The Crown and the Cross: The Life of Christ (8 page)

Even the area where John preached seemed to fit in with the prophecy, for it was easy to see in the tumbled basalt boulders and the sulfurous fumes seeping through crevices in the rocks that God had indeed once filled valleys and brought mountains and hills low in this very region when He had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, at the southern end of the Dead Sea, because of their excessive sinfulness. This same sinfulness, John preached, would lead God to destroy the people once again unless they listened and repented.

Unable to comply fully with the complexities of the Law, the common people were always conscious of their sin. Even if they had not been, the Pharisees would not have left them unreminded of it, so John’s thunderings concerning the imminent end of the present era and the coming of God’s kingdom under an Anointed Messiah struck fear and trembling into nearly every heart. By thousands they came and camped along the banks of the Jordan and the several brooks that ran into it here. Campfires dotted the valley and extended into the hillsides, many of the campers sleeping in the caves that pocked the rocky slopes.

The Essene community nearby gave help to those who became ill or were too poor to buy their own food, but its resources were soon considerably overtaxed. Merchants from nearby Jericho and farther up the Jordan Valley brought food and supplies on mule trains to be sold at the usual high profit under such circumstances. The caravansary nearby, open to travelers as a shelter, was always filled to overflowing.

Every day after he preached, John led a procession of the repentant down into the shallows at the fords of the Jordan to be baptized in the Essene manner, but it was in the pulpit that he really became the prophet the people were already acclaiming him to be.

“Brood of vipers!” he flayed the religious leaders who came to listen. “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” He went on to warn that no mere lip service would suffice to save them. “Bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’” he shouted, referring to the tendency of Israelites to believe that as sons of Abraham they were favored of God and their sins would therefore be more easily forgiven. “For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones,” he warned. “And even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

With the odor of brimstone, which the ignorant people firmly believed came from the very fires of hell, still rising from crevices in the volcanic terrain nearby, this pertinent reminder had an immediate effect upon his listeners. Falling on the ground before him, repentant sinners cried, in an agony of fear and conviction of their own unworthiness, “What shall we do then?”

“He who has two tunics, let him give to him who has none,” John answered. “And he who has food, let him do likewise.” It was the simplest of God’s commandments and, because of human greed, the one most frequently ignored.

“Teacher, what shall we do?” a tax gatherer asked.

“Collect no more than what is appointed for you,” John advised sternly, referring to the publicans’ habit of demanding from people greater taxes than they were legally required to pay—and pocketing the overage.

“What of me?” a soldier inquired. To him John said, “Do not intimidate anyone or accuse falsely, and be content with your wages.’’

John’s teachings contained nothing that was really new; every Jew was required by the Law to practice these very things which John was advising. But when coupled with his dramatic appearance as a prophet who spoke the word of God directly to them, and his dire warnings that God’s kingdom was soon to come and that those not worthy would be destroyed like the tree cast into the fire, they had a powerful effect upon his listeners.

So long as John did not claim Messiahship but identified himself merely as one warning of the coming kingdom of God, the authorities had been contemptuously tolerant of his simple doctrine. Only when he went further and attacked Herod Antipas, who, as a son of Herod the Great, ruled in the province of Peraea where the Baptist was preaching, did he bring down the fire of official displeasure on his head. Even then John could have avoided trouble by limiting his preaching to general terms, but, like the prophet he believed himself to be, he dared to attack even the ruler.

Herod Antipas had married the daughter of Aretas, king of the Nabataeans, a desert people dwelling to the east. It had been a good marriage for the wily Antipas, removing the threat of Nabatean attack from his eastern border, the only area from which he could expect trouble. Later, while on a visit to Rome, Herod had become violently enamored of Herodias, wife of his half-brother Philip, and shortly after he returned to Galilee, Herodias had followed him there with her adolescent daughter Salome. Soon Herod divorced his first wife and sent her back to King Aretas. But when he then married his sister-in-law, he committed a grave sin according to Mosaic Law and for this John forthrightly denounced him.

The tetrarch himself might not have paid much attention to John, for the outpourings of men styling themselves as prophets were not often heeded by the ruling class against whom they usually fulminated. But Herodias took offense at John’s words, perhaps because they were spoken so close to Jericho, where Herod maintained a winter home, and entertained widely among the Romans and higher government officials. She began to seek a way to silence John the Baptist, as the ruling classes in Israel had more than once sought to silence prophets who accused them of betraying their obligations to God and the Law. And being a woman of little principle—a characteristic common to members of the Herodian house—it did not take her long to achieve her wish.

Now Jesus Himself began His ministry at about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph.

Luke 3:23

The chill of an approaching winter night was already in the air but the children who were gathered in a half-circle around the slender man with a light brown beard and the fluent, expressive hands of a born teacher did not notice it. Every day on the way home from school they stopped in the open courtyard, where Jesus the carpenter worked with His tools, to hear the story He was always ready to tell them. Eyes eagerly uplifted to the Teacher, they dwelt on His every word as He told once again of the son who had traveled far away and spent his patrimony unwisely, returning to his father’s house penniless. When He recounted how the father had gone out and clasped the prodigal and repentant son to his bosom, they voiced their approval with cries of pleasure.

