A DAY IN THE LIFE

Take a trip with me today back in time and across the ocean. The time is early April in the late 20's A.D., during the early part of Christ's ministry. The location is the little fishing village of Bethsaida on the northeast shore of the Sea of Galilee. We follow a small dirt road north for nearly a mile out of the city until we come to a small rundown farmhouse. Here live a young, recently-widowed mother and her 10-year-old son. They do what they can to survive, but as is typical without a man in the house in Israel of biblical times, they struggle.

On this particular day, the woman rises to prepare the morning meal, only to discover there is no bread in the house. She wants to make sure her son is not hungry, so she searches and finds the small coin she had hidden away many days earlier. This should be just enough to buy a loaf of bread. She gives the coin to her son and sends him into town to the baker's stand, admonishing him, "Now you be sure and come straight home!"

Because of their hardship, they own very few animals, but among them is one small donkey. So the boy loads the donkey, takes the coin from his mother, and heads toward Bethsaida. He is very excited to get to go to town, because this is his favorite time of year. After all, it is close to Passover, and the village will be filled with all sorts of people making their way southward toward Jerusalem for the celebration. The little boy always loved the throngs of people, the animals, the hustle and bustle, the sights, the sounds, the smells. The donkey, who does not share the boy's enthusiasm, seems to take an even slower pace than usual.

As he finally makes his way to the edge of town, he is distressed at what he sees. Why, the town is nearly deserted: no crowds, no noisy animals, hardly a person in sight. Disappointment fills his heart as he makes his way down the street to the baker's stand. The baker, a smiling, friendly man, seems a little surprised to see anyone at his stand today. As the young boy hands him the coin for his loaf, the baker ponders the situation. After all, since they are one of the few Jewish families in the region, he knows the boy and the family circumstances all too well. He also knows that the extra baking he has done in anticipation of the hugry crowds of shoppers on their way to Jerusalem, will probably be wasted. He finds a familiar portion of the Torah ringing in his ears, something about taking care of the orphans and widows. He takes the coin and produces not one, but five loaves of bread for the wide-eyed youngster. As an afterthought, he takes a couple of the pickled fish he had brought for his lunch and slips them in with the bread also.

The boy gets back on his donkey, heading down the street for home, excited with anticipation of telling his mother the news of this good fortune. Before he reaches the edge of town, however, he overhears a man calling across the street to his friend, "Where are you going?"

"Down to the sea with everybody else. I heard Jesus is headed this way.""Jesus? Who is that?""You mean you haven't heard? They say He's a great teacher who does miracles. There

was a wedding over at Cana where He turned some water into wine. And they say He healed a man down at Jerusalem who hadn't walked for most of his life. Why don't you come with me? You don't want to miss this!"

As the two men headed the opposite way, the boy was faced with a dilemma. He had seen a magician here in the city once, a long time ago. But even that man could do nothing like this! On the other hand, he was supposed to go straight home. But what if the man never came

back this way again? As he turned the donkey around, he thought, "Gee, I sure hope Mom understands."

As he turned the last bend before the sea came into view, he understood why Bethsaida had looked like a ghost town. All along the road, and spread out all over the hillsides overlooking the sea, people milled about, some talking, others watching the horizon to the northwwest, anxiously awaiting the arrival of this miracle worker. The boy tied the donkey up and took his place among the crowd. But, since patience is a virtue found wanting in most ten-year-olds, he soon became distracted by other things, and wandered down to the shore. He had always loved the sea, and many times before he had come here to watch the boats go back and forth across the water, daydreaming of some day being involved in the sea-going trade. Setting his basket down, he took off his sandals and began to wade through the shallow water, enjoying the cool feeling of the water running over his toes.

Suddenly, he heard a small murmur in the crowd, which gradually heightened into an excited buzz. Jesus was coming! Grabbing the basket and slipping on his sandals, he ran up the hill to join the crowd. Being shorter than all the adults, he was at a disadvantage when he tried to see where Jesus was. But being smaller than most people there, he used his small size to his advantage, weaving his way through the excited onlookers. As he emerged at the front of the crowd, he was a bit confused as he saw the men coming his way. Which one was Jesus? He hadn't expected this: wasn't Jesus supposed to have that "special" look about Him? Shouldn't he be able to tell Him apart from the others? But before he had time to answer his own questions, his attention was diverted to the man nearest to him, who was asking people in the crowd if they had food so they could feed the multitude.

