abraham and the great deeds of Moses and the courage of Joshua and the exploits of Samson. There were other stories which would impress him still more because he could see with his own eyes the places where they had happened. There was a high hill near Nazareth and when one climbed it there was a wide view over all the country. To the east was Mount Tabor where Deborah and Barak fought in a wild storm of rain against Cicera and Mount Gilboa where King Saul fell down slain in a great battle with the Philistines. To the west was Mount Carmel where Elijah contended with the priest of Baal and called down fire from heaven and the child knew that to the south across the plain and beyond the mountains lay Jerusalem, the holy city. On the Sabbath there was a service in the synagogue to which the child went with his parents. There he heard the Bible read and explained. The children stayed after service and had lessons of their own. Even on weekdays the school met in the church and much of the teaching was religious. Thus our Lord was taught about the world in which he had come to live learning arithmetic and geography and history and about God who is in all the world and over it and who wishes even the smallest children to tell the truth, to be good and gentle and to obey their parents and on holidays he climbed the high hill to see the view and there thought over all these things. Sometimes his brother James went with him and the two boys climbed together talking as they went for James was a good lad with a serious mind. The difference between James and Jesus was like the difference between a statue and a tree. That is, James's goodness was rather stiff and formal and made by rule while the goodness of Jesus was free and natural. They were so unlike that James was often shocked at the sayings of Jesus. I am guessing at this from what we know about them after they grew up. James could not understand him. Indeed he perplexed the whole family. Many times, therefore, Jesus sought the height alone thinking his own thoughts. End of chapter 7 Chapter 8 of When the King Came This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. When the King Came Stories from the Four Gospels by George Hodges Chapter 8 at the age of 12 Every year Joseph and Mary went on a long journey. They set out in the early springtime when the leaves were green and the blossoms were pink and white and before the days grew hot. First they walked a long way to the east till they came to the River Jordan on whose banks they pitched their tent and spent the night. Then they turned to the south following the course of the river all that day and the day after and avoiding the country of the Samaritans. For the Jews and the Samaritans were enemies. The third night they slept in Jericho. The next morning turning to the west they began to climb the hills along a rough road which was shut in on each side by steep walls of rock. So they came to Bethany on the Mount of Olives and a little farther on at a sudden turn of the way they beheld Jerusalem. That was their destination. On this annual journey Joseph and Mary had many companions. Indeed it would not have been safe for them to go alone for the roads were beset by robbers. Even between Jericho and Jerusalem men sometimes fell among thieves who plundered and beat them and ran away leaving them half dead. People who went on journeys were therefore accustomed to travel in companies or caravans. Joseph and Mary when they started on their long walk would have many of their friends with them. Half of the people of the place would be going on the same journey and on the way other groups would join them coming out of other villages and bound in the same direction. For every year a great festival was held at Jerusalem called the Feast of the Passover. It was kept in remembrance of the delivery of the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. The people were slaves to the Egyptians and one night a plague of death fell on the houses of the masters. In every house somebody was dead. But the destroying angel passed over the houses of the slaves. That night the slaves rose up and escaped out of Egypt. So they became a nation. The Passover was the national birthday. The 14th of Nisan, for that was their name for the month, was like our 4th of July. It was accordingly the custom to keep the 14th of Nisan and all the following week as a national holiday. But instead of keeping the festival each in his own home and town all the people as many as could get away gathered at Jerusalem. Of course there were so many who had to stay behind to mind the babies and tend the stores. But there were great numbers like Joseph and Mary who were able so to arrange their affairs as to go on the spring pilgrimage. One can easily see that they must have had a merry time of it. Briskly they walked in the early morning along the pleasant ways stopping to drink out of the brooks which ran among the hills. Resting and sleeping at noon in the shade of the woods, talking cheerfully one with another, meeting new people and seeing new sights. Thus they journeyed like the pilgrims of the Canterbury Tales. Sometimes as they pitched their tents at night or started in the morning somebody with a strong voice would begin to sing and all the others would sing with him. The Psalms from the 120th to the 134th were pilgrim songs. I will lift up my eyes into the hills from whence cometh my help, my help cometh even from the Lord who hath made heaven and earth. So they sang beside the mountains. They that put their trust in the Lord shall be even as the Mount Sayu which may not be removed but standeth fast for ever. The hills stand about Jerusalem even so standeth the Lord round about his people from this time forth for evermore. That was the song when the holy hills came into view. Finally they joined in a great glad chorus as they entered the city itself. I was glad when they said unto me, We will go into the house of the Lord. Our feet shall stand in thy gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity in itself. For thither the tribes go up, even the tribes of the Lord, to testify unto Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord. Of course, on so long a journey it was impossible to take the little children. They must wait at home till they were old enough and strong enough to go on this wonderful pilgrimage and see the sights of the wide world. Until then they must be content to listen to the stories of their fathers and mothers about their adventures by the way and the splendors of the holy city. But now, at last, our Lord was twelve years old and his time came. Out they started in the coolness and beauty of the spring morning making their way down the valley by the river and sleeping at night in tents under a full moon. For the Passover always came when the moon was full, so he stood presently on the side of the Mount of Olives and gazed on the great city. Jerusalem was built on hills and had a high, stout wall of stone about it, with a tower at every turn. Within the walls were crowded the white, flat-roofed houses clinging to the terraced hillsides, and above all, shone the splendid temple. To the temple the pilgrims made their way, Joseph and