The Nazareth people said good-by to the Temple for another year, and started off for home. Out through the city gates they went, and back into the desert through which they had come. They walked a whole day, and still Joseph and Mary saw no sign of Jesus. This was beginning to seem strange. Surely they would see him somewhere!

At last it dawned upon them. He wasn't there at all!

They were frightened now. What could have happened to Jesus? What would become of him in Jerusalem? There was nothing to do but to leave the party, and turn back alone to the city. But Jerusalem was a big place, and they hardly knew where to hunt for Jesus. How would they ever find one boy among all those thousands of people?

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They went to the Temple. But even if he were here, it would not be easy to find him quickly. Walking through one of the courts, they noticed a group of people gathered around a rabbi. There was nothing unusual about that. There were a great many teachers in the Temple, and a visitor often saw groups gathered around them to listen to their teaching.

But there was something different about this group. Most of the men in it were Pharisees who were themselves rabbis. And the strange thing was that they were not doing all the talking as they usually did. They were listening too. And they were not listening to a rabbi, but to the voice of a boy.

Joseph and Mary moved closer. There could be no mistake about it--it was Jesus who was talking! He was asking questions; he was answering questions. The long-bearded rabbis were standing there, their mouths open in astonishment. Jesus was not just a boy in the crowd any longer. Men old enough to be his grand-father were listening to what he had to say.

Mary's surprise turned to anger. She pushed her way through the crowd and took Jesus by the arm.

"Why did you do this?" she cried. "Your father and I have been looking for you everywhere."

Jesus stood just where he was. It was as though he belonged there. He said:

"Why did you come to look for me? Don't you know that I must be looking after my Father's business?"

Joseph and Mary stood there too, not knowing what to make of their boy or of what he said.

They waited to see what he would do.

And then, in a minute, Jesus turned and went with them. They did not have to ask him again. The three of them went home to Nazareth.

Jesus knew that someday he would go back to the Temple. But he was not ready for that yet. He must do his duty to his parents. He must obey G.o.d at home. Then he would always know how to obey G.o.d in the wide world beyond Nazareth.

The lambs went quietly to the Temple when they were taken there to be offered to the G.o.d of Israel. Jesus must be obedient like a Lamb of G.o.d.

4. Jesus Goes to Work

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When Jesus was thirty years old, people began to talk about the great man who had come to Palestine.

"This man is so great," they said, "that he may be the Messiah."

But it was not Jesus they were talking about. It was his cousin, John.

John was a preacher. He was afraid of no one, and as a result everyone was a bit afraid of him. John was a rough, strong man. Next to his skin he wore leather, and over that he wore a cloak of camel's hair.

Honey and locusts were his food.

Every day John preached down by the river Jordan. The people flocked out from Jerusalem and from all the countryside round about to hear him preach. It was a wild and dreary place to come to, but when John preached everybody wanted to be there.

This was how he preached:

"Give up your sins, and begin a new life at once, for G.o.d is coming to rule over men! I am a voice crying in the wilderness. I tell you--prepare for the Lord!"

And when the people heard him, they were afraid. Many of them cried out, "We have sinned!" and came forward out of the crowd. John led them down the bank into the river and baptized them as a sign that they wanted to be cleansed of their sins and begin a new life. Thus John came to be known as "John the Baptist."

But when John thought that a man was not in earnest, then he refused to baptize him. Some of the Pharisees and the Sadducees came to be baptized, and John would have nothing to do with them. They might be great men in Jerusalem, but John called them "snakes in the gra.s.s." He told them:

"I've seen the snakes out here in the wilderness, wriggling for dear life to get out of the way when the gra.s.s catches fire. That's what you remind me of. You're scared. You think that something terrible is going to happen, and so you're pretending to be good people so that it won't go so hard with you. You will have to show me that you want to be something different from what you are! And don't think that you amount to anything just because you are Jews. G.o.d could make as good Jews as you are out of these stones."

That is how John the Baptist talked to some of the great men of Jerusalem. It made people think more than ever that he might be the Messiah. Who except the Messiah would dare to talk that way to Pharisees and Sadducees?

But others shook their heads and said, "No--this couldn't be the Messiah!" For they thought that when the Messiah came he would drive the Romans out of the country; and many people said that the only way to do that would be to get an army together. Some men were meantime killing all the Romans they could. They were called "Zealots," because they were so much filled with zeal about killing off the Romans. A few even carried daggers with them, and stuck the daggers into Romans whenever they got a chance.

"The Romans will not be overthrown," they said, "just by preaching.

You will have to get out and kill the Romans."

John himself said that he was not the Messiah.

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"There is someone coming who is greater than I," he told the people.

"Someone is coming whose shoe-laces I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. Compared to him, I am n.o.body. I am just preparing the way for the Messiah."

One day there was a great crowd, as usual, down by the Jordan, and John was busy baptizing the people as fast as they came to the water.

One after another they came. It went on for hours.

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John had just baptized one man and helped him to the bank. The next one was coming forward. John looked up to see who it was. He was looking into the face of Jesus of Nazareth.

"You! Not you!" John spoke in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "No! I can't baptize you. You must baptize _me_ instead!"

Before anyone could notice that anything was wrong, Jesus stepped to the water's edge.

"Don't say anything about it, John," he said softly. "Treat me just like the rest of them. We shall all be baptized together into a new life."

Jesus went forward into the river and John baptized him. In a moment Jesus was up the bank and lost in the crowd. The next man was coming forward.

John stared after the vanishing figure of Jesus. The crowd made way for Jesus, thinking, _There goes another man who came to be cleansed of his sins._

But John said: "When I baptized _him_, I saw the Spirit of G.o.d come down out of heaven like a dove, and light upon him. Jesus is the Son of G.o.d. I am nothing. He is everything. He is the Messiah. He is the Lamb of G.o.d!"

The next man was coming down the bank toward John. John stood peering into the crowd. Jesus was nowhere to be seen.

Jesus had gone away to be alone, as G.o.d wanted him to do. He went into the loneliest part of the desert, where there were only the wild animals to keep him company.