The Life of Jesus Christ

Jonah found Jesus where Caiaphas had said, in the Court of Gentiles. Jesus was talking to a crowd of nearly a hundred, and Jonah stopped at the edge of the crowd to listen. He was startled to hear Jesus call him by name.
   “Jonah Bartimaeus,” Jesus said, and many in the crowd who had heard of Jonah’s healing turned and craned their necks to see him. “The prophet Daniel said that as he looked in the night there appeared before him one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. If I told you I were that son of man, would you believe?”
   All eyes were on Jonah, who stood by himself in the midst of a small clearing. Jonah’s eyes remained fixed on Jesus. Slowly, awkwardly, he lowered himself to his knees on the tile mosaic.
   To the others, Jesus said, “I have come to bring sight to the blind and blindness to those who see.”
   “What does that mean?” a man said.
   Jesus, turning, recognized him as a rabbi, a scholar of the law.
   “What category do the rest of us fall in?” the man said. “The sighted blind or the blinded seeing?”
   “You tell me. You think the blind have no sight because they have sinned, but I tell you, it is you who see clearly who are truly in danger of the judgment.”
   Passing close by the crowd came a couple of priests herding yearling lambs toward the Bazaars of Annas. As the bleating of the animals receded, Jesus walked down through the crowd to where Jonah was still kneeling. Helping him to his feet, he said, “I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep, and my sheep know me, just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. It is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.” Jesus pointed back up at the Pharisee. “While the hired hand runs away,” he said.
   “Yes,” shouted a voice in the crowd, Judas. “They sell us to the Romans for their own selfish gain.” The Pharisee started, his eyes darting nervously to this man and that one.
   “He’s raving,” he said. “Are we sheep or men? Why are we listening to him?”
   “I will lay down my life for the sheep,” Jesus said. “I will lay down my life of my own accord, and I will take it up again.”
   “He’s possessed,” the Pharisee said.
   “For such has my Father promised.”
   “Get him!”  Again, it was Judas, red-faced and pointing. The crowd took a step toward the Pharisee, almost as a single organism, and the Pharisee turned and ran.
   “Stop!” Jesus said to the crowd, and in the answering silence only the sound of the Pharisee’s retreating footsteps could be heard. “Why seek him out? I will be with you for only a short time; stay with me and learn about the one who sent me. If any of you is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, from within him shall flow streams of living water.”
   He was quoting Isaiah, but to many the reference seemed cryptic, its meaning obscure. Its very obscurity, however, seemed to add to its import in the minds of his listeners.
   “Surely, he is a prophet,” said one.
   “Or the Messiah,” said another.
   “He’s a Galilean,” protested a well-dressed man. “Doesn’t Scripture tell us the Messiah will be a descendant of David, a Judean?”
   Someone ointed at him. “You’re one of them, one of the Pharisees in league with Rome.”
   The well-dressed man, his eyes widening in fear, took a step backward and began to sidle away through the crowd. He reached the edge of it and was gone.

Jonah was brought back in and pointed to the stool in the front of the room. “Sit down,” Annas said. “Do you know who we are?”
   The man looked at Caiaphas. “I know he’s the high priest,” he said, pointing.
   “And I was high priest before him,” Annas said. “There are Simon, Eleasor, Ismael - high priests all of them, at one time or another. We are those appointed by God to lead his people. And of one thing we can assure you, this man Jesus is not of God. He’s crooked. Twisted. A sinner among sinners.”
   “I wouldn’t know. All I know, I was blind, and now I see.”
   “You keep saying that, but what did this man do to you? How, exactly, did he open your eyes?”
   “I’ve already told you.”
   “Tell me again.”
   “Why? Are you thinking of becoming one of his disciples?”
   Annas turned back to the rest of the council, his arms outstretched, palms up. “There you have it,” he said. “The man is a disciple of this Jesus. Even here he cannot resist the opportunity to proselytize. We can’t rely on anything he tells us.”
   “I wasn’t one of his disciples until today,” Jonah said. “I was blind, incapable of following anyone.”
   “Why would he defend him, if he were not a disciple?” Annas asked, rhetorically.
   Nicodemus spoke. “Perhaps because this man Jesus gave him his sight?”
   Annas ignored him, turning again toward Jonah. “You say you are this fellow’s disciple. Who is he? Where does he come from? We are disciples of Moses, and no one can doubt that God spoke to Moses. As for this fellow -”
   “Are you saying you don’t know where he comes from or anything about him?” Jonah interrupted, incredulous.
   “Nobody knows anything about him. The man’s a nobody, a pretentious nobody.”
   Jonah looked from one to the other of them, making an obvious effort to bring them into focus. “A nobody? He opened my eyes, I tell you. Could a nobody do that?”
   Annas leaned over him. “He could if he was in league with the devil!” Annas shouted, spittle flying from his lips. Jonah’s eyes closed, and his  head went back defensively. “He could if he was possessed by Beelzebub,” Annas shouted. He slapped the side of Jonah’s head with his open palm. “Well?” he said. “Well?”
   Jonah didn’t open his eyes. “God doesn’t listen to sinners,” he said in a low voice that was nonetheless determined. “Only to the righteous.”
   “What?”
   “God -”
   “What does God have to do with anything? It wasn’t by God’s power that this Jesus did whatever it was he did to you. What do you know about the almighty God? What do you even think you know? You were steeped in sin at your birth. You -”
   “We know he was steeped in sin because he was born blind,” Nicodemus interjected.
   “You’re an ignorant…” Annas broke off, turning toward Nicodemus as the words penetrated. He stood for a moment without speaking, his breathing plainly audible. Then he turned backto the guards, standing on either side of Jonah. “Get him out of here,” he said.

