It was wonderful to be in his own environment again, thought Peter as he heard Beth instructing the children in their morning chores. He stretched mightily and reached for his clothing, got out of bed and stamped into his short-topped fisherman's boots.

Stepping to the stone water pot, he dipped a gourd full of water, and, crossing to the stoop, went out and poured it over his head. He briskly rubbed the water off his face and beard, ran a brass curry through his hair, and strode to the family backhouse.

Afterward, he went to the jetty to inspect the two boats' early morning catch. Jona and Zebedee had been forced to return to the nets, together with two hired servants, and it was a poor harvest today. Simon Peter stooped to look into the fish well, the first light sparkling on the moisture still imprisoned in his beard.

"Not very many today," he said, as if to himself.

"But better than yesterday," said his father, who was beginning to carry their nets ashore for spreading and drying.

"Here, let me help," Peter said, taking the heavy burden and heading for the drying pegs. Privately, he felt shame for remaining so long in the bedclothes this morning—but Jona understood, probably, that he had been gone on a long journey, and time with Beth and the children was a chancy thing, what with Jesus seemingly keeping to a schedule only He knew. Peter scolded himself for not arising well before first light and going fishing himself.

Zebedee and the two others were setting themselves cross-legged on the fish cleaning slate, where they wielded sharp knives in deftly gutting the morning's catch.

"I see you finally got the tiles for piping you wanted," Peter said.

"Yes," Zebedee nodded, indicating the water sluicing across the lower edge of the slab of stone. "We could have taken time to bake them ourselves, perhaps, but it would have taken days, so we purchased these for a load of fish and a few of Beth's baskets. " The piping had been set in a trough, dug in the soil and covered over with stones to protect their comparative fragility, and a steady flow of water from the spring above the house came gushing out of the tiles, to flow over their slate, providing a place for cleaning their catch.

"Did you try my suggestion about the fish guts?"

Jona looked up, and gestured to the fantail of the larger boat, saying, "We did, we did, and it works pretty good. We've been blessed with fairly good fishing until the storm about three days ago."

Earlier, Simon Peter had suggested they fashion a basket from netting material and equip it with stones for weights, placing all their entrails and heads in it, and lowering it onto the shallower parts of the lake bottom as chum.

"Just like you said, Simon," chimed in old Zebedee, without looking up. "The combination of the water pipes and taking all our leavings out as chum makes a far better operation. Hardly any flies any more, and the fishing has been better. "

"Good for you," Peter said. "Jesus constantly talks about being clean. He always manages to bathe at least once a day unless it's impossible, and tells the rest of us it's healthier."

Tossing the last fish into a basket, Jona arose, tied a line to the handle, and lowered it briskly into the lake several times, rinsing the fish.

One of the servants was scooping up the fish entrails and heads, carrying them to the boat, and placing them in their chumming basket. This done, he lowered it over the side, snubbing the line to a cleat. In moments, the area was as if no fish had been cleaned there, with only the sight of smaller, curious fish darting here and there in the shadow of the boats, among the rocks, as they fed on the smaller parts that had been sluiced into the lake.

A distant call from the house said breakfast was ready, and Peter turned back, with Jona keeping pace. Zebedee went toward his own home, and the two servants slung the catch across a burro's back and started toward the town market. Those fish they failed to sell within only a couple of hours would be returned to the smoke house or dried in the sun.

At breakfast, talk turned toward Peter's recent trip again, and for the fourth or fifth time he told everyone of Jesus' great show of chasing the money changers out of the temple.

Soon he knew it was time to go. The others were probably wondering when he would arrive—Jesus had said they were going to Nazareth soon; He wanted to visit His hometown for some reason—and perhaps they would set out today.

By the time Peter gained the street in front of Jesus' home in Capernaum, it was to find a sizable crowd already gathered and Jesus already deep in speech, teaching them.

Peter waited on the fringes of the crowd, and, after nearly an hour, decided to go the long way around, to the rear. Once inside (for the others were already there, and Bartholomew had seen Peter's intent), he asked the day's plans.

"He said we're going to Cana today," Bartholomew answered, "but the crowd gathered, and He doesn't seem to want to send them away."

But, about an hour later, Jesus dismissed the crowd, and they gathered their belongings and set out along the road to Cana.

Cana lay higher up, across some of the steep mountains from the city of Capernaum to the west and south.

