Thirty-Four

But he will not do what we ask him now, thought Andrew: he will not keep himself from being killed, no matter how fervently we want it, and no matter how many of us ask it. Because he knew, for some reason, that what was going to happen would minimize the damage to us, and leave him to make the sacrifice, which for some reason now had to be made.

True, the Judean people--and for that matter, the Romans in the person of Pontius Pilate--had not yet formally rejected him. But they would. He would give them more chances to accept him, but they would not.

And thus, we could not go where he was going now, but he would come back and take us to where he really was--with the Father, one supposes--and then every tear would somehow be wiped away. How? How impossible to believe!

Andrew kept saying to himself, "Do not do it, Master; we are not worth it! Do not do it, Master; we are not worth it!" But he knew that. He loves us because we are, not because we are worth anything. It makes no sense! If that is love, how can anyone love as he loves! To love those who most deserve hate! He loves even Judas! Even now!

With human beings it is impossible, but with God everything is possible. It is not possible for me! I have tried to try, and cannot even do that!

He all but heard Jesus tell him, "Be patient." and he wanted to scream aloud in reply, but did not.

Then, toward the end of the dinner, Jesus held up one of the pieces of unleavened bread, and said, "Take this and eat it. This is my body, which will be given up for you." He handed pieces to each of them. So that was what it was. This was, "Unless you eat the meat of my body, you will not have life in you"!

Another thing impossible to believe! This "bread" which Andrew took was Jesus's body! Well, if God the Son could transform himself into a man, why could not God the Man transform himself into a piece of bread? One was just as absurd as the other. So if I can believe the one, why can I not believe the other?

And he ate the body of his Master.

And of course, it was no different from eating bread, just as seeing God before him was no different from seeing a man--except, he suspected, on Mount Tabor, when Simon and John and James were frightened out of their wits by seeing something approximating what Jesus really would look like if divinity were visible.

And his eating the "bread" which was Jesus put Jesus inside him, made him somehow grow into Jesus--not "another" Jesus, but the one Jesus, just as each part of the bread was one and the same bread. He was now somehow one and the same as Jesus--except that only the Jesus in front of him was going to be nailed up stark naked!

And then he took the cup and declared. "Take this, all of you--and he pointedly looked at Thomas when he said this--and drink from it. This is the cup of my blood, ratifying the new treaty--blood which will be shed for you and for many, many others so that sins will be forgiven."

Andrew wondered how Thomas would react when the cup was passed to him. He looked at Jesus who, just as in Cana, nodded permission, but as he tasted the blood, fear filled his face; it was, as Andrew knew, exactly like wine. But it would do him no harm. How could it, if Jesus has given him permission? Still, Thomas was struggling with the sensation.

"Come now; let us go out."

As they walked through the darkness, Jesus was saying, "What I really am is a vine, and my Father is the farmer. He cuts off every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and prunes back every one that does bear fruit, so that it will bear more. And you have already been pruned by what I said to you. Stay in me, and let me stay in you. You cannot bear fruit unless you stay in me, any more than a branch can bear fruit if it does not stay on the vine."

So we were Jesus, Andrew mused. The vine included the branches, and the branches on the vine were really in part what the vine was; they lived as the vine. So I somehow live as myself and as Jesus, insofar as I am a branch of his. Jesus is not simply myself, but I am in some sense also Jesus! What a mystery!

And I feel no different. No different at all. The Age of Faith has begun, where we will no longer see what is real, and will have to believe it without seeing. God save us!

And of course, he is saving us by this horror!--this outrage!--this abomination Judas is bringing on us! No, that the Judean people--And the Romans, because Judeans do not crucify--that the human race is bringing on us!

Judas had been cut off the vine, Andrew surmised; he would wither and be lost, unless he was grafted back in. Andrew could not bring himself to wish that this would happen.

"You did not choose me," Jesus was saying. "I chose you, and I have put you here for you to go on and bear fruit, and for your fruit to last! But I command you to love each other." Andrew thought he could not love Judas. How could he? With man it is not possible, but with God everything is possible.

But not yet, if ever! Let us get through this, Master, first! It was the coward's way out, he knew--and he tried to try, but failed again.

And then Jesus prayed for them, that they too would be one and the same thing as he was, just as he was one and the same thing as the Father. And presumably Andrew was living with Jesus's own life, after he had eaten and drunk him. He was in some sense God Almighty.

A sorry example of God Almighty! How hard it was to believe all this! If this was the Age of Faith, he was grateful that he had lived through its prelude and actually seen things that made faith possible. He pitied future generations, who had to rely on what he and his descendants--if there ever were any--said.