“Tell us again who you are,” Annas said, and Jonah told him. “And this morning you were begging as usual by the Fountain Gate?”
   “I was.”
   “Because you were blind.”
   “Yes, I was blind.”
   “And what happened this morning?”
   Jonah went over it again.
   “Where is this man now?” Annas asked him. “This Jesus - did he say where he was going?”
   Jonah shook his head, his eyes closing and his chin coming up in a way that was almost taunting.
   Caiaphas cleared his throat, and Annas turned sourly toward him.
   “He’s preaching on the temple steps,” Caiaphas said. “In the Court of Gentiles.”
   “Preaching openly, is he?” Annas said. “Well, well.”
   “He put mud in my eyes, and I washed,” Jonah said. “And now I see.”
   “You’ve made that quite clear.”
   Talman, one of Annas’s closest allies on the council, said, “One thing is clear. This man Jesus cannot be of God. He doesn’t honor the Sabbath.”
   “The miraculous restoration of sight is work within the meaning of the law?” Nicodemus queried.
   “Healing. A physician is prohibited from plying his trade on the Sabbath.”
   “This man is no physician.”
   “That doesn’t change the nature of the action.”
   “You realize you’re conceding the miracle,” Nicodemus said. “That this Jesus gave sight to one born blind.”
   “Not at all, I -”
   “Because if he didn’t perform an act of healing, he hasn’t been working within the meaning of the law.” Nicodemus turned to look at the others. “If this man is not of God, how can he give sight to one born blind?”
   “This isn’t the first miracle of healing that’s been ascribed to him,” said Joseph of Arimethea.
   “No, it isn’t,” said someone. “And that is the question we must ask ourselves: How can an obvious sinner perform such miraculous signs?”
   All eyes turned to Annas.
   “Get this man Jonah out of here,” he said. “Send in his parents.”
   The guard jerked Jonah to his feet and led him to the door. As Jonah’s parents entered the room, old Timaeus hobbling with difficulty, supporting himself on his wife’s arm, they stopped for a long moment and looked at their son. He looked back, his gaze a little vague, but clearly seeing. Tears came spontaneously to the old man’s eyes, and he shook his head.
   “Go on, go on,” the guard said, prodding him.
   “Come have a seat here in front of the room,” Annas said, indicating the stools. “Have a seat.” He hesitated, glancing at his son-in-law. “Caiaphas, it is your place to question them.”
   Annas took a seat to one side of the council chamber, and Caiaphas strode to the center of the room. “You there, your name,” he said, pointing at the witness.
   Timaeus’s tremor became worse, his head moving atop his thin, waddled neck. “Timaeus,” he said. “This is Mary, my wife.”
   “You are the parents of this man Jonah, the man you passed just now in the doorway?”
   “We are,” Timaeus said tremulously.
   “He is your son,” Caiaphas said. Annas snorted audibly, and Caiaphas turned toward him.
   “Go on, go on,” Annas said.
   Caiaphas wheeled ponderously on the couple, who sat holding hands for mutual support. “He is your son,” he said again, more loudly than before.
   Timaeus’s head bobbed as if set atop a spring. “He is. He is our son,” he croaked.
   “Your son,” Caiaphas repeated, and Annas restrained himself.
   “He is our son.”
   “Tell us, how long has he been able to see?”
   “He has never been able to see. He has been blind from birth.”
   “He was born that way,” Caiaphas said.
   “Yes.”
   “Born blind.”
   Annas stood up. “For heaven’s sake, sit down,” he said to his son-in-law, and Caiaphas went obediently to his seat, apparently glad to be rid of the responsibility of cross-examination.
   “You’re aware that your son is no longer blind,” Annas said. “He can see now.”
   “Yes.”
   “In fact, you passed him on the way into the chamber.”
   Timaeus nodded.
   “And you looked at him.”
   “Yes.”
   “And he looked back. How do you explain that? If your son was born blind, how is it that he can now see?”
   “You’re asking us? It is we who should be asking you - by what means has God accomplished this thing?”
   “What makes you think God has done anything?”
   “Who else could have done it?”
   “Perhaps a man possessed by a demon.”
   “Do demons open the eyes of the blind and unstop the ears of the deaf?”
   Annas looked irritably toward Nicodemus and Joseph, sitting together on the front row. “Do you confirm everything your husband Timaeus has said to us?” he asked Mary.
   “We know he is our son,” Mary said.
   “That’s not what I asked you.”
   “We know he is our son, and we know he was born blind. But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He’s a grown man and can speak for himself.”
   “Get out of here,” Annas snarled. “Both of you.”

Jonah Bartimaeus sat on a four-legged stool in the chamber of the Sanhedrin. His eyes were closed, his head tilted backward in what was undeniably an odd angle for a seeing man. Caiaphas was on his feet, pacing. Annas sat nearby, working his lower lip with his teeth as he studied Jonah. No other members of the council were present.
   Caiaphas stopped in front of the man, leaning over him with his index finger rigidly extended. Jonah opened his eyes for a moment, squinting, then closed them again.
   “Bah,” Caiaphas said. He straightened and continued his pacing.
   “You’re overlooking the obvious,” Annas said.
   “Which is?”
   “That this isn’t the blind man who sits at the Fountain Gate.”
   “But -”
   “Yes, yes. We have witnesses who say it is.”
   “Exactly.”
   “Also witnesses who say he isn’t, that this is a look-alike. What better way to stir up the enthusiasm of the crowds, if you notice that one of your disciples bears an uncanny resemblance to a certain blind man?”
   “Jonah’s pretty well-known. For years he’s been at that same gate. Since he was a boy.”
   Annas stood, uncoiling himself. “What did you say your name was?” he asked the witness.
   The man opened his eyes. “Jonah.”
   “The son of Timaeus.”
   “Yes.”
   “Is your father alive?”
   “Yes. He lives right here in Jerusalem.”
   “Your mother?”
   Jonah closed his eyes again, as if the world of sight were too much for him to endure for more than a few moments at a time. “Yes.,” he said, his head already beginning to tilt oddly as he lost his visual point of reference. “They are old, both of them, but very much alive.”
   Annas looked at Caiaphas. “There you are,” he said to Caiaphas, as if the man Jonah had told them anything of importance.
   “Where am I?” Caiaphas said, his voice somewhat petulant.
   “Have the man’s parents brought here.”
   Caiaphas went to the door, and, while he talked with the guard, his voice rolling audibly through the council chamber, Annas stood over Jonah. , Annas’s chin rested in the crook of his hand between his thumb and forefinger. “How long have you known this Jesus?” he asked abruptly.
   Jonah’s eyes opened, though his expression was, to Annas, unpleasantly and inappropriately vague. “I met him today,” Jonah said. “I’d heard of him, of course.”
   “Ah, of course.”
   “Do you think he could be the Messiah? The one we’ve waited for?”
   “Is that what you want us to think?”
   When Jonah didn’t reply, Annas said, “Let’s try to avoid blasphemy, shall we? Tell me again what happened to you this morning.”
   “This man called Jesus -”  Jonah hesitated.
   “Yes, yes. This man called Jesus,” Annas said, moving him along.
   “He rubbed mud into my eyes and helped me to wash it out with water from the pool of Siloam.”
   “And you could see.”
   “Yes.”
   “And you couldn’t before.”
   The man shook his head. “Not from birth.”
   “You were blind from birth. Do you realize that in recorded history there is no record of sight being restored to one born blind? Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
   The door opened, and Annas whirled toward it. Nicodemus was there, and with him Joseph of Arimethea. Annas looked at Caiaphas.
   “I thought a question of this magnitude should be decided by the full council,” Caiaphas said.
   Annas turned away, rolling his eyes in exasperation. They didn’t yet know where this was leading - how best to use it or diffuse it - and his idiot son-in-law was calling in witnesses. Other members of the council began to arrive: Cephas and Talman and Baruch and Nissim. By the time the guard returned with old Timaeus and his wife, the Sanhedrin had a quorum.

