Twenty

they found Jesus once again in the Temple, this time in the vast Courtyard of the Gentiles, surrounded by a huge crowd, which was reacting to something someone had asked him.

Jesus, who had that orator's quality of having what sounded like a natural voice carry a great distance, was saying, "Show me the coin you use to pay taxes."

A man close by, evidently the one who had asked the question, fumbled in the folds of his robe and brought out what must have been a denarius. "Whose image is this," asked Jesus, "and whose inscription is on it?"

"Caesar's" was the answer. Mary actually heard only a faint sound, but knew that this was what it must have been. She and the others shouldered their way closer.

"Then give back to Caesar what is Caesar's, and return to God what is God's," he said. There was laughter and cries of "Brilliant!" "Excellent!" The original question must have been whether it was legitimate to pay taxes to Caesar--and it was a superb way to march between the horns of the dilemma. Jesus sat down on the steps leading up to the courtyard of the Judeans, as his questioner withdrew in chagrin. He seemed to be preparing to preach again.

But at that moment, some others dragged a woman forward, her hair askew and robes rumpled, struggling to free herself from their grasp. Mary knew all too well the kind of person she was. 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 immediately fell silent; this trap was not one he could extricate himself from by clever wordplay. If he dismissed her, he was violating the Law; but how could a man who claimed to be able to forgive sins stone a sinner? Mary almost felt that she herself was standing before him.

Jesus seemed to be nonplused by the difficulty also, though he 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 looked over the few people remaining, and fixed his eyes directly on Mary.

She almost fainted. "I?" she breathed, as her hand went up to her throat--and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Zebediah, on the other side of Lazarus.

What had she been doing? She, of all people! She ran off, out of the Temple into the winding, narrow streets, in tears.

Martha and Lazarus, who had not seen Jesus' look, called out and tried to pursue her, but she managed to escape. She had to be alone, to think--to drown herself! Despair overwhelmed her. Never would she be able to rise even to the level of minimal human decency!

When she was sure that her brother and sister were nowhere near, she slowed to a walk, muttering to herself as she staggered through the crowds, bumping into people, heedless of their curses, hearing nothing but his voice, "Have some sinless one of you be the first to throw a stone." She, who might have been that woman hundreds and hundreds of times over, had been throwing stones at poor, pathetic Zebediah ever since she first caught sight of him! That was what he meant by that look, she was sure of it! What right had she to hold him in contempt, who at least had a wife whom he loved, though one he had betrayed, and whom he genuinely mourned, because he lost her through Mary! It made a wreck of him, Lazarus said.

So she had ruined him, as she had hoped. And now that she had ruined him, she had the temerity to despise him because he was not handsome--because he had been ruined! By her! Now that she thought back, she remembered him as not ill-favored, standing straight in his self-satisfied arrogance. And this was what her actions had produced! And instead of being ashamed of her handiwork--or even proud of it--she despised him as an insect unworthy of her! How had he become unworthy, except that she had made him so? And she had been priding herself on how far above him she was, in spite of what she had made of herself afterwards!

And his wretched lusting after her--what was that except a pale reflection of her consuming passion for Judas? How could he help it, especially when suddenly confronted with her, with the full force of surprise and the reawakening of the emotions of that dreadful night descending upon him all at once? And she considered herself blameless and even virtuous (because she fought against it)in her lust for Judas, though it was a lust without the excuse of surprise; it was the simple fruit of years of practice.

No, the real reason she shrank from Zebediah was that he was no longer in the least bit attractive, and it stung her pride that she saw how colossally stupid she was to have gone to him that night, and started all this. She had gone, not because of any magnetic force like the one Judas exuded that had drawn her to him, but out of simple curiosity, out of the abstract desire to find out what this mysterious feeling in her--which had no attachment to him--was about, because he seemed able to show her.

If he had been even reasonably good-looking as he greeted her and Lazarus and Martha, she probably would have found, from her association with Jesus, some means of forgiving him, and perhaps even of pitying him for her contribution to his misery. But because he was not now handsome at all, because he had fainted and was not manly, because he was shy and apologetic, because he was overawed by her beauty, she had had nothing for him but contempt. She had mentally spat on him! She!

What were her other sins in comparison to this? Take the product of your malice, see what that malice has done, and spurn it because its appearance was not to your liking! Do not even sink it deeper into the mud you had plunged it in, because it was now covered with mud, and too filthy for your delicate touch!

