Thirty-One

Thomas found out that Matthew had gone off by himself somewhere, "to Galilee" someone said, and so he did not expect him back for at least a week.

Toward the end of the that time time, Jesus happened upon a man blind from birth, and Philip asked, "Rabbi, was he the one who sinned or was it his parents, if he was born blind?"

Jesus looked at him, suppressed a sigh of exasperation, and then answered calmly, "It was no sin of his or his parents either," and then something seemed to occur to him, and he stroked his beard. "It was to reveal in him that God is acting. We have to do the work of the one who sent me while it is still day;"--and he looked up at the afternoon sky--"the night is coming when no one can work. But while I am in the world, I am the world's light."

Interestingly, for Thomas, instead of merely telling the man, "Sight is given you," he spat on the ground and made mud with his saliva, which he rubbed on the man's eyes. "Now go wash it off in the Siloam pool." The man left, one hand over his muddy eyes, and the other feeling his way. Thomas supposed that this ritual might have been to give the man faith that he could be cured, since he had not come up to Jesus and asked him to do anything for him.

And he returned, looking all around him at the whole new world that had suddenly opened out before him, not realizing that Jesus was not far away from him, since he had not seen him before. Some of the bystanders said, "Is this not the one who was blind?" but others said No, that it was only someone who resembled him.

"No, I am the one!" he cried, pointing to his eyes. "But how did you come to see?" they asked, and he said, "The man Jesus made mud and put it on my eyes and told me to wash it off, and as I washed, I began to see!"

"Where is he?" they asked. "I know not," he answered. Jesus had absented himself, as he sometimes did.

It was another Sabbath.

Some, realizing this, and thinking they could cause trouble for Jesus, took him to the Pharisees (though they did not go looking for Jesus, not wanting to run afoul of anyone who had enough power to give sight to a man who was not only blind, but who had never before seen in his life).

As he went into the building, Thomas noticed that Nicodemus was among those who were questioning him, so presumably the group would hear later how it went. However it was going, it took quite a while, and someone came out to fetch two older people, who bystanders said were the man's parents.

Finally, he emerged, followed by his worried, sheepish parents. "Fools! Fools!" he cried, looking back and shaking his fist.

Jesus suddenly was there, and came over and said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"

"Who is he, Master, so that I can believe in him?"

"You have already seen him; he is the one who is speaking to you."

"Mater, I believe!" he cried, and fell to his knees.

Jesus put his hand on his head and looked up to heaven. "I have come," he said, "to separate people: to give sight to the blind, and to blind those who can see."

There were some Pharisees standing by, who said, "You mean, we are blind," and Jesus answered, "If you were blind, you would have no sin. It is because you say you can see that your sin stays fixed in you."

He turned to them, looking over the crowd that was gathering. "Amen amen I tell you, a person who climbs into a sheepfold by any other way than through the gate is a thief and a robber; the one who comes in through the gate is the shepherd of those sheep. The guard opens the gate for him, and his sheep recognize his voice; he calls his sheep by name, and leads them out; and when all of his sheep are outside, he goes on in front of them, and the sheep follow, because they recognize his voice. They do not follow a stranger; they run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of a stranger."

Jesus was going on with the analogy he was speaking, but the people could not understand what he meant by it; and so he went back over it and said, "Amen amen I tell you, I am the gate in the sheepfold. All the people who came in before me are thieves and robbers, and the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. If a person enters through me, he will be safe, and will go in and out and find pasture. A thief comes in only to steal and kill and vandalize; I came for them to have life and have it to the full.

"I am a good shepherd; a good shepherd is one who will give up his life for his sheep. A hired hand, who is not himself the shepherd, who does not own the sheep, runs away when he sees a wolf coming, and leaves the sheep alone; and the wolf mauls them and scatters them. The hired man does this because he is a paid worker and has no interest of his own in the sheep.

"But I am a good shepherd. I know the ones that are mine, and my sheep know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I am ready to give up my life for the sheep." He looked off into the distance, and went on, "And I have other sheep too that do not belong to this flock; I have to shepherd them also, so that they will recognize my voice, and there will be only one flock and one shepherd."

And then he sighed deeply, and said, "And this is why the Father loves me: because I am ready to give up my life, and then take it back again. No one is going to take it from me; I am giving it up of my own free will. I have the right to give it up, and I have the power to take it back; this is the command I have from my Father."