Mary holding Jesus by the hand. Entering by a great arched gateway they found themselves in the temple enclosure. This was a wide court paved with stone and surrounded by four high walls. Against the walls on the four sides were porches, their roofs upheld by pillars. The court was crowded with people, some of them being pilgrims like themselves, while others were engaged in carrying on a noisy trade, selling doves and lambs for sacrifices and changing money, calling out at the tops of their voices. In the midst stood the temple itself. A stairway of fourteen steps led to an entrance which was called the beautiful gate. This opened into a large room, without roof, called the court of the women. Here Mary waited, while Joseph and Jesus climbed another stone stairway to a room called the court of Israel. This was separated by a low barrier from a third room called the court of the priests. Standing beside the barrier they could see a large stone altar, and behind it a stone building with a porch and a roof. In this building hidden behind doors and curtains were two rooms, one called the holy place in which stood the golden altar of incense, and the other called the holy of holies, an empty room, through whose floor jetted up the bare rock of the top of the hill. There in the court of Israel they offered a lamb for their sacrifice. A priest took the lamb and killed it, burned a part of it in the fire which was blazing and smoking on the stone altar, and gave the rest to Joseph. Also with the lamb upon his shoulder Joseph, taking Jesus, rejoined Mary in the court of the women, and they all betook themselves to the place where they were to stay, and where with friends and relatives they had arranged to eat the Passover supper. Then they all sat down together when the evening came, and the roasted lamb was on the table, and there were bitter herbs and bread and wine. At that an appointed moment in the meal Jesus, as the youngest of the company, said, What does this service mean? And his father in answer told the story of the Passover. Then they all sang songs, which we have in our book of Psalms, from the one hundred and thirteenth to the one hundred and eighteenth. This is the day which the Lord hath made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Help me now, O Lord. O Lord, send us now prosperity. Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Then there was a week of visiting and seeing sights and going to services in the temple, and so the festivities were over and they started to go home. A great many other people, thousands of them, were starting at the same time, and there was much confusion. But at last they got safely out of the city gate and over the Mount of Olives on the way downhill to Jericho, when they missed Jesus. They had noticed, of course, that he was not by their side, but that had not surprised them. He was twelve years of age, a sturdy, independent lad, and in the caravan there were many whom he knew, some of them his relatives. So they said he is with his cousins or some other playmates. We shall see him when it is time for supper. But supper time came, and even bedtime, and he did not appear. Joseph and Mary went about in the dark with torches, asking all their neighbors where he was, but nobody knew. At last, with heavy hearts, in deep distress, they hurried back again along the road to Jerusalem, seeking him. But Jerusalem was a very large city, and just then, as we have seen, it was in confusion, with crowds of people coming and going. Joseph and Mary went to the place where they had lodged, but he was not there. They inquired of all the people whom they knew, but could find no trace of him. One day had already been spent in going as far as Jericho, another day in returning. It was now the third day, and the King of Glory, who had been so solemnly and wonderfully entrusted to their care, was nowhere to be found. At last they looked in the temple. There in one of the porches was a company of people sitting on the floor, as the custom was, and listening while wise men taught. The teachers were called doctors. Not doctors of medicine, but doctors of divinity, teachers of religion. And in the midst of the gray-bearded doctors, not only hearing them, but asking them questions, was the child Jesus, while all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. And when his parents saw him, they were both glad and amazed. Glad to find him after their long search, but amazed that their son, this little lad of Nazareth, should be sitting so serenely in the midst of those learned people, understanding what they said. But the boy had done wrong, so they thought. He had caused them great distress, and his mother said, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. She reproached him with tears in her eyes, as mothers must. But he answered, How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I would be found in my heavenly father's house? He meant that they should have known him better than to search for him from street to street. They should have looked first in the temple. It shows what he had been doing all that week, while other boys were gazing at the shop windows or admiring the bright uniforms and shining lances of the castle-guard. He had spent his time in the holy house, attending to the words of the wise, like the child who loves to get away by himself with a book. It shows, too, that already he had that habit of attention, which is a part of greatness. When he was interested he thought of nothing else. By and by we shall see him thinking so deeply that for a long while, even for days, he forgets to eat. Now he forgets what time it is, and how his father and mother are starting off for home. All his mind is on the words of the wise men. That was different from the ways of James and Joseph and the others. His father and mother could not understand it. But he turned about and took their hands and went away between them, and so came to Nazareth again and took up the old life. Every day he did just what they wished him to do. Every day he learned his lessons and said his prayers and did his work, growing tall and strong, and everybody loved him. