“Life has been so hard for us,” said the boy, whose name was Seth. He had a reedy voice and long fine, strong limbs.
“I was going to study up north, but Father died, so I needed to stay here and help Mother. And then I got the sickness. I thought it was nothing,” he confessed.
In their little group he was perfectly audible, but the great tavern where whatever the reversal of a wake was called was being held, was full of noise. In one corner, the widow was laughing and crying all at the same time.
“And then I was hot all over and weak, and I didn’t want to go to bed, for I knew that was the last thing Mother needed, but I could do nothing else. I slept, and then the next thing I know, I saw you. I saw you, you know,” Seth continued.
“You were all in white, calling to me, taking my hand, cooling me, and then I was blinking and here and…. I feel so good.”
Seth lay with his head against Jesus’s breast and Jesus stroked his head and Judas said to John, “No jealousy?”
“Jealousy?” John said, thinking how there was so much Judas did not understand and so many words he never needed to speak.
“How can I be jealous? This boy feels like my own little brother, and I have never had a little brother. He is the image of me. As his mother over there could be my Aunt Mary.”
Heedless of Judas, who had often lain with he and Jesus, John took a bit of bread, dipped it in broth, and reclined on the breast of Jesus so that he was looking into Seth’s face. He slipped the bread into Seth’s open mouth, and wiped his chin. The young man grinned.
“And now,” Seth said, dreamily, “I can go back to helping Amma again.”
“Or you can go off and learn,” John said while Jesus, whom they both reclined on, who stroked both of their heads fondly, said nothing.
“No!” Seth protested.
“Life is for the living,” John said. “And you are alive. Once you have passed the gate of death you must live in a different way than you have in the past. Come with us. We’re going north. We may even go into Syria.”
“We are going to Syria,” Jesus confirmed amidst the music, and reached over John for his cup of wine.
“Shall I come?” Seth wondered, “after you brought me back into this world for my mother’s sake.”
“I brought you back for your own sake, and for God’s,” Jesus said, “and for the sake of my own sorrow.”
He held the cup to Seth’s lips and the young man drank.
“John is right,” Jesus said. “Life is for the living. Let the dead bury their dead. You were almost buried today. Do not live as if it had happened.”
The next day they traveled on, pressing toward Nazareth.
“I miss the old house,” John declared as Jesus threw one arm over him and another over Seth. Beside them walked Photine and Miriamne, the widow who had cast aside her black for a white gown and a red robe.
“When I was a girl, that was still in the days of the first Herod, who was more of a monster than all the others. He was married to Miriamne, the granddaughter of the High Priest Hyrcanus. Now she was the most beautiful woman in the world some said, and Herod supposedly loved her greatly. But he was full of madness and jealousy, and so he put her to death. Strangled her with a silken thread. In those days the men could not protest without crucifixion, but the women did it in a quiet way, naming their daughters in honor of the dead queen, the last true queen of Israel. And so I bear her name.”
And so many had born her name, or a variation of it. Mariah, Mara, Miriam, from which all these names had sprung, and Mary his own mother, Jesus thought, women all over the land rebelling against the monstrous Herod, not with weapons, but with baby girls who bore the name of his wife.
“They say though he killed her, he kept her body preserved in honey,” Jude said.
“But I have heard it was the second Miriamne,” said one of Miriamne’s sisters.
“He preserved her body in honey and so it is said, when lust over came him, took her out and had his way with her.”
“What a foul story!” Photine exclaimed. “Still, I would put nothing past him.”
The women’s reminded Jesus of his sisters, his aunts, his mother and of Magdalene and Marta, presumably at the house in Sepphoris. There were so many of his friends he had left behind when he had sent the twelve out and traveled south, and his heart was eager for them.
They arrived in the town of Nazareth even as it was nearly time for the lighting of Sabbath lamps. The house of Mary and Joseph was large, and those who had come with Jesus a great festive party, spread to the roves, the yard, the courtyard and to the street outside the house. Joseph’s sisters were glad to take some of them in, and news of the wonders that had taken place in the south, and things he had been said in Jerusalem buzzed through the town like lightning, the stories by their very nature taking some of the Sabbath peace away.
It was good to see Joses and his wife and children again, Tirzah, Milcom, Alexander and Cleo. It was good to be reunited with Rachel and Cleophas, good to enjoy hot bread and honey from the comb, fresh baked fish, apples and figs and wine, good cold water to wash it all down. A smile split Mary’s face as she gazed on her son and the beautiful John on one side of him and Seth on ther other. Placing his harp down, for trilling the strings was work and this was the Sabbath, Jude sang:
“It is good to praise the Lord
and make music to your name, O Most High,
proclaiming your love in the morning
and your faithfulness at night,
to the music of the ten-stringed lyre
and the melody of the harp.
For you make me glad by your deeds, Lord;
I sing for joy at what your hands have done.
How great are your works, Lord,
how profound your thoughts!
Senseless people do not know,
fools do not understand,
that though the wicked spring up like grass
and all evildoers flourish,
they will be destroyed forever.”
And all through the Sabbath night, news of Jesus filled the quiet little city.
