A gruff, ragged servant of one of the Pharisees replied defiantly, “He’s my boy. Davin is his name. We are in service to Hamid, a Pharisee of Jerusalem and a member of the council.”
Davin spat, “And your boy Avel swung first.”
Avel shouted, “He was calling you names, Master! Said you are a fraud. Said it was all tricks what you do!”
Davin wriggled and kicked at Avel. “It’s true. My father and my master say you’re nothing but a troublemaker! Say you’re nothing. Nothing! Going to turn the world upside down and get everybody crucified!”
Davin’s father raised his chin and stepped forward. “All true. Now I’ll thank you to put my boy down.”
Jesus effortlessly swung the boy into his father’s reach. Then he set Avel to the side. “Go on, Avel. That’s enough.”
The father placed his son behind him and drew himself up to challenge Jesus. His hands clenched and unclenched. For a moment I thought he would strike Jesus.
Peter rushed between them and faced off with the father. “Get back! You . . . you and that devil’s spawn of yours! You’re nothing but scum! Pawns of Israel’s oppressors.”
I spotted Avel’s bloody face scowling out from among Jesus’ disciples. A woman took his arm, guided him to the side, and dabbed his nose. The crowd of onlookers became a divided mob.
The opposition shouted and cursed Jesus as a pretender and a blasphemer.
Jesus’ followers defended their teacher vehemently.
“Jesus can fight for himself, all right!”
“Lord, call down hell fire on them! Burn them up—like Elijah!”
Jesus’ eyes flashed angrily, and I thought for a moment he might summon bolts of lightning and brimstone from the sky. Instead, he raised his hand and addressed his people. “That’s enough! Be still. You don’t know what you are saying!”
Instantly both factions fell silent. Jesus searched the faces of the opposition, fixing his gaze on one opulently dressed Pharisee.
Joseph muttered, “That’s Hamid.”
Jesus summoned the ruler. “Come here, Hamid. Take your servant and your servant’s son. The place to settle this debate is not here. Not now.”
The ruler snapped his finger and called his servants as if they were dogs. He warned Jesus, “The time is coming. You are right about that. It will be settled.”
The confrontation broke up. Those who had come to discredit Jesus grumbled as they returned to the business of saying morning prayers and preparing to travel to Jerusalem.
Joseph and I hung back as Jesus stooped in front of Avel and the woman tending his nose.
“Well, Avel. You’ll have two black eyes, I think.” Jesus looked up at the woman. “A cold compress, eh, Mother?”
I knew her name from the stories Rabbi Kagba had told me. Mary. She was beautiful. Her brown eyes with flecks of gold had smile lines at the corners. Hair and eye color was so much like her son.
Mary nodded. “Not broken. Not this time, eh, Avel?”
“No. I’m sorry.” The boy cast his blue eyes downward, then hung his head. “I . . . I just couldn’t help it. He was so . . . so . . .”
I was surprised that Jesus did not reach out and staunch the flow of blood or heal the bruised eyes. Jesus said quietly, “Pray for the boy you think is your enemy, Avel. Perhaps he will one day learn the truth for himself and become your brother.”
“I could have shut his mouth.”
Mary murmured, “Poor boy. Yes, Avel, pray for him. He doesn’t speak his own words, but only repeats what he has been taught.”
Jesus patted Avel on the back. “No more of this, Avel. It solved nothing, as you see.”
Avel’s friends circled around him. Jesus’ disciples joined them.
Jesus said, “Things that cause people to sin are sure to come, but woe to the person from whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone around his neck than to cause one of these little ones to sin.”1
Peter growled, “I’ll pray for them. Pray them right into hell where they belong. I look forward to the day when we bury these . . . hypocrites! I’ll never forgive them for such arrogant disrespect for you, Lord. Who knows what other sins they hide?”
