Thirteen

The three-day trip down the Jordan valley was one that Nathanael always found depressing, with the bare mountains on each side of the lush green trench of the banks of the Jordan--the Arabah, they called it.

And it turned out that Nathanael was right in his idea that he would not have to be cooking and cleaning for himself. The two nights they stopped, outside any settled place, the women took over the housekeeping, and the men simply sat and ate--and, of course, speculated on what was to happen at the feast once they got to Jerusalem. But since no one knew anything, the discussions went nowhere.

Eventually, south of Jericho, they began climbing up and up the mountains of bare dirt, and finally topped them to the west, and found vegetation once again, punctuated by those exclamation points of cypress trees that seemed to say, "See what the Lord up there can do!"

At the gate entering Jerusalem, Jesus encountered a number of sick and lame beggars, whom, in lieu of supplying with money, he cured with as little fanfare as he had transformed the wine, simply by touching them. They gasped in astonishment and glee, and ran off--literally, in some cases, especially those who had been crippled--to announce their good fortune to all and sundry. The result was predictable: As soon as the people heard of this, he was inundated with the sick, whom he touched and healed. They all shook their heads in wonderment, not only at the cures themselves, but even more at the casual way in which they were done, as if Jesus regarded this as simply the equivalent of giving alms.

Nathanael, however, suspected that there was something more behind this; it looked as if he was preparing something--making the people well-disposed toward him, perhaps in case there should be a confrontation of some sort when he began to assert that he might be the Prince.

Before long, they went into the immense Temple, with its vast courtyards teeming with people, full of the noise of their conversation and of the bleating of sheep and the lowing of calves to be sold to those who wished to make a sacrifice.

Jesus stopped, all but shaking off those who were pressing around him hoping for a cure--his look made it clear that he wished to be undisturbed, at least for a while. He looked around at the vendors and at the money-changers, stroked his beard as if thinking, and suddenly came to a decision. He undid the cord that bound his waist. "John, lend me your cincture, would you?" he said, with fire in his eyes. The ends of the cords were tied into knots to keep them from fraying, and he doubled the ropes over in his hands into what Thomas saw was a kind of whip with four tails, which he began swinging before him.

"Out! Out!" he shouted, beating the animals on their rumps, making them bellow and run off. "Out!" He came to the money-changers' tables, where Roman denarii were converted into shekels to pay for the sacrifices, and suddenly kicked them over. "It is written," he cried, "'My house will be called a house of prayer,' and you have made it a den of thieves!" The money-changers screamed at him as they dashed to pick up the coins that were flying and bouncing all over the pavement.

"Take those out of here!" he cried to the pigeon-vendors, "You are not to make my Father's house a market!" The vendors fled from their tables, grabbing their cages of pigeons, grateful that they had escaped his wrath without having the birds fly off away from them. The sellers of the other animals meanwhile were chasing their cattle, trying to round them up and take them out of the Temple as quickly as they could. Confusion was everywhere, animals braying, bleating, and bellowing, people yelling, the sick pleading, pigeons flapping their wings explosively in their cages, hooves clattering on the tiles, coins jingling still on the pavement, and vendors scurrying everywhere.

Nathanael, who hated of all things a "fuss," and this was the mother of all fusses, stood in a sheltered corner and watched in awe and some terror. What would they do to Jesus for this?

He saw John go over to Thomas and shout something in his ear, but he could not hear what it was. Thomas did not seem to know whatever John wanted.

And what was it Jesus was trying to accomplish by this? The obvious thing was to cleanse the Temple from the abuse of "making it a market," as Jesus had told the pigeon-vendors. But the control Jesus showed in his wrath in not throwing over their tables and losing their livelihood indicated that he had a definite purpose in what he was doing, however spontaneous it seemed--no, it was; Nathanael remembered the stroking of the beard, just as Jesus did before the water became wine. But what was this "purpose" he had conceived? This was certainly an odd way to begin an announcement that the Reign of God was about to start.

Or perhaps not. He was asserting control over the Temple, was he not?