From the door leading into the house, Mary watched the scene with a smile. She would always love her firstborn most of all the family, she knew, and not just because during His life He had given her little cause to worry. Since that one occasion when she and Joseph had returned to Jerusalem to look for Jesus and had found Him in the temple, He had been a model of obedience. As every boy was expected to do, He had begun to work in Joseph’s shop as an apprentice shortly after His twelfth year.

Carpentry, as Joseph practiced it, was not an easy trade to learn. In Galilee most houses were made of stone or mud bricks or by plastering clay over a lathing of willow withes, but each required doors and window frames of wood and sturdy beams to support the roof upon which, except in the coldest season, the evening hours were spent. Furniture was also needed: stools, tables, shelves, boards for flattening out the cakes of bread, and chests for storing valuable belongings. These were simple articles any carpenter could make, but in Egypt Joseph had learned a considerably wider application of the woodworking trade.

Egyptian carpenters produced the large wooden cases in which the bodies of the rich were placed before being sealed in their tombs and also the small, richly carved boxes in which highly-pampered women kept their jewels. The irrigation pumps called
shadufs
which lifted water from the Nile were likewise made largely of wood, and considerable ability was needed to fashion them and set them in operation. Boats of all sizes and shapes had to be built, from shallow dug-out craft in which noblemen hunted birds with throwing sticks to large scows or barges for hauling stores up and down the river. Skilled hands were needed to carve plows and hoes from crooked limbs of trees and throwing sticks had to have the right curve and thinness if they were to return to the thrower in case of a miss.

All of these skills Joseph had taught Jesus patiently as they worked together in the shop. The boy learned that the short-handled adze of iron, carried always in the belt when at work so it could be easily reached, was His handiest tool, forming practically an extension of His own strong right arm. The skill required to gouge out a shallow wooden bowl or tray with a chisel was acquired only after long practice and many ruined pieces of wood.

Fortunately there was plenty of timber on the heavily forested slopes of the Galilean hills, but the trees had first to be felled and cut into proper lengths, then split into boards. A block of sandstone applied to the rough surface produced a smooth plank but only after long and laborious hours of rubbing. The saw was used carefully, for a carpenter could rarely afford more than one, considering the prices Phoenician smiths demanded for them. The teeth must be kept properly sharp and never allowed to touch metal or stone as the tool was pulled toward the user to cut the wood.

The carpenter’s hammer was made of heavy stone with a hole drilled through the center for the handle. It was not used upon a table for the carpenters of Galilee sat on the floor of the open courts where they worked on all except the coldest days, dexterously fixing boards and timbers with their feet so that the hands were free to use the tools.

Since Joseph was also a builder, he had taught Jesus the importance of constructing upon solid foundations in this country where rain washing down the hillsides could easily undermine a poor foundation and let the house fall. The lad soon came to be handy with the stonecutter’s hammer and trowel, whether in building a house or walls for sheepfolds and other enclosures. The first layer of stones had to be placed carefully upon the bedrock itself as a firm foundation and then set in place with mortar which was allowed to dry before the other layers were applied. Skilled masons had built the temple at Jerusalem, it was reported, without the sound of hammer or chisel being heard, the great blocks having been quarried and cut to pattern before they were set in place.

It was a busy life upon which Jesus had embarked when He first began to be
bachur
, a “ripened one,” as He worked beside Joseph. After Joseph died, the burden of maintaining the household had fallen upon Jesus’ teenage shoulders. By now there were others in the family: four boys, James, Joses, Simon, and Judas, and several sisters. Growing children needed much food and everyone worked, but Jesus, as head of the household, was the main breadwinner.

He had grown in stature and in wisdom as the years passed, a rock of strength to His family and a model to others in the community of what a true worshiper of the Most High should be. In the shop He always gave good measure and something extra. And in the synagogue on the Sabbath, He often rose to speak, impressing all with His quiet wisdom and His wide knowledge of the Scriptures.

A man was not expected to reach his full vigor of body and mind until he was thirty years old, and his opinions were not generally respected by his elders until that age, after which he took his place in the councils and discussions on an equal basis with others. In Jesus’ case the people of Nazareth came to respect His goodness and His wisdom well before He had reached that turning point, and very early He was given the respectful designation of “teacher,” or rabbi.

Even with all His duties, Jesus had always found time to talk to the children who came by His shop after school and tell them the stories they wished to hear. Sometimes after they were gone there would be a short time of freedom before darkness and the evening meal.

There was one today. Calling to Mary that He would return soon, Jesus started up the winding path that led to the summit of the steep hill overlooking Nazareth at one point in the form of a craggy outcrop. From the doorway, Mary watched Him climb with steady, purposeful strides until He appeared upon the crest, an erect, vigorous figure, and turned to look about Him.

