Before nightfall, all Capernaum was talking about the Teacher from Nazareth who had power to overcome demons. What strange person had arrived in their midst? He had even dared to break the Sabbath law, for healing on the day of rest was strictly forbidden. Some believed he was planning to start a rebellion to set the nation free from Roman rule; but to the sick and lame of Capernaum, the news meant just one thing: someone had come to help them.

Curious eyes had seen Jesus leave the synagogue with Simon. No sooner had the sun set, marking the end of the Sabbath, than hundreds of crippled and diseased persons crowded to the street where Simon lived. Jesus would not refuse them. In the cool twilight he taught and healed all who asked.

As it grew darker, the disciples began to marvel that the people kept coming. They knew everyone was very superstitious and hardly anyone ever went out at night for fear of evil spirits. But as the hours passed, Simon noticed many people who were not sick or crippled. They came for another kind of help; they knew Jesus could give more than healing for the body.

In the babble of voices Simon suddenly heard a man cry out sharply. The pain in the man's voice cut into Simon's heart like a knife. Simon scanned the crowd, but in the darkness could not see him. No one moved to let him through.

Jesus looked toward the man. "Do you cry out to me?" he asked, raising his voice above the noisy crowd around him. "Come and I will help you." Unwillingly, the people made way and the man crawled toward Jesus. Something was wrong with his legs. A hush settled over the crowd when Jesus spoke. "Your greatest need is not to be free from pain—it is to be rid of sin. Repent and turn back to God. Believe my word and you shall enter the Kingdom of God!" Jesus stooped and laid his hand on the man lying before him.

"O Father," he prayed, "heal this man of his suffering, in order that he may know thy truth and enter thy Kingdom." Jesus straightened up and held out his arms to all the people. "Come to me, all of you who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest!"

The disciples felt the power of their Master as they heard him call on the people to repent. They had never known anyone like him; they had never heard a message like his. Again and again they heard Jesus say: "Do you understand why you have been healed? This is a sign that the power of God has come among you."

It was after midnight when the last person left. Jesus was very tired. He looked at the black sky. There was no moon. The stars shed a faint light on the hills above Capernaum. Jesus turned to Simon. "It is time to rest." He went into the house.

"The people had no fear of evil night spirits," remarked James.

"They know he has power over them," commented Simon.

In the morning, long before dawn, Jesus rose in order to pray outside the city. A few yards from Simon's home the street dwindled to a path, and Jesus had to push through the stiff, dry grass which grew knee-high all over the hillside. As he climbed, he walked around large rocks. When he reached the crest of the hill, Jesus stood for a long while gazing down at Capernaum, barely visible in the starlight. There was a little breeze from the east. It smelled of both lake and desert.

The memory of the sick and lame people filled Jesus with sorrow. Some of these people really thought that everything would be all right if their bodies could be healed! What a terrible mistake! Had they understood what he had told them?

Would they realize that they were thinking only of themselves? Perhaps their lives were too cluttered with little hopes and ambitions to see the will of God. How dearly they loved worthless things! Jesus found a hollow where the bushes sheltered him from the wind and knelt to pray.

Dawn was turning the gray sky to blue when Simon was aroused from sleep by the noise of a crowd outside his house. He dressed hastily.

"Where is the Healer?" shouted the people. Simon waved his hand for silence.

"He is not here." His words were instantly drowned by a hundred voices. "Where is he?" everyone demanded at once.

"I don't know where he is," answered Simon.

"Will he be back? Where did he go?"

Simon knew he would never succeed in sending them away. Andrew came out of the house.

"Do you think we could find him?" asked Simon.

"We can try," answered Andrew, smiling wryly. Without explaining their plan to the people, they set out toward the hills. Some of the people tried to follow, but Simon gruffly sent them back.

The two men followed a faint path toward the top of the hill. For about a mile they walked, searching the slopes on both sides of them. "We may not find him at all," remarked Simon. At that moment Andrew caught sight of a patch of white ahead of them.

"Is he up there?"

Simon began to run. Jesus was kneeling in prayer. Andrew had seen a corner of his woolen robe against the dark bushes.

"Rabbi!" panted Simon. "Everyone is looking for you!"

He had interrupted Jesus' prayer, but Jesus was not offended. "I am not going back to Capernaum."