In the morning, a great party surrounding Jesus as if he was the bride on her wedding day, swayed toward the synagogue at the top of the hill, and with Judas and John, James and Seth at his side, Jesus’s voice rose above the others as they sang:
“Who may ascend the hill of the LORD?
Who may stand in His holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to an idol
He will receive blessing from the LORD
and vindication from the God of his salvation.
Such is the generation of those who seek Him,
who seek Your face, O God of Jacob.”
The Samaritans and the women climbed to the roof and the grilled outer sections, but the men of Israel swayed into the main hall singing.
“Senseless people do not know,
fools do not understand,
that though the wicked spring up like grass
and all evildoers flourish,
they will be destroyed forever.
But you, Lord, are forever exalted.
For surely your enemies, Lord,
surely your enemies will perish;
all evildoers will be scattered.”
Those who had not come with Jesus were swaying now too, and they added their slightly irritated voices to the voices of those surrounded Jesus.
“You have exalted my horn like that of a wild ox;
fine oils have been poured on me.
My eyes have seen the defeat of my adversaries;
my ears have heard the rout of my wicked foes.”
After this, the service resumed with a jubilation that Simon and Jacob noted was rarely present in the Nazareth synagogue. What was this party, this irreverence their brother was here to bring? What was the burbling underground laughter? And what would the leaders of the synagogue think? But Jesus was not laughing, He was not mocking His eyes were closed, his hands folded to his chest as he swayed back and forth until, at last, he was called to read the haftarah, the second reading of the synaguge service that was taken from the prophets. As he arrived, veiled in white at the bema, a large scroll was handed to him, heavy and ancient, made from skins of long gone animals and written with fading ink. The head of the synagogue handed him a pointer and told him where to read and slowly Jesus opened scroll and read the ancient symbols which, to those who had the training, became words.
“Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.
For behold, darkness covers the earth,
and thick darkness is over the peoples;
but the LORD will rise upon you,
and His glory will appear over you.
Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
Lift up your eyes and look around:
They all gather and come to you;
your sons will come from afar,
and your daughters will be carried on the arm.
Then you will look and be radiant,
and your heart will tremble and swell with joy,
because the riches of the sea will be brought to you,
and the wealth of the nations will come to you.
Caravans of camels will cover your land,
young camels of Midian and Ephah.”
Those who had come with him nodded in joy, clasped their hands, unclasped them, clasped them again. A great rumble ran through the synagogue. In Sychar, Jesus had revealed to Photine how he knew every part of her. In Nain he had raised a dead boy to full and astounding life and spilled joy like wine on all those who had followed him here.
Now he called out:
“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me,
because the LORD has anointed Me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives
and freedom to the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
and the day of our God’s vengeance,
to comfort all who mourn,
to console the mourners in Zion—
to give them a crown of beauty for ashes,
the oil of joy for mourning,
and a garment of praise for a spirit of despair.
So they will be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.
They will rebuild the ancient ruins;
they will restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities,
the desolations of many generations.
Strangers will stand and feed your flocks,
and foreigners will be your plowmen and vinedressers.
But you will be called the priests of the LORD.”
He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. Now he looked around at so many strange faces as well those he’d always known like Joachim the Miller’s son or Yark the Tanner’s boy.
Many were men of Nazareth he had never known, who scowled on this strange interruption and to them, Jesus said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
They were enjoying him, murmuring to each other. None of the awful business that had happened in the other cities happened here, and if he did have some followers, was a little eccentric,what of it? All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. Some who were old said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”
And then, in the midst of the murmuring, Jesus said:
“Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”
While murmuring went around the room, Jesus continued“Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his own home. There were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.”
“What?”
“What’s that?”
“What’s the bastard saying?”
“And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
The murmuring grew to a low roar and men reached out to seized him, while John, shouting, was pulled away by Joses. Meanwhile, as the disciples tried to catch Jesus ad Judas was punched in the nose, the Nazarenes rose, driving him out of the synagogue into the blinding sunlight where they surrounded him like a bee ball, buzzing and stinging to kill.
“Jesus!” Seth called out in a broken voice, “Jesus!”
Peter and Andrew and Nathanael tried to fight themselves to head of the storm which took Jesus out of the town, and to the brow of the hill overlooking the rocky defile.
But even as, helpless, the disciples and family of Jesus watched the men in their murderous ball of flesh, buzzing as it rolled to the cliff, Seth turned around to see Jesus standing alone and quiet.
At the hill top they were screaming, “Where is he! Where is he! Get the bastard! Get ‘em!”
But Jesus, his white robe and mantle stained with hand prints and dirt only said to those who surrounded him:
“Last night was good enough. We must be moving.”
“The Sabbath is not done, and neither is the midday meal,” said Mary, who had been, until then, in the midst of her sisters in law and the other women, looking anxious.
“They may find us in the old house,” Jesus said.
“They won’t if you don’t want them to,” said Mary.
Jesus put his hand to his chest and bowed to his mother.
He nodded and took Mary’s hand, and that huge party headed back to the house and away from the clamor.
