The shepherds of Cana were astir almost before the stars had faded from the brilliant Palestine sky. I was awakened from a refreshing sleep on the rooftop by the pleasant tinkling of innumerable sheep bells, as the flocks moved out in all directions seeking pasture for the day.
Harvesting is about to begin in the fields of Cana and our patriarchal host, in flowing robes such as Abraham might have worn, is busy supervising his kinsmen in their preparations for this great event. Abu Sleiman (father of Solomon) is his name, for in the East men are usually called after the name of the eldest son.
Arriving at the field, one may well imagine himself back in the field of Boaz. (Ruth 2:1-19.) Every detail, as far as one can judge, is but a repetition of Bible scenes. Young men, with narrow sickles, are reaping down the corn, cutting it by handfuls as they sing together. Women are binding up the sheaves with skillful fingers, while boys pass and re-pass with asses laden with corn being carried to the village threshing floor, a rocky piece of ground some five or six acres in extent. In this place all crops must be stacked, by order of the government; for, if it were not assessed and taxed by the government officers before being threshed, there would be little chance of collecting any revenue from some of the more wily inhabitants. One can well understand, also, why Boaz slept at night near his grain on the common threshing floor. A very necessary custom one would say, both then and now.
There was in the day's harvesting an incident which I will pass on. A poor widow has followed up the workers all day, methodically gleaning straw by straw. But alas! there seems to be no kind Boaz in the field this day. None the less, by the time the western sun dips down in the distance behind the Carmel range, filling all Galilee with delicate shades of color, the widow is wending her way homeward with three or four fat sheaves to her credit.
Through faulty reasoning, this modern Ruth has decided to give the threshing floor a wide berth. "What are three or four sheaves worth to a great government?” But that very afternoon the new governor of Galilee, a young Australian, had ridden over from Nazareth, four miles away, to visit, the village. Bowed beneath the sheaves, her eyes bent downward, she is trudging down the last passage to her stone hovel, when she runs right up against the governor.
"What is this?" he demands.
All abashed, the woman pleads her poverty and widowhood; but the governor, an abrupt and outspoken officer of the law, is adamant. He bids her appear without fail before him at the court in Nazareth the following morning.
That night, when some sixty people were gathered in the starlight on the roof of Abu Sleiman's house to hear the gospel message, we knew there was much comment in the village about the severity of the young Australian governor.
Next morning, with her sheaves bound upon a borrowed ass,. the widow trudges over the hill to Nazareth. The governor is still resolute, and she pleads her cause in vain.
"If I acquit you, others will do the same thing. No! The law must be obeyed. You have no right to take wheat home from the harvest field. I fine you twelve piasters."
Then, with a quick, almost unobserved movement as he calls out, "Next case!" he slips twelve piasters from his own pocket and gives it to the clerk, bidding him make out a receipt in favor of the poor lawbreaker.
No wonder there was much more discussion that night both among the Christians and the Moslems in the village of Cana. "These English are very queer people. Who before ever heard of a governor who wanted to fine himself?”
Once more the stars are shining brightly on sleeping Galilee. The flocks of sheep are all safely hushed in the village folds. The women have drawn their jars of water from the spring. Beside the half-built stacks which rise gauntly from the silent threshing floor, men are sleeping in the open as others have done for thousands of years; and I muse again upon the widow and her fine.
Is it not after all but a true, if perhaps feeble, type of the wondrous gospel narrative? We, the poor ones of earth, bowed down with the gleanings from this world's cursed field, our eyes bent earthward as we traverse the crooked byways of sin: we too have each of us run full into the arms of justice. The eternal decree of God has been broken by the waywardness of sin. The penalty must be paid; but who shall pay it? Praise God, the stupendous prophecy of Isaiah has been carried out in every detail; the punishment has been paid in full—at Calvary. There Christ "was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed.”
"Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." Acts 13:38, 39.