"But, Rabbi," protested Simon, "hundreds of people need you. They are in pain. What will they do without you?"

"I must go to the other villages of Galilee and preach the news of the Kingdom there too," replied Jesus.

"But, Master, your word is the only help these people have ever had." He realized that Jesus had fully made up his mind to go. "Think of the blind and the crippled!" he cried desperately. "What will become of them?"

Jesus answered with firm conviction. "Simon, they have heard the news that God has come to them. I have a greater work than healing the sick bodies—my work is to proclaim to everyone the message which gives them a whole new life! This is why God has sent me! I must go on to the cities of Galilee!"

Simon and Andrew knew they could not change their Rabbi's mind, so at his command they returned to Capernaum and prepared for a trip through Galilee. At noon the disciples left Capernaum, carrying only a small amount of food, and met Jesus outside the city. Jesus knew it was hard for Simon to leave his wife and children.

By late afternoon they had reached Tarichaea, a town smaller than Capernaum, about six miles south on the shore of the Lake of Galilee. Here lived many rich men who owned the fertile farms on which all Galilee depended for wheat. There was also a large fish business, because in Tarichaea fish were salted and sold to men who came to buy food for the Roman army.

The market place was busy when Jesus arrived with the disciples, and a group of people quickly gathered to hear him teach. A young man in fine clothing joined the circle around Jesus. The disciples immediately recognized that he was a member of the party of the Pharisees because he wore large tassels on his robe. During a pause in the discussion he asked a question which Simon thought must have been troubling him for some time.

"Good Teacher," he asked, "you have told these others how to enter the Kingdom of God. Now what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

Jesus looked at the young man keenly. "Why do you call me 'good'?" he asked. "Only God is good." Then his tone softened. "You know the commandments—do not commit adultery; do not kill; do not steal; do not speak lies—if you obey the law of God you possess eternal life."

The disciples looked at the young man with the greatest respect. Here was a really religious man! A Pharisee who kept all the Law—what more could God require? And he was rich. Did that not prove he had pleased God?

"But, Teacher," replied the young man, "I have obeyed every one of these laws perfectly since I was a child. But somehow ... it is not enough. I am not satisfied."

John was puzzled. This man should be happy, he thought. I was just a poor fisherman, but this man seems to have everything. The other disciples also wondered what Jesus could say to the young man.

"You lack just one thing," said Jesus. "You must get rid of all your possessions. Sell your property. Go and give your money to the poor. Come and be my disciple."

Shock and disappointment came over the young man's face. "I can't do a thing like that!" he exclaimed. "Why should I give my money away?"

"You must sell all that you have and give to the poor," insisted Jesus. "If you want eternal life, you must put God first. If you go on clinging to the things you own, no matter how little you may keep back, you will never find the Kingdom of God."

"But God gave me my money," protested the young Pharisee. "Is he not the one who gives all good things? Why should you ask me to get rid of things he himself has given me?" The disciples felt that his argument was logical. "I have kept every detail of the religious rules," continued the young man. "I even keep two fasts instead of one! I never break the Sabbath. Don't you think I have earned eternal life?"

Jesus answered simply; he did not argue. "Any man who wishes to enter the Kingdom must seek the will of God above every other goal. Where a man's treasure is, there is his heart also. You have not given yourself to Him. You trust in your possessions and in your good deeds."

This is unreasonable! thought the young man. He turned and left. Yet the longing to be sure he had pleased God was strong still. "That is no solution!" he insisted, arguing within himself. "God cannot ask me to give up things he has given me. People turn from sins—not from their good deeds!" But he could not forget Jesus' demand: "Repent! You love your own riches more than you love God. Repent!"

Jesus looked sorrowfully after the young man. "How difficult it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom!" he exclaimed regretfully. "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to give himself to God!"

The disciples listened astonished. Finally Simon blurted out: "But, Master, if he cannot be saved, who can? He is a good man!"

Jesus answered with the deepest feeling: "Simon, with man it is impossible. But with God—all things are possible!"

"Well," said Simon, "if giving up things is the answer, we ought to have eternal life. We have given up everything!" There was bitterness in his voice, and everyone knew he was thinking of his children in Capernaum.

Jesus felt great sympathy for Simon, and his answer was very gentle. "Yes, Simon, you have given up much. But you need not fear—a man who gives up his home and his property for my sake will never be sorry. He will receive back a hundred times over the eternal gifts which God gives those who love him. Many who now are rich will be the last in God's Kingdom; but those who are poor for my sake will be the very first in his Kingdom!"

