The Adolescent Years

127:3.1In the course of this year all the fam­ily prop­erty, ex­cept the home and gar­den, was dis­posed of. The last piece of Ca­per­naum prop­erty (ex­cept an eq­uity in one other), al­ready mort­gaged, was sold. The pro­ceeds were used for taxes, to buy some new tools for James, and to make a pay­ment on the old fam­ily sup­ply and re­pair shop near the car­a­van lot, which Je­sus now pro­posed to buy back since James was old enough to work at the house shop and help Mary about the home. With the fi­nan­cial pres­sure thus eased for the time be­ing, Je­sus de­cided to take James to the Pass­over. They went up to Je­ru­sa­lem a day early, to be alone, go­ing by way of Samaria. They walked, and Je­sus told James about the his­toric places en route as his fa­ther had taught him on a sim­i­lar jour­ney five years be­fore.

127:3.2In pass­ing through Samaria, they saw many strange sights. On this jour­ney they talked over many of their prob­lems, per­sonal, fam­ily, and na­tional. James was a very re­li­gious type of lad, and while he did not fully agree with his mother re­gard­ing the lit­tle he knew of the plans con­cern­ing Je­sus’ life­work, he did look for­ward to the time when he would be able to as­sume re­spon­si­bil­ity for the fam­ily so that Je­sus could be­gin his mis­sion. He was very ap­pre­cia­tive of Je­sus’ tak­ing him up to the Pass­over, and they talked over the fu­ture more fully than ever be­fore.

127:3.3Je­sus did much think­ing as they jour­neyed through Samaria, par­tic­u­larly at Bethel and when drink­ing from Ja­cob’s well. He and his brother dis­cussed the tra­di­tions of Abra­ham, Isaac, and Ja­cob. He did much to pre­pare James for what he was about to wit­ness at Je­ru­sa­lem, thus seek­ing to lessen the shock such as he him­self had ex­pe­ri­enced on his first visit to the tem­ple. But James was not so sen­si­tive to some of these sights. He com­mented on the per­func­tory and heart­less man­ner in which some of the priests per­formed their du­ties but on the whole greatly en­joyed his so­journ at Je­ru­sa­lem.

127:3.4Je­sus took James to Beth­any for the Pass­over sup­per. Si­mon had been laid to rest with his fa­thers, and Je­sus pre­sided over this house­hold as the head of the Pass­over fam­ily, hav­ing brought the paschal lamb from the tem­ple.

127:3.5Af­ter the Pass­over sup­per Mary sat down to talk with James while Martha, Laz­a­rus, and Je­sus talked to­gether far into the night. The next day they at­tended the tem­ple ser­vices, and James was re­ceived into the com­mon­wealth of Is­rael. That morn­ing, as they paused on the brow of Oli­vet to view the tem­ple, while James ex­claimed in won­der, Je­sus gazed on Je­ru­sa­lem in si­lence. James could not com­pre­hend his brother’s de­meanor. That night they again re­turned to Beth­any and would have de­parted for home the next day, but James was in­sis­tent on their go­ing back to visit the tem­ple, ex­plain­ing that he wanted to hear the teach­ers. And while this was true, se­cretly in his heart he wanted to hear Je­sus par­tic­i­pate in the dis­cus­sions, as he had heard his mother tell about. Ac­cord­ingly, they went to the tem­ple and heard the dis­cus­sions, but Je­sus asked no ques­tions. It all seemed so puerile and in­signif­i­cant to this awak­en­ing mind of man and God—he could only pity them. James was dis­ap­pointed that Je­sus said noth­ing. To his in­quiries Je­sus only made re­ply, “My hour has not yet come.”

127:3.6The next day they jour­neyed home by Jeri­cho and the Jor­dan val­ley, and Je­sus re­counted many things by the way, in­clud­ing his for­mer trip over this road when he was thir­teen years old.

127:3.7Upon re­turn­ing to Naz­a­reth, Je­sus be­gan work in the old fam­ily re­pair shop and was greatly cheered by be­ing able to meet so many peo­ple each day from all parts of the coun­try and sur­round­ing dis­tricts. Je­sus truly loved peo­ple—just com­mon folks. Each month he made his pay­ments on the shop and, with James’s help, con­tin­ued to pro­vide for the fam­ily.