The hilltop above Nazareth was an ideal place for a seeker after solitude. The path leading upward was narrow and steep and since there was little grass on the rocky crag, the shepherds did not take their flocks up that high. From the steep cliff Jesus’ eyes always turned first toward the western portion of the great plain called Esdraelon, or sometimes Jezreel, lying before Him. The most famous battleground in all of Israel, it was here that Deborah had called Barak to lead the armies in the thrilling battle which had destroyed the army of Sisera when the Lord had sent a great hail and rainstorm to bog down the iron chariots of the enemy.

On this same plain of Esdraelon, Gideon had attacked and defeated the Midianites with an effective force of only three hundred against an army of which the ancient writings said: “All the people of the East were lying in the valley as numerous as locusts; and their camels were without number, as the sand by the seashore in multitude.”

To the east in the clear cool air just preceding sunset, the top of Mount Tabor was visible above the lower hills, and across the plain loomed the mountains of Samaria. The long range of Mount Carmel extended northwestward to the rocky promontory that jutted out into the Great Sea to form the southern tip of the Bay of Akka. Northeast of Nazareth the plains and rolling hills of upper Galilee ascended gradually toward snow-capped Mount Hermon with the beautiful city of Sepphoris among the foothills only a few miles away. To the east again, completing a full circle, lay the hills around the Sea of Galilee.

From the hilltop, Jesus could see almost the entire range of the land granted by God to the Children of Israel, from Dan in the northeast to Beersheba in the southwest. And simply by looking down He could easily sweep the entire town of Nazareth with a single glance. Many of the houses, with their flat rooftops sloped to let the rain run off, He Himself had helped build, being careful always to obey the mandate of the Law that: “When you build a new house, then you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring guilt of bloodshed on your household if anyone falls from it.”

Reached by an outside stairway, the roof was the favorite gathering place for the family after the evening meal, a cool place to sleep during the hot summer nights, as well as a drying yard for grain, rushes, or wood by day. Sometimes the rooftops were covered by a shelter or second roof to form an upper chamber, usually incompletely walled. In fact, the first sign of increased prosperity came when a family could afford an upper chamber for their home.

Many of the houses in Nazareth were made of clay, kneaded and plastered over a wattle-covered framework and allowed to dry in the sun to the hardness of brick. On the inside, gray patches of saltpeter often exuded from the clay to cause the so-called “leprosy of the walls.” Communication between houses was easy, being carried on across the rooftops where the people congregated in the evening, and a pleasant air of camaraderie pervaded these smaller towns.

Four things were always found in a well-kept house: a lamp with the stand for elevating it, a bushel for measuring grain (also used upended as a table or stool and as a stand for the lamp), skins of wine, and a small mill for grinding corn.

Wine bottles were made from the hides of goats with the hair inside, the openings tied off and the neck closed by spigots or stoppers. Hanging in the house, the skin dried gradually and the outside became cracked. Old wineskins had to be handled carefully for that reason and not filled with new wine, since fermentation would cause the fragile skin to explode and the wine to be lost.

The mill consisted of two round stones, the lower usually hollowed out slightly to receive the surface of the upper. A peg driven into a depression drilled in the center of the lower stone projected through a hole in the upper, and a handle set into one side of the upper stone allowed it to be turned, grinding the corn into flour.

Houses consisting of more than one room were arranged around an open court. Often a family of several generations would live in one of these groups of buildings with the workaday activities—if they were artisans, as so many were—being carried out in the central court. In such an establishment everyone had his task and each performed his share of the work.

As His gaze continued to sweep across the community He loved, Jesus could see a group of men gathered under the shade of a single large olive tree before the synagogue which fronted on the main square of the town. These, He knew, would be some of the older men, “elders of the congregation” who gathered there every afternoon when the weather allowed to engage in endless arguments about the Law and its interpretations. Unless, that is, a traveler happened to stop by; then they questioned him eagerly about what was happening in other parts of the land, in the populous and sinful cities around the lake that lay only a few miles to the east, or in Jerusalem. They were not much interested in what went on outside their own little world of Israel. So long as the Romans added no new taxes and did not hem them in with further restrictions, they were content to let things continue as they were.

In another part of the town Jesus could see the glow of forges and hear the clank of hammers on anvils as the coppersmiths fashioned utensils of that easily handled metal. From the area around the well came the soft murmur of women’s voices as they drew up water for the night so that the earthenware crocks would not be dry when morning came and the men blame the women for not carrying out their duties.

Darkness was already beginning to fall as Jesus made His way down the hillside toward the town and His home. He did not want to be late tonight because He knew Mary had prepared a special feast in honor of His birthday, marking His thirtieth year, which was considered a turning point in a man’s life; thereafter he was considered old enough by his fellows for his opinions to be generally respected.

He saw a stocky figure hurrying through the streets with a small bale upon his shoulder and surmised that James, next in age to Him in the family, was returning from the market at the southern edge of the town where the main road passed, having bartered some of the articles they made in the shop for cloth needed to make new robes for the family. James was clever at the give-and-take of barter in the marketplace so the task of selling the products was left to him. He was also the news gatherer of the family through his contact with the merchants who frequented the market to buy and sell.