[This excerpt is from The Story of Jesus In The World's Literature. Ed. Edward Wagenknecht. Il. Fritz Kredel. Copyright, 1946. Creative Age Press, Inc. New York, N.Y.]
It was just about this time that Andrew began to
hear about a wonderful man who was coming to be
talked about around the Sea of Galilee. His name
was Joshua, or, as the Greeks had it, Jesus, and his
father had been a carpenter in the inland city of
Nazareth.
Jesus himself had been brought up to the carpenter's
trade, and had worked at the bench until he
was about thirty years old. But now he had given it
up for good. He spent all his time going about the
country helping people.
Nobody knew where this Jesus of Nazareth had
got his strange power. He was not even a learned
man, and everybody knew there had been nothing
remarkable about his family.
At Capernaum he had done many wonderful
things. He could heal sick people, it seemed, simply
by placing his hands upon them, some of them people
who had been sick a long time and had spent all
their money on doctors without finding a bit of relief.
Once they brought him into a room where a
little girl had just died. "She is not dead," he said;
"she is asleep." And they laughed at him. He said,
"You must leave me alone with her for a time." So
they did, and when they came back the little girl
was sitting up in bed talking to Jesus. Nobody knew
what he had done to her.
Even stranger stories than this were told of him.
It was said that he had once walked on the water,
as calmly, as confidently as men walk on dry land.
It was said he had once fed a hungry crowd with
five loaves and two little fishes.
The old men talked about these things wonderingly
as they sat on their benches at the gates of the
city in the evening when the day's work was done.
Their wives and daughters talked about them too
when they went to draw water from the well and
carry it home in their goatskins. And always Andrew
would listen quietly, with wide, shining eyes.
He did not care so much about the walking on the
water. The healing of the sick he did like to hear
about, for Andrew himself seemed to hurt, way deep
down inside, whenever he knew that somebody
around him was suffering. The walking on the water
did not seem so very important. Some of the men
said frankly that they did not believe such stories.
Andrew did not go so far as that. If so wonderful a
man as Jesus of Nazareth had appeared in the world,
it seemed to Andrew quite a fitting thing that he
should be able to walk upon the water if he wanted
to. Andrew did not doubt for a moment that he
might have done it. But it did not matter much
whether he had done it or not. It was not because
Jesus had walked on water that Andrew loved him.
For he did love him. It had come to that. The little
boy was in love with a man he had never seen.
He loved him most of all for the wonderful words
he had spoken. He knew them only as they had been
repeated to him-- a scrap here, a fragment there,
often sadly mangled in the telling. But it is impossible
to spoil them, those matchless words, for those
whose hearts are open to fell their beauty, as Andrew's
was.
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God."
"Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be
called the children of God."
"Bless them that curse you, pray for them that
despitefully use you."
"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall
find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."
It seemed to Andrew that this wise Teacher must
know everything. He must know the answer to all
the questions that were troubling Andrew's little
mind, and to all the questions that all the other people
in the world were asking too.
Then there were his stories. Andrew had never
heard any stories that seemed to him quite so beautiful
as the stories that Jesus told. There was the story
of the young man who had left his father to go into
a far country, where he led an evil life. When all his
money was gone, and he was sick and hungry, he
came back home. And instead of scolding him for
what he had done, his father rushed out eagerly to
meet him, and welcomed him home, and fed him
and clothed him, and invited the neighbors in to
make a great feast. "For," he said, "my son was dead
and is alive again; he was lost and is found." And
there was the story of the good Samaritan who found
a Jew, his enemy, beaten by robbers and wounded
upon the highway, and took him to an inn, and
washed his wounds, and nursed him, and paid his
own money to the innkeeper to look after him until
he should return. "Take care of this Jew," he said,
"and whatsoever thou spendest more, I, when I come
back again, will repay thee."
If only Jesus of Nazareth would come to Tiberias!
If only Andrew might see him, hear him speak,
touch his hand! It seemed to him that he wanted
that more than anything else in the world, more than
always having enough to eat, more than having his
father kind to him, more than anything!
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