That night the disciples stayed in Tarichaea. They did not argue any more about what Jesus had told the rich Pharisee, but they were more troubled by these words than by anything else Jesus had said. His teachings seemed against everything they had ever learned!

The next day, as the band of men walked with Jesus toward Nazareth, Simon brought up the question. "Teacher," he said earnestly, "I don't understand why you talked to that young Pharisee as you did. He was very sincere. The Pharisees do more to obey God than any others and this young man looked to me as though he tried even harder than most. God had even given him riches as a reward for his goodness! And yet you said he had to get rid of all his wealth in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven!" Simon could hardly find words to express his strong feelings. "I needed to repent, but why should he? He was already a good man!"

James summed up the thoughts of them all: "Rabbi, if a man as good as that can't enter the Kingdom, how can anyone?"

Jesus said: "Simon, I want to tell you a story. Two men went up to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee—like the young man we talked with yesterday. The other was a tax collector, who had been dishonest.

"The Pharisee stood by himself, a distance away from the ordinary folk who went in and out of the Temple, and prayed this way: 'God, I thank thee that I am not like other men—thieves, rogues, and immoral—like that taxgatherer over there. You know I am a good man. I fast twice a week and pay tithes of all my money.'

"But the taxgatherer," continued Jesus, "went off in a corner where he could hide from people. He wouldn't even lift up his eyes as he prayed. Rather, he hung his head and beat his breast in the deepest shame and said, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!'"

The disciples did not seem to understand, so Jesus said: "The taxgatherer left the Temple accepted by God. But not the Pharisee! He trusted in his own goodness rather than in God. If he had been humble, like the taxgatherer, God could have forgiven him."

"But I don't see what that has to do with the young Pharisee," protested James. "He was not dishonest! Why should he be ashamed?"

"This young ruler was like the Pharisee in the Temple," replied Jesus. "He was so confident of his own goodness that he could not see how far he was from what God wants him to be."

"But, Master," urged Simon, "look at the things that the Pharisees do! They educate our children in religion in the synagogue schools. They never have anything to do with the Sadducees or priests who take money from the Romans. They study the Scriptures more than anyone else; don't these things count for anything?"

"Men may do all these things and yet have no real faith in God," answered Jesus. "The Kingdom of Heaven comes to men who love God above everything else. There was something that meant more to that young man yesterday than God—and that was his money. Other men depend on other things; whatever they are, they must get rid of them. Even the most upright Pharisee must forget his pride in goodness and trust God as simply as a little child."

John shook his head doubtfully. "The people will never understand that," he said. "Even though the Pharisees are often very snobbish, they are the best people in our nation."

Jesus suddenly became grim. "The whole religion of the Pharisees sets them against the Kingdom of Heaven!"

The men looked at him in surprise. "But Master," urged James, "we need them to help us set up the new Kingdom! They are more loyal to God than anyone else. Besides, we can do nothing without their friendship."

"I know them, James," answered Jesus. "Men who are sure of themselves will never welcome what we have to tell them!"

John shook his head but said no more. This was not his idea of the way the Kingdom would come. The disciples felt sure Jesus could not mean all he said. But two days later they realized they were wrong. Jesus had meant every word.

After a short trip through lower Galilee, the men arrived in Nazareth where Jesus had lived until a few months before. His mother and brothers were still there, but Jesus stayed outside the town until Sabbath morning and then went with them to the synagogue.

The rumors of Jesus' miracles had spread through all Galilee, and when Jesus entered the synagogue many people looked at him curiously. He saw many people he knew. There was the woman who had lived next to them for twenty years and who was a special friend of his mother's; there were several young men whom he knew well. He smiled across the congregation at one young man who had helped him in the carpenter shop after his father Joseph had died, when Jesus was forced to support the family.

The minister of the synagogue, an old friend of Jesus', invited him to lead the service. After the prayers, he sat down at the desk in the center of the synagogue and opened the scroll to the Prophet Isaiah.

Looking into the faces of many people who had known him from boyhood, Jesus knew it would not be easy to tell them about the Kingdom. He read the same passage he had read in Capernaum: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has consecrated me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release for captives and recovery of sight for the blind. He has sent me to set free the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord's blessing."