With the healing of the man who had been blind from birth, Jesus brought his challenge to the temple itself.  Not only was he healing, drawing the crowds to him, but he was doing it on the Sabbath.  He was breaking the law, as the Pharisees saw it – even, it was rumored, claiming to be master of the law.  The miracle could not have been done with divine power, they knew; God himself rested on the Sabbath.  For the first time, the Pharisees set out to disprove one of his miracles.
    Jesus was in the temple, calling himself the light of the world.  None of those who disbelieved this claim called him a good man or a wise teacher, as so many unbelievers do today.  A human being who believed such claims about himself would be diabolical or insane, at the very least a megalomaniac.  A human being who made such claims without believing them would be a corrupt demagogue, manipulating the crowd for his own purposes.  Clearly Jesus was one or the other, the scribes and Pharisees knew, but there was the nagging problem of the so-called miracle.
    John’s gospel manages to capture the personality of the blind man.  He is too delighted with his sight and with Jesus to be at all intimidated by the learned Pharisees.  His encounter with Jesus had put worldly powers into perspective.  “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

They crossed the Jordan at the Hiljah Ford. It was late afternoon, and, as they walked toward Jericho, they were squinting into the westering sun.
   “It’s too late to make Bethany tonight,” Philip said to Nathaniel, who trailed with him behind the others.
   Nathaniel answered without looking up. “Yes,” he said, his eyes doggedly on the road in front of him. “We can hardly count on the hospitality of Lazarus and his sisters.”
   They heard the clop of hooves behind them and moved to one side of the road to make way for a small brown man mounted on a camel that was striding swiftly in a high-stepping gait.
   “I hope we can rely on the hospitality of someone,” Philip said. “The land’s all desert around Jericho. I don’t think I could bear another night in the open.”
   Nathaniel said, “I’m used to it.”
   “Used to it! You look like that camel’s dragged you face down in the dirt all the way from Capernaum.”
   “I feel like I’ve been dragged face down in the dirt all the way from Capernaum.”
   “But you said -”
   “I’m used to feeling like I’ve been dragged through the dirt a good many miles.”
   A laugh would have required too much energy, and Philip was tired. He did manage a weak smile.
   He and Nathaniel need not have worried. They spent the night in the home of a man named Zacchaeus, a short, round man who, like Levi (now Matthew) was a tax-collector. At first sight he made a humorous, even ludicrous, spectacle: He was perched on one of the spreading branches of a sycamore tree, craning his fat neck (if he could be said to have a neck), while his silk robes and his linen tunic flapped about his sandaled feet.
   “Zacchaeus,” Jesus had said. “Come down out of that tree.”
   “Me, sir?”
   “Are you Zacchaeus?”
   “Yes, but . . .”
   “My friends and I have need of lodging for the night. I was hoping your house was available.”
   “My house? Oh, yes, I’d be delighted . . . That is to say, I -”  He was scooting along the branch, trying to reach the ground with a plump leg, and at that point he lost his balance and fell forward into the street.
   Some members of the crowd laughed as the cloud of dust rose about him, but Jesus bent and helped him to his feet.
   “I’m overcome by the honor of your visit,” Zacchaeus said several times. “I mean, that you would visit me. I had always heard that you were a holy man, a good man - not that I have any reason to doubt it now, in fact quite the contrary - but I never dreamed you would be willing . . . I’m not very well liked. I mean, what will people say?”
   “I imagine they’ll say rather what you expect,” Jesus said. “‘He claims to be a man of God. What is he doing in the home of a tax collector?’”
   “I was a tax collector,” Matthew interjected. “Until I met Jesus.”
   Once they had eaten and arrangements had been made for the night, Zacchaeus returned to the subject. “Is that the requirement of righteousness? To relinquish my post?”
   “No.”
   Judas’s head swung toward him.
   “Taxes must be collected,” Jesus said. “And someone must do it. The reason tax collectors are held in such disrepute -”
   “Is that they’re flunkies of the Roman dogs who oppress us,” Judas said.
   “Is that so many of them cheat people,” Jesus said.
   “They collect more taxes than the government requires and grow fat on the difference.”
   “You don’t see honest Jews growing fat on what little you leave them,” said Judas to Zacchaeus.
   “Except perhaps the temple priests,” said Simon, his fellow Zealot. “If we can stretch a point and call them honest Jews.”
   Zacchaeus’s head dropped, and he regarded his rounded paunch unhappily. “I haven’t always been strictly honest,” he said, almost reflectively, and he raised his eyes to Jesus.
   “And what are you willing to do about it?”
   Zacchaeus’s eyes passed over the large room, taking in the ornate furniture, the tapestries and the carvings and the accenting gems. “Not cheat in the future,” he said.
   “Is it enough?”
   He shook his head slowly. “It is not enough. I shall make a donation to the poor.”
   Judas snorted.
   “Half of my possessions.” He was on his feet, his round body almost vibrating with sudden energy. Jesus was nodding. “And if I’ve cheated anyone . . .”
   “If,” Judas said.
   Zacchaeus paced the floor. “If I’ve cheated anyone, I’ll return their money to them. Return to them double their money. With apologies for the mistake. No, no -”  He wagged his finger. “With apologies for my thievery. And double isn’t enough. It must be three - no, four times the amount.” The commitment, if honored, was very likely to mean financial ruin, but Zacchaeus seemed oblivious to the prospect.
   Jesus stood. “Today salvation has come to this house,” he said to Zacchaeus. He turned to look at the others. “That is why I am here, my whole reason for being. To seek and to save what is lost.”
   His eyes came to rest on Judas, who looked away.
***
The road from Jericho to Jerusalem rose sharply as it wound through the mountains. As they left Jericho’s oasis, fed by the Fountain of Elisha just north of the city, the land became harder - not rich soil fit for agriculture but clay and rock. The road twisted and doubled back on itself. Countless streambeds, dry except in the rainy seasons, opened off it. It was in those mountains that bandits lived, their hideouts tucked away in rocky strongholds. According to the rumors circulating in Jericho, however, the most notorious of those outlaws, a man named Jesus Barabbas, had been at long last captured and was awaiting execution in Jerusalem.
   At any rate, no one bothered Jesus and his disciples on their journey. It was nearly dusk on the following day when they entered the pass that opened out over the city of Jerusalem.
   “It is beautiful,” John said, stopping beside Jesus.