They arrived just before dark, after an arduous trip, and Jesus and His disciples stayed with a wealthy man Peter supposed to be a distant cousin, for he had seemed to know Mary well. Both Jesus' mother and Mary Magdalene had come along this time, and they moved at a far slower pace along the trails than they had on their trip back to Galilee from Jerusalem.

The next day, Jesus seemed inclined to teach in Cana, for when word went out among the people, a large crowd of several hundred gathered in the court of the house, and Jesus began teaching them.

He spoke powerfully about His new kingdom, speaking many parables and examples and warning the people to ,repent of their sins and ready their lives for the coming Kingdom of God.

"Not everyone who calls Me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of My Father, but he that does His will!" Jesus said.

"But what is His will?" asked an elderly Pharisee.

"You have Moses and the prophets," Jesus answered. "And if you knew His will you would know Me. Whoever knows Me knows the Father, for I and the Father are One, and He is in Me, and I am in the Father!"

Peter could only shake his head in puzzlement at this, wondering exactly what Jesus meant. He could see it puzzled the crowd, too, for many began to whisper back and forth.

During His teaching, He was interrupted by a nobleman who, John whispered to Peter, was a land owner and well to do. Apparently the man had followed Jesus clear to Cana, learning Him gone from Capernaum, for he was begging Jesus to reverse His steps and come clear back to Capernaum to heal his son, who was near death.

Jesus said to the nobleman and to all the crowd, "Except you see signs and wonders, you will in no way believe! "

"But, Sir, Sir, I beg of You, please come down to Capernaum and heal my boy. Please, before he dies!"

"Go on back home—your son lives," Jesus said calmly with a friendly smile. One of the disciples accompanied the man as he left, and they encountered two of the nobleman's servants who had been dispatched from Capernaum to Cana to find him.

"Sir!" they called out loudly, piling off the camels they were riding, "your son has been healed! He's alive!

"When did it happen?" he asked them.

"Why, it was yesterday, about the seventh hour, and his fever broke!" one said.

"But that is the exact moment when the Man called Jesus of Nazareth told me, 'Your son lives.' " he said aloud to himself. Peter heard later how the two disciples had continued back to Capernaum with him at his request and how the whole household—family and servants too—had been baptized!

A few days after leaving Cana, they arrived in Nazareth, the city set high in the mountains overlooking sweeping distances, redolent with the smell of pine, fir and cedar, and the place of Jesus' early life.

Perhaps Jesus intended making His official start here?

It would be likely, Peter thought.

That night he discussed his thoughts with James, Andrew and John.

Jesus' statements about His marvelous new kingdom never ceased to fire Peter's imagination—renew his determination and zeal.

Revolution was in the air; Simon could smell it. A deeply patriotic man, religiously so, Simon's entire life had been profoundly influenced by the constant references to the thundering orations of the prophet Isaiah; the grandeur and sweeping promises of Ezekiel and Zephaniah, and all the great seers of Judah and Israel.

Simon was innately contemptuous of lesser breeds of men who had not the tumultuous history and tradition of the Jewish people and of Israel: the gentiles and interlopers who were like a curse upon his nation as a punishment for the sins of his ancient forebears.

He was acutely conscious of his nationality, made more poignantly alive and bitter by the accommodations between the ruling Herods and tetrarchs and Rome. Though the Romans preferred not to intervene in the domestic difficulties and intrigues (Simon knew the priestly castes' penchant for endless argument and labyrinthian reasoning over every possible disagreement) of this turbulent land, and allowed the Sanhedrin to carry out its own justice, the specter of occupation was always there, and with it the possibility of sudden violence.

Simon would not have characterized himself as either racist or religious, yet he was possessed of a profound belief in God and a religiocultural concept of a racial destiny.

"Messiah shall come soon" had been drummed into his boyish ears until it was like a chant, the words coming to him at odd moments, assailing his mind whenever doubts about his nation's future came.

For years, the people had chattered on and on about this supposed Messiah—who He was and from whence He would come.

The sages and keepers of the scrolls were busy searching out the most indirect references to this Messiah, this prophet who would come, reading Daniel's promises and reciting by memory the lilting poetry and song of King David.