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of When the King Came This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. When the King Came, Stories from the Four Gospels by George Hodges Chapter 9 The Herald Speaks All this time while the king was growing out of boyhood into manhood, the king's herald was in the wilderness. The little John must have stayed at home till he was as much as twelve years old. His father and mother would not have allowed him to go off alone till he was at least as old as that. It may be that during these years the little king and the little herald met. For their mothers were related, and Mary visited Elizabeth before either of the children was born. Elizabeth may have visited Mary at Nazareth, bringing John with her. John's father and mother, you remember, were very old. They may have died while the lad was in his tender years. He may have gone to the wild woods because there was nobody at home to look after him. But there was a better reason. He went into the wilderness because he was told to go by a voice which he heard in his soul. Even as a little boy he heard it calling him and calling him, and as he grew older he was able to make out what it said. The voice told him that the king was coming. But that was no secret. Many people knew that, and were waiting for him to appear. The voice told him that he, the little John, was to be the herald of the king. But this too he knew before. His father and mother had told him many times the beautiful story of the angel at the altar, and of the message which was brought from heaven. He knew that he was to go before the king and prepare his way in the hearts of the people, preaching like Elijah. Then the voice told him to go into the wilderness. Little by little he came to understand that he was not to be a minister like his father, nor a carpenter like his uncle, nor a fisherman like his cousin, but was to spend a great part of his life as a hermit. He was not to live in a house, nor walk in the streets of towns, but was to be a man of the woods, living all by himself, under the sky and the trees. Thus he was to prepare himself to be the herald for the king. For no serious work can be done without preparation. Not even a game of ball can be well played without knowing the game and practicing it often. Not even a school examination can be passed without getting ready for it by hard study. Nobody can be a motorman without learning how, or a soldier without being drilled. Thus the boy John would first study the life of the woods. He would spend his holidays camping among the hills. He would learn how to make a hut, and how to get fire by rubbing sticks together, and how to find food and cook it, and how to see his way where there was no path. He would get acquainted with the habits of the wild bees, so as to know where they kept their honey, and how to take it without getting stung. He would get his mother to teach him how to make grasshopper cake. He would make friends with the wild animals, so that he might live safely in their neighborhood. Thus he would prepare himself to be a hermit. But that was only the beginning. All his hermit life was meant to prepare him to be the herald of the king. In order to be the herald of a king, one must know the king when he appears. And in order to know the king of glory, it was necessary to have a pure heart, and to be accustomed to the presence of God. So years went by, and John still lived in the depths of the woods. He cared little about what he had to eat or to drink, and was not at all particular about his clothes. He devoted himself wholly to God, saying his prayers in the face of the stars and of the sun, feeling and seeing God in the wonderful world about him, and trying in every way to increase in the knowledge and the love of God. And that went on till John was thirty years of age. Then one day the voice which had called him into the woods told him that it was time for him to go out. Come, said the voice, and stand beside the river. There speak to all who pass by, saying that the king is coming, and that if they wish to see him they must first make their hearts clean of sin, and as a sign of it they must have their bodies washed in the running water. They must be baptized. And presently among the company you will find the king himself. You will see the spirit descending upon him. So John went out and stood beside the river Jordan. There was no bridge, but the stream was shallow, and the road ran through the river. People were coming and going, wading across the fort. The wilderness came near the edge of the water, a tangle of tamarisks and willows, and there were stones along the bank, and reeds in the wet places. John was a strange figure, his long hair falling upon his shoulders, and his long beard falling upon his breast. A great rough cloak of coarse yellow cloth about him, made of camel's hair, and tied about his waist with a belt of leather. Coming from his long stay in the woods and standing there in his youth and strength, with his long staff in his hand, his face browned by the sun and the breeze, and a look in his eyes as of one who had seen God. He was a strange and striking person, and everybody stopped to see and hear him. Day by day the crowd increased about him. There were country people going into market, and city people going out to see their farms. There were soldiers in the uniform of the Roman army, and publicans who collected the Roman taxes. Men whom most people hated, for the Romans had conquered the land and held it by force of arms. There were those who came from curiosity, having been told that a wild man was saying wild things at the Fort of the Jordan. There were those who came hoping to find a man of God, and finding him indeed. And among them several young fishermen from the Lake of Galilee, of whom we shall hear much again. There were those who were living lives of sin, daily breaking the ten commandments. There were messengers from the great people, from the governor and the chief priests, from the leaders of the temple and of the synagogue, Sadducees and Pharisees, to ask John who he was, and to carry back word to their masters. Indeed, outside the crowd, but within hearing, were some of the great people themselves, who had come to see with their own eyes, and to hear with their own ears. To all these the herald spoke, and a loud voice, telling them that one whom they knew not stood among them, even the king of glory, and baptizing all who repented of their sins. End of chapter 9 Chapter 10 of When the King Came This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. When the king came, stories from the four gospels, by George Hodges. Chapter 10 Heaven and the River All this time Jesus had been living at Nazareth. It is likely that during these unrecorded years Joseph died, for we hear no more about him. In that case Jesus, as the eldest son, became the head of the family. Probably he worked at the carpenter's bench, with plain and saw and hammer, and built houses and mended roofs, and the neighbors sent for him to make their doors and tables and yolks for their oxen. The family grew up about him, from boys and girls, to men and women. At least two of the brothers, James and Jude, married. St. Paul tells us that. And there were small nephews and nieces. When our Lord took little children in his arms, he knew how to hold them. There was always a baby in the carpenter's house. The life of the great world went on outside, with its busyness and its battles, with ships putting out to sea, and soldiers marching, and streets of cities full of eager people. From the hills of Nazareth one looked down on the great roads which ran across the plain. From Egypt traveled by merchants, from Jerusalem with pilgrims coming and going, from Damascus with caravans. To the north of the village lay the highway from the sea, along which Roman legions made their way, with sound of trumpets, the sun glittering on the points of their spears, and all the Nazareth boys perched on high rocks and in the trees to see them. Nazareth was a station on these lines of travel, like a town where railroads meet, and was kept acquainted with the world's news and knew the world's ways. It had a bad name among the villages of the neighborhood, so that our Lord, growing