And this after three months of lessons from the greatest teacher who ever lived! After having fifteen years of sins forgiven! After being reunited with a brother and sister who did nothing but shower her with love and affection, and never demanded an accounting of her life!

Stoning was too good for such a person; but the certainty was that she did not deserve to live another moment. She would drown herself--no, there was no water here. What could she--she would throw herself off the pinnacle of the temple and fall to her death in the Valley of Hinnom, the Gehenna, the garbage dump where she had waked up so many years ago, and where her cursed body now deserved to rot! How fitting that Jesus used it as the eternal abode of those who could not free themselves from their own filth!

Without realizing it, she had been turning back toward the Temple and was now all but at its entrance. She ran in, intent on crossing the Gentiles' Courtyard to the wall, and finding her way up to the top of the parapet overlooking the smoking valley below.

In searching for some kind of stairway, she happened to catch sight of Judas walking across the courtyard. On a mad implulse, she ran after him, intent on seizing him and giving him a last passionate kiss before she threw herself to her doom, the pressure of his lips burning against her guilty face.

But she lost him in the crowd, and in a frenzy she dashed hither and yon, trying to find him--as if her suicide were a vessel that was due to depart and she might miss it if she stayed on shore too long. The people she shouldered out of her way slapped back at her with curses, but she neither saw nor felt them; she knocked down an old woman, who struggled to her feet screaming--and the sound of the scream opened her ears, to hear another voice coming from the steps,

"You will die in your sins!"

The sound ran through her whole body from head to toe. She could not move.

"If you do not believe what I am," Jesus continued, somewhere off to her left, but it stabbed her to the soul, "you will die in your sins!"

She turned, fascinated, and, barely capable of motion, began making her way back toward him. People were reacting to what he had said, but it was all lost on Mary. Whatever the phrase meant to them, she knew it was a call also to her. He knew. He always knew. It was as if he had sent Judas to lure her into a position to be able to hear the one sentence that could have stopped her. "Let us say I arranged it," he would have told her once again.

At that moment, Martha caught sight of her, and with a cry came running over, followed closely by Lazarus. They were saying something, but, though Mary was aware of them, and of their anguished concern, she could not make out a syllable, her eyes fixed upon Jesus, whom she now could see. After a short time, Zebediah, who had evidently been searching for her somewhere else, also came up and joined them. The three spoke in undertones together, probably about the fact that Mary gave them no heed whatsoever.

"If you keep what I say," Jesus was saying, "then you will be real students of mine. You will recognize what the truth is, and the truth will set you free." It was forgiveness again, was it not? It was her task to "keep what he said," not to despair because of the past. But could she?

"--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." How true that was! "--does not stay in the family forever. The Son stays in it forever. And if the Son frees you, you really will be free." It was forgiveness again! Yes, he looked at her! Even at her!

He had brought her back to tell her this. True, he was speaking to all of them; but he spoke to each as well as to all. Perhaps others needed just those words also, for other reasons; but she knew that they were for her. And she had believed; she had believed that he had forgiven her, but she had let the belief lapse because of familiarity and doubt, and had fallen into sin once more--and not only into sin, but into the sin of trying to destroy herself. And he was telling her that she would really be free, that all was not lost, if she renewed her faith in him, and lost her trust in herself.

"--Abraham did not do this sort of thing. No, you are doing what your real father wishes!"

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

"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!" Could she hear them? Judas's view of Jesus as being driven mad rang so loud in her ears that she wondered if she really did hear what Jesus was saying.

"--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 it!" Was he saying that Judas was lying? What did he mean?

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!" Could Judas not hear, and this was why he thought Jesus was going mad? And had Mary been seduced by her attraction to Judas into listening to him instead of to Jesus?

"--men I tell you," said Jesus, "Anyone who keeps what I say will never see death!" What was that?

"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!"

Then he 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, "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 no longer there.

There is was: the claim--clear, unambiguous, unmistakable. There was no way to construe it other than as he had said it. He was not saying that he was "with" God or was "sent from" God, or even that he was "full of" God somehow. Not only did he assert that he was in existence before Abraham, and that Abraham himself was anticipating his coming with joy; he used the very name of God to do so: I AM, just as the Master had said it to Moses in the burning bush.

But who could believe that?

Next