Eleven

We arrived in Jerusalem toward evening, and went again to the garden on the Mount of Olives to sleep, after Jesus had sent word to a friend of his who lived nearby in Bethany, named Lazarus, that he had arrived in the area, and would dine with him and his sister Martha as usual on the morrow. Lazarus was an insufferable fool, who looked on Jesus as a kind of clown; and Jesus not only tolerated him, but encouraged him, as if he found his idiocy refreshing.

The next morning, we crossed the Kidron brook and went back into the city, going around the wall for some reason, and entering from the north by the Sheep Gate.

Jesus paused at the Bethesda Pool nearby, walking along the five porches that surrounded it, looking with pity on the blind, sick, lame and paralyzed people lying there, but doing nothing for a while. Tradition had it that at irregular intervals, the water would be disturbed--some said by an angel--and the first person to enter the water when this happened would be cured.

Finally, Jesus saw something that looked like an opportunity from the Father, since he stroked his beard and stopped by a paralyzed man, who had obviously been lying there a long time. Matthew asked someone how long he had been sick, and was told, "Thirty-eight years, if I recall correctly."

Jesus looked down at him and said, "Would you like to be cured?"

I suddenly realized that it was a Sabbath. This could be crucial.

"Master," said the man, who had no idea who the person speaking to him was, "I do not have anyone to put me in the pool when the water churns up; and while I am going there myself, someone else gets in before me." He would have had to drag himself along by his hands; everything below his waist was completely useless.

"Stand up," said Jesus. "Take your mat, and walk."

I thought as much. The man suddenly became well. He leaped up and picked up the mat he was lying on and began walking about, praising God. He was too excited at first even to turn and thank Jesus, who watched him for a while and withdrew.

John saw Ezra say something in Thomas's ear, and I conjectured that it was what I noticed: Jesus had performed this cure on the Sabbath, and in Jerusalem. It was sure to be observed and objected to. Obviously that was the "opportunity." He was beginning to bring controversy to a head.

Of course, this did not imply that he himself was God, or that he thought he was. But it did mean that he had authority from God to perform cures on the Sabbath, which included telling people to carry things. True, there was nothing in the Torah that explicitly forbade anyone to carry the mat he had been lying on--which otherwise would be stolen--but it at least came close to forbidding it by implication.

And "What?" answered Thomas. "He did nothing." He did nothing, to be sure, but he told the man to do something--something eminently sensible, but something certain to be vigorously objected to by the Pharisees. I knew.

And, though Jesus had gone on into the Temple, it was not long before the Pharisees saw the man walking about and said to him, "It is a Sabbath. You are not allowed to be carrying your mat."

"But the one who cured me," said the man, "told me to take my mat and walk."

"Who is this man who told you to carry things and walk with them?"

"I know not. He was there at the pool."

"Find him. We have several things to say to him."

The man began looking about, and finally, followed by Thomas and Ezra, went into the Temple, which was not far away. Shortly, the man came out and met one of the people he had talked to before, and said, "The man who cured me was in there. I was not looking for him, but he found me. He is Jesus of Nazareth, the one people are calling a prophet."

"Prophet indeed! Prophets keep the Sabbath! Is he still there?"

"As far as I know," said the man.

The Pharisee, in great dudgeon, entered, a great number of people following, among whom I numbered myself, and found Jesus, surrounded by a throng of people, and snapped, "What is this that we have been hearing and seeing? You perform cures on the Sabbath and tell a man to carry his mat and walk?"

Jesus looked over calmly at him and replied, "My Father has been working right up until now; and now I am working also."

Another very dangerous statement. Whatever he himself meant by "my Father" would be taken by his hearers that he was somehow God the Son. They could not let this pass.

Nor did the man. "How dare you! You are all but calling yourself God! Beware! People have been stoned to death for less! And if you do such things, you have no right to do them on the Sabbath!"

"Amen amen I tell you," said Jesus, "the Son can do nothing by himself; he only does what he sees the Father doing; what he does, the Son does in the same way. But the fact is that the Father loves the Son, and shows him everything he is doing."

The implication of this was not lost on the Pharisee or his companions, who began to gather round him. And he went on still further. "And he will show him even greater things than this, and you will be amazed. Just as the Father brings the dead back and gives them life, the Son will give life to anyone he pleases."

He still had not said that he was the same thing as the Father, but what he did say was open to that interpretation. He was playing with them, I thought. It was one thing for him to "give life to anyone he pleases" because of the Force flowing though him, and it was quite another to do so because he thought he was the Force--especially if the Force was a Father and he a Son, presumably equal, as he was implying, to the Father.