They arrived at the garden. As they went through the gate, Jesus told them to wait and try to sleep while he went over farther with John, hiss brother James and the Rock, where he prostrated himself on a large stone, and prayed, obviously in agony himself. Andrew felt another twinge of jealousy that he did not belong to that group.

But then he thought that he perhaps did not need the special treatment that they needed. Certainly Simon did--expecially if he were to be their chief when Jesus was no longer with them. Andrew then thanked God that he did not have the task of representing an absent Jesus. Perhaps Simon, who did not take time to think, would be able to manage it.

And there was Jesus, pleading with the Father, and begging the Father to take his cup from his lips! "But have your will be done, not mine!" This was Jesus-the-man pleading with the identical being Jesus-as-God! Evidently the God-aspect of Jesus knew what he had to undergo, and the human aspect rebelled with all his might. But then: "But have your way, not mine." The human "side" of Jesus submitted, for all his terror and anguish. Now that he would be rejected, it had to be!

He came back for comfort, and they were asleep! He complained, but seemed to understand. Andrew could not sleep, but the ones Jesus needed to lean on could not stay awake! If I had been there, with Jesus relying on me, would I be able to stay awake? He doubted it.

And Jesus went back to praying again, and his face became bloody, somehow, as if his sweat were blood! He was writhing on the ground in agony--but there was some being there who was comforting him, a being Andrew could somehow sense without seeing.

Once again Jesus came back, but now he said in a voice of trembling with agony and total exhaustion, "Sleep, now, and try to rest." and then lifted his head as he heard a noise. "Rise, let us go forward. The traitor is here," he said calmly, as if the crisis had strengthened him to endure it, in spite of his weakened condition. Blood was still streaming over his face, but he made no effort to wipe it off, as one who is in great sorry makes no effort to wipe away his tears. Tears of blood from every pore in his head!

And through the gate came Judas with a contingent from the High Priest and some Roman soldiers, armed with torches, lanterns, clubs, and other weapons..

Judas then came up and kissed Jesus. Kissed him! Kissed him! And then wiped off the blood that had transferred to his face. As if he could! That blood would cling to Judas until his death! Which could not come soon enough!

Jesus made a reply in a low voice, and then stepped forward and said, "Who is it you are looking for?"

"Jesus of Nazareth," answered the soldier in charge.

"That is the one I AM," said Jesus, and the words "I AM" rang through the garden like the tolling of a huge bell, almost deafening everyone. The soldiers, along with Judas, stepped back, and fell prostrate in terror.

After a short while of dead silence, Jesus said again, "Who is it you are looking for?"

The attackers got to their feet, and the commander answered in a small, shaking voice, "Jesus of, ah, Nazareth."

"I told you that was the one I was," said Jesus.

Then the Rock, who had for some unaccountable reason a sword, drew it and slashed at the head of one of the High Priest's slaves; but the slave dodged, and all he accomplished was to cut off his ear. Typical. Andrew felt like grabbing the sword from him and doing some real damage, and being gloriously killed in the scuffle! But he did nothing, of course.

"Put your sword back in its sheath!" snapped Jesus, and the Rock, trembling, complied. "Am I not to drink the cup the Father has given me?"

"Allow me to do this much," he told the commander, and picked up the man's ear and reattached it. Everyone was dumbfounded, and simply stood there, while Jesus said, "If I am the one you want, then let these people go," and waved for his students to escape, and Andrew, like all the other cowards, ran toward the gate, Andrew hoping that some soldier would slash at him and put him out of his misery. But all the soldiers and the high priest's slaves just stood there, watching them.

Andrew, like most of the others, ran up the hill until he could go no farther. He stopped, his hand on a low wall, panting and gasping for breath.

No one had followed. Just as no one noticed Jesus and his companions when Jesus did not want to be noticed, no one noticed them now. He was safe. Jesus wanted them not to be killed, and so they would not be killed.

Why was he safe? Why was he not there with Jesus?

Because it was not his sacrifice that mattered. His dying would simply be a waste, and Jesus, for some insane reason, loved him.

Then he might as well go back and see what was happening. But he now felt invincible, and took no care to hide himself. Evidently, they would take Jesus either to the Antonia fortress, or more probably to the High Priest's palace for trial first. Andrew wondered whether John would be able to get in to see it; he was too honest not to admit that he was a follower of Jesus--but on the other hand, he was a student of the former high priest himself, and everyone there knew him.

Andrew wandered down to the palace, and of course was not admitted. "Did John, son of Zebedee come here?" he asked the woman at the gate.

"He did. He is inside, with one other. But we cannot admit anyone else."

"I will wait outside, then."

And wait.

And wait.