up there, did not live a sheltered life, in which it is more easy to be good than to be bad, but was exposed to continual temptation. He knew all the trials which boys have to meet in public schools and in the streets of cities. He was tempted in all ways just as we are, with this difference that he never sinned. All his life long he never did a wrong deed nor said an evil word, nor even had in his heart a sinful thought. Thus the years went by. Then one day the word came that a new preacher, perhaps a new prophet, was preaching at the Fort of the Jordan. Somebody who passed by said so, or perhaps some Nazareth neighbor going to Jerusalem to the temple or the market there, had gone to hear him, coming back with great accounts of the speaker and the sermon. People talked about it in the street after supper, and our Lord determined to go down and hear the preacher with his own ears. Probably he went on foot, in a company of the neighbors, but it is likely that he walked alone, at a little distance from the others, thinking his own thoughts, for he had much to think about. Eighteen years had now passed since he sat as a boy in the temple, and listened to the teaching of the doctors. During these years he had gradually come to see that he was different from other men. As he grew tall and strong, his mind and his soul grew and became great. He felt his strength of spirit as a strong man fills his strength of body. More and more, as he talked with James and Joseph and the others as they worked together, he came to see that his thoughts were not as their thoughts. As he stood alone on the heights of the hill and looked out across the world and up into the sky, he felt that God was wonderfully near to him, so that he could almost touch him with his hand. He heard, like John, a voice in his soul, calling him away from the carpenter's shop, away from Nazareth, to be a leader and a helper of men. As yet, however, all was dim and vague. He increased in stature and in wisdom, but he had not yet come to a full knowledge of himself. So he arrived at the Fort of the Jordan, and there was John the Baptist, in his great cloak, preaching, the crowd pressing close about him. Sometimes the people asked John questions. The men who came from the rulers asked him, saying, Who are you? Are you Elijah? No, he said. Are you the king of glory? No. Who are you, then, that we may have an answer to take back to our masters? What do you call yourself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord. Why, then, they said, do you baptize if you are neither Elijah nor the king of glory? I baptize, he answered, with water only, teaching people to prepare their hearts for the coming of the king. The king will come. Yes, he has come already. Here among you in the crowd he stands, even now, unknown. And John stretched out his great arms, right and left, as if he were inviting the king to come forth and declare himself. And Jesus stood in silence, listening. The soldiers were much impressed when John spoke of the life which a true man ought to live, and they said, What shall we do? And the publican said, What shall we do? And he told them to be just and honest and content and to do good to others. Sometimes John the Baptist spoke very sternly, seeing the wickedness of the world, and crying out against it. He especially reproved those who seemed to be better than they really were, telling them that God would judge every man according to his works, and that already it was as when a woodsman marks with his axe where he will strike the tree. And he looked straight at a company of gentlemen on the edge of the crowd, so that everybody knew whom he meant, and the gentlemen turned away in confusion and anger, saying one to another that the speaker was but a crazy man. Meanwhile, between the answers and the speeches, people were coming up in little groups to be baptized, waiting out and plunging with a great splash into the river, or standing while John poured water on their heads. And among them Jesus came that he might be baptized. It is not likely that John the Baptist knew him, having spent so many years in the woods. But the moment he saw him, he perceived that he was some great person. There was a light in his eyes which made him unlike anybody else. Indeed, when John looked again, he was almost sure that here, at last, was the king of glory. And he said, I must not baptize you, it is for you to baptize me. But our Lord insisted, and into the water they went, the two together, the herald and the king, with the river beneath and heaven above, and John baptized him. This ceremony did not mean what baptism means now. Baptism, as we have it, is the service by which persons are admitted to membership in the Christian society, the church. Our Lord's baptism was like what we call ordination. It was the act by which he entered into the ministry. There he stood then, between heaven and the river, and a wonderful thing happened. The divine voice, which had spoken so often in the soul of John and in the soul of Jesus, seemed now to them both to be speaking straight from the sky. They too felt that they were surrounded by a blaze of glory, the heaven being open and shining down upon them. The herald saw a form, dim and shadowy, as of a fluttering dove coming down and resting on the king. It was the sign which had been promised to him long before in the wilderness, by which he should recognize his Lord and Master, and the voice said, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Stories from the Four Gospels by George Hodges Chapter 11 The Three Temptations The voice from heaven changed the whole manner of our Lord's life. He worked no more at the carpenter's trade after that. He had a much more important business, for he knew now, with all certainty, that he was indeed the Son of God. Nobody knows all that that means, even wise persons who have studied it deeply are not able to make us understand it in its fullness. But some things in it are quite plain. It is plain that Jesus was the Messiah. Messiah is a Hebrew name, as Christ is a Greek name, and they both mean one who has been anointed. It was by anointing, that is, by pouring fragrant oil on one's head, that a man was made a priest or a king. This was a way of saying that God had called this man into a high service, and that he would give him blessing and strength from heaven. The people, for a long, long while, had been looking for a wonderful anointed one, who should be their king and their priest at the same time. A king to make them great, and a priest to make them good. Mysterious things were said about him in the Bible. They were all expecting him, but in a temple or a palace, not in a carpenter's shop. That day by the river, when the spirit as a dove came down from heaven, God anointed Jesus. Jesus was the Messiah, but the name Son of God meant more than that. One day he said that anybody who had seen him had seen God, because he was in God, and God in him. God is in all the world where the heavens declare his glory and all things show his wisdom and his might. God is his Father. God is also in all men speaking to us in our hearts by the voice of conscience. God is the Holy Ghost. But in neither of these ways