He was continuing, "--time is coming--has already arrived--when corpses will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who listen to it will live again. Just as the Father has eternal life in himself, he has given the Son the possession of eternal life in himself; and he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man."

So he called himself the Son of God, and also the Son of Man; and he has the possession of eternal life in himself. This was even more revealing of Jesus's view of himself. He can do things because he is the Son of God, and he can judge others because he is the son of man. He is God, and he is also a man. But that it a contradiction, an absurdity. Yet he seems to believe it!

Now the crowd was buzzing. One said, "So this 'Son of Man' is now the 'Son of God,' is he?" Another chimed in, "And we are supposed to hear his voice from the grave and come out and walk around? Ridiculous!" The first said, "He certainly has a low opinion of himself, has he not?" A man standing in front of him turned around, and said, "Well, he did make a crippled man completely well with just a word. I saw it; he simply said, 'Stand up and walk,' and he did!"

"So?" said the first speaker. "Curing a disease is one thing. But this bringing the dead to life and claiming to be the Son of God is something else!"

"Be quiet! He is still speaking!"

"--were simply acting as a witness for myself, my testimony would be worthless. But there is someone else who has testified about me, and I know how solid his evidence about me is. You yourselves sent people to John, and he gave testimony that was true. I have no need of human testimony; I am saying this for you to be rescued. He was a burning, shining lamp, and you people found pleasure for a while in his light."

True, John himself all but called him God. "The God God fathered," I remembered his saying, not thinking anything of it at the time but rhetorical exaggeration. Of course, John was his cousin, and perhaps had caught the madness by discussions with him earlier.

And the people seemed to recall it. "Who is this 'John' he speaks of?" asked one. "You remember," was the answer. He was down at the Jordan, bathing everyone. Some thought he was Elijah come to life again, and announcing that the Prince God anointed had arrived." "Ah, and this one is saying he is the Prince!" "Well, he has not exactly said so as yet, but one can see where he is headed.""But of course, you see," said the one who had objected at first, "if he is the Prince, he is the son of David. But this one is calling himself the Son of the Master Himself!"

"--Father himself is a witness on my behalf--though you have never heard his voice or seen his form."

"You see?" said the objector, and then shouted at Jesus, "Neither have you, my friend!"

"--what he says has no home in you is clear from the fact that you do not believe in the one he sent. Search the Scriptures, since you think that there is where you will have eternal life. They are evidence about me. But you refuse to come to me and have life!"

"I find nothing about Nazareth and Galilee in the Scriptures!" said someone. "Why should I come to you?"

"I care nothing about what people think of me; but I know you; you do not have the love of God in you. I came in my Father's name, and you will not accept me. If someone else were to come in his own name, you would accept him. How can you believe me, if you simply take what everyone else thinks about a person and do not try to find out the opinion of the one true God?"

"Well, we certainly are not going to take the opinion of the one who is standing before us!" muttered a man standing next to Matthew and John. "His opinion of himself is a bit too exalted for a lowly Scripture scholar like myself to be able to agree with." Others were voicing similar sentiments, and they drowned out Jesus for a while.

He was going on, "--Moses, the one you set your hopes on. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me. But if you will not believe what he wrote, how can you believe what I say?"

So he was saying that there was an interpretation of Scripture that verified his claims. Not that I could see. No, his "interpretation" was that of a madman.

But he had silenced them. They were evidently trying to find something that would corroborate what he was saying. In any case, no one came up to arrest Jesus. How could they? On what grounds? For saying something? Still, their hatred was palpable.

I did not know what to think. Should I abandon him? I knew better than argue with him. He would simply tell me that Moses predicted that there would be "another, like himself" to come after him, and that he was the one. But Moses did not say that there would come God Almighty in human form, which is seemingly what he believed himself to be. But how could one convince a person so exceedingly intelligent that he was simply wrong?

But there was more. What of his followers, who were increasingly "changing their way of thinking" into believing that he was in fact God almighty in human skin--even if, as I had heard, they seemed to sense some distinction between him and what he now called "the Father" or "my Father." Should they continue in the path to delusion?

Or, in other words, should I direct my intention to saving them, since Jesus was beyond my help. And was sure to be my enemy, however much I respected him.

I would have to see what I could do to wean their attention away from him. And I seemed to have an inspiration or two in that direction. The Force seemed to be taking me there, and perhaps I should answer it.

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