Eventually, things quieted down somewhat, as the animals left the Temple and the money-changers had retrieved most of their coins (not without considerable argument among them about whose was what). Everyone had been cowed by Jesus's forcefulness, but some began to gather round him to protest.

"Where is your authorization to do something like this?" a man shouted from the crowd, which kept a respectful distance away from Jesus's whip. Now we would see what was behind all this, thought Nathanael.

Jesus, panting from his exertion, looked round at them with scorn. He switched the whip to his left hand, and then with his right, beat his breast with his fingers, "Destroy this temple," he shouted, and flung out the hand in front of him with three fingers raised. "and in three days I will rebuild it!"

No one said anything for a few moments; his reply was so far from an answer that they were stunned, trying to fathom it. Finally someone laughed mockingly and said, "This temple has take forty-six years to build, and you will build it in three days?"

Jesus gave no further answer, however, and looked around at them, still full of wrath. Finally, he walked across the courtyard, now cleared of animals and money-changers, and went from the Courtyard of the Gentiles into that of the Judeans, the Temple proper. The students followed.

"Who is he? Who does he think he is? Is he pretending to be the Prince?" they heard from every side. Some answered, "Had you not heard? He is the one who was curing all sorts of diseases, merely by touching people." "And so?" was the answer. "And so, perhaps he is the Prince. He certainly acts as if he is!"

But Jesus paid no attention to them, and walked on into the Court of the Judeans, where he stood silently for a while to pray.

Nathanael thought that perhaps he had accomplished his purpose. He did not have to say he was the Prince; people were always on the watch for the Prince, especially now since John had been saying that he was about to appear. How better to show that he had appeared by walking into the Temple itself and saying that those responsible for it had made "my Father's house a den of thieves"?

--And saying nothing else, except an enigma. "Destroy this Temple"--but he was pounding himself on the chest with his fingers. The temple of his own body? Kill me? "And I will rebuild it in three days!" If he were not saying that if the people--or the Romans--tore down the Temple, he would restore the stones as he had made wine out of water, and would do it in a mere three days,

then he was saying, "If you kill me, I will bring myself back to life in three days."

Either of them was absurd, of course, and the people understood it. "This Temple has taken forty-six years to build, and you will build it in three days?" This stream has held water for hundreds of years, and you will bring wine out of it?

And the point was that, though there were scoffers, there were people who seemed to believe that if he said he could restore a destroyed Temple, he could actually do it. They kept referring to the cures that he had been making, as if diseases had to obey him.

But Jesus gave no indication that he put any trust in the faith of those who were positively disposed; it was too early, and too little had happened, and besides, no one knew what his plans were if he really was the Prince. Everyone was already buzzing about an overthrow of the Romans, which Simon the Revolutionary was busy to suggest. But Jesus himself made no further step.

Nathanael noticed that Judas also had gone off to the edge of the group, with a frown of concentration on his face. He remembered that Judas had been urging diplomacy and caution, finding a way to make the authorities think that naming Jesus as the Prince was their idea. Nathanael laughed to himself. Jesus by this gesture--which everyone knew needed to be done; selling animals inside the very Temple was a scandal--was in effect saying, I am in authority here; this is my Father's house. No doubt any Pharisee within earshot made careful note of what he had said, and drew the implication that Jesus almost certainly intended--an implication that was all but blasphemous. Judas would not be pleased; it was far too early, and the concept far too dangerous.

True, we are all, in a sense, "children of God," but Jesus was claiming something more, something along the lines that Judas had indicated, no doubt. It would be impossible to be a channel for the Infinite Activity and not know it, and not have a kind of filial feeling for It--Him, if he called him "my Father."

Judas no doubt saw, as Nathanael did, that already they were deep into a theological swamp. God grant that Jesus would be able to pick his way among the stepping-stones and not put his foot into quicksand!

It was toward evening when Jesus emerged from his meditation, and he gathered them and said, "We will spend the nights here in a place I know of across the Valley of the Kidron Brook, on the Mount of Olives." and they started down the hill toward the east, when a man came up to Jesus and said that Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin, would like to see him that evening.