The little boy looked down at his basket, thinking long and hard about the dilemma he now faced. He had been so excited about getting to bring home so much more bread than his mother expected. He was even more excited that they would get to have fish today. But then he looked at the people again, and he knew what he had to do. After all, he had never seen so many people in one place in his life. How could he let anyone go hungry when he had so much? So he thought to himself, "Gee, I sure hope Mom understands," then stepped out into the open and called out, "Hey, Mister!"

At the sound of the voice, Andrew turned to see the young boy approaching, basket held high, offering what he had to help feed the crowd. And though he was touched by the boy's generosity, as he brought him to Christ, he could not help but remark that there was scarcely enough for so large a crowd. But Jesus just smiled as He took the basket fromt he boy, and had the people to sit down in groups on the grass. As the boy watched in wide-eyed amazement, Jesus went from group to group, feeding every person out there. The boy even had some of it himself, and not just a small portion, but he ate until he had all he wanted, and even had some left over, as did many others.

As the meal ended, and as the boy sat and wondered about what he had just seen, his attention was drawn to the brilliant shimmer of the sun's reflection on the water's surface as it drew ever nearer to the western skyline. Like a rooster at dawn, his memories of times spent at the shore alerted him to this signal, and he knew he must make his way back to the donkey. It was a mile back to town and nearly another mile back home after that. Loading up, he calculated he should have just enough time to make it home before dark.

The little donkey picked up the pace as the farmhouse came into view, and soon the boy was unloading, then he was in the kitchen area of the one-room house. He did not see his mother at first, so he started toward the back of the house, where he found her by her bed, kneeling in

prayer. She had not heard him come in, and as she heard him approach and she looked up, she was startled. Her first impression was to scold, but she was beyond being angry at him, and her heart almost burst with relief. As the tears fille dher eyes and the boy filled her arms, she exclaimed, "Where were you? I was so worried!"

As her embrace eased a little, the boy began his excited recitation of the day's events. "Oh, Mama, I wish you could have been there! I went to the baker's and he gave me five loaves of bread for the coin, and some fish, then when I started home I heard some men talking about a man who could do miracles, and He was down next to the sea, so I went to see Him, and a man was asking for food to feed the crowd, so I gave him my basket, and Jesus took it and He fed everybody, and there must have been a million people there!"

The young woman smiled broadly and said, "There, now, what have I told you about that big imagination of yours? But, no matter, come along now, it's your bedtime." With that, she had him say his prayers and tucked him into bed with a kiss.

"Oh, Mama, I almost forgot," he stopped her before she walked away. "I picked you this flower. It's real pretty."

She turned and took the flower, taking in its rich aroma as she walked toward the kitchen area. In the fading light, she could not make out just what kind of flower it was, so she waited until she had turned up the small lamp. As the flame from the lamp grew, she was as much amazed by the flower's beauty as she had been by its aroma. But her greatest source of amazement was her knowledge of this rare flower. She had seen it many times before, and people in the area were as much taken by its qualities as she had been. But she knew there was only one place in the area where this particular flower grew wild: on the hillsides along the shore of the Sea of Galilee.

As she was coming to this realization, the flame of the lamp had continued to brighten. As its light filled the room, her eyes were drawn to the corner. There on her small dining table sat twelve baskets of half and quarter-loaves of leftover bread, the remnants, obviously, of some great feast! And as the light flickered and danced, casting its magic shadows across the room, this young mother, like the words we find written about another young Jewish mother, "kept all these things and pondered them in her heart."

The scene changes. We move ahead a few years in time, and far away, across the great Mediterranean Sea, to a small city near the shore of Macedonia called Philippi. We wind our way through the streets to where we find some of the more upscale houses in town. Here we stop at a fairly large, though not overly lavish home. We go inside and follow the stairs to an upper chamber where an old woman lies dying. Her health had begun to fail some years ago, and her son had brought her from her native land to his home. She was proud that he had done so well for himself as a successful merchant in the Mediterranean shipping trade.

She knows, and her son knows, that she will never leave this bed. As she weakens, and he realizes that the end is probably very near, he gently asks, "Is there anything you would like me to get for you or do for you?"

"Yes, there is. I had a copy made of my favorite parts of that letter that came from that travelling preacher who came here. I marked my favorite line; can you go get it for me and read it to me?"

"No need to, Mama," he replied. "I know it by heart: 'My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory, through Christ Jesus."

As she hears the words, and draws her last breath, and her eyes close for the last time, a smile spreads across her face, a smile as large as any she has had in her troubled life. Because no matter what she had to face in her life, no matter what the obstacles or how difficult the circumstances, this was her special promise from God--and she knew it was true.