Jesus did not acknowledge Peter but continued speaking as if he had not heard his words. “Watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”2
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
Jesus held up his thumb and forefinger, demonstrating how a small fragment of faith could accomplish mighty deeds . . . such as forgiveness. “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.”3
At that instant, Joseph placed his hand on my shoulder. “There’s Lazarus.” He inclined his head toward the man I had seen near Jesus the night before. He stood behind Jesus’ mother and spoke to Avel over her shoulder. In the morning light Lazarus looked to be about the same age as Jesus. He glanced up at Joseph, then came to where we stood at the foot of the stairs.
“My old friend.” Lazarus clapped my master on his back. “I’m glad you’ve come.”
“I returned to Joppa and heard all the news,” Joseph said, making the same gesture of companionship. “I came straight away to find you . . . to see. The news was all . . . about you. Is it true?”
Lazarus replied with a single nod. “Yes. If it had not been for Jesus, you would have returned home and found my place at the table empty and my cup poured out.”
For a moment Joseph’s eyes brimmed with emotion. He did not remove his hand from Lazarus’s shoulder. “Well. Well then. We have both been on far journeys, it seems. One for business and the other for . . . for . . . ,” he stammered.
“For the business of the Kingdom of God.” Lazarus lifted his chin slightly. His brow furrowed. “It is more beautiful than we could ever have imagined . . .”
“The parable that Jesus told last night . . . It seems this is a far land in which every man will want to dwell. I must speak with him. I have a question that only he will be able to answer. If it is possible.”
“Yes. Yes. I know he’ll want to speak with you. Tonight is Shabbat. Then after that?”
Joseph cleared his throat. “I’ve got to return to Jerusalem before Shabbat. Some business to take care of. But then I’ll come back.” He added, “My apprentice, Nehemiah, I’d like him to stay here among Jesus’ followers until I return.”
Lazarus agreed with a laugh. “Nehemiah. Well then, you can stay among our boys. There are a dozen or so who travel with us. They all have duties in the camp. You may have noticed Avel, whose desire is to be a bodyguard.” He laughed. “We will put you to work.”
And so it was that Joseph delayed his conversation with Jesus. He would return first to Jerusalem to inspect the completion of the family tomb, since Passover was rapidly approaching. If the work was done, he would pay the wages of the men who labored there.
“Please, Master Joseph,” I asked, “while you’re there, can you go by my grandparents’ shop? I’d like to know if it’s really getting rebuilt.”
Joseph agreed to check on the work in the Street of the Weavers, then left me in the care of his friend Lazarus.
So it was that I took my place among Avel and his two brothers, Ha-or Tov and Emet. Ha-or Tov was twelve, had curly, red hair and pale skin, and was the eldest of the three. Avel was ten and a cheerful boy. Emet was six, fair-haired like Avel, and had somber brown eyes. A wild sparrow perched on his shoulder, flitted to his head, and then to his hand. He fed the bird bread crumbs and called him Yediyd, which means “friend.”
It was the bird and his endearing actions that made me laugh for almost the first time since the night my father’s camp was attacked. There was a story in the bird—a tiny sparrow crushed by the hands of evil, but then healed b
y Yeshua and now a gift of great joy to a poor boy, Avel said, nodding at his little brother.
The brothers had once been counted among the orphan boys of Jerusalem, living in the caverns beneath the city as Sparrows until they were adopted by an old shepherd of Bethlehem named Zadok.
Zadok had the look of a man who had been mauled by a lion. I had grown up with men who were scarred and battered in the battle to protect the flocks from wild beasts. He was missing one eye, wore a patch over the socket, and his face was creased with an old wound.
That morning he fed the livestock, which were a part of Jesus’ band of followers. Mary, the mother of Jesus, spoke to the old man cheerfully as he passed. She and a number of other women served the disciples breakfast. It seemed to me that perhaps Mary was related to Zadok in some way. There was a familiar family bond between them.
The children of the camp ate separately from the adults. I was seated between Avel and Emet. Between bites of bread and eggs, the brothers poured out the story of Zadok.
