Six

And was there not that prophesy--of Isaiah, was it?--that talked about a new world where lions ate hay and children played with poisonous snakes? Something to that effect. Was it just poetry, or was it what would really happen when true justice was established on the earth?

And it might--it just might--actually happen! And Andrew and Simon and John might be movers of it!

No, it was absurd.

But the thunder had spoken, and Jesus seemed to know what had happened to John, even though he had no opportunity of finding it out.

Andrew felt like running and leaping, as he threaded his way among all the rushing Judeans toward Simon. He went to the room where the lawyers had been discussing their problem, and was told, "He just now left. He said if you came looking for him, he would be at his room, since he had the final papers and wanted to put them safely away."

"Then it is really over?"

The man grinned. "I think we can say so. It is all now in 'simple Aramaic' that is nevertheless as tight as it ought to be."

"If I may say so, this is a miracle surpassing the crossing of the Red Sea."

The man laughed. "Given the persistence of your brother and the difficulties he raised with our perfectly clear 'complications,' as he called them, you might not be far from wrong."

"Well, we are grateful for what you have done. Peace."

"Peace, my friend. I hope we have not disrupted yours too much." He closed the door quietly, still wearing an amused grin.

Andrew then hurried over to the room, and found Simon carefully inserting the papers into his backpack. "We have found the Prince!" he exclaimed to Simon.

"So you think he really is this Son of Thunder?"

"It seems to me that there is no question about it. He started talking to us, and was reminding John of some conversation he had with a person named Daniel, and John was dumbstruck at how he could have known. He simply seemed to take it as a matter of course. He asked us if we wanted to be

a part of changing the whole world. And he looked as if he meant it! And not only that, he looked as if he could do it! As if we could do it!

"What did he mean, 'changing the whole world'?"

"Well, he did not say, but I suspect he meant restoring it to the condition it was in before Adam's sin ruined it."

"Oh, come now! You mean with no death, and--and no sickness, and all that?"

"Well, why not, if he is really the Son of the Almighty? Which must mean that he is the Almighty, wearing human skin. I mean, the Master is not someone like Jupiter."

"I fondly hope not!"

"And anyway, there are those prophesies that when the Prince comes the whole world is going to be transformed."

"You mean, lions and lambs lying down together? That sort of thing?"

"It is there in Scripture."

"And you think it is actually going to happen?"

"Why not?"

"You are insane!"

"Come and see!"

As they approached, they heard Jesus say to John, "But we will have to talk further later. I think I hear Andrew returning."

"I have enough just in these few moments to occupy myself for months!" exclaimed John.

Jesus laughed again. "If you stay with me, you will have enough to occupy yourself for five lifetimes! But fear not."

At this point, as the two men entered the room through the open door, Jesus looked at Simon, stroked his beard, and said, "You are Simon, son of John. You will be called Kepha."

All three looked at him, astonished. "You will be called 'Rock'?" What could that possibly mean?

"I seem to be making everyone speechless today," said Jesus. "It is that I am so happy to have at last started on the path that is laid out for me, and found those who will wish to travel it in my company. Let me remind you," he added, looking at Simon, "of what you heard two days ago," and Simon, apparently hearing the thunder once again, stared at him, his hair standing up in dread. The others eyed him; this time, he seemed to know what the thunder said.

"You do wish to join me, do you not?" continued Jesus, and all said, "Yes, Rabbi," and Simon added, "Of course!" in a voice half of terror.

"It is well," said Jesus. "You have concluded your negotiations here?" he asked Simon.

"Yes, finally!" he exclaimed. "That is, unless they find some further complication. How they can make something so simple into a--a twisted net of words!"

Jesus laughed. "Then perhaps it would be a good idea to escape before they can think of something else. The irony is, of course, that if you choose to follow me, all of this is, as they would say, moot."

They looked at each other.

"And I must tell you," Jesus went on, not expecting a reply, "that I myself have something that I must do for the next forty days, after which I can join you in Galilee. And John, you yourself must take a month to decide what kind of life you wish to live--and the two of you would be wise to do the same. If you follow me, your lives will be very, very different."

"I am certain, Master, that we will follow you, whatever comes," said Simon.

"You have no idea what you are saying, Simon. You will follow me, but it will be nothing like what you think."

"It matters not. I am ready for anything."