   Jesus looked down at him. “It is, isn’t it? Yet it will all be destroyed, in your lifetime.”
   John’s eyes widened. “The Romans?”
   Jesus’ eyes were sad. “I would save it if I could.”
   “When?”
   “Years, I think, but coming.”
***
They stopped in Bethany, at the home of Lazarus and his sisters, Martha and Mary. “Here for the feast of Dedication?” Lazarus said to Jesus, seeing them on the road and coming toward them. “I knew you’d come. Just this morning, I was telling Martha you’d come.”
   “I’ve come.”
   “We’ve been collecting candles all year to light up the house. Got a new lamp there, too.”
   “I see you have.”
   “We’ll have the whole place lit up, come the twenty-fifth, and for each of the eight days following.”
   Some three hundred sixty years ago, Alexander the Great had conquered Palestine. In the years after his death, the Greeks’ treatment of the Jews had grown more and more liberal, first under the Ptolemy dynasty, then under the Selucids. Eventually, the Jews were granted a charter to govern themselves by their own constitution, the Torah. Then Antiochus Epiphanes came to power in Syria. Insistent that everyone adopt Greek ways and worship Greek gods, he made it a capital offense even to possess a copy of the Torah. On the temple altar, an altar to Zeus had been erected, and a statue. On the twenty-fifth of the month, a pig was sacrificed on that altar. Judah revolted.
   Three years later - to the day - having beaten the Syrians in several decisive battles, Judas Maccabeus reclaimed Jerusalem. He found priests who had remained faithful to the service of Yahweh, tore down the altar to Zeus and purified and rededicated the temple in a celebration that lasted eight days. Then Judas and his brothers and all the assembly of Israel determined that every year at that season the days of the dedication of the altar should be observed with gladness and joy for eight days, beginning with the twenty-fifth day of the month of Chislev. So said the history of the Maccabees. The Feast of Dedication did not have the importance of the Passover, nor of Pentecost, nor of the Festival of Booths, all of which required the males of Israel to travel to the temple in Jerusalem, but it was a feast, and one Lazarus was pleased to celebrate with his friend Jesus and his followers.
   On the next day, the Sabbath. Jesus and his disciples went into Jerusalem. They were entering the city by the Fountain Gate, and by the gate sat a man with a coarse blanket laid out in front of him for alms. “Please, sirs,” said the man, raising his head at the sound of their approach. “I can hear that there are a great many of you. Surely some among you can spare a few coins.”
   Judas dropped some coins from the common purse onto the man’s blanket. “How long have you been blind?” he asked.
   “Thank you, sir. I was born blind. All my life I have known only darkness.” His pupils were so large that they seemed to bleed into the milky irises.
   “Why does God allow such misery?” Andrew said, looking down at him with sympathy.
   “His sins, or his parents’,” Peter said, glancing at Jesus. If the beggar heard him, he made no sign.
   Jesus squatted in front of the man. “Do you believe that?” he asked. “That your sin or your parents’ caused you to be born blind?”
   The man shrugged. There was a spastic movement of his lips, not a smile. “What else can I believe?” he said. “God is good. Would he allow such infirmity to strike the innocent?”
   Jesus looked up at his disciples, at Peter and Andrew. “There are many reasons for suffering,” he said. “Man is fallen, and with him all creation. Some are born blind in order than their spiritual sight not be blinded. You were born blind in order that God might reveal a mighty work.” He licked his finger and touched it to one of the man’s eyes. “My name is Jesus. I am the light of the world.” He touched his finger to the man’s other eye.
   The man was blinking. Squinting. Turning his head. “I can see,” he said.
   The disciples looked at one another.
   “Not well, not clearly, but I can see something. Shapes,” he said, looking from one to another of them, following a passer-by with his eyes. His gaze was filled with wonder. “People? They must be people unless trees can walk.”
   Jesus spat in the dirt and stirred up some mud with his finger. With his thumb, he rubbed a little of the mud into each of the man’s eyes.
   “No, I’m blind again,” the man said.
   “I’ve smeared some mud into your eyes. You must go and wash it out there in the pool of Siloam.” He helped him to his feet and led him into the city, sitting with him on the retaining wall of the city’s reservoir, guiding his hand down into the water.
   The man put his cupped hand to his eyes, and, as he scrubbed, dirt ran down his cheeks and into his beard. He blinked, then leaned over the pool to scoop up more water, water dribbling off his face and back into the pool. When the man had blinked it away, he became utterly still.
   “That’s me, isn’t it?” he said. “My reflection in the pool.”
   Jesus’ reflection appeared beside his own. “That’s you,” he said. “What do you think of yourself?”
   The man shook his head, still watching himself. “I don’t know. Ask me a week or a month from now.”
   Jesus laughed. A crowd of about a dozen had joined the disciples. The man’s eyes became unfocused as his wandering gaze took in unfathomable splashes of light and color.
   “Can I live like this?” he said, his voice bordering on panic. “With the world spinning around me and everything rushing in?” He blinked, almost blindly, trying to clear his eyes of the water that still ran down from his hairline, to clear his eyes of their tears. “Can I live like this?”
   “Jonah?” said a man pushing his way to the front of the crowd. “Jonah, what’s wrong? What are you doing there?”
   “Saul?” Jonah said, standing at the sound of the familiar voice.
   “What is it?” Saul said, grasping him by both arms. “What’s the matter?”
   Jonah moved his head, squinting, trying to make some sense of the swirl of light. He reached out blindly and touched his brother-in-law’s face. “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s all right, I can see.”
   Saul looked around at the crowd for an explanation of this madness. Andrew, looking around with him, realized with a start that Jesus was no longer with them.
   “I can, I really can,” Jonah said, almost hysterically. “Your hair,” he said, touching it. “Your face.” His gaze shifted. “That man is holding up an arm.”
   Andrew dropped it, having pulled Peter to him. “Jesus. Have you seen Jesus?” he asked.
   Peter’s head was up, his eyes scanning the crowd. “No. Somehow he slipped away.”
   “Probably went on to the temple,” James said at Peter’s elbow.
   Peter nodded. “We’d better get along ourselves.” He focused for a moment on Jonah and the bewildered Saul.  “A man named Jesus gave him his sight,” he said, laying a calloused hand on the back of each of them. “Jesus of Nazareth. He’s gone now. We’re going to find him.”
   Peter, followed by the others, pushed away through the still-gathering crowd.

