AS FOR JESUS,HE GREW UP AMONG THE SIMPLE PEASANTS AND ARTISANS OF A LITTLE VILLAGE CALLED NAZARETH.HE WAS TAUGHT THE TRADE OF A CARPENTER,BUT THIS LIFE DID NOT SATISFY HIM.HE LOOKED UPON THE WORLD AND FOUND IT FULL OF CRUELTY AND INJUSTICE.HE LEFT HIS FATHER AND HIS MOTHER AND HIS BROTHERS AND HIS SISTERS,AND WENT FORTH TO TELL OF THOSE THINGS WHICH IN HIS HEART HE HELD TO BE TRUE
Jesus spent only a short while in the wilderness.
During that time he rarely ate or slept.
And well might he need all his hours to plan the future.
He was almost thirty years old,unmarried,free to come and go and live according to the very simple standards of his day.
But the words of John had set him thinking.All the impressions and experiences of his quiet and uneventful existence in Nazareth seemed to lead up to that moment near the river Jordan when he had suddenly asked himself the question,“What does life really mean ?”
He knew little of the great political events which had just turned the old Roman Republic into an Empire based upon the strength and the loyalty of a few regiments of highly paid mercenaries.
Of the Greek language and of everything that had been written in that tongue,he was profoundly ignorant.
He spoke Aramaic and probably had a reading knowledge of the ancient Hebrew tongue in which the holy books had been written,many centuries ago.
But Greek thought and Greek science meant as little to him as Roman jurisprudence and Roman statecraft.
He was withal a child of his own people and his own age—a humble Jewish carpenter,steeped in the knowledge of the old Mosaic laws and the traditions of the Judges and the Prophets,of whom he had heard in the synagogues and in the Temple.
He was very faithful in his religious duties.
Whenever it was necessary,he went to Jerusalem,that he might give burnt offering in the Temple,as it was required by ancient usage.
He accepted his little Galilean world as he found it and did not question what Joseph and Mary had taught him.
And yet he was not without certain doubts.
He was not like other people.
He felt within himself a certain spiritual quality which set him apart from other men.The good neighbours of Nazareth hardly noticed this.They knew him too intimately.To them he always was the carpenter's son.
But once he left his native village,it was different.
He was pointed out.
There was something in his eye,in his gesture,which attracted the attention of the casual passer-by.And when he reached the river Jordan where the crowd lived in momentary expectation of a great miracle,he heard how the followers of the Baptist whispered behind his back and asked each other the oft-repeated question:“Is that the man who is to be our Messiah?”
But the Messiah,to those who flocked together to hear the sermons of John,was a great warrior and a stern judge—a sort of imperial avenger who was to establish a great Jewish kingdom and make all the nations of the world subject to the laws of Jehovah's chosen people.
And nothing was further removed from the simple mind of Jesus than this worldly idea of another Samson,astride a big black horse,waving a sword and leading his victorious armies against those who did not happen to share the religious prejudices of the Pharisees or the political convictions of the Sadducees.
It was a question of four letters.
