What an exhausting day that must have been for him. Yet, the following day, Jesus woke up very early, between three and six o’clock in the morning. It was not until some time afterwards that the disciples went out looking for him.

It was the first Sabbath after his return from Jerusalem and the calling of his disciples. He was now being watched from afar. It seems that the authorities of Jerusalem had sent people to track his steps in Galilee.

As Jesus returned to Galilee, it would have been a relief to escape from the stifling spiritual atmosphere of Jerusalem; from the self-seeking, intellectual, heartless collection of Rabbis, whose first active persecution Jesus had just encountered in Jerusalem, to the honest, simple, earnest, impulsive Galileans.

Autumn came and Jesus travelled from Galilee to ‘an unknown feast’ in Jerusalem, possibly Rosh Hashanah, the Feast of Trumpets. It appears that he was alone.

After a short stay in Cana, we follow Jesus to Nazareth, the city of his childhood. It has only been a few months since he left there, but much had happened since!

The brief ‘revival’ in Samaria was, as Jesus had indicated to his disciples, the beginning of something bigger. It formed the introduction to his ministry in Galilee, which might be summed up by the words, ‘in the power of the Spirit,’ with which he describes his return to Galilee.

Samaria was on the shorter road between Galilee and Judea, though Judeans preferred a long detour to avoid it. Why should that be? Samaritans were considered hostile and impure, but not by Jesus.

Straight away he led his family and disciples to Capernaum (Kephar Nachum), to become his base of operations. The synagogue stood by the shores of Lake Galilee, built of white limestone on a dark basalt foundation

Straight away he led his family and disciples to Capernaum (Kephar Nachum), to become his base of operations. The synagogue stood by the shores of Lake Galilee, built of white limestone on a dark basalt foundation.

Jesus’ conversation with Nathanael was in fact his first sermon and here he made use of a significant expression concerning himself, Son of Man. Nathanael had referred to his divinity, the Son of God and so. Here, Jesus reminds them too of his humanity.

Our focus shifts to John the Baptist and, particularly, the question about his identification with Elijah. The answer lies in understanding the difference between Old Testament times and Gospel times.

As to what follows next there can be no greater contrast. And yet, what followed the Baptism was entirely necessary, as regarded the ministry of Jesus.

John’s message of repentance awakened echoes throughout the land and brought hearers from city, village and hamlet. For once, every distinction was irrelevant. Pharisee and Sadducee, the outcast taxman and semi-pagan soldier met here on common ground.

There is something mysterious, even mystical, in the almost absolute silence in the thirty years between his birth and his first call to duty. The story now switches to Zacharias’s son, John, as he explodes onto the scene like his Old Testament precursor, Elijah.

The silence is broken by his first visit to the Temple. Jesus was twelve years of age, not yet a ‘Son of the Commandment’ (Bar mitzvah) and so not yet obliged to attend the feasts in Jerusalem. But it was Passover time and he had tagged along with his parents.

The tyrant Herod was dying … horribly and his sufferings were at times agonizing. He knew that his time was almost up and had himself installed back in his palace under the palm trees of Jericho.

The story of the visitation by the Magi is a curious one. The very term, Magi, used by many commentators, has negative and positive connotations.

Mary seems an enigma, but is she? Her role as a mother is a timeless one, but not all mothers are called to nurture Mankind’s Messiah! Strange that she should have pondered in her heart the shepherds’ account

Both the Old Testament and Rabbinic teaching pointed to Bethlehem as the birthplace of the Messiah. Yet nothing could have been less expected; a counting of the people, a census taken at the bidding of a pagan Emperor and executed by the hated Herod.

The focus now moves from this insignificant priest to a humble unassuming family in the Galilee, simple ‘country folk’, with their awkward speech. If the Rabbis had been writing the script for what was about to come, the cast of characters would be very different and far more important!