Tax collectors responded to Jesus, though they were both worldly and corrupt.  Pharisees, who established the synagogue system to provide religious instruction, who worked to apply God’s law to every aspect of life, did not. 
    The tax collectors knew there was something missing from their lives.  Having both money and privilege, they knew too well that neither could provide any lasting satisfaction.  In Jesus, they found the water to quench their spiritual thirst, the bread to feed their spiritual hunger.  Poor in spirit, theirs was the kingdom of heaven.
    The Pharisees, familiar with the scriptures and devoted to the law, knew no such emptiness.  The law had, perhaps, become joyless, and the Word had lost its life-giving force, but, as a dead virus has the power to inoculate us against the living disease, they were enough to inoculate the Pharisees against the Living Word.  Dead religion is worse than no religion at all.  When Jesus appeared to John on Patmos, the message Jesus gave him for the Christian church in Laodicea was, “Would that you were cold or hot!  So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.”
    It is God who redeems us, not church attendance or even Bible reading.  Our relationship with Him must remain fresh and vital.

They met Mary again in Magdala. The noise of the crowd alerted her. She came through a doorway, and her face lighted up when she saw Jesus. “Master,” she said, and she ran toward them, her dark hair blowing around her face and her cloak flying.
   “She is beautiful,” the younger James murmured to John, and John grinned at him.
   “She’s too old for you,” he whispered.
   “I didn’t mean,” James began in an indignant whisper, but John elbowed him to silence.
   “Are you staying long?” Mary asked Jesus.
   He was smiling at her, and he reached out with the back of his hand to touch her cheek. “Not long,” he said. “Passing through on our way to Jerusalem.”
   Her smile faltered, and he said, “Perhaps you could come with us.”
   She threw herself into his arms and began kissing his face and beard with all the enthusiasm of an ardent puppy. Laughing, he pushed her away. Several of the women of Magdala had stopped to watch. All were smiling.

They spent the night in Tiberius with Chuza and Joanna, and the next morning crossed the Jordan to the road that ran south along the river’s east bank. They camped under the stars and woke early the next day to continue their journey, Jesus walking in front with Peter on one side of him and Judas on the other.
   “What’s the plan?” Judas asked him. “Tell us what we can do to help.”
   “Go with me to Jerusalem,” Jesus said.
   “But you’ll be arrested,” Peter objected, not for the first time.
   “I think so. Arrested. Tortured. Executed.” His face was grim.
   “But why?”
   “I’m not sure why. And I may be wrong, even now. I hope I am.”
   “You’re not the only one,” Peter muttered. He quickened his  pace, wishing to avoid further conversation on the topic. As he walked, he brought each foot down hard, stinging his soles. It brought him a certain satisfaction, and he smiled grimly.

Jesus was sitting on a rock, making a lunch of dried figs and a small loaf of bread. He looked up as Salome approached, one arm hooked through that of each of her two sons. Jesus smiled. “Yes, Salome?”
   She stepped forward abruptly, releasing James and John and kneeling on the ground in front of Jesus. His eyebrows climbed his forehead.
   “Yes, Salome?”
   “My lord,” she said.
   His face worked as he tried to suppress a grin. “You want something,” he said. “What is it?”
   “Lord, my sons James and John have followed you for some time now,” she said. “Have they not served you faithfully and well?”
   Jesus looked over her head to meet James’s eyes, then John’s. “They have,” he said. “Faithfully and well.”
   “Could you ask for two better servants than these?”
   “I could not,” Jesus said.
   “Then grant it that when you come into your kingdom one of my sons may sit at your right hand and the other at your left.”
   “Do you have a preference?”
   She looked up, unsure whether or not he was taking her seriously.
   “Salome,” he said. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
   “I do. I’m not asking for them lives of opulence and sloth, only challenges worthy of them.”
   Jesus looked past her to James and John. “Are you up to facing the challenges I’m about to face? Can you drink from the cup I drink or undergo the baptism I must undergo?”
   John looked at his brother, who nodded positively. “We can,” James said, and John turned his face again to Jesus.
   Jesus raised an eyebrow.
   “We can,” John said.
   Jesus smiled. “Yes, I think you can - that you will.”
   “Then my request?” Salome quavered, still bending low before him.
   “Is, regretfully, denied.” Jesus stood, brushing the crumbs from his tunic. He took Salome’s arm and helped her to her feet. “What you ask isn’t mine to grant,” he said. “The seats to my right and left belong to those for whom my Father has prepared them.”

