CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Risk
John sat against a pine tree.
It was late. The sun had set, on the long summer day. Darkness had settled. The park was almost deserted – the lake quiet and calm, sparkling under moonlight and starlight.
John’s eyes fleetingly closed. Such a day! John had never seen anything like it! Joshua – he had healed so many people! So easily, in his stride – so easily! He healed, like…like…
Trembling, John shook his head at the thought. No: that was impossible. And yet, what had happened that day? What wondrous thing had they all just witnessed?
Someone was now sitting beside him. John opened his eyes, to see Rau. His Maori face was radiant, in the moonlight: his eyes lit with a kind of joy John did not understand.
“Areruia,” Rau said. “I have seen the coming of the Lord.”
“‘The Lord’?” John whispered. “Which Lord?”
“There is only one,” Rau replied, smiling gently. “Only one, who has this kind of authority over us.”
John swallowed, and shifted slightly on the ground. The Lord? John knew no Lord. And yet…and yet…
“Did you feel him?” Rau asked. “Did you see him?”
Somehow John’s hands were wringing, in his lap. “I…I was too afraid to look.”
“Look at him now,” Rau gently invited him. “Look at him, now.”
John raised his eyes, to search for Joshua. Where was he? Off by himself again – John knew it. There he was, at the lake’s edge – dipping his hand in, splashing the water, making little waves.
“So human,” Rau murmured. “Do you see it? So human. And yet so…”
“Divine?” John interjected. “You might as well say it: I know who you think he is.”
Rau held his gaze. “All right, then” he said. “I will say it. Yes, divine. I believe this is the Christ, come back again to save us.”
The words felt like lead in John’s stomach. He thrust himself to his feet – he clenched his fists, and began to pace backwards and forwards.
“You can’t say that!” he said to Rau. “You can’t claim this is the Christ!”
“Why not?” Rau asked. “In Wenderholm, you were declaring his authority! How much more so is his authority declared now?”
“It was different in Wenderholm!” John said. “We were alone!” Tears filled his eyes, and he rapidly blinked them away. “We can’t hide now! Not with everything he’s done.”
Rau’s hand came on his shoulder, from behind. “Don’t be afraid, John,” he said. “What can people do to us, with Joshua on our side?”
“What can people do to us?” John repeated, heart pounding. “People can kill us, Rau! People can kill us! He knows that!” Now he gestured in Joshua’s direction. “He feels it.”
John glanced back at Rau’s eyes – to find a strange resolution there.
“I don’t care,” Rau said. “I’ve been following Christ all my life: I’m not going to stop now.”
“Even if they crucify you for it?”
Rau’s gaze was steadfast: strong. “Even if they crucify me,” he said. “I’ll die if that’s what it takes.”
“What about your family? Your wife? Your children?”
Rau swallowed, but his gaze remained. “Whatever it takes.”
John admired him, in that moment: saw the truth of his conviction. Truly he believed – truly he followed. But John did not share in the same faith.
“What do you see in him?” Rau asked. “Why do you follow?”
John looked again to the man standing alone at the water. “I see someone I don’t understand,” he said. “Someone greater than I am – someone with great power, and heart.”
“And the source of his power?”
“I don’t know.”
“Not God?”
“I don’t believe in God.”
Rau’s face looked perplexed, gazing at him. “How can you not believe in God, watching what you saw today?”
John shifted again on his feet. God? What was God? An old man in the sky? Childhood fairy tales: Christ and Santa as one?
“God is for children.”
“Not only for children!” Rau protested. “Christ was the most adult of adults!”
“Stories of an ark bouncing on the water,” John said. “A flood, and a dove. Pretty stories, for children.”
“Unless you become as a child, you can’t enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” [6]
“Exactly. Heaven is for children. Real life is for adults.”
“Then who is Hell for?”
Surprised, John turned to find Tristan standing next to him. His face, under the starlight, looked pale: his green eyes a little haunted. John frowned at him – and now Rau’s hand went to Tristan’s shoulder.
“Are you all right, mate?”
“I don’t know,” Tristan whispered.
“What’s going on?”
“Today…”
“Yes?”
Tristan was trembling now – and tears filled his eyes. “He fixed them!” he said. “He fixed them.”
John searched Tristan’s face. What was wrong with this young man? What had he seen, in his life? Some horror – some source of great shame.
“Isn’t that the point?” Tristan asked. “Isn’t that what we need? Someone to care? Someone to fix us?”
“You mean someone to save us?” Rau murmured. “A Saviour?”
Rau’s arms went around Tristan now – a strong Maori embrace. Tristan was actually crying. John felt uncomfortable – he backed away a little. Then he heard footsteps approaching.
“Where are they?” a woman’s voice called out. “Where have the patients gone?”
John looked at her. She was a slim woman, maybe in her early thirties, like him – wearing a white lab coat, and a stethoscope around her neck, under straight brown hair. Fear struck his heart – she was a doctor.
“Ah…” he stuttered. “I guess they’ve gone home.”
“Home?” She said, her face breaking into a pretty smile. “Don’t tell me you’ve emptied out the whole hospital!”
“Have we broken some kind of rule?” John hurriedly asked.
“No!” she said. “It’s up to them! It’s their bodies. They didn’t sign out, though.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
She looked at him, for a moment – then glanced at Rau, and Tristan, and looked back to John, shaking her head a little.
“Sorry,” she said, “that’s not why I came.”
“No?” John asked.
“No. I came to…” Now she seemed to be struggling a little – her blue eyes seeming conflicted. “I had to finish being on call first.”
“Busy?”
“No.” Her expression was wry. “Quiet. And now I’m finished, and…”
“Yes?”
“I was wondering if I could help.”
Surprised, John glanced at Rau and Tristan. They were silently watching her. Their eyes met his, seemingly wary. Could she be trusted? But they did not speak.
John returned to her light face.
“How would you like to help?” John asked. “Joshua seems to have things sorted.”
“Oh, yes!” she said, seeming a little flustered. “I don’t mean treating patients.”
“What, then?”
“I could record them for you.”
“Sorry?”
“I could record the healings. The diagnoses, the results, and the outcomes. I could document them all – publish them all.”
Now fear consumed John. Publish them? Make them known to the entire world?
“I don’t know,” he gasped – but now Rau stepped forward.
“I think it’s a great idea.”
“Really?” she said, smiling widely.
“Tell everyone. Join us.”
Now the woman extended her hand, but it was to John. “I’m Rachel Connor,” she said.
John hesitated – and then he received the hand.
“John Robertson,” he said. “Nice t
o meet you, Dr Connor.”
Tristan was nudging him, now – and John complied.
“And this is Tristan Blake, and our leader, Rau Petera.”
Tristan brightly received her hand: he was clearly taken by the beauty of her enthusiastic eyes. And Rau now also was warm, in reception.
John nervously watched her. Documentation? She was a scientist. What place did a scientist have amongst them?
But then Joshua was there. He smiled. He extended his hand.
“Rachel Connor,” he said to her, “you are very welcome.”
“Thank you,” she said to him.
“Documentation,” he murmured. “An interesting idea.”
“I just thought…”
“Do as you wish,” he said. “Verify our proceedings with your science, as you see fit. I will not get in the way. But…”
“Yes?”
“You will find in time there are realms science has not yet thought to touch.”
“Realms we cannot touch, or have not yet considered?”
Joshua’s smile widened. “Both,” he said, “because both are inherently linked.”
She looked intrigued. Joshua had drawn her – John was certain, in that moment: he had purposefully called her. She followed: happily followed.
And John, also, in that moment, felt a rising interest in her.