Abraham was his father, and Isaac, and Jacob. In Simon's veins ran the blood of prophets, seers and poets, the blood of the nation of Israel; born in slavery, exiled to Babylon, risen to glittering heights, dashed to the ground in subjugation; persecuted; afflicted, murdered, plundered—but not beaten.

"They can control your body, take your property and force you to work for them," Jona had said, his old hands shaking with fervor, ". . . but they can never control your mind. Your mind is free, my son, free. You are a child of Abraham, to whom God promised the whole world! Someday soon, Messiah shall come—you'll see!" he would say.

Did a family meal ever pass without Simon's young ears hearing reference to the Israelitish nation's plight; their yearning for a mighty Savior to lead them once again to Solomon's glories? Did Simon ever hear a lesson from Ben-yehuda without seeing the old eyes grow misty with dreams of past greatness, and hear the Levite's voice grow impassioned with prophesied promises for the future?

And now Messiah had come! He was here.

It was unthinkable—impossible.

Simon had always imagined great things happening far off in some storybook land, like the fables and stories he had learned as a boy that had unreal and shadowy meaning. Always, the news would come from afar of great events.

But nothing ever happened to disturb the years-long monotony of their simple fishing trade, save the usual local happenings such as marriage feasts, burials of noblemen, arrivals of eastern caravans, or the ceremonies of changing a Roman centurion's billet with a new arrival from some part of the empire or other.

To think that Simon, whom Jesus had dubbed "Peter," could have been selected to stand at Messiah's side! Sometimes the unreality of it made Simon go back over the past again and again, if only to reassure himself.

Sometimes he had to seek quiet moments with John, who seemed closer to Jesus than the others, and rehearse some of the shocking things they had seen and heard, wondering about Jesus' incredible powers and bolstering their nagging doubts with each other's company.

"Why me?" Simon had asked himself a hundred times.

But it was happening. Messiah was here. This was reality. Simon Peter had rarely ever grasped the broader concept of empires and nations beyond Hercules, of affairs of state and international commerce. But now he found himself for the first time acutely conscious of this moment in history, feeling part of something which would soon shake the earth.

Was Nazareth to be the scene of a major, formal announcement?

"What do you think, John?" Peter asked, watching Luke carefully packing away his writing materials.

"About what?"

"About Jesus coming here, to Nazareth?" Peter insisted. "You know, about whether this is the time and place to begin establishing His kingdom!"

"It's possible, all right, for it is the place where He is well known and where His own family has lived for so long."

"That's what I was thinking," Peter added. "Probably, He intends making some formal announcement before the leaders of the synagogue and the town council tomorrow. "

"If he does, I'm certainly ready for whatever comes," Andrew chimed in.

"Do you think He'll show some great sign or wonder when He announces He is setting up the new kingdom?"

"I'm positive that's the way He will do it!" John admitted. "It never fails to amaze and dumbfound the leaders. There is nothing to hold Him back if He ever decides to use the mighty power of God to establish His kingdom! "

They discussed just what kind of miracle would be the most effective, and what Jesus might say and their part in it, until well past midnight, when it was time to turn in.

They were staying in the large home that had been Jesus' permanent home for more than twenty years. It featured the large sheds in the rear, where the building materials and tools were stored, and there were sheds for their animals and a large courtyard. Even if it was crowded, the entire group of more than one hundred men found places to sleep, some even rolling up in their bedrolls on the roof, while Mary invited Mary Magdalene, Joanna, who was the wife of Chuza, one of Herod's stewards, and several other women to share the women's quarters with her.

The next morning Jesus informed the others He was going to the synagogue.

Peter's scalp prickled.

This is it! he thought, fingering the horsehide scabbard of his blade. Today is the day. He glanced at James and John, and, rising, they followed.

The synagogue in Nazareth was, like most of the stone buildings that housed the worship services, quite small. As always, it was dim inside, the oil lamps casting a feverish, yellow glow in their wall niches, and only shafts of light penetrating the room from the slits along the topmost portions of the room, shutting out most of this glowing, fresh mountain morning.

Peter and the others stayed in the rear, for the place was full and there were not enough benches to go around. Peter, James and John and some of the others lounged against the pillars or the wall.

Sure enough, when it came time for the Scripture reading the wizened old man who carefully guarded the priceless treasures of handwritten scrolls came shuffling toward Jesus in his spiderlike, crippled gait (for he had been injured in early life and was stooped terribly) and handed to Jesus the scroll of the prophet Isaiah.