Philip and Nathaniel, who had overheard the entire conversation, drifted away to join the other disciples. “Can you believe it?” Nathaniel said, after repeating Salome’s request and  Jesus’ response. “Those young puppies thinking they’re the greatest among us.”
   “It was their mother,” Andrew said. “You know how mothers are.”
   “And Salome is more of a mother than most,” Peter said, nodding.
   “They were right behind her,” Philip said. “You have to believe they put her up to it.”
   “He turned her down. That’s the important thing.”
   “Why did he, do you think?” Philip asked. “Who is the greatest among us?”
   Andrew looked at Peter.
   “Peter?” Philip said.
   “Jesus said his faith would be the foundation of his kingdom.”
   “Of his church,” Nathaniel said. “Didn’t he say church?”
   Philip couldn’t remember. “Is he planning to be king or high priest?”
   “Both I think,” Peter said.
   “He was just using Peter’s faith as an example,” Nathaniel said. “Because Peter was the one who first said he was the Messiah. But any of us could have said that.”
   “Perhaps,” said Andrew. “But not any of us did.”
   “So who do you think will sit at his left? You, as Peter’s brother?”
   James and John joined them, and everyone fell silent.
   “He could make worse choices,” said Peter, eventually.
   “Like who?” Judas interjected. “Like me, for instance?”
   “What are you talking about?” John asked.
   “Like you don’t know.”
   “For instance,” Peter said to Judas.
   Judas’s mouth curled in a sneer.
   “Where is Jesus, anyway?” Matthew said. “Has he gone off  again and left us?”
   After a somewhat frantic search, the younger James spotted Jesus walking along the road nearly half-a-mile ahead of them.
   “There he is,” he said, pointing.
   “Where? I don’t see him.”
   “He just went behind those trees.”
   Peter gathered his robe about his waist and took off running. Andrew, with a quick look at the others, pulled up his own robe and ran after him. They all followed, even Matthew, still rather portly, his heavy, white legs shining in the noonday sun.

They caught up to Jesus in a bunch, all of them sweating and blowing hard as they fought to catch their breaths. Jesus looked around at them in apparent amusement.
   “You went off and left us,” James said. He glanced at a small band of travelers, heading toward them along the Roman road with their families and pack animals.
   “We’ve got ground to cover,” Jesus said. “No time to spend in pointless debate.”
   The disciples looked at one another.
   “What were you talking about back there, anyway?”
   None of them answered him.
   “Rest assured that it is as difficult for a great man to enter the kingdom as it is for a rich man.”
   The north-bound caravan had pulled abreast of them. A small, piping voice interrupted Jesus, saying, “‘Scuse me.’”
   “It is, in fact,” Jesus continued. “Impossible.”
   “‘Scuse me,” came the voice again, more insistently. A boy mounted on a small donkey nudged his way past John into Jesus’ field of vision.
   “Yes, son?”
   “Are you Jesus? My daddy says you’re Jesus, the prophet.”
   Jesus smiled, his happy expression a stark contrast to the frowns of several of his disciples. A man in a worn cloak pushed toward the boy and grabbed his donkey by the bridle. “Sorry,” he murmured, bobbing his head without meeting anybody’s eyes. “Nuri, you’re making yourself a nuisance.”
   “He’s not a nuisance.” Jesus lifted the boy off the donkey and up onto his shoulders. “Nuri,” he said. “Meet Peter and Andrew and John.” He inclined his head toward each of them in turn.
   Each nodded.
   “Great men all of them,” Jesus said. “Thus all handicapped in their efforts to reach God’s kingdom.”
   The three disciples shifted their feet uncomfortably. Behind them, Judas scowled.
   “What’s handicapped?” the boy said.
   “Encumbered with impediments,” Jesus said.
   “With what?”
   Jesus laughed. “Actually, Nuri, the lesson is for them rather than you. By the way, that’s a fine donkey you’ve got there.”
   The boy nodded. “I walk most of the time,” he said. “But sometimes my feet get tired.”
   “Sometimes my feet get tired,” Jesus said. “I wish I had such a fine donkey to ride on.” He swung the boy back astride the donkey. He smiled at the boy’s father. “I’m sure you’re proud of him.”
   A tentative smile flitted briefly across the man’s face. “Yes, we are.”
   “I’m afraid your party’s leaving you,” Jesus said, pointing.
   The man started, then made off after them, tugging at the donkey’s reins. Soon the rise in the road hid him from view.

Jesus’ disciples never seemed to grasp the nature of the kingdom he was constantly telling them about.  They were expecting a messiah to throw off the yoke of Rome and restore the Davidic kingdom of old.  Even at the end, just before the Ascension, they asked, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”
    It mattered a lot to them what would be their place in the kingdom, both collectively and individually.  They argued about who would be the greatest among them, about who would sit at Jesus’ right and who at his left.  They were still arguing about it on the night before his crucifixion. 
    When Jesus asked James and John whether they could drink the cup he drank or be baptized with the baptism he was baptized with, their answer was a firm yes.  John and his mother Salome would be at Calvary to see who occupied those coveted places to Jesus’ left and right.  Though James and John didn’t drink of the cup at that time, the cup was coming for both of them.  James would be beheaded by Herod Agrippa.  John would be boiled in oil and exiled to the island of Patmos, where he would receive his apocalyptic Revelation. 
    Both were to be great in the kingdom, but it was not the sort of greatness that either could have expected.