"Indeed?" said Jesus. "This is not an arrest for my audacity, I trust." So Nathanael was right. They had caught the implication in Jesus's calling the Temple "my Father's house." And clearly Jesus had expected something like this.

The messenger was saying, "--merely would like to see what you have to say."

"Simon," Jesus said to Andrew's brother, "Do you remember the garden where we stayed once when we were in Jerusalem? That is where we will be going. I will come to you later, after I have had a talk with this Nicodemus. --And it might be as well,"

he added, "if we kept this destination to ourselves. We might need a place later on to go where no one could find us. Do you understand?"

"I do, Master," said Simon, who was as much in the dark about what he meant as everyone else.

Jesus then followed the messenger, and Simon led them to the east, up the hill from the Kidron Valley, as the sun began to sink over the Great Sea, finally becoming a huge red half-sun on the horizon, turning the sky orange and green, with a few clouds red and purple around it.

Nathanael knew that the Greeks had shown that the sun did not extinguish itself in the sea, and that the horizon was not the edge of the world--Rome was out there, somewhere, to the west, and all that could be seen even from the mountain they were climbing was ocean--and the sun went round under the earth, which was a ball, not a plate, and came up in the east.

After the turmoil, the silence of the sky as it fell asleep made Nathanael realize how tired he was, and it was with gratitude that he followed the others into a garden full of gnarled olive trees and found fairly comfortable places to lie, bundled in their cloaks, because it was rather cold that night.

He looked over at Thomas, who, as usual, patted his little wineskin at his side, and thought, "Well, he has succeeded for almost two weeks." That miracle, at least, seemed to be lasting.

The full Passover moon had risen and brightened the little grove when Jesus appeared among them and took his place next to Simon and Andrew. "The seed, it appears," he whispered to Simon, "has been planted. It is not what I would have planned, but it will do; it will do."

After celebrating the Passover the next evening at the house of a friend of Jesus in Jerusalem, they went to the banks of the Jordan, where Jesus instructed them to bathe the people who were coming to him.

"Do you know that John is still bathing people, over at Aenon?" asked Andrew. "Someone I bathed just told me. He said he wanted to come here also."

"It is well," said Jesus. "We are not rivals."

But others who came reported that the Pharisees were beginning to notice that Jesus's followers, who were, of course, more numerous, were bathing more people than John was, and that Jesus was becoming more prominent, because in addition to bathing people, Jesus was curing various diseases among them.

"You are making them nervous," said Judas Iscariot. "And it might not be wise, think you not, not to make them nervous at this early stage?"

"I agree," said Jesus. "We should return to Galilee and there begin seriously announcing the advent of the Kingdom."

So they left, but instead of going along the Jordan, they went straight through Samaria. They had reached Sychar, near Jacob's well, around noon on the second day, and Jesus said, "You go into the town to buy food. I will rest a bit beside the well here. We might stay here a night or two."

"Here? In Samaria?"

"Fear not; we will be perfectly safe. Now go."

When they returned, they found Jesus talking with a woman, who had come to the well to draw water. They were astonished, not only that he was speaking alone with a woman, but with a Samaritan. The Judeans generally had nothing to do with Samaritans, who, descendants of the Philistines and other tribes, had a bitter hatred of Judeans, which, by and large, was returned with interest.

She took one look at them as they came up and ran off, leaving her water-jar.

As they prepared the midday meal, Jesus paced up and down, clearly excited. "Rabbi, eat something," said James, John's brother.

"I have food to eat you know nothing of," answered Jesus, continuing to pace.

"Did she give him something to eat?" they asked each other, and he stopped at looked at them. "My food," he said, "is to do the will of the one who sent me, and finish the task he has given me." He looked out at the fields, where the crops were beginning to sprout. "You would say, would you not, that it will be four months before the harvest?"