Jesus rolled up the scroll. Everyone waited for him to speak. "Today," he declared, "these words of the Prophet Isaiah have come true right here. God has sent his Holy Spirit upon me to tell you that he is now among you. If you truly know that you need God, your ears will be open to hear this word from him; but if you are proud, you will be deaf. Put your entire trust in God and seek his will! I declare to you that God's Kingdom is not far in the future; God has brought it to your door!"

He paused and looked from person to person. "Who would have thought Joseph's son would turn out so well?" whispered one of the elders to a neighbor.

"He does speak with ease," replied his friend, a grudging note in his voice.

"If we could see him do a miracle, we should know for sure whether he is all he claims," said the elder.

From the very first, Jesus had known that the people of Nazareth would find it hard to believe in him. Looking at the elders, he said: "No doubt you are ready to say to me, 'Do for us here in your own home town the things you have been doing in Capernaum.' But prophets are never accepted by the people of their own country. There were many Jewish widows who needed Elijah's help when the great famine came over all Israel, but God did not send him to any of them—they would not believe in him. He sent him to a widow in Sidon, a gentile!

"Elisha could have found many Jewish lepers who needed to be healed, but not one of them was made clean. They would not believe in him! Rather, he healed Naaman, a Syrian and a gentile!"

A deathly silence settled over the synagogue. They were not as good as gentiles! Gentiles, who were unclean outsiders! A carpenter's son telling them that God would pass them by for gentiles! The men began to murmur angrily. Jesus' voice rang out: "How can I do great deeds among you when you do not really believe God at all?"

Open anger swept through the synagogue. "How dare he talk like this to us?" demanded one man, leaping to his feet. All over the room men began to crowd toward the front where Jesus stood.

"Let us have order here!" The minister could hardly make his voice heard. A group of men rushed toward Jesus, who did not even step back. "Over the cliff with him!" shouted someone. In a moment they were shoving and hustling Jesus toward the door, yelling, "Over the cliff with him!"

Carrying Jesus with them, the crowd moved swiftly toward a place outside the town where the hill dropped straight down. Then a peculiar thing happened. The men seemed suddenly to realize what they were doing. This was Mary's son! The son of Joseph, the carpenter who for many years had made yokes for their oxen.

Wrath seemed to melt away. The men let go of Jesus' robe. They seemed almost afraid of him. None laid a hand on him as he walked through the mob which only a moment before had wanted to kill him.

An instant after Jesus was gone, anger again came over the men like the backwash from an ocean wave. Some shook their fists in the direction Jesus had gone, but not one had the courage to follow.

The disciples did not attempt to follow Jesus. They were glad that no one in the town knew them, and they wasted no time in leaving. They all realized that men who were afraid of Jesus might take out their anger on his followers. It was late that night before the disciples found one another and started to hunt for their Master.

Jesus had left the city and climbed to a high ridge where he had loved to go as a boy. Now he looked down on the broad valley of Esdraelon, stretching south to the foothills of Samaria, where so many of the great battles of ancient Israel had been fought. Had he not always felt that someday he would be rejected by his own home town?

Nevertheless, Jesus was not scorned by everyone in Nazareth. A few people remembered the place he loved and they came to him there. They were not rich people, and there were no elders from the synagogue among them. They were the sick and crippled; they were people for whom life was hard, and they believed the word which Jesus had spoken to them. The disciples found him teaching and healing these few.

"These have heard my word," said Jesus to the followers. "To them the Kingdom is given." The disciples listened to Jesus telling the poorest folk of Nazareth the news of the Kingdom. When they left, Jesus spoke very plainly to the disciples.

"Why are you so discouraged?" he asked. "Have we not preached the gospel of the Kingdom here?"

"They turned us out!" burst out James. "They laughed at us! They tried to kill you!"

Simon was bitter. "We should never come near this miserable village again. We might have been killed!"

"If men are to enter the Kingdom of God, they must repent," answered Jesus. "It cuts them to the heart to confess that they have forgotten God and his righteousness. They hate us for teaching them the truth about themselves."

The disciples sat in gloomy silence. Simon gazed out over the plains below. Here through many defeats in battle the Jews had paid the price of their sin—but Israel had not yet learned. Still the nation spurned the prophets whom God sent. Would the Kingdom never come?