The rest of the disciples, on waking and finding Jesus not among them, went into the nearby village of Mizpah to look for him.
   “Greetings,” called a tanner who was working on a goatskin in the doorway of his shop. “You’re back.”
   “We’re back. We’re looking for Jesus.”
   “Yes,” said a merchant from a nearby stall. “Where is he? I don’t see him with you.” He sat on a stool in the midst of his hanging meats.
   “We don’t know where he is,” said Andrew. “We’re looking for him.”
   Some women approached them from the well, while others disappeared into doorways and hurried off down the street calling for their husbands and children. “He’s back,” they were saying. “Jesus, he’s come back.”
   “Is he back?” said the tanner. “I don’t see him.”
   “No,” Philip said. “He’s not with us. We don’t know where he is.”
   “Well, if you don’t, who does?” asked the meat merchant.
   “We were hoping you did, that he -”
   “Hoping we did! But we haven’t set foot outside this village.”
   “Yes, we know,” Andrew said. “We thought perhaps he’d come into the vill -”  He broke off. A young woman, barely more than a girl, was coming toward them. She moved with the careful gait of convalescence.
   “Ah, there’s Shera,” said the tanner. “I can tell you, she won’t be forgetting your Jesus anytime soon.”
   “No, I don’t imagine . . . Hello, Shera,” Andrew said. “Good day to you.”
   “Yes,” she said, smiling, peering past them. “Jesus, where is he?”
   “We don’t know. We’ve come here looking for him.”
   “They lost him out there somewhere,” said the tanner. “If you can believe it.” He stood, then, laying aside his skin. He looked both ways down the street, as if half-expecting to see Jesus coming toward them. The meat merchant came out into the sun as well. In fact, a number of villagers were congregating about the disciples, mothers carrying their babies and herding their toddlers, fathers standing with their sons in front of them.
   “So where is Jesus?” someone asked. “Is he coming behind you?”
   “Did he come back to see Shera?”
   “My baby, she seems to be hot with fever. Could Jesus  -”
   “We don’t know where he is,” Andrew said. “We’ve come to look for him.”
   “So he’s here in Mizpah?”
   “No, not if you haven’t seen him.”
   “Then why are you here looking for him?” the tanner demanded, raising his chin belligerently.
   Andrew felt at a loss as to how to answer him.
   “And where is he?”
   A man and a woman were approaching with a boy of ten or eleven, the man carrying the boy, the woman using a blanket to shield him from the sun. As they approached the disciples, the crowd shifted to clear a path for them, and everyone quieted. The man set the boy on his feet in front of Andrew and Philip. The boy stared up at them vacantly, almost as if he didn’t see them.
   Andrew knelt. “Hello, little fellow,” he said to the boy.
   There was no response.
   “Jesus isn’t with us,” Andrew said, looking up at the boy’s parents.
   “But you, you who are his disciples, surely you can do something for him. A spirit possesses him - nearly every day it seizes him and throws him to the ground.”
   “He struggles against it,” the woman said. “Thrashing about and foaming at the mouth.”
   The man said, “When the spirit leaves him, it leaves him like this.”
   “Stupid, so much of the time. Hardly aware of what’s going on.”
   “Can you do something?”
   Andrew laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “What is your name, son?” he said, gently.
   The boy looked at him.
   “It’s Daniel,” the mother said. “Say hello, Daniel.”
   Andrew looked up at the villagers crowded around him, at their eyes, all of which seemed to be focused on him. He looked back at Daniel and cleared his throat.
   “Demon,” he said in his sternest voice. “Demon, what is your name?”
   The boy continued to look at him. As did the rest of the villagers.
   “You can’t help him, then?” the boy’s father said. He sounded resigned, too used to disappointment.
   “I’m sorry,” Andrew said, standing. The man turned away, guiding his son ahead of him.
   “They can’t help him,” said a woman in the crowd.
   “Well, who thought they could?” said someone else.
   “Look at Shera,” said the woman.
   A familiar voice spoke. “Andrew, Philip?”
   Andrew, jerking his head around in surprise, felt immediate relief.
   “It’s Jesus,” said someone. “Call to Admon. Tell him Jesus is back.” The crowd opened up as people pushed back against their neighbors to open a path between Jesus and Admon and his small family. They all fell silent.
   Admon looked at Jesus, and Jesus looked back. Finally, Admon said, “Do you think you can help my son? Your disciples couldn’t.” Daniel stood squinting up at Jesus, dazzled by the sunlight beyond him.
   Jesus looked at Andrew, at Philip, at all the rest of them. “Where is your faith?” he said. “What will you do when I am no longer with you?” He turned just in time to see Daniel’s eyes roll back into his head and Daniel fall back against his father. Carefully, Admon lowered the rigid body to the ground.
   “How long has he been like this?” Jesus said, kneeling beside him.
   “Since childhood.” The boy’s face was twitching, and his legs jerked convulsively. “The demon throws him to the ground, sometimes into the river or into the fire as if to kill him. He never leaves the house anymore unless his mother or I am with him.”
   Foam forced its way through the boy’s clamped teeth and flowed from the corners of his mouth. Those nearby noted the smell of urine as the boy voided his bladder.
   Tears were running down into Admon’s beard. “For the love of God,” he said, his voice cracking. “If there’s anything you can do, do it now.”
   “Much depends on you. Do you trust God to help if we ask him?”
   “I do,” Admon said, thickly. “Or I want to. If it isn’t enough, help me to trust more.”
   The boy was thrashing on the ground, his head cradled in his father’s lap.
   Jesus looked up. “Father,” he said. “Grant the prayers of us, your children.”
   Everyone was watching him.
   “Spirit,” he said, looking down at the boy.
   A spasm arched Daniel’s body, lifting it entirely into the air but for his heels and his head.
   “Spirit!” Jesus said. “Leave the boy and never return to him.”
   A moan escaped the boy. His body gave two powerful jerks, then went limp. Jesus knelt beside him. The boy’s head had fallen to one side, and blood mingled with the spittle that ran from his mouth.
   “He’s dead,” said someone in hushed tones. “The demon has killed him.”
   Jesus took the boy’s hand, and the boy’s eyes fluttered open. His expression was blank.
   “He’s alive, but his mind is gone,” observed the same commentator.
   “Daniel?” Jesus said. “Can you hear me, Daniel?”
   Daniel nodded.
   “He knows his name.”
   “Get up, Daniel.” Jesus slipped an arm beneath his shoulders, and, as he raised him up, the strength returned to the boy’s legs and they took his weight.

Later, when they had left the village, Andrew asked Jesus why he had not been able to drive out the demon. “I did it once before,” he said, recalling an incident in the village of Jotapata, so long ago.
   Jesus looked at him, and one corner of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. “No,” he said. “You’ve never cast out a demon.”
   “But I -”
   “God has done it when you asked him to.”
   Andrew was silent.
   “These things can be accomplished only through prayer,” Jesus said.

In Bethsaida, they went first to the home of Leah, Peter’s mother-in-law, and found Salome there and also Mary of Cana, James’s mother. Salome, on learning that they were bound for Jerusalem, insisted on coming.
   “Me, too,” Leah said. “I don’t have anything to keep me here, and, from the look of you, you could use someone handy with a needle and thread.”
   “And I can cook,” Salome said. “Better than either of my boys, if you’re relying on them for that.” She cast a hard look to where James stood with his brother John.
   Jesus smiled. “It’s hard to say just whom we’re relying on for that,” he said.
   “No fresh meat, I’ll wager,” she said.
   “Very little.”
   “Fresh fruit, vegetables? What do you men know about preparing those?”
   “Not much.”
   “I’m coming then,” she said. A statement, not a question.
   “Alpheus is here in Bethsaida,” Mary said. “We’ll travel with you, too.”
   “You may find the road harder than you imagine,” Jesus said.
   “Likely enough. Likely enough we all will,” Salome said.