He walked around the palace, how many times he could not count, but he simply could not stay in one place. Once or twice, he thought he saw another follower; but they were not eager to be seen, and certainly were not in a mood for chitchat. And, of course, no one could do anything.

After an inordinate time, Simon--so he was the one with John!--came out, sobbing and weeping.

Andrew went over, "What happened?"

"Ask me not! I would kill myself, except that I would botch even that! Ask me not!" And he ran off, in tears.

Did not Jesus say, "Before a rooster crows, you will repudiate me three times"? It must have happened. He got in with John, but someone probably became suspicious, because he had made such an ass of himself in the garden!--and of course, he would try to throw off suspicion. How well he knew Simon! He would not turn traitor; he would simply speak without thinking!

Well, who is to say that I would not do the same, if I were in there? He was in fear of his life, after all; one did not think clearly in those circumstances.

Of course, when did Simon ever think clearly?

Oh, well, what difference did it make? And the Master knew that it was going to happen, and so presumably forgave him.

What difference did anything make! The Master would be dead in twelve hours!

It could not happen!

But it was going to happen. And there was nothing that anyone--but Jesus--could do about it; and he would do nothing to prevent it. He even reattached the ear to the man Simon had mutilated! What a fool I have for a brother!

But what difference did it make?

Dear Master, dear Father, please! . . . And he could not even ask, because--and he remembered a passage from Isaiah, "How can I tell him? He is the one who has done it!"

He wanted to go somewhere--anywhere but here!--and wait until it was all over.

But he could not move.

Then, around dawn, a group of guards, one of whom seemed to be the centurion Matthew knew, took a battered, broken Jesus--Andrew gasped as he caught sight of him; he was all but unrecognizable, beaten unmercifully, with an enormous bruise under his left eye--out of the palace toward the Antonia, where the Governor, Pontius Pilate, had his headquarters. He followed. He noticed that John was there; he had come out of the palace, as Andrew surmised, but Andrew could not bring himself to ask what had happened. It was all too clear what had happened.

And they waited, along with several other students, each by himself and lost in his own agony, outside on what they called the "Pavement," looking up at a balcony where the Governor sometimes appeared. The members of the Sanhedrin did not enter, because that night was the Passover, and they would defile themselves if they went into a Gentile's establishment. Andrew thought with irony. "They do not want to defile themselves, while they defile themselves with the blood of the very God they claim to serve!

A crowd gathered.

And they waited.

The governor emerged, and asked, "What is the charge you are bringing against this man?" referring to Jesus, who had gone in with him.

"If he were not a criminal, we would not have brought him before you," was the shouted answer from one of the Judeans.

"Very well, then you take him and try him by your own laws."

"We are not allowed to put anyone to death!" they shouted. Pilate shrugged, and smiled his customary meaningless smile, and went back inside to speak once again to Jesus.

And they waited.

After a while, a rather nervous Pilate emerged, still with his false smile, and said, "I do not see that you have a case against him. And you have a custom that I let a prisoner go for you at the Passover. Do you wish me to release this 'King of Judea'?"

"Not him!" shouted the Pharisees. "Barabbas!" Pilate was not happy about this, but he went back inside, apparently to prepare Jesus for execution.

And they waited. For a long time.

Finally, a definitely nervous Pilate came out again and said, "I am now going to bring him out, to show you that I find nothing wrong with what he did." And Jesus emerged, full of blood and spittle, wearing a red soldier's cloak as if it were royal robes, and a crown on his head that seemed to be made of thorns. He swayed and almost fell, and one of the guards held him up. "There is your man," said Pilate; "look at him."

The people were too shocked to say anything for a moment, and then one of the Pharisees shouted, "Crucify him!" and the cry became a chorus. "Crucify him!"

There it was. They had managed to show him humiliated and degraded, and if there was one thing a Judean could not stand, it was someone in disgrace. The crowd instantly turned against him.

"You take him yourselves and crucify him," shouted Pilate over the din. "I have no crime to charge him with."

"We have a law," they screamed, "and that law says he has to die, because he made himself the Son of God!"

Pilate looked at Jesus with alarm and consternation. He went back inside with him. What was this? Had Jesus convinced him that he was more than human?

And they waited.

The Judeans were conferring as to what to do if he said he would let him go. They seemed to come to a consensus on the best answer.

Pilate came out, and in a shaken voice said, "I am going to release him. I--"

"If you let him go, you are no ally of Caesar!" they shouted. "Everyone who claims to be King is committing treason against Caesar!"

Pilate, trembling with fear that a riot would start, had his judgment-seat brought out and called for Jesus to be brought also. He stood him beside himself and said, "Look at him! That is your King!" It sounded as if he meant it.