Avel wore his black eyes like badges of honor. He shrugged. “Look at my old father there. That patch. A spear hit him in the face, and that’s where he lost his eye. Jesus could give him two eyes, but he don’t want it. He says his face is a reminder of what the Herods did to his sons, and he is proud of his wounds.”
Emet added, “Zadok’s a fighter too. So I guess it’s right we’re his sons.”
The old man had spent his life watching over the flocks at Bethlehem. He had a wife and three small sons when Jesus was born in a lambing cave. He had seen angels appear in the sky and had been among the first to hold the infant King of Israel. Mary, Joseph, and the baby had stayed in Zadok’s house. When the Magi arrived to pay homage, it was at the home of Zadok where they found Jesus.
I had heard some of the story from Rabbi Kagba. The foreigners had warned Mary and Joseph to flee from Herod. Then the soldiers had come. I was familiar with that much of the tale.
Avel filled in the rest. “Zadok fought the Herodian guards like they were wolves. But he was struck down, and his boys were slaughtered by the soldiers of Herod the Great. So Zadok lost his sons and his eye in the fight. He carried a deep scar across his face and in his heart until Jesus returned to Bethlehem many years later.”
Ha-or Tov added, “We three were lost sheep, see? Homeless. No family. Then Jesus healed us—my eyes.”
“My broken heart,” Avel added.
“My ears, my mouth,” Emet said.
Ha-or Tov picked up the story. “And then Jesus brought us to the house of Zadok in Bethlehem and entreated Zadok to accept us as true sons.”
So it was that Avel, Emet, and Ha-or Tov had filled the places and hearts of the family that had been lost.
Now old Zadok and his boys were among the circle of about a hundred close followers who had left every worldly possession to be with Jesus.
Breakfast nearly finished, Emet rested his chin in his hand and tilted his head slightly like a puppy waiting to be fed. “All right, then. Now you know everything about us. We know nothing about you. Except that you talk funny. You’re not from around here, for sure. What’s your story?”
I thought of the hart. The cup. My great journey. The purpose of my life and the meaning of my name. Surely they would not believe me. I summed up everything: “I am also the son of a shepherd. His name is Lamsa. And my mother, Sarah, is a weaver of prayer shawls in the land where Eden once was on earth. Very far from here.”
The little bird flitted from Emet’s shoulder to Avel’s right index finger when he pointed at me. “There’s got to be more to it than that.”
I stuck out my finger, and the sparrow hopped onto my hand. I laughed and then spoke the horrible words as if they were nothing. “I was separated from my family when bandits attacked our camp. My grandparents are in Joppa, and I am an apprentice to Joseph of Arimathea.”
“A very rich fellow.” Ha-or Tov narrowed his eyes. “So why did he leave you here?”
The question was so straightforward I could not think of any answer but the truth. I passed the sparrow back to Avel, who kissed it on the beak, then handed it to Emet.
“My true master—Joseph of great reputation—has given me a task. I’m to polish his family’s old Kiddush cup for Passover. I’ll bring it to Jerusalem.”
Emet asked, “That’s it?”
I replied, “That’s it.”
Avel’s head bobbed thoughtfully. “Have you got it? The cup, I mean?”
I reached into the pouch and produced the tarnished vessel. Holding it out to my new friends, I said, “That’s it. Clean it. That’s my task.”
The three were unimpressed. Avel shrugged. “Joseph is so rich he could buy all the Kiddush cups in Jerusalem. Brand-new. Gold, even. But he’s got to have this old thing, eh?”
“It goes way back.” I rubbed it with the fabric of my tunic. “Tradition.”
Avel agreed. “Well then. Good luck, Nehemiah. That’s all I have to say. Fellows like your master think tradition is everything. If Joseph wants an old beat-up cup for Passover, I guess you’re stuck with it. It’ll take you all the way till Passover to get it shined, I think.”
Ha-or Tov stuck out his lower lip. “Suppose it’s just all that color. Black. You scrub and scrub and . . . nothing.”
