Twenty-Nine

They arrived in Jerusalem at evening, and went to the Gethsemani garden again, and because they had traveled severally through the night by different routes (since Jesus did not want in known where the whole group was going), Andrew entered looking for John when he arrived. He found him apparently talking to himself; but when his eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness, it turned out that he was conversing with Ezra, who was all but invisible. He kept himself apart, wondering if they were mere friends.

"--cannot keep it in!" Ezra was exclaiming in a whisper. That fiend! That devil! put a tarantula in Bartholomew's pouch during the night! I saw him do something to the pouch, but did not realize what it was. And then early this morning, for the first time, he condescended to notice my existence--we were traveling together--and asked me to go to Jacob's well for water. Bartholomew had not waked yet. When I came back, Judas was gone, and Bartholomew was in a panic. He had put his hand into his pouch, and felt the spider--he has a deadly fear of spiders--and almost could not speak! He must pay for this! And dearly!"

"Did it bite him?"

"No, but it frightened him half to death!" He disappeared again, looking for Judas.

John, also left, but fortunately was visible, and Andrew followed, losing him for a while in a wood beside a stream. But after a time, he noticed two men, naked, who had evidently stripped for a fight, writhing on the ground. The one on top looked like Judas, and the other (who was difficult to see beneath him), could easily be John.

But at the moment, at least, it did not look much like a fight; it seemed that they were engaged in sex, judging by the motions that Judas was making--but John also, if it was John.

He thought he heard Judas pant, "Admit it, you enjoy it!" Good God!

John stopped struggling, which did not stop Judas, and so he resumed, now struggling harder, and it seemed to Andrew that he was trying--as he had been trying, perhaps, to extricate himself; but if so, Judas had him thoroughly pinned, and struggling was only making matters worse. And not long after came the release, and they lay still, both of them, until finally Judas stood up and said something to John--it was John, Andrew could now see--and left.

John just lay there.

Andrew turned away in disgust. But then as he walked away, it occurred to him that perhaps Judas had injured him, and he might need help. He turned back and heard John sob, "How could I have let him do that!" Then, with tears streaming down his face, he grabbed his tunic and mantle and rushed over to the stream, where he began frantically to wash himself, saying over and over, "How could I? How could I? How could I? How could I?"

Andrew saw that this was the worst time to show himself to John, who evidently was not hurt, and so he walked for a long time in the woods. His feeling of disgust at the whole episode was all but overwhelming, and almost made him hate John for doing such things.

But as he calmed down somewhat, it occurred to him that John was also overcome by disgust--and guilt that he had not prevented it! He had been overpowered by Judas, who doubtless was "teaching him a lesson," as he had taught Nathanael with the tarantula Ezra spoke of, and--and Thomas with the wine instead of water.

"One of you is a devil!" Jesus had said. It was obvious which one. But what could he be thinking? Why would he do such things? Was it pure malice, hatred for those who were trying to be faithful followers of Jesus? He found the weakness of each person and exploited it--presumably to show that it was a waste of time to follow Jesus and to try to correct one's faults, because they remained after over a year of effort.

Judas had failed in following Jesus, and he wanted everyone else connected with Jesus to fail. He was a menace!

Poor John! Obviously, he could not mention this to him, for that would only add to John's humiliation. He resolved to show special friendship to him; he needed someone he admired to be his friend right now.

So he went back to the garden to see if he could catch some sleep for the rest of the night--and saw that John had also returned, and was tossing in a fitful sleep, from the reaction to what he had been through.

As the group rose the next morning, Andrew went with them to the Temple, noticing that John was now sleeping the sleep of exhaustion. Well, he would find them when he woke.

It must have been around noon when he arrived; and to Andrew's joy, he went beside him in the crowd around Jesus. Andrew put his arm over his shoulder and drew him to himself, as they heard Jesus say,

"--give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's," at which everyone laughed and commented, "Excellent!" "Look at their faces! They are enraged!" John looked at Andrew, who said, "They asked him if one should pay taxes to Caesar or not, and he asked for a denarius and asked whose image was on it, you see."

But while Andrew was saying this, some others dragged a woman forward, her hair askew and robes rumpled, struggling to free herself from their grasp. They stood her in front of Jesus.