127:3.8Sev­eral times a year, when vis­i­tors were not pres­ent thus to func­tion, Je­sus con­tin­ued to read the Sab­bath scrip­tures at the syn­a­gogue and many times of­fered com­ments on the les­son, but usu­ally he so se­lected the pas­sages that com­ment was un­nec­es­sary. He was skill­ful, so ar­rang­ing the or­der of the read­ing of the var­i­ous pas­sages that the one would il­lu­mi­nate the other. He never failed, weather per­mit­ting, to take his broth­ers and sis­ters out on Sab­bath af­ter­noons for their na­ture strolls.

127:3.9About this time the chazan in­au­gu­rated a young men’s club for philo­sophic dis­cus­sion which met at the homes of dif­fer­ent mem­bers and of­ten at his own home, and Je­sus be­came a promi­nent mem­ber of this group. By this means he was en­abled to re­gain some of the lo­cal pres­tige which he had lost at the time of the re­cent na­tion­al­is­tic con­tro­ver­sies.

127:3.10His so­cial life, while re­stricted, was not wholly ne­glected. He had many warm friends and stanch ad­mir­ers among both the young men and the young women of Naz­a­reth.

127:3.11In Septem­ber, Eliz­a­beth and John came to visit the Naz­a­reth fam­ily. John, hav­ing lost his fa­ther, in­tended to re­turn to the Judean hills to en­gage in agri­cul­ture and sheep rais­ing un­less Je­sus ad­vised him to re­main in Naz­a­reth to take up car­pen­try or some other line of work. They did not know that the Naz­a­reth fam­ily was prac­ti­cally pen­ni­less. The more Mary and Eliz­a­beth talked about their sons, the more they be­came con­vinced that it would be good for the two young men to work to­gether and see more of each other.

127:3.12Je­sus and John had many talks to­gether; and they talked over some very in­ti­mate and per­sonal mat­ters. When they had fin­ished this visit, they de­cided not again to see each other un­til they should meet in their pub­lic ser­vice af­ter “the heav­enly Fa­ther should call” them to their work. John was tremen­dously im­pressed by what he saw at Naz­a­reth that he should re­turn home and la­bor for the sup­port of his mother. He be­came con­vinced that he was to be a part of Je­sus’ life mis­sion, but he saw that Je­sus was to oc­cupy many years with the rear­ing of his fam­ily; so he was much more con­tent to re­turn to his home and set­tle down to the care of their lit­tle farm and to min­is­ter to the needs of his mother. And never again did John and Je­sus see each other un­til that day by the Jor­dan when the Son of Man pre­sented him­self for bap­tism.

127:3.13On Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon, De­cem­ber 3, of this year, death for the sec­ond time struck at this Naz­a­reth fam­ily. Lit­tle Amos, their baby brother, died af­ter a week’s ill­ness with a high fever. Af­ter pass­ing through this time of sor­row with her first-born son as her only sup­port, Mary at last and in the fullest sense rec­og­nized Je­sus as the real head of the fam­ily; and he was truly a wor­thy head.

127:3.14For four years their stan­dard of liv­ing had steadily de­clined; year by year they felt the pinch of in­creas­ing pov­erty. By the close of this year they faced one of the most dif­fi­cult ex­pe­ri­ences of all their up­hill strug­gles. James had not yet be­gun to earn much, and the ex­penses of a fu­neral on top of ev­ery­thing else stag­gered them. But Je­sus would only say to his anx­ious and griev­ing mother: “Mother-Mary, sor­row will not help us; we are all do­ing our best, and mother’s smile, per­chance, might even in­spire us to do bet­ter. Day by day we are strength­ened for these tasks by our hope of bet­ter days ahead.” His sturdy and prac­ti­cal op­ti­mism was truly con­ta­gious; all the chil­dren lived in an at­mo­sphere of an­tic­i­pa­tion of bet­ter times and bet­ter things. And this hope­ful cour­age con­tributed might­ily to the de­vel­op­ment of strong and no­ble char­ac­ters, in spite of the de­pres­sive­ness of their pov­erty.

127:3.15Je­sus pos­sessed the abil­ity ef­fec­tively to mo­bi­lize all his pow­ers of mind, soul, and body on the task im­me­di­ately in hand. He could con­cen­trate his deep-think­ing mind on the one prob­lem which he wished to solve, and this, in con­nec­tion with his un­tir­ing pa­tience, en­abled him serenely to en­dure the tri­als of a dif­fi­cult mor­tal ex­is­tence—to live as if he were “see­ing Him who is in­vis­i­ble.”