The oil lamps in their niches along the walls had blackened the stone with the smoke of years; the air was close and stifling and the place smelled of burnt oil, sweat and dust.

Jesus stood up and, moving to the reading place flanked by two lamps in their holders, solemnly unrolled the scroll, with the help of the old man, until He came to the place He wanted.

Now He began to read.

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he anointed me to preach good news to the poor; He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind; to set at liberty them that are bruised and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."

Finished, He rolled up the scroll and the old attendant scuttled back to the scroll room with it. A dead hush was on the crowd.

Peter wondered whether Jesus meant announcing that this was the moment. Now He would proclaim their enslaved nation would be released; that the people would be set at liberty and that this was the intended year when God would establish Christ on His great throne!

Sure enough, Jesus said, "Today has this scripture been fulfilled in your ears!"

The whole audience was listening with shock and wonder. A few were looking worriedly at the authorities on their dais in front who were plucking at their garments, crossing and uncrossing their legs, blowing in their hands, readjusting their necks and reddening around the ears.

The services were at an end, and immediately a din of confused conversation filled the synagogue as the people broke into knots of discussion. Some had marveled at the ringing impact of His words and asked, "Do you suppose He could really be the Messiah?"

"Nonsense!" said the ruler of the synagogue. "Why, isn't that Joseph's boy there? And isn't he just a local boy? Why, his brothers and sisters are right here!"

Jesus said, "Doubtless you will quote to Me the oft-repeated parable, 'Physician, heal yourself.' You will tell Me, 'Whatever we have heard done at Capernaum, let's see You do it right here in Your own country.' " He went on, "Truly I say unto you, no prophet is acceptable in his own country, but I truly say unto you that there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah. And, when heaven was shut up for three years and six months and a great famine came over the entire land, Elijah was sent to none of his own people, but was sent only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, unto a widow woman who lived there!

"Further, there were many lepers who lived in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of those Israelitish lepers were cleansed, but only Naaman, who was a Syrian!"

"That's blasphemy!" screamed one. "Lies, lies, lies!" chorused others. "Just who does this upstart think He is to insult the traditions of the elders?" shouted another. "Kill Him! Kill Him! He's not fit to live! " they shouted.

The foremost men fell over themselves, several falling to the floor in a heap as they struggled to wrestle Jesus' arms behind Him, and began shoving, jostling Him ahead of them out of the synagogue. The disciples were scuffling with many of them, and some of the mob fell down in a heap of tangled clothing, waving arms and legs as the roar of a riot rose to echo from the stone walls.

Peter was alarmed! Why didn't the Lord do something? Why didn't He stand up and use His great power?

All He had to do was quiet this shouting rabble and take command!

With shock and disappointment, Peter and several of the others struggled to reach Jesus' side, Peter shoving a number aside. It was absolute riot. A group seized Jesus and several others fell over themselves trying to help imprison His arms at His side so they could propel Him out of the synagogue.

Peter, Andrew and John finally struggled their way to the front ranks and began roughly shoving some of the leaders aside, as if in anger to seize Jesus and aid in having Him killed. Shouting out orders and adding to the confusion, they tripped two of the men in the front ranks, shoved a few others, and in the hysteria that ensued Peter stood up and shouted, "He's getting away! Stop Him! Stop Him! pointing to the side. Several shrieked and surged in that direction. Meanwhile, some of the other disciples had shoved their way to Jesus' side and, helping Him to His feet, had pulled their cloaks around their heads and His and mingled with the mob. It was crazy, and it was a tragic shame, Peter thought! Here they were, suddenly propelled from the heights of expectancy thinking Jesus was making the first public proclamation of a unilateral declaration of independence from Herod and from Rome, and, impossibly, it had degenerated into a riotous mob scene that could cost Him His life!

"I'm here, Lord! " Peter said with quiet intensity into the hooded face, at the same time roughly shouldering away a short, stocky man who was still clutching fiercely to Jesus' arm.

Jesus looked straight into Peter's eyes, smiled with an expression of great sadness and pulled His cloak about His face, stooping over and turning toward Simon Peter.

Thaddeus and Judas emerged from the pile of struggling bodies that was just now disentangling itself from the overturned benches in the front rows, and Peter's face crinkled into a grim mask as he watched two Pharisees stamping at the robes of one of their fellows who had fallen over one of the reading lamps, and whose robes were now flickering yellow with flames and sending up heavy, sooty smoke.