does God speak very clearly to us. Nature does not make us sure of his love, and conscience does not make us sure of his will. But God is in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. By him God speaks and tells us plainly of his love and of his will. In him God so dwells that Jesus Christ is at the same time man and God. This was the great meaning of the word from heaven. At that moment Jesus came to complete knowledge of himself. It was as if a prince brought up in the house of a carpenter had at last discovered the secret of his birth and learned his place in the world, crying, I am the Son of the King. So Jesus, with the light of heaven in his eyes and the voice of heaven in his ears, said over and over to himself trying to realize it. I am the Son of God. I am the Son of God. Immediately he went away alone, seeking a place where he might think. He plunged into the wilderness out of which John had come. There he stayed days and days out of the sight of men in the silence of the woods with the wild beasts for neighbors, thinking and thinking, making out what all this meant for him and for the world, planning his new life. Long after he described what took place there, putting it in the form of a story. Thus one time when the apostles had been preaching so that people turned from their sins, he said, I saw Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning, meaning that he foresaw the day when evil would be wholly cast down by the good. So here he said, telling what happened in his soul, the devil came and spoke to me, meaning that one wrong thought after another came and attacked him. He said that one day he was very hungry, for he had been so occupied with his great thoughts that he had forgotten even to eat. You remember how he was so interested that day in the temple that he forgot to go home. So days and days passed there in the wilderness during which he sat still with his eyes upon the ground, thinking and thinking. At last he was aroused by the appearance of a visitor and when he looked to see who came, behold, it was the devil. The devil began in a very friendly way, as he always does, and said, It is now a long time since you have eaten anything, you must be very hungry, and here you are in the wild woods, a long way from good food. If you are the son of God, speak to these flat stones and turn them into bread. The son of God can do that. Moreover, you are going out presently into the world to tell men about God. You are not going to be a carpenter any more. How will you support yourself? How will you get bread to eat? Make your own bread. Use your divine powers to help yourself. That is, the devil suggested he ought to look out for his own interest, for his own comfort and advantage. Here he was giving up his business in order to devote himself entirely to the service of God. Was that a wise thing to do? For there are people who think of nothing but their own pleasure. They are like the old woman in Mother Goose, who lived upon nothing but victuals and drink. Our Lord turned his back upon that kind of life. It is written, he said, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which precedeth out of the mouth of God. That was the first temptation. Then the devil did what a regiment of soldiers sometimes do in battle. The soldiers pretend to run away, so as to get the enemy to chase them, and thus they get the enemy into an ambush where there are guns firing upon them from all sides. The devil pretended to agree with what our Lord said. Of course, he answered, the body is not of so much importance as the soul. It is best to do the will of God, even if we go hungry. We ought to think only of God. Come, let us do as you say. And the devil took him away off to the holy city and placed him upon the top of one of the high towers of the temple. And they looked down, and the men and women seemed like ants crawling over the pavement far below. Now, said the devil, let us rely upon the word of God. God says he will give his angels charge over those who love him, and in their hands they shall bear them up lest they stumble over the stones, cast thyself down. There it was, sure enough in the Bible, looking like an invitation to do all sorts of wild and reckless things, trusting in the care of God. There have been people who have met the first temptation and overcome it, and have devoted themselves to God's service, and then have been tempted to neglect or to abuse their bodies, feeling that somehow God would be pleased to have them fast or whip themselves or break the laws of nature. But our Lord answered, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. That is, we are not to run needless risk to see if God will save us. We are indeed to be on guard against paying too much attention to our bodies, but we are also to be careful to pay them such attention as they need. So our Lord determined that though he must give up his trade and be in peril of hunger in the service of God, he would still live a natural life, taking all proper care of himself. Thus he met the second temptation. These two, you see, were like the rocks on either side of a narrow river. Some have struck the rock on one side and have lived lives of mere worldly comfort. Some have struck the rock on the other side and have become fanatics, doing foolish things like crazy people. Our Lord went straight between. But now this course brought him to a mountain, for the devil was not yet discouraged. The devil is very patient. I know what you want, he said. You want the whole world to be good and happy. Let us go up on this high mountain where we can see the world. So up they went in the vision, and there the world lay, spread at their feet like a great map. It was the sight which he had seen so many times from the great hill near Nazareth, and he looked now with the same deep longing in his heart to help men and to save them. There lay the little towns and every one of which sin and sorrow lived because the devil had them in his power. And the devil said, Now I will go away and leave the world in peace. I will go out and all joy shall come in, if you will do one thing. Here in this solitary place where no man can see us, kneel down before me. It was as if the devil had said, You cannot govern the world without me. You cannot even begin your great plans without my help. If you determine always to be perfectly good, always to do perfectly right, always to follow the ideal wherever it leads you, you will fail. That is the truth about it. You will get yourself killed. To which our Lord answered, Get thee behind me, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered unto him. End of chapter 11 CHAPTER 12 When the King came Stories from the Four Gospels by George Hodges CHAPTER 12 The Twelve Friends So the King came out of the wilderness with his face shining like a star, but he still wore his carpenter's clothes, and that kept most people from knowing who he was, for with most people clothes mean a great deal. Out of the wilderness he came into the valley of the river, and there was John the Baptist preaching, and the King walked slowly by along the road, and John looking over the heads of the crowd saw him, and he spoke to two men who stood beside