Thomas caught his breath. He was going to give up his life of his own free will; no one would take it from him--and he at least believed that he had the power to take it back after he gave it up. God grant that he was right!

But of course, this speech of his set off another controversy among the Judeans. Numbers of them said, "He is crazy! He's possessed! Why do you listen to him?" and others answered, "This is not the raving of a madman; and can a demon give sight to the blind?"

Thomas wandered off by himself to think--to worry--down a path that seemed deserted. His eyes on the ground, muttering to himself, he almost ran into someone, and as he straightened up to apologize, he realized, with supreme loathing, that it was Judas.

"I am sorry, Judas," he managed to say through his teeth. This was the man who was going to make the shepherd give up his life! It was all he could do not to throttle him. "I was--preoccupied."

"One can see that. A pity you did not learn the lesson a while back in Galilee."

"Lesson? What lesson?"

"Are you really so dense? Did you not see that I showed you that you could take a little wine with no ill effect?"

Thomas stared at him. So Ezra was right. "You mean that that was deliberate?"

"And did you suffer any ill effect from it?"

"How did you dare?

"Come, now, Thomas. Dare what? It was nothing but a little wine."

Thomas was too enraged to reply, or even move.

"But if you want to continue drinking nothing but water, that is your prerogative, I suppose. No harm was done, as you yourself said." He put his hand on Thomas's chest. "And you do act admirably in that regard, with one small exception, that we are all aware of." And he made a sudden grab inside Thomas's tunic for the bladder, pulled it out, and with a dagger in his other hand, slashed it open

--spilling Thomas's soul onto the ground.

Thomas looked in horror at the stain the magic liquid had made, as Judas tossed the useless bladder down beside it. The pungent odor filled the air. "Well!" said Judas. "It was not wine, then, but something special, it seems."

Thomas looked slowly up from the stain into Judas's smiling face, and softly said, "You know, I killed someone once for doing that."

Judas answered, "I always wondered how accidental that 'accident' was. We learn something new every day, do we not?--But I doubt if you would attempt killing with your bare hands someone with a dagger."

Thomas stared at him, too full of helpless fury to speak.

Judas then said, in a voice full of condescending calmness, "Consider, Thomas. I have done you a favor. You have drunk nothing but water for--what is it? A year and a half now. You have no need of that wineskin, or whatever it is, if you never drink from it. But you have been trusting in it all this time, relying on it. Jesus would have you trust in him. Now you must trust in him. I have but made it possible."

And he walked away justified in his own eyes.

Thomas stood there, sick with despair. It was true; he had kept the wineskin because he doubted he could keep drinking nothing but water. And as long as he had it, he needed to drink nothing but water, just because it was there. It was perverted reasoning, but he had been relying on it as much as on Jesus.

And now he no longer had it. How could he live? Would he now be driven to wine in desperation, or driven to find another bladder and make more of the magic liquid? But if he did so, could he keep from drinking it? The very smell was driving him mad. He turned and ran off down the path.

"Jesus! Master! Help me!" he cried, terrified that he might begin to drink wine at the first opportunity. There was a small stream beside the path, and he knelt down, cupping his hand and picking up water, which he splashed on his face and into his open mouth, hoping that this would assuage the thirst for the magic liquid that had risen so appallingly in him. It was not enough, and so he plunged his head into the stream and sucked in enormous mouthfuls, and finally emerged, gasping and soaked to his chest, and lay back on the ground and panted.

And fell asleep from exhaustion.

He woke what seemed several hours later; the dark had just begun to threaten. His head throbbed from the nervous tension he had been through, and the longing, fortunately, was only feverish, not frantic.

Well, he would have to survive, somehow. He hoped without--and the vision of Samuel came before his mind's eye, the Samuel who had floated with the smile before him during the time Nathanael came for him. "No! Not that! I must not! Jesus, help me!" And the thought came to him that perhaps he would not. He might not after all. He had gone a year and a half without drinking anything but wate--with Jesus's help--and only the fiction of the bladder. Could he not continue--with Jesus's help?

He made his way back to the group, and found that Matthew had just returned, and was talking to Jesus, who said, "Ah, Matthew, I am rejoiced that you are back. We will be going to Bethany tomorrow, and I thought you might like to accompany us."

Matthew made no reply; he could not. He had a face that might have been Thomas's: almost complete despair.

Thomas said, for the sake of something to say, "Your errand was not successful, then?"