"Rabbi, this woman has been arrested in the very act of adultery; and Moses in the Law has commanded us to stone her sort. What do you have to say about it?"

The crowd fell silent once again; and to Andrew, the dilemma was obvious. If Jesus dismissed her, he was violating the Law; but how could a man who claimed to be able to forgive sins stone a sinner? John pointed at someone in the crowd opposite them

"Is that not Mary Magdalene?" he asked Andrew.

"Knew you not?" She is actually the sister of Martha and Lazarus!" Andrew had heard a rumor to this effect, and realized it must be true, because there was Martha beside her.

John drew in his breath. "Do they know?"

"Not yet, it seems. To them, she is just the long-lost sister returned because of Jesus."

"Dear God! What will happen when they find out?"

"That is what everyone is wondering."

Jesus, who seemed a bit nonplused by the difficulty the woman presented, kept a calm face. He sat there on the step, tracing his finger in the dust beside him, then erasing the patterns he made. "Should she be stoned or not, according to your view of God's Law?" said the accuser. Then he added with a sneer, "Do you find the answer there in the dust?"

At this, Jesus straightened up and looked him directly in the eyes. "Have some sinless one among you," he said, "be the first to throw a stone." And again he bent over and resumed writing in the dust.

But now he seemed to be writing something legible, and as he glanced up, ostensibly to see if anyone had picked up a stone, he looked at his questioner and gave the slightest nod toward what he had written--at which the man's face flamed, and he turned away. Jesus erased what was there, wrote something else, and looked up again. By this time, several people had already left, and the one whose eyes he now met did not bother to glance down at the writing, but quietly pretended that he had not even seen Jesus, and moved away also.

It did not require many glances up from what he had been doing for the crowd to become remarkably sparse; and then Jesus wrote in the ground and looked straight at John and Andrew.

"What does it say?" said Andrew to John. He could not read.

"It says, 'Rape. See me.' What could it mean?" Puzzled, they stood there as everyone else dispersed. Jesus looked at the woman, and said, "Where are they, Madame? Has no one condemned you?"

"No one, Sir," she said.

"Nor do I condemn you. Go in peace." She hurried off.

Jesus beckoned to John and Andrew, who were the only ones left. "I wanted to tell you why I did not stone the woman. I could not. You see, I knew what the situation really was."

The two stood silent. "She loved a man very much, but he was married. He met her, and told her he wanted to go away with her. She wished very much to do so, but told him that she could not, for he was married, and she could not go with a married man. At this, he seized her, threw her on a couch, and raped her. In spite of herself, she experienced great pleasure in what he was doing, though she kept struggling to free herself. And it was at this point that the others came upon them and brought her to me.

"She herself felt guilty because she had experienced pleasure from the act; but all the time, she was trying to avoid and escape it. She was guilty of nothing in fact, because pleasure and pain are automatic and beyond our control. It was what she wanted and tried to do that was her true self, not what she felt. She had no need to feel guilt at all."

He looked intently at Andrew, who immediately saw the application to John, and thoughtfully nodded; and then he looked at John. It was as much to say, "You have no guilt whatever in what Judas did to you, no matter how you felt about it."

"Thank you, Master," said John, softly, and Andrew said, "Yes. I understand. Thank you."

"Go in peace now, and stop worrying so much." He smiled a loving smile upon them both.

Each was aware that what he had said had a special meaning for the other person, and each knew that that meaning was to remain private to the person. They looked at each other silently, and went their separate ways.

Andrew remembered Jesus's saying to John, "Do not be afraid to love anyone, or even to hug him," and now he was telling John, "and if something happens against your will, do not be guilt-ridden about it. It was no sin." And obviously, Andrew's feeling of disgust at what he saw was something to try to overcome, because it involved no sin at all on John's part. Jesus had confirmed what he had thought.

Did he not hear Jesus's voice? He wandered in that direction. Was he not saying, "You will die in your sins"? It sounded like it.

He came up within earshot, and heard Jesus say, "If you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins!"