him. There he is, he said, there is the King of Glory, and immediately the two men followed the King. One of these men was named Andrew, the other was named John. We will call him John the Apostle to distinguish him from John the Baptist, though after this we shall not hear much about John the Baptist except once. Andrew and the new John were fishermen from the lake of Galilee. They lived in Capernaum, or in Bethsaida. The towns were close together. They were partners in the fishing business. Each of them had a brother. Andrew's brother was named Peter, and John's brother was named James. They were all partners together, these four friends. Each of the pairs of brothers had a good mother. The mother of Andrew and Peter was named Mary, and the mother of John and James was named Salome. The mothers were neighbors and good friends, like the sons. Both of them became friends of the King, and went about with him and with their sons, and cared for them. But Salome had been a friend of the King from his boyhood, for she was his aunt. Our Lord's mother was her sister. Thus James and John were our Lord's cousins. It is likely that Jesus had known all four of these young fishermen for many years, Capernaum being but a little way from Nazareth. Probably they were all about the same age, about thirty, though Peter was older than John, for as we shall see by and by he could not run so fast. Andrew and John were the first to join themselves to the King, hearing what John the Baptist said. They followed Jesus, and he heard their footsteps as they came hurrying up after him, and turned about and said, Who are you looking for? They answered, with deep reverence, bowing down. Master, where are you staying? And he said, come and see. So they went on together, afternoon talking till the sun went down, asking questions and answering them. The next day Andrew found Peter and brought him to Jesus, and John found James. Then our Lord himself found Philip, who was already a friend of the four partners, and like them, a fisherman. Philip had a friend named Bartholomew, also called Nathaniel, who lived in Cana, not far from Nazareth, and not far from Capernaum. Bartholomew that they had found the Messiah, that his name was Jesus, and that he came from Nazareth. Bartholomew could not believe it. He knew Nazareth as we know any little homely town in our neighborhood. It seemed impossible that any good thing could come out of Nazareth. But Philip said, come and see, and Bartholomew came and saw, and believed. Thus already six friends had gathered about the King. Nobody knows what Bartholomew's trade was. He may have been a fisherman like the other five. That was the chief business of that neighborhood. There were many fish in the Lake of Galilee, and when they were caught and salted they were sent all over the empire and people ate them at fine dinners, even in Rome. The fisherman did not get rich, but they were by no means poor. James and John, and their father's ebony, had been working for them. It was a healthy and happy occupation for those who had strong arms and an independent spirit and patience and courage. They lived out of doors with the wind blowing in their brown faces. They were accustomed to danger for the lake was subject to sudden storms. In such a life these six, if we may count the friend from Cana, had passed their days since they were boys, and all that time had been good friends, not only fishing together but talking together, talking about the sermons at the synagogue and the true life and the world in which they lived, and God above them and beside them. They were just the men whom the king wanted, manly and open-minded. By and by, though this was after some months, the king invited six others. One was named James and was called the little, either to distinguish him from our lord's cousin or because he was a short man. Another was Thomas, a very matter-of-fact person with the mind of his own and rather inclined to look on the dark side. Two were named Judas, one of them being also called Iscariot. That means a man from Karioth, a town of Judea, a long way from Capernaum. Judas Iscariot was a stranger to the others, but they came to know him only too well. Another friend was Simon, who belonged to a wild secret society called Zealots, who were all the time laying plots against the Romans. Another friend was Matthew. In the lists of the twelve friends or as they are called, the twelve apostles, the name of Judas Iscariot always comes last. But I have here put Matthew at the end, partly because it is likely that he was the last to be called and partly because there is a story connected with his call. Sometimes it was called the Way of the Sea, and sometimes the Great West Road. It connected the lands of the East with the lands of the West, extending from beyond Damascus to the coast of the Mediterranean. Caravans, like trains of cars, were all the time going back and forth over it. The Romans had paved it and kept it in good order, and for this service they collected a toll. There was a toll gate at Capernaum, and one of the men who sat at the gate was Matthew. Many people disliked Matthew very much because he worked for the Romans and they hated the Romans. They disliked him all the more because he was a Jew. It seemed to them a shameful thing that one of their own people should be in the employ of the foreign conquerors. So Matthew was one of the most unpopular persons in town. Few respectable persons would have anything to do with him. He was a good man, but his only associates were those who were in his own business. He had even been turned out of the church. It is much to Matthew's credit that in spite of all this he was a good man. The six fishermen who saw Matthew at the toll gate every day knew that, and they knew also that the king did not care anything for popularity. Wherever the king found a good man he loved him. It must have been pretty hard for him all his secret society friends hated so. But the toll gate was near the place where Jesus was accustomed, day by day, to speak to the people, and Matthew sat there, hearing every word he said. Every sentence went into Matthew's heart and stayed there, and one day after the sermon the king passed by the gate along the way of the sea, and as he went he held up his hand to Matthew and said, he stood straight up and went out and followed him. That night he gave a great dinner at his house and had all his friends there, a strange company, and the king sat at the table. For Matthew felt just as Andrew and John and Philip did, having come himself to know Christ he wanted his friends to know him. Thus there were twelve friends of the king, according to the twelve tribes of Israel, and they were called apostles, which mean they didn't, because our Lord was teaching them so that he might send them to teach others. End of Chapter 12 Chapter 13 of When the King Came This liper-fox recording is in the public domain. When the King Came Stories from the Four Gospels by George Hodges Chapter 13 The King Goes to a Wedding Our Lord had no intention of going to Peter's bench, but he wanted to go home. He wanted to see his mother and his brothers and sisters. He had now been away a long time and they