They all washed in the bath down below in Matthews’ house, where the hot springs made those good pools. Laughing and splashing about, some of it turned into lovemaking, Judas taking Alphaeus, discreetly on the side of the pool, while Jude gave way to Matthew. In the sunburst of orgasm they collapsed in the water, laughing. Once they were clean they dressed in white, and were shiny as freshly scrubbed children.
“Behold,” Jesus told them as the sun passed west into the afternoon, “ I am sending you out like sheep among wolves; therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.
“He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the One who sent me. Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, truly I tell you, he will never lose his reward.”
And as they left, this was all he said, but time is a tricky thing. After all this, years after all this, when much had happened, and their world was different from this halcyon time, when he wasn’t with them, not with them as he had been, and when they were grown strong in a way they were not now, the words he had spoken later would so blend with the words he spoke now, that Matthew, who was now mellow and burning with the aftermath of sex and magic and brotherhood would add these words, the words Jesus said at other times, and the words his spirit spoke when his body was no more.
“But beware of men; for they will hand you over to their councils and flog you in their synagogues. On My account, you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. But when they hand you over, do not worry about how to respond or what to say. In that hour you will be given what to say. For it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rise against their parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by everyone because of My name, but the one who perseveres to the end will be saved.
“When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next. Truly I tell you, you will not reach all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.
A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for a disciple to be like his teacher, and a servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!”
He didn’t say it that day. How could he have said it that day? They were only traveling through villages two by two. But somehow the future was in that present, and in that moment was the beginning of all future moments.
And then, embracing, they all went their ways, and once they had left, Magdalene helped Jesus assemble his own bag. Joses and Cleophas offered to travel with him, but Jesus only embraced them. Mary chose not to say much of what was on her mind, but only kissed her son, and he embraced her such a long time. And then he headed north, out of Capernaum, and into the wild.
When Jesus went off into the wilderness he was on his own, but when he went down into Jerusalem, Lazaros and Cleophas, and his brothers came with him.
“I don’t give a toss—” well, Lazaros said more than toss, “about how you think you have to be alone. Alone is not going to happen for you if you are going there.”
That road took them through Arimathea so that Joseph and Nikodemos also traveled down into the city to be with him, and he had made a name for himself in Galilee, but he really made a name for himself in Jerusalem now.
“Made a name for himself?” Nikodemos said. “He’s made trouble for himself.”
The first time, when the people of Jerusalem had heard of Jesus, but never seen his face, he came to the Temple complex, to the Pool of Siloam and healed a man who had been crippled for thirty eight years, and things would have gone almost well for him except that he told the man to stop sinning, and then the spiteful bastard pointed him out to the authorities. After all, Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, and some had judged this to be work.
The Temple complex, which ought to have been a place of prayer and rest, was becoming a place of showdown. Later on an older, angrier John, full of his Greek education and his high ideas would put strange speeches in the mouth of his beloved Jesus, and it’s not that Jesus never lapsed into complex and nearly incomprehensible language, God knows he did, but Magdalene found it hard to believe that he ever waxed like this:
“Verily I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.
“Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.
“If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who testifies in my favor, and I know that his testimony about me is true. You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved. Yochanan was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.
“I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”
Or that he said:
“I do not accept glory from human beings, but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?
“But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”
“I mean,” Matthew would say in old age, shaking his head over his old friend’s manuscript, “some of it sounds like him…. Much of it, and sometimes he did go on… You know, he did. But some of this sounds like Aristotle and Plato, and our Master was nothing like those bastards.”
And then there was a time on Solomon’s Portico, where Jesus shouted down his detractors in the upper classes, the doctors and scribes and mystics of the Law, those who, if they were not in the Sanhedrin, were certainly in that circle of power:
“If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”
He had won no favor with the Sanhedrin, then, but he had gained followers—and notoriety—which spread even back up to Capernaum where Mary heard these things and kept her thoughts, mixed with worry and exultation, all at once, in her heart.
When his increasingly irritated enemies answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?” Jesus fired back:
“I am not possessed by a demon, but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.”
“Now we know that you are demon-possessed!” they returned. “Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that whoever obeys your word will never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?”
Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and obey his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”
“You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”
“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was, I am!”
Now, at this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the Temple grounds.
And those who heard this believed he laughed as he ran, for there was a madness to him, and all of this made it’s way to John and Peter, Philip and Nathanael, Judas and Matthew, who were on their way to meet Jesus again. They knew the fire that had burned low was rising again, that things were happening again. Thomas was full of fear, but full of joy. Every night when he slept beside Simon Zelotes, he feared Jesus might be killed before they all met up again, and every night he also trembled with excitement for his Master, out there in Jerusalem, poking his finger in the eyes of the powerful.
Finally the Temple Guard went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”
“No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied.
“You mean he has deceived you also?” the black robed men retorted.
“Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in him? No! But this mob that knows nothing of the Law—there is a curse on them.”
Nikodemos looked to Joseph, who nodded, and then he asked them, “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”
They should never have let this pretty, Greekified boy into the Council. Tobias frowned down at him.
“Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”
The others sniffed, and pulled their robes around them, marching back up the steps through the round doorways of the Hall of Hewn Stones, leaving Nikodemos alone with Joseph and Gamaliel.
Gamaliel laid a hand on Nikodemos’ shoulder.
“They grow stupider by the day with their passions,” he said.
“Both Elijah and Jonah were from Galilee, and Balaam was not even of our nation. Have a care, if you would protect your friend and teacher, tell him Jerusalem is not for him.”
In the night, at Bethany, Nikodemos and Joseph said this exactly.
“Come with me,” Joseph said. “I leave in the morning.”
“Heed him,” Lazaros encouraged.
“Jerusalem will not be my home,” Jesus agreed.”I am only preparing it, carving out the rock soil for my bed.”
Lazaros frowned.
“You just said Jerusalem will not be your home.”
“Yes,” Jesus agreed.
“It will be my grave.”
