' STAND FAST IN THE FAITH '

New Zealand Tablet, 22 January 1914, Page 3

' STAND FAST IN THE FAITH '

(A Weekly Instruction specially written for the A.Z, Tablet by ‘Ghimel’.) THE BOYHOOD OF OUR LORD I. It is difficult not to wish that the Evangelists had told us more of the Childhood and Home of Jesus: we naturally desire to have a complete record of His wise sayings, beautiful actions, and gracious services. But with its usual good taste the Gospel is content to tell us that ‘ Jesus ao.van.ced in wisdom and age and grace before God and men.’ The Divine Child’s life was to all appearance in no way different from that of other children at Nazareth, and the Evangelists will not tear aside the veil. Nazareth was only a preparation for Calvary, and because it was a preparation it always remains an encouraging consolation to those who have their Calvary, for the thought of His simple, lowly life of hard poverty makes life bright and the journey short.

At the time of our Lord, Nazareth was a little village lying deep in a rounded hollow among the hills of Southern Galilee. Situated about 75 miles from Jerusalem, it was isolated and secluded, ‘alike unknowing and unknown.’ Can any good come out of Nazareth T was the satirical way in which the great ones of the nation spoke of it. And no one but a prophet' could have seen how history was to give an affirmative answer to that question. A town that boasted of only three or four thousand souls, a synagogue, and a small school, that had no commerce, or even a Roman garrison could have no claim to greatness. Yet it was here that the Redeemer of the human race was to spend the longest period of his life.

Nazareth itself lies in a valley, but Jesus had only to climb the hillside and the Holy Land and the history of Israel was spread out before Him. ‘To the young Jewish Boy of that ancient time every corner of the great valley, every rising ground of the surrounding hills, was filled with memories of a mighty past and the lessons in patriotism and religion that they conveyed, filled too with stirring and impressive sights of the present, and suggesting visions of the future. And so the young Jew of Nazareth looks over the valley towards the hills which contain and conceal Samaria and Jerusalem, Bethel, and Bethlehem, with the eyes of intelligence and sympathy and fascination. Every name and every scene is full of meaning to Him. The past history of His people lives before Him as He looks about (Ramsay, Jf ducat inn of Christ, pp. 49, 50). Beneath Him, to the South, was the great plain of Esdraelon, the scene of many battles and glorious deeds. In its western corner stands Hadadrimmon, the place of mourning, where Josias for once disregarded the message of the Lord, was defeated and slain at the first charge of the Egyptian army. Away to the right rose Mt. Carmel, where Elias stood up as God's champion against the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal : ‘ and with him was God and victory.’ To the East, on Mt. Tabor, richly wooded and perfect in its symmetry, Deborah the prophetess and Barak with his warriors from the North cut through the Canaanite host of 10,000 men led by Si sera, that held all the broad plain." Near by is Endor, ‘ where King Saul played a game against the powers of the world of death, in violation of the law- that he had himself enacted, staking his honor and his religion, his kingdom and his life, and losing everything.’ A few miles further South is Mt. Gilboa, where this faithless'king at the head of the hosts of Israel went down -before the victorious Philistines. Almost in the same place, as if to show that the hand of the Lord was strong in defence of His people when they were faithful, Gideon, with his Three Hundred, drove before him the invading army of the Midianites'Tn midnight panic. Round about lie Jezreel, the vineyard of Naboth, and the grim fortress of Betltsan, on the walls of which were once fastened the heads of Saul and Jonathan. ' ,1’ • „ - ; '\ . i

Northwards were the hills round the Sea of Galilee, whoso shores were to witness the triumphs of the Saviour’s message, and in the distance, snow-capped Hermon, the boundary of the Holy Land. / As the Boy roamed the hills with open ear and understanding eye, ‘He gathered that harvest of imagery with which He. afterwards delighted and instructed His disciples. There He saw the sun rise in greyness over the valley of the Jordan, and go down in red upon the waters of the great sea ; the mountain torrent sweeping away the house built on the sand, and the leaves tossed to and fro as the wind blew where it listed the sower going forth to sow on his four kinds of soil, and the husbandman pruning the vine that it might bring forth much fruit ; the mountain flowers fairer than Solomon in all his glory, and the birds for whom His Heavenly Father cared; the fox creeping home to its lair, and the vultures gathering to their prey. From amongst the hills where the air was clear and sweet, from the simple home where Mary made an atmosphere of quiet, from the study of God's word, and from long meditations in the morning and evening hours, Jesus came forth at the Divine call to declare the Father whose voice He had heard in a secret place, and to establish the Kingdom which His prophets had imagined ’ (Watson).