"I know not," said Matthew. "I think it accomplished what the Master wished it to accomplish, and I suppose it is for my benefit."

"I see. But what is 'for your benefit' pulls you to pieces. Smashes you to atoms. I think I understand." He looked off into the distance, and said, "I think I understand very well."

"I love the Master, but--"

"I know. Loving him means 'repudiating yourself,' as he says. And that means disappearing--the self that you once were. Oh, I know. Having nothing of self left at all. Nothing."

"Nothing," repeated Matthew.

"And what shall we do, Matthew," cried Thomas, but in a whisper, "when he also abandons us?"

"You think he will?"

"That seems to be what he is saying. How will we survive?"

"I know not. I know not."

"Have you ever seen a crucifixion?"

"I saw one once at a distance. From what I saw, I had no desire to go closer."

"I saw one. Nor for long. How some people can consider it entertaining and watch for hours is beyond me. But he has told us more than once that if we wish to be his students we must take up our crosses and follow him. Well, I have shouldered my cross, Matthew, and I can see that you have shouldered yours. But God forbid that we will have to follow him to the end! I cannot bear it as it is!"

Matthew was silent, obviously wondering what Thomas had gone through--and realizing that Thomas wondered the same about him. If Matthew's was anything like his crisis, it was horrible, and his heart went out to poor Matthew, which assuaged his own pain a bit. He told himself, as an exercise in futility. "It will not be any worse than it has been up to now. And it has not been all that bad, after all." If only he could believe this!

They parted and went off to sleep. Or to pretend to sleep.

The next day, they went over to Bethany, where Martha was busy preparing the meal, and Lazarus was not present, having told Martha to inform Jesus that pressing business had kept him in Jerusalem that night. Thomas wondered if the 'pressing business' was that he wanted nothing to do with Jesus, if he had foisted the country's most famous prostitute upon him. But that could not be. He would have taken the opportunity for some kind of melodramatic denunciation. Unless, of course, Martha was too strong-willed and too attached to Jesus not to invite him.

The interesting thing was that Mary was not about either. She would hardly be expected to be bustling about as Martha was, but she must be in the house somewhere. Had she too "shouldered her cross" and stumbled under it as Thomas and apparently Matthew had?

He looked around at the other students and saw none of the merry faces he had beheld when they came back from their first excursion announcing the advent of the Reign of God, when they had commanded diseases and devils. There seemed to be a surfeit of crosses on the horizon, all of a sudden.

Jesus sat outside the house to wait for the dinner, and Judith came out to speak to him briefly, and then said, "I will try," and ran inside.

Shortly afterward, Mary emerged, blinded by the sun, with a wan and haggard face that told Thomas that yes, there was a cross here. She looked in Matthew's direction, but did not seem to see him, something Thomas was sure hung him more surely on his cross. She did not seem to see anything.

Finally, she noticed Jesus and sat down.

Jesus began speaking to her, and at first she said not a word, and then made a few laconic replies, in a voice of complete and utter despair. What had happened? Had they been mistreating her? But Judith would never have allowed it.

Matthew obviously longed to go closer and hear what was being said, but was astute enough to realize that this was out of the question. Though they were here in front of everyone, with the students milling about and going in and out of the house, it was clear to everyone that it was a private conversation. Mary seemed to say more and more as time went on.

Suddenly, Martha came out and said, in a voice clearly meant to be overheard by everyone, "Master, does it not concern you that my sister has left me alone to take care of waiting upon you?"

"Martha, Martha," said Jesus. "So much is important to you, and you have so much on your mind. But there is only one thing that matters. Mary has chosen the better part, and it will not be taken away from her."

Martha looked indignantly at the two of them, and marched back into the house, muttering (also for all to hear) that unless someone took the worse part, those who chose the better part would do so on empty stomachs. Jesus laughed, and resumed his conversation.

Mary then began to be more and more earnest, and finally Matthew heard her say, "Stop! Stop!" and cover her ears.

"Mary, Mary," said Jesus audibly, "you worry too much."

"Master," she pleaded, "listen to me! I am no one, I am dirt, but listen to me! If you say such things in public, they will kill you!"

"I know. It does not matter."

"It matters to me!" she almost shouted.

Jesus's voice dropped, and no one could make out what he said. It mattered to everyone. It was life and death to Thomas.

Mary said again in a loud voice, "I do not want to be chosen!"

Thomas silently agreed.