Part 5 (1/2)

_I am the Messiah_, he thought. _There is no doubt that I am the Messiah. I must save my people. How should I begin?_

There was nothing to eat in the wilderness, and Jesus grew hungry. He looked around him, and saw that the stones were shaped like loaves of bread.

There seemed to be a voice inside him which was not his own. The voice said:

”_If you really are the Messiah, you oughtn't to be hungry. If you really are the Messiah, you would just have to say the word and these stones would be turned into bread. Then you would have plenty to eat for yourself, and, besides, you could go and give bread to all the hungry folk out there who are waiting for you to help them._”

It was very quiet in the wilderness. The voice spoke up again.

”_But maybe you are afraid to try. Suppose you said to the stones, 'Stones, become bread!' and then nothing happened! That would prove that you weren't the Messiah, wouldn't it?_”

Jesus shook his head, to get rid of the thought. Some words from the Scriptures came into his mind. ”_Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of G.o.d._” No, it would not do to try playing tricks with stones. It would not matter if he did turn them into bread. Bread was not the most important thing in the world. People might think that there was nothing so important as eating, but there were bigger things in life than that. People might think that what the Messiah ought to do was to make the country prosperous, but that would not help them so much as they thought. That was not the kind of Messiah he was going to be.

But what was the best way to prove that he was the Messiah? The tempting voice inside tried again.

”_Maybe the best idea_,” it said, ”_is to go to Jerusalem and climb up on the tower and jump down! Everyone says that the Messiah is going to come suddenly out of heaven. You would come down suddenly enough that way! And nothing would happen to you. It says in the Scriptures that G.o.d will send his angels to hold you up and keep you from being hurt.

Surprise the whole city by jumping off the Temple, and everybody will wors.h.i.+p you at once!_”

Again Jesus shook the thought away, and again he thought of what the Scriptures said.

”_Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy G.o.d.” I can't go and put G.o.d to the test, to see whether he will keep me from being hurt. And it won't make me the Messiah just to cause a big sensation in Jerusalem. That's what everyone is expecting, but that is not the right way at all.

There must be some other way._

And the voice spoke up again.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

”_There is something else you could do. What the world needs is a ruler like you. Everybody says that the Messiah is going to be a world ruler, great and good. Don't let the people down! You are a great man.

You could be anything you wanted to be--a general, a governor, a king._”

Jesus thought, _That's Satan tempting me, that's the devil himself talking!_

He spoke out loud:

”Go away from me, Satan! For the Scriptures say, 'Thou shall wors.h.i.+p the Lord thy G.o.d, and him only shalt thou serve!'”

The voice said no more. A great quietness came over Jesus. There was no great thing that he needed to do right away. He was the Messiah, but he did not need to make the country wealthy. He did not need to jump from the Temple, and he did not need to command an army or rule an empire.

There was one thing that he would have to do, but he could not tell anybody about it yet. It was going to be his secret for a while. But someday everybody would see what he was doing. Someday it would be understood.

And now it was time to be on his way. He had been in the wilderness forty days, and that was long enough. He found the trail back to the outside world, and soon he was on the road to Galilee.

When Jesus got home to Galilee, he began to preach to people in the streets. What he said at first was very much like what John the Baptist said:

”Give up your sins, and begin to live a new life, for G.o.d has come to rule over you!”

But the crowds that heard Jesus were not so large as those that went to the Jordan to hear John.