Tarrying Time in Galilee

137:3.1The next day Je­sus sent his apos­tles on to Cana, since all of them were in­vited to the wed­ding of a promi­nent young woman of that town, while he pre­pared to pay a hur­ried visit to his mother at Ca­per­naum, stop­ping at Mag­dala to see his brother Jude.

137:3.2Be­fore leav­ing Naz­a­reth, the new as­so­ciates of Je­sus told Joseph and other mem­bers of Je­sus’ fam­ily about the won­der­ful events of the then re­cent past and gave free ex­pres­sion to their be­lief that Je­sus was the long-ex­pected de­liv­erer. And these mem­bers of Je­sus’ fam­ily talked all this over, and Joseph said: “Maybe, af­ter all, Mother was right—maybe our strange brother is the com­ing king.”

137:3.3Jude was pres­ent at Je­sus’ bap­tism and, with his brother James, had be­come a firm be­liever in Je­sus’ mis­sion on earth. Al­though both James and Jude were much per­plexed as to the na­ture of their brother’s mis­sion, their mother had res­ur­rected all her early hopes of Je­sus as the Mes­siah, the son of David, and she en­cour­aged her sons to have faith in their brother as the de­liv­erer of Is­rael.

137:3.4Je­sus ar­rived in Ca­per­naum Mon­day night, but he did not go to his own home, where lived James and his mother; he went di­rectly to the home of Zeb­e­dee. All his friends at Ca­per­naum saw a great and pleas­ant change in him. Once more he seemed to be com­par­a­tively cheer­ful and more like him­self as he was dur­ing the ear­lier years at Naz­a­reth. For years pre­vi­ous to his bap­tism and the iso­la­tion pe­ri­ods just be­fore and just af­ter, he had grown in­creas­ingly se­ri­ous and self-con­tained. Now he seemed quite like his old self to all of them. There was about him some­thing of ma­jes­tic im­port and ex­alted as­pect, but he was once again light­hearted and joy­ful.

137:3.5Mary was thrilled with ex­pec­ta­tion. She an­tic­i­pated that the prom­ise of Ga­briel was near­ing ful­fill­ment. She ex­pected all Pales­tine soon to be star­tled and stunned by the mirac­u­lous rev­e­la­tion of her son as the super­nat­u­ral king of the Jews. But to all of the many ques­tions which his mother, James, Jude, and Zeb­e­dee asked, Je­sus only smil­ingly replied: “It is bet­ter that I tarry here for a while; I must do the will of my Fa­ther who is in heaven.”

137:3.6On the next day, Tues­day, they all jour­neyed over to Cana for the wed­ding of Naomi, which was to take place on the fol­low­ing day. And in spite of Je­sus’ re­peated warn­ings that they tell no man about him “un­til the Fa­ther’s hour shall come,” they in­sisted on qui­etly spread­ing the news abroad that they had found the De­liv­erer. They each con­fi­dently ex­pected that Je­sus would in­au­gu­rate his as­sump­tion of Mes­sianic au­thor­ity at the forth­com­ing wed­ding at Cana, and that he would do so with great power and sub­lime grandeur. They re­mem­bered what had been told them about the phe­nom­ena at­ten­dant upon his bap­tism, and they be­lieved that his fu­ture course on earth would be marked by in­creas­ing man­i­fes­ta­tions of super­nat­u­ral won­ders and mirac­u­lous demon­stra­tions. Ac­cord­ingly, the en­tire coun­try­side was prepar­ing to gather to­gether at Cana for the wed­ding feast of Naomi and Jo­hab the son of Nathan.

137:3.7Mary had not been so joy­ous in years. She jour­neyed to Cana in the spirit of the queen mother on the way to wit­ness the coro­na­tion of her son. Not since he was thir­teen years old had Je­sus’ fam­ily and friends seen him so care­free and happy, so thought­ful and un­der­stand­ing of the wishes and de­sires of his as­so­ciates, so touch­ingly sym­pa­thetic. And so they all whis­pered among them­selves, in small groups, won­der­ing what was go­ing to hap­pen. What would this strange per­son do next? How would he usher in the glory of the com­ing king­dom? And they were all thrilled with the thought that they were to be pres­ent to see the rev­e­la­tion of the might and power of Is­rael’s God.