The King Nobody Wanted | Page 5

and others will suffer too, because of him. But also he will give joy, and bring many people to God. God bless you now."
With these words the old man handed the baby back to Mary, and turned away. Joseph and Mary never saw him again, but they remembered his words forever after.
They took Jesus, and started on their walk back to Bethlehem. There was so much for them to think about.
First there was the story of the shepherds. Then the Wise Men had come with their wonderful gifts. And now there was this old man with his strange words of blessing and warning.
Everything seemed to tell them that Jesus was the Messiah. They should be happier than anyone in the world. And yet they were not happy. There was trouble in the air. Their baby was going to be King of the Jews. Why should there be any trouble about it? They could not understand.
Trouble was not long in coming. One night Joseph had a dream. When he awoke he called to his wife, and told her that they must leave Bethlehem at once. God had sent the dream as a warning for them to get out of the country. They did not dare to stay there any longer. So Joseph and Mary packed up their belongings, and set out for the far country of Egypt where they would be safe.
They left Bethlehem none too soon. For Herod was exceedingly angry when the Wise Men did not come back. Now he was sure that the Messiah really had been born! He was afraid that soon there would be a new king in Palestine to take his throne away from him.
When Herod was afraid, he never wasted any time. Somewhere in Bethlehem was a child whom he feared, and somehow that child must be killed. But he did not know which child it was. How could he be sure to find the right one? He thought of a simple plan.
He called his army officers together, and gave them their orders.
"Send your soldiers to Bethlehem," he told them, "and have them kill every boy in the place who is two years old or younger."
The officers sent their men to Bethlehem, and all the little boys they could find there were put to death. No matter who they were they had to die. It did not take the soldiers very long.
In a few hours they were back in Jerusalem. Herod breathed more easily.
That's a good thing, he thought. If every little boy in Bethlehem is dead, the Messiah must be dead along with the rest.
Herod did not know that the baby whom he feared was gone from Bethlehem before the soldiers got there. While the fathers and mothers of Bethlehem were crying because their little ones were dead, Joseph and Mary and Jesus were safely on their way to Egypt.
Herod did not live long enough to find out his mistake. After he died, the little family in Egypt learned that it was safe to go home again.
But this time they did not go back to Bethlehem. They went straight to the town of Nazareth in Galilee, where Joseph had worked before Jesus was born. There they settled down as though nothing unusual had happened.
In Galilee nobody knew that anything strange had happened at all. Nobody there had heard of the shepherds and the Wise Men, and nobody knew what Simeon had said in the Temple. Nobody knew why it was that so many babies in Bethlehem had been murdered. Nobody in Nazareth thought that the Messiah had come.
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In Nazareth people only said, "I hear the carpenter has a son." When Jesus began to walk perhaps they said, "Joseph's son is strong for his age." And later they said, "The carpenter's lad is doing well at school."
But there were more interesting things to talk about in Nazareth than the carpenter's family. There was the Messiah to talk about. "When will he come?" the people asked each other.
Nobody in Nazareth had heard the angels sing.
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3. Growing
When boys in Nazareth were about six years old, it was time for them to go to school. No girls were there, for the girls stayed home with their mothers. But every day except the Sabbath, the boys went to the school and sat on the floor with their legs crossed, and there the teacher taught them many things that every Jewish boy would need to know.
He taught them their A B C's in the Hebrew language. Instead of A, he showed them how to make a mark like this: [Hebrew: a]. Instead of B, they learned to make this letter: [Hebrew: b]; and so on, through all the alphabet. Then when they knew their letters, they could learn to read. And every Jewish boy had first of all to