would be anxious about him. They would be wondering what had become of him, and he wanted to tell them. So he started in that direction, probably taking Peter and Andrew and James and John and Philip and Bartholomew with him. The way led through Cana where Bartholomew lived, our Lord found his mother there and other Nazareth folks who had come to a wedding. The village was full of people with happy faces and there was music and dancing. In that country everybody lives out of doors and the pleasure of one family is shared by all the others. Our Lord was acquainted with the bride and groom. His family and theirs were such old friends, perhaps relatives, that his mother was quite at home there and went in and out of the kitchen where they were preparing the wedding supper. So the king was invited to the feast and all his new friends with him. You see how pleasantly and naturally Jesus Christ began his new life, not as a hermit like John the Baptist and not even as a priest in the temple or as a preacher in the synagogue, but just like other people taking part in the simple joys of his neighbors. Even now, coming to them as the son of God, he did not make himself different from them, but sat down in the old way at the table and not a boy or a girl stopped laughing because he was there. They had a better time than ever. But in the middle of the feast our Lord's mother came behind him and whispered to him, they have no wine, she said. She had been in the pantry and had found the family in much distress. Here were all the people and not wine enough. It was probably a little wedding and the seven unexpected guests had made a difference. Let us remember that in that country everybody drank wine. It was almost as common as water. Life was much more simple than it is at present, and the people living out of doors as they did wine did not do them so much harm as it does here. The drinking of wine was one of the joys of social life, and now the wine was giving out, the skin bottles looking like big toy balloons and the gas had escaped and the party would be spoiled. So the mother of Jesus came and told him, not knowing what he would do but hoping that he might do something. It shows how she was accustomed to depend upon him when things went wrong at home. It was he who always made them right. Yes, he answered, I see, I will attend to it presently. And she went back and told the servants whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. Now there stood there out of the sight of the wedding guests six stone jars for water, large jars, like those in which, in the Arabian nights the forty thieves were hidden. For while the Jews used little water at dinner, they used a great deal before dinner. They poured it on their hands to make them clean before they ate and were very particular about it. Having so many guests the family had borrowed water jars from their neighbors. And so much water had been taken out of them that they were almost empty. There they stood against the wall a line of empty jars when our Lord, rising from the table went out and found them. Fill them with water, he said to the servants, and they filled them up to the brim. Now, he said, draw out and carry to the master of the feast. So in they dipped their buckets and drew them out all dripping. But it was which filled the jars and dripped from the buckets and gleamed in the glasses on the table. It was wine, red wine, and the master of the feast tasted of it, and he said, This is the best wine that ever I drank. And he lifted a shining glass in honor of the bride and groom, saying, Most people bring in the choicest wine at the beginning, but you have kept it until now. The King of Glory did many miracles of which this was the first. There was a time when people thought that God was very far away. They knew that God had made this world, but they thought that after he had made it he had gone back into heaven where he had stayed for the most part ever since. But sometimes things happened here on earth which were so wonderful that they said, God must have come back and done that. Wonderful things, they called miracles. The truth is, as we now know, that God has never gone away at all. He is here always and everywhere. Everything that happens in the world of nature, even though it happens every morning, like the rising of the sun, is done by God. What wise men call laws of nature are only God's usual ways of dealing with us. So when we come upon some new thing like talking without wires across hundreds of miles or turning water into wine or making sick people well by speaking to them or praying for them, we do not ask as men once asked, did God come down and do this or is it only the work of man? We ask, does this belong to the usual or to the unusual ways of God? That is, is this sort of thing which happens only once by which God suddenly makes his present known or is it done in accordance with such a law or custom of God that many people might learn to do it if they were only good enough or wise enough for God to teach them. Our Lord said, the things that I do shall ye do also, and greater things than these shall ye do. And that has come true, or at least the first part of it has come true with regard to curing the sick. Some of our Lord's wonderful works, however, which we cannot explain by any knowledge which is known to us. When we come to such miracles as we do just here at the wedding in Cana, the thing for us to say is that all our largest knowledge is very, very small. One of the wisest men who ever lived said that with all his wisdom he was like a child picking up pebbles on the shore of a vast ocean. Even now we know but little about who we live in or about God who lives in the world and in our souls. Jesus turned the water into wine. That is all we know about it. The Son of God could do it and he did it to add to the happiness of the guests at a village wedding. End of chapter 13 CHAPTER 14 OF WHEN THE KING CAME This Libervox recording is in the public domain. WHEN THE KING CAME And now at last after these great weeks the king was back again in his own home. There was the little town in the hollow of the hills with the green heights about it. The dusty streets ran between the white houses and there among them was the carpenter's cottage and beside it in the shade of the trees the carpenter's bench. The shavings lay beneath it as he had left his house in the shade of the trees the carpenter's bench. The shavings lay beneath it as he had left them on the day when he had started on his journey. His mother and his brothers and sisters stood at the door and as the sun set and the stars came out and the cool winds blew down from the peaks above they talked together in the twilight and he told them what he had done while he was away. But not all. There are some things which cannot be said unless the listeners are in perfect sympathy and hope is too deep and hope's too high for speech. It is not likely that our Lord told them that he was the King of Glory the Son of God. It is not likely that he told them that he was the Messiah though they may well have guessed that that was what he thought. He said that he would never be a carpenter again, that he had decided to give up his trade