I turned the thing over in my hand, hoping for even a glimmer of light, but the tarnish of ages was thick and unforgiving of my task. From across the courtyard I heard Mary laughing with two other women and a small girl. I remembered what my rabbi had taught me: for his safety, the birth of the King of Israel, Messiah, Redeemer, was hidden from all the world in a stable. But above the earth the stars of the heavens proclaimed his coming.
“One day, in God’s timing, the curtain will be pulled back and the glory of the Holy of Holies will shine forth.”
I frowned at the dark cup in my hand and knew that the dark layer would somehow be stripped away to reveal its secret.
Chapter 28
Mary and other women labored in preparation for the Shabbat celebration, which would begin at sunset. Only a handful of Pharisees remained at the inn. The rest had returned to Jerusalem. The gates of the caravansary were closed and locked, preventing crowds from mobbing the place where Jesus stayed.
Within the earshot of everyone Jesus took his place in the portico and told stories no one had ever heard before.
In the courtyard of the inn was a large mulberry tree. Climbing up, cup in hand, I shared a thick lower branch with the sparrow, Yediyd. As I drank in Jesus’ tales, I rubbed at the blackened silver with a soft scrap of fleece. I worked until my fingers ached. My efforts to polish Joseph’s cup seemed hopeless. Only a slight gleam of silver shone through at the rim and on a raised, rounded shape on the side. Perhaps a cluster of grapes? I wondered. I wished now I had begun to shine it long before.
Others in the camp labored so they could rest with the Master during Shabbat. I would not complete my task before Shabbat began at sunset, when I would be forced to lay it aside. And when I resumed? Perhaps I would not even have it cleaned before Passover!
Could I have come so far and suffered so much, only to end my journey in abject failure? The cup was so unworthy of presenting to anyone, let alone the Messiah. Hopping up to a smaller branch near my head, Yediyd bobbed and flicked his tail, sensing my anxiety.
Jesus unfolded a lesson that seemed directed at me. “Suppose one of you had a servant plowing, or looking after the sheep.”
My head rose at the mention of shepherd’s work. I was familiar with the nature of a herdsman’s labor. There was never a day of rest for a shepherd. The task of caring for the flock was endless.
Jesus continued, “Would you say to the servant when you came in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat?’ Would you not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready, and wait on me while I eat and drink. After that, you may eat and drink’? Would you thank the servant because he did what he was told to do?”
How many times
had my family eaten a Shabbat meal prepared by hireling shepherds around the watch fire? And when my father and brothers had finished their Shabbat meals, they took their turn watching the flocks. Only then did the hireling shepherds eat.
I scrubbed at the stubborn tarnish and pictured the scene Jesus described. It seemed to me he glanced at me in the tree. Yediyd bowed and preened. “So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ ”
Jesus’ words confirmed I had not done my duty until my assignment was complete. Only I did not know how to accomplish the task given me.
A barrage of questions erupted from the disciples as I clambered down from the mulberry tree. Bypassing them, I hastened over to where Mary laid out and smoothed the wrinkles from prayer shawls that had recently been cleaned.
Some of the knotted corners were tangled and messy. Unhurriedly, Mary prized out the snarls so the fringes hung properly. She was chatting pleasantly with Martha, the sister of Lazarus.
Noticing me looking on, Martha observed, “Mary is the best at untying knots there is. No one else has the patience or the skill.”
I held the cup out to Jesus’ mother, confident she did not know what it was, but that perhaps she could tell me how to make it bright and suitable to present.
“Nehemiah?” A smile lit the crinkled lines of her face. She turned her brown-gold eyes on me. Stepping around the corner of the building, she wiped the flour from her hands on a blue-and-white apron. “So you are here at last, cupbearer.”
Suddenly my words were not my own. “Hail, Mary . . . highly favored of the Most High. Favored among all women!”
She answered, “Blessed be the one who sent you. I have been looking for you. Not at all as I expected.”
I thought she was speaking of my rabbi. “My teacher, Rabbi Kagba, whom you knew from early days, sends his greetings to the mother of the Lord. He told me you are a gracious and righteous woman, and that you would help me.”