The Story

The boy Jacob led his father down the rocky hillside that led up to Jerusalem from Jericho. His father, Ezra, had been blind from birth. Each day from daybreak until dusk he sat on a boulder, always the same boulder. Begging for food or money from pilgrims on the road.

Jacob left his father and climbed again up the hillside, where he tended the flocks of their neighbor. Jacob lived with his father, mother, Anna, and his younger brothers and sisters in a tiny village of Bethpage. They were poor and Jacob was trying to help where he could. Jacob spent all day on the hillside watching the sheep and the newly born lambs. It was nearly evening when he noticed that one of the lambs were missing. The mother ewe was bleating uncontrollably, and Jacob set out to find the little one that had wandered away from its mother. He put the Ewe on his shoulder and as it was getting to be evening, he bounded down the hillside to get his father. He ran along the rough road to the boulder where his father was always waiting for him, but when he came to the place, the boulder was empty! His father was not there. Jacob stood there trembling with fear; surely his father had not tried to make his way home alone, up the hillside full of rocks and stunted thorn bushes? Then a worse thought struck him. Had robbers attacked him, a defenseless blind man? Jacob was crying when he looked up and saw a man walking down the road towards him. He wiped his eyes and started towards him. Jacob didn’t know if he could be trusted but he ran to him to ask him if he had seen his father. As Jacob got closer to him Jacob stopped,
the man was his father, Ezra!”

“Jacob,” Ezra called, “I can see! I can see! As I sat by the wayside, listening as the people passed, I heard them saying that Jesus of Nazareth was coming, so I called out to him, “What do you want?” he asked me “I wish to see, Master,” I said. Then. Jacob, he touched my eyes and slowly, slowly I began to see- first shadows, and then people, trees, hills, everything. I followed the crowd looking for him, but he was lost in the crowd, I turned back. “Do you think He could be our savior, the one we have been waiting to see?

What rejoicing there was in Jacob’s home that night! In the next days, Jacob showed his father the sheep and the lambs, all the flowers on the hillside. He showed him the stars at night. A few days later was the feast of the Passover and Jacob told his father “I would like to go to Jerusalem to find Jesus.”

As Jacob ran into Jerusalem, he saw one of the pharisees going to the inner sanctuary, and he ran up to him, “Please, please, where can I find Jesus of Nazareth?” Then the pharisee took him by the arm and led him to a quiet corner and said “that name must never be mentioned again in the temple. That man has been scourged and crucified by the Roman Governor.” But said Jacob, “That man cured my father of his blindness.” Jacob ran out crying once again, running, and running until he ran into the arms of a woman. “What is hurting you child?” Jacob told her the whole story. Gently she took him by the hand told him – “Yes, it is true that the Roman Guards took our Jesus and scourged him and crucified him, but we know he was the long-awaited Messiah. When some of our women went to the tomb the rock was rolled away, and an angel stood there and told them that Jesus had risen from the dead, just as he promised. Go tell your father that Jesus is alive.

This is what we celebrate each and every Easter. Jesus is alive~ and we must tell the story!

​In Christ’s Love,
Pastor Steve