and to go about the country preaching and he must have said that he had been the Son of God. Of this we may be as sure as if we had sat there in a dark corner hearing what he spoke and they did not like it. That, too, is plain. James did not like it. He felt that it was irregular and improper. He wished to have all things go quietly on in the usual way. The brothers and sisters agreed with him. They all had good arguments against it. The mother probably said little dimly remembering the message of the angel. But she did not like it either. They were all against it. They urged him not to do it but to live like other people. They were satisfied with things as they were. But he was not satisfied. Then came the Sabbath day and everybody went to church. The church, which they called the synagogue, stood in the midst of the houses like a New England meeting-house except that it had no steeple. It was a plain, square building entered by three doors. Within were two rows of pillars and at the end of the room was a platform on which sat the most important people in the chief seats. In the midst of the platform was a pulpit and behind the pulpit a curtain and behind the curtain a chest and in the chest a Bible. But there was no New Testament in the Bible. That had not been written yet. And the Old Testament was in pen and ink on various roles of parchment. Overhead before the curtain hung a lighted lamp. So in came the congregation old men and women who had known our Lord from the days of his early childhood and remembered him before he could walk and young men and women who had been to school with him with whom he had played and worked and boys and girls. And our Lord, still wearing his carpenter's coat, sat in his usual place beside his family. The service began with a long prayer which everybody knew by heart. Then they read out of the Bible different men coming up from the congregation each reading a few verses and if he chose making some brief comment upon them. The ruler of the synagogue indicated the men who were to read last of all he beckoned to Jesus. Word had already gone about the village that the carpenter felt that he was called to be a prophet. Nowadays when we speak of a prophet we mean one who foretells what will happen in the future. But in the Bible the name is used for a preacher, for a man who speaks in the name of God. The Bible prophet said many different things in the name of God but one message they all had in common. That the world about them must be changed. Men, they said, were doing wrong and must stop it and do right. Accordingly quiet people and all who like the old ways and men who were in authority and all who were responsible for the evils of the time dreaded and hated the prophets. It was not pleasant news that a prophet had appeared in Nazareth. Jeremiah in the Old Testament was brought up in a little town called Anathath which was inhabited entirely by ministers. It was a place of the priests. Everybody in the street was a minister or a minister's wife or sister or a minister's son or daughter. Such a place should have been distinguished for its goodness and gentleness but when they heard that Jeremiah was setting up to be a prophet they tried to kill him. The ministers threw stones at him. This helps us to understand what happened at Nazareth. One time in Boston just before the Civil War a mob of perfectly respectable people merchants, bankers and lawyers tried to kill William Lloyd Garrison because he was a disturber of the peace of society. Every prophet disturbs the peace of society. That is what he is for. So they looked at Jesus as he sat among them not quite knowing what to think. Remembering all his beautiful life but afraid of what he might do next. And when he stood up to read the Bible in the service they listened so intently that they held their breath. So in the stillness he found the place in the Book of Isaiah and read these words The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent one to heal the broken hearted deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind to set at liberty them that are bruised to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. This he read and gave back the book and sat down for in those days the preacher sat when he preached and he said This day is the scripture fulfilled in your ears meaning this is true today of me. The Lord has sent me to do all this. At the sound of his voice and in the hearing of these gracious words they were filled with awe and wonder. But some said these are bold sayings for a carpenter Joseph's son is taking much upon himself and they remembered how he had been one of them all his life long and some were his cousins and some had held the ladder while he mended the wall and some lived next door to his married sisters they did not like them very well and some had hired him by the day to do their work they began to talk together as he spoke and to interrupt him with questions some said in the words of the old proverb physician heal thyself that is you speak of doing great things for the nation but here you are a poor man whom nobody has ever heard of make something of yourself enrich yourself get yourself to your own authority then come and say these great words and we will listen to you it was like the first temptation to some he said it is because you know me so familiarly that you reject me a prophet is without honor in his own country and when they cried show us a miracle and we will give you honor he spoke of famous prophets of the old time how they had done wonderful works of blessing not for their own people but for strangers Elijah had fed a woman of Sidon during a famine and Elijah had cleansed the leprosy of Naaman the Syrian finally they rose up in great anger and rushed upon him where he sat laying hold on him with rough hands and pushing and pulling him got him out of the church into the street the service was stopped and the holy Sabbath was profaned with their noise and shouting and one cried to the cliff proposing that they should cast him down headlong over a steep place but he looked upon them so that they loosed their hold there was a light in his face like the sun at noon they took their hands off in fear and let him go and he turned about and walked back through the crowd who stood in sudden silence watching him down he went along the street passed the church and the house passed the town well and out of sight he never lived in Nazareth again indeed after that he had no settled home once he said foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests but the son of man hath nowhere to lay his head the worst of it was that his own family turned against him his brothers did not believe in him after a long while they thought that he was out of his mind saying one to another he is beside himself one time they all went out his mother and his brothers to take him as he was preaching to a crowd of people and bring him home and somebody said there are your brothers and your mother and he answered who is my mother and who are my brethren and he looked round on them which sat about him and said behold my mother and my brethren so ever shall do the will of God the same is my brother and my sister and my mother