"You will remember what you just said on the day you find that you are ready for nothing. But even that will be well. But all of you need a good night's sleep in preparation for your journey, and I myself must prepare myself. Peace."

"Peace," they answered, and he turned and left.

The beginning of that night was anything but restful. Andrew and Simon were together on one side of the room, tossing and turning, with John doing the same on the opposite side. After a while, Andrew whispered to Simon, "So you heard the thunder speak."

"I heard it again," whispered Simon, "but this time, I heard--I heard into it. I understood what it was saying. It was terrifying!"

"That was our experience when we heard it."

"I cannot understand why I missed it the first time! And did you see the way he looked at me? He looked right into me!"

"And he repeated a conversation John had that no one could have overheard. There is something very strange about him."

"And yet he is so ordinary, on the surface at least."

"I suspect he has let us glimpse a little below the surface."

"Well, as to that, you know," said Simon, "if we are going to convince our parents to let us follow him, he will have to go a good deal below the surface. Can you imagine what they will think?"

"But what can we do? How could we refuse to follow him?"

"Well, we will have to let him worry about it," and Simon turned over and closed his eyes.

And sleep actually did come, because they were young, in spite of their long and exciting day.

The next day, they set out for Galilee, and when they arrived, they separated, John going to his home and Andrew and Simon to their house, which was now just next door. Their parents welcomed them with considerable relief, considering that both had been absent from fishing for over two weeks, and in Zebedee's house and firm, only James was there. Simon and Andrew could not bring themselves to mention that they would probably all be absent permanently in a couple of months, deciding to postpone what would certainly be bad news until near the end of that time.

The result was a joyous reunion, at least until Zebedee stormed over. John had evidently told him that he would not be going to Annas's palace, but also would not be continuing to fish for them. He barged in, ranting about how Jesus had somehow seduced John, and he suspected Simon and Andrew, to follow him in some crackbrained notion that he was going to change the whole world. "I never would have thought it of Jesus!" he exclaimed. "He seemed a decent sort, but he is obviously looking for a way to separate us from every shekel we have earned or saved!"

This led to a considerable discussion, in which both Simon and Andrew joined, and tried to convince Zebedee and John, the father, that it was nothing at all like that, and that Jesus did have supernatural powers. Both parents scoffed, and finally things quieted down when Simon mentioned that Jesus was off doing something private ("Private!" sneered Zebedee) for forty days, and John was to consider whether he was going to return to Annas's school or not for a month.

Zebedee's wife, who had come over with him, said that she was going to go up to Nazareth on the morrow to talk to Jesus's mother, who was a very sensible, not to say holy, woman, and see what she thought of the whole matter, and the men agreed that that might be a wise move.

"In any case," said Simon's father, "we have a month or more before any of this bursts upon us, and so we can agree to continue as if nothing had happened until then. Perhaps everyone will forget all about it. We will be thinking, of course, but we need not do anything until Jesus comes back. Who knows? He himself may have forgotten all about it by then."

"Well, I can tell you as of this moment," said Zebedee, "that it will require a miracle on the order of the Twelve Plagues of Egypt to convince me that this is anything but a hoax! It will all but destroy our business! And after we just spent a week combining our two families! Nothing but hired hands! What do they think we can do? We are not getting any younger!"

"I must say," said Simon's father, "that I am in agreement, at least as things now stand. Either Jesus is a supernatural being--how absurd!--or he is not. If he is not, then there will be no sign that would convince us, and I am as adamant as you, Zebedee, that I will forbid it. It makes no sense! The whole thing is ridiculous, frankly, and, while I do not want to deny your experience, young people, there are ways of arranging these things. You have not lived as much as we and seen the lengths to which some people will go to--to in a word take other people's money."

The young people expostulated, and Simon's father said, "I know, I know. As I said, either he is a supernatural being or he is not. If he is, he will devise a way that will convince us, and if he is not, then we have reason in being very cautious. But we have a month before all this is to come upon us, and so let us drop the subject and wait. But do not get your hopes up too high."

There was the usual denouement in the conversation after this climax, but the young men had to admit that their parents had reason (to be perfectly frank, they themselves were having doubts now that Jesus was not with them), and so they agreed to let the matter drop until Jesus returned. James's brother John, they heard afterwards, even conceded that he would not tell James until close to the time they were to expect Jesus. "I do not want to influence him too much," he said.

