Among the Sparrows and the Lion

CHAPTER 13

Yeshua admonishes three boys that killed some sparrows for food to look instead to the abundance of plants that they can use so they need not take a life. He then brings the sparrows back to life. On another day, Yeshua encounters a young male lion being chased by some hunters and beckons him to his side. As he is running his hands through his mane, the hunters come upon him and are amazed at what they see and are awed by what he says.

 1 Immediately upon his return to Nazareth, Yeshua began to work again in carpentry with his father Yosef and his brothers, making plows and yokes and many other useful items.

 2 Nevertheless, his family knew he had a holy calling from God, though they knew not yet what it was, and he was given much free time to pursue the things he desired.

 3 Therefore, Yeshua would wander off for days at a time and was often in solitary reflection and communion with God about the banks of Lake Gennesaret or in the hills around it, and he frequently journeyed to the coast of the great lake west of Nazareth.

 4 One day as he was walking across the land approaching Lake Gennesaret, he came across several snares that had been set for sparrows, and he beheld three boys gathered around a pile of dead birds they had captured.

 5 Yeshua walked over to the boys and asked, “Why have you killed these gentle wonders of God, who were children, even as you are?”

 6 And the boys looked at one another in confusion as to why someone would ask such a silly question. And they replied, “It is for food that we have killed them.”

 7 Then Yeshua pointed to several plants growing around them and said, “You have no need to take the life of such loving creatures to sustain your own. Look here at this plant and this one and still another over here. Even as your heavenly parents have provided food for the birds, so do they provide it in abundance for you who are worth far more.”

 8 So saying, he waved his hand over the dead sparrows, and they came again to life and flew off with a great noise.

 9 And the boys were frightened by what they had seen, and they ran home and told their parents, but none believed them and thought only that they made up a story to excuse that they had returned without meat.

 10 On another day, as Yeshua was journeying to the shore of Lake Gennesaret, he heard much shouting ahead of him, and a young male lion suddenly bounded out of the brush from a steep hillside and stood before him with a great roar.

 11 And it came to pass that Yeshua calmly knelt down and held his arms out wide with his palms forward and quietly beckoned to the lion, and it came to him and stood beside him.

 12 He was running his fingers gently through its short mane when several men with clubs and slings and javelins burst upon him. But they stopped suddenly in astonishment when they beheld him embracing the head of the lion which they were hunting.

 13 Then Yeshua stood beside the lion and said unto them, “Why do you seek to kill this creation of God, which has been given to have its life as much as you have yours? He means you no harm, but is only fierce as he seeks to preserve his life against your attacks.

 14 Verily, the lion is greater than you, for it hunts only to sustain its life, while you seek to kill it only to puff up your pride.

 15 I say unto you that it is because of the wanton slaughter upon its kindred by men that the lions teach their children to be an enemy to man to whom they would otherwise be friends.

 16 The prophet Isaiah has said, the day will come when the lion shall lay down with the lamb, but before that day, the hearts of men must change. Verily, if this be so, then why not begin today to change your hearts and let this creature go its way in peace?”

 17 And there was much astonishment among the men, who had never before imagined such a thing as they now saw that a youth could stand in peace with a lion and command the most ferocious beasts of the desert to obey him and then speak to them as a most learned rabbi. And in confusion, they turned and fled.

 18 When they returned to their city, they told the priests everything which they had seen, and the priests inquired of the description of the boy and ascertained that it was Yeshua bar Yosef of whom they had already heard several strange reports. Then they determined to look more closely at him to determine whether he was a threat or of God.