The Good Shepherd | Page 9

and laid them down at the door. And Jesus put His hands on the sick people, and healed them all.
In the east there is a dreadful illness called leprosy, and the people who have it are called lepers. No doctor can cure it. At the time when Jesus lived on the earth, lepers were not allowed to come into cities. And they had to go about with nothing on their heads, and with their dresses torn, and with their mouths covered over; and when they saw anybody coming, they had to call out, 'Unclean! unclean!'
One day when Jesus went into a town a leper saw Him. The poor man came to Jesus and knelt down before Him, and fell on his face. And he said, 'If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.' And Jesus put out His hand, and touched him, and said to him, 'I will; be thou clean.' And as soon as Jesus had said that, the leper was well.
Sin is just like leprosy. A baby's naughtiness does not look very bad; but that naughtiness spreads and gets stronger as baby gets older, and nobody but Jesus can take it away.
Jesus Christ's body must often have felt very tired, for crowds followed Him about all the time. They came from Perea, and from Judaea, and from other places too, to see the wonderful new Teacher. And Jesus preached to them all, and healed their sicknesses. The most wonderful sermon that was ever preached in all the world is called the Sermon on the Mount, because Jesus sat down on a hill to preach it.
After a time Jesus went up again to Jerusalem. In or near Jerusalem there was a spring of water which was as good as medicine, because it made sick people well if they bathed in it often enough. This spring ran into a bathing-place called the Pool of Bethesda. Numbers of sick persons came to bathe in that pool. One Sabbath day Jesus saw quite a crowd there. Some were blind, some were lame, some were sick of the palsy. They were sitting, or lying, by the side of the pool. Jesus was very sorry for one poor man there. He had been ill thirty-eight years. So Jesus said to the man, 'Arise, take up thy bed, and walk.' And at once the sick man was well, and took up his mattress and walked.
Now the Rabbis had a number of very silly rules about the Sabbath day. Even if a man broke his arm or his leg on the Sabbath the Rabbis would not allow the doctor to put the bone right till the next day. So they were very angry when they found that Jesus had made that poor man well on the Sabbath day, and had told him to carry his mattress home. They told the man he was doing very wrong, and they tried to kill Jesus. But Jesus told them that His Heavenly Father was never idle, and that He must do the same works as God. That made the Rabbis more angry than ever. They said, 'He calls God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.' From that time the Jews in Jerusalem made up their minds more than ever to kill Jesus; and wherever He went they sent men to watch Him and listen to His words, so that they might make up some excuse for putting Him to death.
What kind of work does God do on Sunday, dear children? Why, He does all sorts of kind and beautiful things. He makes the sun rise, and the flowers grow, and the birds sing; and He takes care of little children on Sunday exactly the same as he does on other days. And Jesus did the same kind of work, He made people happy and well on the Sabbath. And we may do works of love--kind, loving things for other people--on Sunday.
Another Sabbath day, soon after that, the Lord Jesus and His disciples were walking through a cornfield. The disciples were hungry, so they rubbed some corn in their hands as they went along, and ate it. Some of the Pharisees saw the disciples, and they were shocked; and they spoke to Jesus about it. But Jesus told the Pharisees that the disciples were doing nothing wrong. He said, 'THE SABBATH WAS MADE FOR MAN, AND NOT MAN FOR THE SABBATH; THEREFORE THE SON OF MAN IS LORD ALSO OF THE SABBATH DAY.' Jesus meant that God gave the Sabbath day to Adam and his children as a beautiful present, to be the best and happiest day of all the seven. God meant it as a rest for our souls and bodies.
CHAPTER VII
A FRIEND FOR THE SORROWFUL
One day Jesus went to a town called Nain (or Beautiful), about