With his brow heavily perspiring, and feeling his body soaked with sweat, Peter shoved this and that one, constantly looking over the heads of the nearest rioters, pointing and shouting, "There He goes! Don't let Him escape! "

They were outside, then, and the crowd that couldn't enter had swelled considerably, Peter saw.

Turning and pointing, Peter's frantic bellow succeeded in causing further confusion so that the newcomers struggled to enter as the outraged men from within were fighting to exit the door.

It was like a big wave splashing against the breakwater, Peter thought as he saw the wildly waving arms and flailing fists.

Already a number were stooping to dislodge the stones of the roadway, handing two or three to eager fellows who then turned to run after a struggling knot of men surging along the narrow alleyway toward a steep cliff only about two blocks distant.

Each time one would attempt to peer into Jesus' face, Peter would roughly shove him aside and bellow out, "You're letting Him get away!" and point over his head toward part of the crowd.

Quickening their stride, the disciples began working their way toward the fringes of the mob and headed toward the lower street that led back to the caravan yard.

Several Roman soldiers came trotting up the hill, their lances at trail, their short swords slapping against their leather-reinforced skirts.

Jesus and the disciples sauntered down the hill past the curious still flocking to the riot, past the soldiers and their officer who paid them no attention whatever, and continued out of the city, taking the hilly caravan trail back toward the main road.

It was a near thing.

Peter was more than mortified! He felt as if he himself had been cast over the cliff.

The shame of it was like gall. It nearly choked Peter with bilious hurt when he thought of it! To have to hide their faces and run! Everything in him cried out against this humiliating defeat—and he wondered whether Jesus was really who He said He was after all.

Were the people in Nazareth right? Were His own brothers right when they scorned the idea He could be anyone beyond a simple builder? The conflicting thoughts were tormenting; there was a miracle in Cana, Peter remembered, but was it a trick of some sort? After all, he hadn't gotten up to supervise the pouring of water back there. Had some of the servants conspired?

Why, they had come from the triumphal occasion when Jesus had cleared the temple, from His powerful speeches against the religious leaders, from baptizing hundreds in Jordan, from the people of Sychem and their great interest, from Cana and another miracle. And then . . . Then Jesus had made what seemed like the first great step toward public declaration of what He intended doing and had been treated like a common criminal, like a man caught in the very act of murder, and had been summarily dragged, like some baggage, out of the synagogue!

They crossed the open caravan yards, gained the public square, deserted on this Sabbath day, and continued past Jesus' former home, where several disciples were instructed to tell the women and others all that had happened.

Jesus' breathing was steady again, and Peter walked beside Him, his big chest still heaving with his exertions, a dark scowl on his face.

No one else was saying anything.

Jesus just kept walking.

Peter began wondering whether He intended going further than the allotted "Sabbath day's journey" when He departed the main road and indicated they were to climb to a vantage point above the trail.

This done, they backed well away from the view of those passing below and made a temporary camp.

It was later that evening before Peter's tormented spirits permitted him to even speak. Was it all for nothing, then?

He asked Jesus where He intended going, and the Lord told him He was going to return to Capernaum.

But they had only left the place a few days earlier—Peter supposing Cana was but a temporary stop on a triumphal journey that would conclude in Jerusalem!

That night Luke. reminded Peter of an obscure prophecy concerning the Messiah, but Peter was disconsolate and paid little attention. Luke said, "But, Simon—Peter, I mean—the prophet Isaiah said, "The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali toward the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the gentiles, the people which sat in darkness have seen a great light, and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, to them did light spring up."

"So what does that mean?" Peter asked sardonically.

"Seems to me it means the Messiah would live and work for a time right in Capernaum, for it is 'by the sea, in the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali.' "

"Well, at least it's close to Bethsaida!" Peter said resignedly.

The next morning Peter asked Jesus, during their long walk on the first day of the week, about a visit home.

Peter tried to phrase it just right, speaking of old Jona and Zebedee and the condition of their two fishing boats, the hardships of their life, meager catches, many chores and short help. His tone implied to Jesus he felt they were skulking backward along their own back trail in defeat.

Peter hoped Jesus would understand how he felt.

Jesus understood all right. Too well.

So Peter went back to fishing.