Here it was beginning! Not, "if you do not believe what I am, but if you do not believe that I am. He was using God's name to refer to himself, and saying that we must believe in who he is: one and the same as the Father. It was not perfectly clear that that was what he was saying, but it almost bore no other interpretation.

And the night of the storm, when he walked to them on the water, did he not say, "I AM, be not afraid"?

The sense that he was calling himself God Almighty, however, was lost on the crowd. But he then said, "When you lift up the Son of Man"--and he held his arms out in the form of a cross. The form of a cross!--"you will recognize what I AM, and that I do nothing by myself and only say what the Father has taught me." A step closer; but it implied that it would become clear only with Jesus's crucifixion!

But at this, some of the people turned away in disgust. "He never comes out and says he is the Prince, and keeps telling us conundrums! He is a waste of time!"

But Jesus was saying to those who remained. "--real students of mine. You will recognize what the truth is, and the truth will set you free." Andrew was sure that he recognized the truth.

"We are children of Abraham," said someone in the crowd. "We have never been slaves. How can you tell us we will be set free?"

"Amen amen I tell you," said Jesus, "anyone who commits a sin is a slave; and a slave does not stay in the family forever. The Son stays in it forever. And if the Son frees you, you really will be free."

Andrew thought, And the Son has freed John from his guilt, and now he really is free! How glorious!

"--telling you," said Jesus, "what I saw with the Father, and you are doing what you heard from your father!"

"Our father is Abraham!" they shouted.

"If you are Abraham's children, then act like Abraham!" Jesus countered. "But no! You are trying to kill me, a person who has spoken to you of the facts he heard from God! Abraham did not do that sort of thing. No, you are doing what your real father does."

"We are not bastards!" shouted the crowd. "We have the one God for our father!"

Jesus said sadly, "If God were your father, you would love me," said Jesus, "because I came from God. And I did not come of myself; he sent me. Then why can you not understand what I say? Because you cannot hear my words! You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and could not bear the truth, because the truth was not in him. And when he tells lies, he does what is natural to himself, because he is a liar, and the father of liars. And when I tell you what the truth is, you do not believe me!"

The people were making outraged cries that he was the one who had a devil. Jesus looked out over them with anger and said, "Can any one of you name one sin that I have committed? Then if I tell you what the truth is, why do you not believe it? Anyone who belongs to God can hear what God says--and so you cannot hear, because you do not belong to God!"

The silly things they had against Jesus, such as telling the cripple to take his mat and walk, were all that they could allege against him--and who would say that such a thing was a sin? But what else did they have, except his claim that he came from God? And how could that be a sin, if it was true?

"--men I tell you," said Jesus, "Anyone who keeps what I say will never see death!" What was that? He was promising that if they followed him, they would never die!

"Now we know you are out of your mind!" shouted someone in the crowd. "Abraham died, and so did the prophets! And you say"--he repeated Jesus's words with bitter sarcasm--"that if anyone 'keeps what you say' he will not taste death forever! Are you greater than our ancestor Abraham? Who died! Or the prophets? Who died! Just who are you making yourself out to be?" The crowd roared assent.

Jesus looked out at them and let them calm down somewhat. Then he raised his hand for silence, and said calmly, "If I were to tell you how great I am, my greatness would be nothing. But there is my Father," he pointed to the sanctuary of the Temple, "who is showing how great I am. He is the one you call your God--but you do not recognize him. But I know him. If I said I did not know him, I would be a liar like you. I do know him, because I came from him, and he sent me!"

Now he was saying that he came from God, and God sent him. But he had called himself "I AM" just a short while ago.

Then Jesus looked over them once again, and said, "And your ancestor Abraham was glad to see that my day was coming; and when he saw it come, it filled him with joy!"

"You are not even fifty years old," shouted the man who had spoken earlier, and you have 'seen Abraham!'" Everyone laughed, and Jesus, stung, broke into their cacophony with the angry retort, "Amen amen I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM!"

One could hear the intake of breath as the whole crowd reacted in stunned horror. Jesus stood there in front of them for a silent moment, and then cries of "Blasphemy!" "He has blasphemed on the very steps of the Temple!" as people scurried about to find stones to throw at him.

--To throw at no one. He was not there.

Next