Beginning the Public Work

141:0.1On the first day of the week, Jan­uary 19, A.D. 27, Je­sus and the twelve apos­tles made ready to de­part from their head­quar­ters in Beth­saida. The twelve knew noth­ing of their Mas­ter’s plans ex­cept that they were go­ing up to Je­ru­sa­lem to at­tend the Pass­over feast in April, and that it was the in­ten­tion to jour­ney by way of the Jor­dan val­ley. They did not get away from Zeb­e­dee’s house un­til near noon be­cause the fam­i­lies of the apos­tles and oth­ers of the dis­ci­ples had come to say good-bye and wish them well in the new work they were about to be­gin.

141:0.2Just be­fore leav­ing, the apos­tles missed the Mas­ter, and An­drew went out to find him. Af­ter a brief search he found Je­sus sit­ting in a boat down the beach, and he was weep­ing. The twelve had of­ten seen their Mas­ter when he seemed to grieve, and they had be­held his brief sea­sons of se­ri­ous pre­oc­cu­pa­tion of mind, but none of them had ever seen him weep. An­drew was some­what star­tled to see the Mas­ter thus af­fected on the eve of their de­par­ture for Je­ru­sa­lem, and he ven­tured to ap­proach Je­sus and ask: “On this great day, Mas­ter, when we are to de­part for Je­ru­sa­lem to pro­claim the Fa­ther’s king­dom, why is it that you weep? Which of us has of­fended you?” And Je­sus, go­ing back with An­drew to join the twelve, an­swered him: “No one of you has grieved me. I am sad­dened only be­cause none of my fa­ther Joseph’s fam­ily have re­mem­bered to come over to bid us God­speed.” At this time Ruth was on a visit to her brother Joseph at Naz­a­reth. Other mem­bers of his fam­ily were kept away by pride, dis­ap­point­ment, mis­un­der­stand­ing, and petty re­sent­ment in­dulged as a re­sult of hurt feel­ings.