AFTER that night of the voyage to the Gadarenes, Joel ceased to be
surprised at the miracles he daily witnessed. Even when the little
daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, was called back to life,
it did not seem so wonderful to him as the stilling of the tempest.
Many a night after Phineas had gone away again with the Master to other
cities, Joel used to go down to the beach, and stand looking across the
water as he recalled that scene.
The lake had always been an interesting place to him at night. He liked
to watch the fishermen as they flashed their blazing torches this way
and that. A sympathetic thrill ran through him as they sighted their
prey, and raised their bare sinewy arms to fling the net or fly the
spear.
But after that morning of healing, and that night of tempest, it seemed
to be a sacred place, to be visited only on still nights, when the town
slept, and heaven bent nearer in the starlight to the quiet earth.
The time of the Passover was drawing near,--the time that Joel had been
looking forward to since Phineas had promised him a year ago that he
should go to Jerusalem.
The twelve disciples who had been sent out to all the little towns
through Galilee, to teach the things they had themselves been taught,
and work miracles in the name of Him who had sent them, began to come
slowly back. They had an encouraging report to bring of their work; but
it was shadowed by the news they had heard of the murder of John
Baptist.
Joel joined them as soon as they came into Capernaum, and walked beside
Phineas as the footsore travellers pressed on a little farther towards
Simon's house.
"When are we going to start for Jerusalem?" was his first eager
question.
Phineas looked searchingly into his face as he replied, "Would you be
greatly disappointed, my son, not to go this year?"
Joel looked perplexed; it was such an unheard of thing for Phineas to
miss going up to the Feast of the Passover.
"These are evil times, my Joel," he explained. "John Baptist has just
been beheaded. The Master has many enemies among those in high places.
It would be like walking into a lion's den for Him to go up to
Jerusalem.
"Even here He is not safe from the hatred of Antipas, and after a little
rest will pass over into the borders of the tetrarch Philip. We have no
wish to leave Him!"
"Oh, why should He be persecuted so?" asked Joel, looking with
tear-dimmed eyes at the man walking in advance of them, and talking in
low earnest tones to John, who walked beside Him.
"You have been with Him so much, father Phineas. Have _you_ ever known
Him to do anything to make these men His enemies?"
"Yes," said Phineas. "He has drawn the people after Him until they are
jealous of His popularity. He upsets their old traditions, and teaches a
religion that ignores some of the Laws of Moses. I can easily see why
they hate Him so. They see Him at such a long distance from themselves,
they can not understand Him. Healing on the Sabbath, eating with
publicans and sinners, disregarding the little customs and ceremonies
that in all ages have set apart our people as a chosen race, are crimes
in their eyes.
"If they only could get close enough to understand Him; to see that His
pure life needs no ceremonies of multiplied hand-washings; that it is
His broad love for His fellow-men that makes Him stoop to the lowest
classes,--I am sure they could not do otherwise than love Him.
"Blind fanatics! They would put to death the best man that ever lived,
because He is so much broader and higher than they that the little
measuring line of their narrow creed cannot compass Him!"
"Is He never going to set up His kingdom?" asked Joel. "Does He never
talk about it?"
"Yes," said Phineas; "though we are often puzzled by what He says, and
ask ourselves His meaning."
They had reached the house by this time, and as Simon led the way to its
hospitable door, Phineas said, "Enter with them, my lad, if you wish. I
must go on to my little family, but will join you soon."
To Joel's great pleasure, he found they were to cross the lake at once,
to the little fishing port of Bethsaida. It was only six miles across.
"We have hardly had time to eat," said Andrew to Joel, as they walked
along towards the boat "I will be glad to get away to some desert
place, where we may have rest from the people that are always pushing
and clamoring about us."
"How long before you start?" asked Joel.
"In a very few minutes," answered Andrew; "for the boat is in
readiness."
Joel glanced from the street above the beach to the water's edge, as if
calculating the distance.
"Don't go without me," he said as, breaking into a run, he dashed up the
beach at his utmost speed. He was back again in a surprisingly quick
time, with a cheap little basket in his hand; he was out of breath with
his rapid run.
"Didn't I go fast?" he panted. "I could not have done that a few weeks
ago. Oh, it feels so good to be able to run when I please! It is like
flying."
He lifted the cover of the basket. "See!" he said. "I thought the Master
might be hungry; but I had no time to get anything better. I had to stop
at the first stall I came to."
At the same time the boat went gliding out into the water with its
restful motion, thousands of people were pouring out of the villages on
foot, and hurrying on around the lake, ahead of them.
The boat passed up a narrow winding creek, away from the sail-dotted
lake; its green banks seemed to promise the longed-for quiet and rest.
But there in front of them waited the crowds they had come so far to
avoid.
They had brought their sick for healing. They needed to be helped and
taught; they were "as sheep without a shepherd!" He could not refuse
them.
Joel found no chance to offer the food he had bought so hastily with
another of his hoarded coins,--the coins that were to have purchased his
revenge.