The group split between Salome’s house that night and Leah’s. All were glad to be in out of the weather. It was the first night any of them had passed in warmth in many days. The next morning, they set off south along the lake shore, most of Bethsaida following. A couple of hours of walking brought them to Capernaum.
   Jesus stopped at the well for water, greeting children by name, tousling heads, lifting toddlers high into the air while their mothers smiled proudly. People called to him, asking him to come into their homes to eat, but he and his disciples ate in the home of Jairus. The townspeople crowded into the doorway and looked in at the windows.
   Jairus had a guest, a young man wearing a purple robe and a silk tunic. Over dinner, the man said to Jesus, “Good teacher -”
   “Good?” Jesus said, interrupting him.
   “They say so.”
   “Only God is good.”
   “I have heard you speak. You talk about the life which is eternal.”
   Jesus nodded, refilling his goblet from the clay jug. “Yes, always,” he said. “I offer the life which is eternal.”
   The man cleared his throat. “I understand what you mean, of course,” he said. “Though I’m not entirely comfortable with that way of expressing it.”
   “I mean it in just the way that makes you uncomfortable.”
   The man sipped from his own goblet, eyeing Jesus over the goblet’s rim. “Be that as it may,” he said at last. “I’m interested in this eternal life. I want to know what I must do to procure it.”
   “What you must do?”
   “Yes, exactly.”
   “You know the commandments,” Jesus said. “Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal -”
   “Yes, yes.”
   “Do not give false testimony -”
   “I have done none of those things, going as far back as I remember.”
   “Honor your father and mother.”
   “I do.”
   “Good.”
   “Does that mean I have eternal life?”
   Jesus met his gaze. “Do you?”
   “I don’t know.”
   “You are a wealthy man as the world reckons it,” Jesus said. He indicated the purple robe, the rings glittering on the young man’s fingers.
   The man nodded. “God is good.”
   “He is. But of what lasting worth are earthly treasures? Moths destroy fine clothing. Animals die. Iron rusts.”
   “Thieves steal,” the man said.
   “Thieves steal. Your wealth is temporal, and yet your whole life is wrapped up in it. It distracts you from those things which are eternal.”
   The man sighed, making a helpless gesture with his hands. “It can be a burden.”
   Jesus leaned toward him across the table. “Be free of it. You can be, you know. You can be rich in the things of heaven, can be already deep into the waters of eternity.”
   The man was nodding, his mouth pursed thoughtfully. 
   “Sell all that you have and give the proceeds to the poor,” Jesus said. “Come with me now to Jerusalem.”
   The man’s breath caught. He seemed to have stopped breathing. The gazes of the two were riveted together.
   “Do it,” Jesus said.
   The man’s mouth opened. For a moment he gaped soundlessly. “I can’t,” he gurgled, sounding as if he were strangling.
   “You can.”
   “I’m not like these men.”  He indicated Jesus’ disciples. “These others who follow you. I have a certain position.”
   Jesus sat back, exhaling noisily. “Ah, well,” he said.
   “Wealth to an extent I think you fail to comprehend.”
   Jesus nodded, his lips compressed in a fine line.
   “Surely there is another way for those like myself to participate in the kingdom.”
   “For those like yourself there is no other way.”
   “It would mean giving up everything I have.”
   Jesus said nothing.
   “Everything I am.”
   Jesus gave him a shrug of his shoulders. “We speak of eternal life, and you quibble over cost.”
   “It’s my life.”
   “Those who seek to preserve their lives will find only deadness.”
   The man shivered. “Excuse me,” he said, putting his hands on the table as if to rise.
   “You don’t believe me,” Jesus said.
   “It’s not that.” The man pushed back from the table. “It’s just that I have to go. I have an appointment.” As he stepped away from the table, he knocked over a stool that stood nearby. “Excuse me,” he said to Jairus, bowing. “Many pardons.” He bumped into Jairus’s servant. “Clumsy of me,” he said. And he passed through the door and pushed his way into the crowd.
   When he was gone, all eyes turned back to Jesus. He shook his head. “It is so hard for the rich to enter God’s kingdom,” he said.
   “But -,” Jairus protested.
   “But surely wealth is a sign of God’s favor,” said another guest.
   “No. Wealth is a stumbling block. What is the largest animal found in Palestine? Jairus? That’s right, a camel. What’s the smallest opening you can imagine?”
   Jairus shrugged. “The eye of a needle.”
   “I tell you,” Jesus said, nodding. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.”
   “But . . . You’re saying it’s impossible.”
   “If the rich can’t get in . . .,” someone began.
   Jesus finished the thought. “Then no one can? You’re right. By your own efforts, it’s impossible. Remember, though, that for God all things are possible, and God is acting in the present age to draw all men to himself.”
   Jairus eyes had grown wide. It seemed to all present that he trembled at the very edge of some momentous understanding. Then the light in his eyes faded.
   Jesus laid a hand on that of Jairus. “Good friend,” he said. “Thank you for the meal and the hospitality.”
***
When they were on the road, Peter said to Jesus, “We gave up everything we had to follow you.”
   “Yes.”
   “Though like the man said, for a lot of us it wasn’t much.”
   Jesus laughed. “I tell you, Peter, whatever you have given up, you’ll get back a hundredfold.”
   “In the age to come,” Peter said.
   “In this age,” Jesus said. “And in the age to come, eternal life.”
   Peter remained troubled.
   “What is it?”
   “I don’t see how we are to achieve these things.”
   “You’re not.”
   “Yes, but the demands are impossible. We can’t just not murder; God wants our emotions. We can’t just stay away from married women. God wants our thoughts and our fantasies. Tithing isn’t enough . . .”
   “God wants it all,” John concluded.
   “God’s demands are so great that they leave a man with nothing.”
   “Assuming we could meet his demands in the first place” John said. “When we’re with you and caught up in what you’re doing and what you’re saying, we have trouble enough. And the strong emotions don’t last, or we forget. Our old habits are back on us almost at once.”
   Jesus was nodding.
   “Well?” Peter said.
   “Yes, something more is needed.”
   “What?”
   “It’s why we’re going to Jerusalem,” Jesus said. “To find it.”