The next day Zebedee's wife went to Nazareth, and returned, bewildered, half convinced that there was something there, but totally at a loss as to what exactly it was. She did put a damper on some of the scoffing of the parents, but did not convince them. "No, if this is something supernatural, I will have to witness a miracle! And no ordinary miracle! Nothing short of it!" exclaimed Zebedee. "Until then, we will wait."

And so they passed a relatively quiet month, with nothing actually said between parents and children, but many looks and much shaking of heads, especially when each thought no one else was looking. It was a preposterous idea, if one looked at it calmly, and the only thing it had in its favor is what the thunder said, and what Jesus seemed to know about what he could not have observed. But how much that counted began to fade as the month wore on and the familiar work of fishing became more real. Would they really abandon all this?

John waited for quite a while before he brought the matter up with James. He talked about it beforehand with Andrew, who agreed that it was best not to try to "recruit" James for Jesus, and so he merely made laconic remarks from time to time, trying not to influence him one way or the other. But when the month was all but over he thought he should let James know what had happened, in as detached and factual a way as possible, so that if James also wanted to join Jesus, he would have the evidence John had. James was skeptical.

As the period of waiting drew to what had to be its close, the young men became more and more nervous--and, it must be said, more and more convinced that what they had experienced in Judea was something like a dream. They went on fishing, and it became more and more their real life; they started out at evening, generally, and spent the night at it, so that the women could have their pick of the catch when they came to the market, looking in at the vats with the fish squirming about, and picking out this and that one, which the men then wrapped and gave to them in their own buckets they carried on their heads, to keep the fish alive until the last minute before they cooked them.

Generally, they (and the Zebedees also) had a considerable catch, most of which they got rid of in short order, throwing back what no one seemed to want. It would not do to have two-day-old fish on the morrow; the women insisted that they be fresh.

One night, however, they caught absolutely nothing. This happened every now and then, but fortunately very rarely; but there were times when the fish just seemed to congregate somewhere the fishermen had not yet discovered. Simon cast the last net as dawn lightened the sky, and said to Andrew, "It is time to go back. No luck today."

Dejected, Andrew rowed back to where the boats were moored, and Simon saw someone on the shore who seemed to be waiting for him. It was Jesus.

"May I use your boat for a while?" he shouted. "I wish to say a few words to these people." A small crowd had gathered around him on the shore. Andrew rowed as far in as he could, and Jesus waded over and climbed into the boat, standing on the seat in the stern.

From there, he gave a rather brief talk about the fact that what he called the Reign of God was almost about to begin, and that the people would have to prepare themselves for a new order of things. "You have heard the prophesies," he said. "They are about to be fulfilled. I will tell you more about what is to happen as time goes on. For now, I simply want to advise you to begin to change your way of thinking, so that you will be ready for the Reign of God when it starts. Try to make yourselves ready."

"I think that is enough for a start," he said to Andrew, who was behind him. "And now, if you would go back into deep water and lower your nets for a catch."

Andrew looked back at Simon, who was as exhausted as he. He shook his head and said, "Master, we have been working hard all night, and have caught nothing at all." Jesus looked at him as if he understood, and so Simon added, "but if you say so, I will throw out the net."

Andrew rowed more or less at random into deep water, partly to get it over with, and Simon, once they began to drift, half-heartedly threw out the net--and suddenly, it was filled with a huge number of fish, and looked as if it might break.

They called to their mates with Simon's father in the other boat, and they too rowed over, and both boats were quickly filled until they were almost swamped.

Simon then came back to Jesus and fell at his feet, "Leave me, Master! I am a sinful man!"

"Do not be afraid," answered Jesus. "From now on, you will be catching men."

Their father John, who was in the second boat, stared openmouthed at them.

They quickly rowed to shore, and just before Andrew had shipped the oars after Jesus disembarked, and was about to help the others with the catch, Philip, the son of the wine-merchant, ran up panting and shouting, "Zebedee has been run over by a hay cart, and both of his legs have been broken! He looks as if he is going to die!"

Jesus heard him, and said to everyone, "Fear not. He wanted a sign, and this is it; all will be well. But I must go to him. You stay and take care of all these fish first; and fear not. I will fetch John and James. All will be well; you will see." And he strode off, leaving the group in total confusion, with the two boats full of fish.

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