As the day wore on, he heard the disciples ask that the multitudes might
be sent away.
"It would take two hundred pennyworth of bread to feed them," said
Philip, "and even that would not be enough."
Andrew glanced over the great crowds and stroked his beard thoughtfully.
"There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes,
but what are they among so many?"
Joel hurried forward and held out his basket with its little
store,--five flat round loaves of bread, not much more than one hungry
man could eat, and two dried fishes.
He hardly knew what to expect as the people were made to sit down on the
grass in orderly ranks of fifties.
His eyes grew round with astonishment as the Master took the bread, gave
thanks, and then passed it to the disciples, who, in turn, distributed
it among the people. Then the two little fishes were handed around in
the same way.
Joel turned to Phineas, who had joined them some time ago. "Do you see
that?" he asked excitedly. "They have been multiplied a thousand fold!"
Phineas smiled. "We drop one tiny grain of wheat into the earth," he
said, "and when it grows and spreads and bears dozens of other grains on
its single stalk, we are not astonished. When the Master but does in an
instant, what Nature takes months to do, we cry, 'a miracle!' 'Men are
more wont to be astonished at the sun's eclipse, than at its daily
rising,'" he quoted, remembering his conversation with the old
traveller, on his way to Nathan ben Obed's.
A feeling of exaltation seized the people as they ate the mysterious
bread; it seemed that the days of miraculous manna had come again. By
the time they had all satisfied their hunger, and twelve basketfuls of
the fragments had been gathered up, they were ready to make Him their
king. The restlessness of the times had taken possession of them; the
burning excitement must find vent in some way, and with one accord they
demanded Him as their leader.
Joel wondered why He should refuse. Surely no other man he had ever
known could have resisted such an appeal.
The perplexed fisherman, at Jesus's command, turned their boat homeward
without Him. To their simple minds it seemed that He had made a mistake
in resisting the homage forced upon Him by the people; they longed for
the time to come when they should be recognized as the honored officials
in the new kingdom. Many a dream of future power and magnificence must
have come to them in the still watches of the night, as they drifted
home in the white light of the Passover moon.
Many a time in the weeks that followed, Joel slipped away to his
favorite spot on the beech, a flat rock half hidden by a clump of
oleander bushes. Here, with his feet idly dangling in the ripples, he
looked out over the water, and recalled the scenes he had witnessed
there.
It seemed so marvellous to him that the Master could have ever walked
on those shining waves; and yet he had seen Him that night after the
feeding of the multitudes. He had seen, with his own frightened eyes,
the Master walk calmly towards the boat across the unsteady water, and
catch up the sinking Peter, who had jumped overboard to meet Him. It
grieved and fretted the boy that this man, of God-given power and such
sweet unselfish spirit, could be so persistently misunderstood by the
people. He could think of nothing else.
He had not been with the crowds that pressed into the synagogue the
Sabbath after the thousands had been fed; but Phineas came home with
grim lips and knitted brows, and told him about it.
"The Master knew they followed Him because of the loaves and fishes," he
said. "He told them so.
"When we came out of the door, I could not help looking up at the lintel
on which is carved the pot of manna; for when they asked Him for a sign
that they might believe Him, saying, 'Our fathers ate manna in the
wilderness!' He answered: 'I am the bread of life! Ye have seen me, and
yet believe not!'
"While He talked there was a murmuring all over the house against Him,
because He said that He had come down from heaven. Your uncle Laban was
there. I heard him say scornfully: 'Is not this the son of Joseph, whose
father and mother we know? How doth He now say, "I am come down out of
heaven"?' Then he laughed a mocking little laugh, and nudged the man who
stood next to him. There are many like him; I could feel a spirit of
prejudice and persecution in the very air. Many who have professed to be
His friends have turned against Him."
While Phineas was pouring out his anxious forebodings to his wife and
Joel, the Master was going homeward with His chosen twelve.
"Would ye also go away?" He asked wistfully of His companions, as He
noted the cold, disapproving looks of many who had only the day before
been fed by Him, and who now openly turned their backs on Him.
Simon Peter gave a questioning glance into the faces of his companions;
then he pressed a step nearer. "Lord, to whom shall we go?" he answered
impulsively. "Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed,
and know that Thou art the Holy One of God."
The others nodded their assent, all but one. Judas Iscariot clutched the
money bags he held, and looked off across the lake, to avoid the
searching eyes that were fixed upon him.
These honest Galileans were too simple to suspect others of dark
designs, yet they had never felt altogether free with this stranger from
Judea. He had never seemed entirely one of them. They did not see in his
crafty quiet manners, the sheep's clothing that hid his wolfish nature;
but they could feel his lack of sympathetic enthusiasm.
He had been one of those who followed only for the loaves and fishes of
a temporal kingdom, and now, in his secret soul, he was sorry he had
joined a cause in whose final success he was beginning to lose faith.
The sun went down suddenly that night behind a heavy cloud, as a
gathering storm began to lash the Galilee and rock the little boats
anchored at the landings.
The year of popularity was at an end.