But they had won, and they knew it. "Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!"

"You want me to crucify your King?" said Pilate.

"We have no King but Caesar!" they shouted.

Pilate's face gradually relaxed into the self-satisfied smirk he usually wore, and he sentenced Jesus to be crucified, first washing his hands in front of the people and claiming that he himself was innocent of his blood. No one paid attention. There was screaming and shouting everywhere, but there was no one who was a partisan of Jesus; they were all against him, now that they had seen him beaten and degraded. They only wanted the degradation to be complete by seeing him hanging naked on a cross, fouling himself with his own excrement.

And then Jesus and two other prisoners emerged, heavily guarded, with the cross-beams of their crosses on their backs. Jesus, now in his normal clothes, almost collapsed under his cross right at the beginning, because he had spent the night after that dreadful agony in the garden being beaten and mocked by the High Priest's guards, and then apparently whipped within an inch of his life by Pilate's soldiers, who afterward crowned him with the thorns and beat him over the head as they spat on him.

And after several steps, he did fall, and looked as if he was not going to get up. The soldiers lifted him to his feet again, and began looking around. Their eyes fastened on a man almost as big as Andrew, and they told him to carry Jesus's cross behind him. They did not want him dying before he experienced the crucifixion itself. Andrew tried to push himself forward to take the cross away from this man; it was the least he could do. But he could not force his way through, and eventually gave up.

On the way, Jesus saw his mother, who looked as if she were about to faint. They nodded to each other, silently. Jesus had to save his breath, and Mary had no words. John went up beside her and held her hand.

There were a number of women there also, who were not of those who were cursing and mocking him, and he did stop and say something to them as they wept. Andrew saw John trying to protect Mary from being crushed to death by the crowd.

And then Jesus fell again, now without the burden of the cross. Andrew again pushed forward, hoping to get beside Jesus and hold him up. But again he failed.

And Jesus slipped on the stones of the narrow street and fell once again, now about ten or a dozen cubits ahead of them, with the Skull Place in sight. It looked as if he could not get up this time, but the--the centurion was the one Matthew knew!--lifted him rather gently, with a look of extreme anguish on his face. Did he know who?--was he not the one whose commander's son was saved from death by a mere word from Jesus? He was! Then he must know who it was he was about to execute!

After an eternity, they arrived, and the prisoners were stripped and laid on top of the crossbeams. The centurion himself drove the nails into the heels of Jesus's hands. Jesus said something, and the centurion paused with eyes closed in pain and the mallet raised, and almost dropped it, but then steeled himself and drove the nail in, after which Jesus and the crossbeam were lifted onto the upright, and his feet nailed, one beside the other, onto the upright. The others were crucified in the same way, one on each side of Jesus. The screams were blood-curdling, though Jesus himself merely kept grunting in agony, trying to find a position which was not absolutely intolerable, and not finding one. He arched his back, but that drove the thorns into the back of his head, and apparently that pain was the worst of all.

John stood in front with Mary and her relative, Clopas's Mary; and then Mary Magdalene came up with them. And they watched and waited. Andrew kept himself back a bit. He simply could not go and actually talk with anyone.

And they waited.

And the soldiers finally began dividing the clothes they had taken off the prisoners; but when they saw that Jesus's tunic had no seams, one of them said, "We should not tear it; it will be worth more intact. Let us play dice for it." Andrew thought that was familiar somehow.

He saw John look at Mary and say, "This was prophesied!"

She answered. "I know."

"But what can it mean?"

"Ours," she answered, "is not to understand it; merely to endure it."

Andrew could not endure it, but he stayed there and endured it perforce, simply because he could not leave. And it began to grow dark in the middle of the day, without a cloud in the sky.

Someone screamed, "It is an eclipse of the sun!" and someone else answered, "No. Eclipses only happen on the new moon. The moon passes in front of the sun. The moon is now full. The sun is losing its light!"

"God have mercy on us!" Everyone began beating his breast.

Jesus looked over at his mother and John, and said, "Madam, thatis--that isyour--son." and then he said to John, "Thatisyour--mother." John, his eyes overflowing, took her hand again.

The centurion found Matthew in the crowd, and went over to him, speaking to him with a look of terror on his face.

And then Jesus said, "I am thirsty." and the centurion, in panic at the darkness, since it was almost as if it were night, called for a sponge, and dipped it in the bucket of wine the soldier had, putting it on his spear and holding it to Jesus's lips.

When he had moistened them, he said, "It is over!" and screamed and let his head drop.

And the scream prolonged itself into a huge roar, and the ground shook, and the rock on which they were standing split under them. Everyone fell to the ground.

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