He waved his hand at the landscape, "But I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields; they are already ripe for the harvest, and already the reaper has begun collecting his pay and is gathering a crop for eternal life, so that the one who planted the crop will be just as happy as the one gathering it in!"

The others looked at him in bewilderment; the fields had barely begun to turn green. "I am sending you," he said to them, "to reap what you have not worked on; others have done the work, and you will gather the fruits."

Before they could ask him what he meant, the woman reappeared with a number of the townsfolk, some of whom the students had seen when they bought food. They begged him to stay and tell them more of what he had told the woman; and they stayed in that place two days. It seemed that Jesus had told her that he was the Prince, and also mentioned "everything that I have done," which was apparently not a catalogue of virtues.

Then they returned to Galilee, where Jesus made for his home town of Nazareth, down the hill from Cana, where he had turned the water into wine. As he entered the region, everyone welcomed him, because they had been at the feast in Jerusalem and had seen his cures and the cleansing of the Temple. Some were agog at his ability to cure people, and others were overjoyed at how he had tweaked the noses of the Judeans, who did not dare, really, to denounce him, since everyone knew that what he had done is what had been crying out to be done for years.

Shortly after dawn the next day, Jesus entered the synagogue, where the men had gathered to pray. The students stood at the back, and Jesus went up to the front, and the rabbi, seeing him, asked him if he would speak. He requested the scroll of Isaiah, which he unrolled until he found the place he wished.

"We have as a guest today," said the rabbi, "Jesus, someone doubtless all of you know." Then Jesus began to read: "The Master's spirit is upon me," he said, "and this is why he has anointed me to report the good news to the poor. He has given me a proclamation to deliver: one of freedom for prisoners of war, of new sight for the blind; he has told me to set broken people free and announce a year of the Master's favor."

Nathanael caught "the Master's spirit is upon me," and recalled what Judas had said. Would this be the announcement of a transformation of the world? He wondered if as time went on, lions would be lying down with lambs. It was all too absurd--but . . .

Jesus rolled up the scroll and handed it to the attendant, and sat back down. Every eye in the synagogue fastened upon him.

"Today," Jesus began, "that passage is being fulfilled as you listen to it," and someone whispered, "What is he trying to say?"

"Evidently," was the whispered answer, "he thinks that he is the Master's Anointed."

"Who, that man? But is he not the Jesus who is Joseph's son? The carpenter? What is he doing here acting like a rabbi?"

"Acting like a rabbi! He is acting as if he were the Prince who was prophesied to become David's successor!"

"Does he think we know him not? We know his father and mother and all his relatives! Why, he has lived here his whole life! Does he expect us to believe he suddenly came down from heaven or something?"

But others began recounting what had happened in Jerusalem, and the murmuring grew louder, and Jesus lifted up his hand, and said, mildly, but in a voice that could clearly be heard through the whole synagogue, "I know. You are all quoting me the proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself. Do here in your own town what we have heard you do in Capernaum.'"

Here some whispered, "What? Has he done something in Capernaum?"

"They say he has cured many of all kinds of diseases, and--"

"How? Has he discovered some new medicine?"

"No, he does it with a mere word, they say."

"Nonsense!"

"--accepted in his own land," Jesus was saying. "There were many, many widows in Israel during Elijah's time--this is true, what I am saying--when the sky was shut for three years and six months, and a great famine spread through the whole country. But Elijah was not sent to any one of them; he went to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. And there were many lepers in Israel during the time of the prophet Elisha; but it was Naaman the Syrian, not one of them, who was cured."

"Do you hear that?"

"He is as much as saying that we are not worthy of his consideration!"

"Who does he think he is?"

"Well I will show him who he really is!" And the crowd surged forward grasping Jesus, pulling him out of the building, clearly intending to take him to the cliff outside the town to throw him over. Suddenly, everyone began milling about. "Where is he?" everyone was saying. "Who had him?" "He was here but a moment since!" "Who let him go?" They were all furious in their frustration, but it gradually dawned on them that there was nothing to be done. Jesus was simply not there. They began to disperse, shaking their heads.