Taken from The Bible Tale on Amazon..I am the author!

Day of Baptism.

Dark hair looked dusty now, his followers tired and thirsty, wandering over the red hot coals of the desert country. They followed him because they wanted to, not because of pious faith. That would come later.

The cool river flowed across the Jordan Valley, whispering its secret message for future generations. As he walked with bleeding feet, he saw his target yonder. Another group was there, shouting.
Across the hillock they came in their hundreds, harking to the call from their tortured souls. They came to see the hermit, the ragged one. The one whom the priests called mad. What did they know?

The small group arrived, some fishermen, one a carpenter from Galilee. They stumbled through the waiting crowds who parted at the strangeness of the bearded one. Hair and beard covered in thick white dust. They all had beards.

The hermit looked as he entered the waters, and knelt without a word. The hermit was shocked. He would kneel before me?
The bearded one just smiled and said, “Let it be so.”

The hermit cleansed him, as he had cleansed so many these past months. He saw the crowds, he saw the future, his time was up.

“Pray for me.”

The bearded man stood.

“I pray for everyone.”

The hermit watched them leave, a heavy heart weighing him down.

For the bearded one, life would not be easy. His path of thorns would wound him so badly, it would last forever.

For the hermit, the crowds still came. The cleansing continued.
The bearded man was gone. 

The Rising.

Jairus knew his daughter was dead. Gone to Sheol, so he believed.

The breath had stopped, the chest had stopped rising. He still wanted her back. As he stood there, beside her still body, he prayed to his god, Yahweh, for deliverance.

In the silence, he heard the reply. Send a messenger. He did so.

Soon after a bearded man arrived. Others followed.

“Why are you here?” he demanded.

“Your daughter is not dead.”

The father was stunned.

“I know she is dead! How dare you!”

“You are so much in sorrow, yet you cannot believe Isaiah’s prophecy.”

“That the dead will rise?”

“Precisely.”

His followers hung their heads.

“Now leave Jairus.”

The father, soul stripped with sorrow did so. He only wanted his loving daughter back.

“Alone, dark shadows around, the bearded man spoke.

“Talitha, Koum.”

Her eyes opened, her mouth opened to speak. The bearded man hushed her.

“You have been drawn back from the land of the dead. Won’t your father be amazed.”

The daughter smiled. The bearded man left the room.

“Your daughter has been restored to you.”

The father, desperate now, cried like a child. The bearded man walked through the door.

“Where to now?” his followers asked.

“We go now to be rejected my man. Come and learn my Father’s ways.”

The followers did not understand. That was the point.

They were never meant to.