CHAPTER FOUR
Every eye followed Jesus as he entered the synagogue and joined his brothers. A wave of whispers crested through the room. Many a glance toward Jesus surfed its swell. The crowded room quieted as the elder rose to read.
“‘Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising…’”
The elder’s voice droned on in the morning, unable to quell the restlessness that gripped the worshipers. The end of the reading shook them back to attention.
“‘…and they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the Lord will hasten it in his time.’”
The elder lowered the scroll and cleared his voice.
“The Coming One will soon appear. Hundreds of scriptures, such as this one, promise his coming. Do not lose hope that his glorious reign will come and that his armies will banish the oppression of the infidels that rule us. He will make us a strong nation once more, and all will grovel in the brightness of our rising.”
Every eye focused on Jesus as the elder continued.
“Our esteemed brother has returned, and I’m sure we all would like to hear him speak this morning.”
The elder handed Jesus the scroll. Jesus gripped it, but focused on his brethren and recited the prophecy of the Coming One, continuing where the elder had finished.
“‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.’”
Jesus closed the scroll, and a chorus of “amens” followed like schoolboys answering roll call. He returned it to the elder and faced his brethren.
Time stopped, waiting for its author's next move.
“Take another look at what scripture says about your Messiah,” he said, “for today, this scripture is fulfilled in your ears.”
Another wave of whispers crested through the synagogue, this time more like a tsunami. “Joseph’s son,” “he’s no different than us,” “how disrespectful,” and “blasphemous” churned in its surge. The voice of Jesus drowned in the thunder of its crescendo. A hand struck him across the face. Others seized him and dragged him out of the synagogue. They bound him amid curses and blows. Hundreds joined the fray as they jostled him this way and that, driving him, confined in their midst, from the city. A fist struck Jesus in the face and blood trickled over his lip. A hand nearly dislocated his arm.
Images of the bloody street of his youth swarmed him. These were the ones who had hurt him then. O, faithless and perverse generation, how long would he be with them? How long was he to put up with them? This time, they intended to do more than just hurt him.
As the cliff loomed closer, a ruffian thrust his curled lip in Jesus’ face and sneered.
“You better be the Messiah, because you’re going to have to save yourself—or die!”
The familiar words rang in Jesus' ears, but he heeded them not. This would be the precipice on which he would die—if his Father willed it.
The crowd hemmed him in. Several stones struck him, drawing blood. At last, he teetered on the brink, struggling to keep his balance. He reeled before a final blow and fell. His arms flailed, groping for solid ground as the air rushed past him.
Seconds later, the limb of a tree broke his fall. He stared at the ground a few feet below him. He was hanging from one of his acacia trees.
He let himself down and knelt in his sanctuary. His Father’s will attended him, and his time had not yet come.
The crowd pressed Jesus to the water’s edge. He bid them farewell and struggled into the boat with Peter’s help. He sat on the rail for a moment, breathing hard.
“I’m beat,” he said. “I think I’ll rest a while in the bow.”
He lay on an old piece of net. What a relief to relax. How long had it been since he’d slept? The voices around him grew distant…
A light breeze filled the sail and pushed the boat toward deep water. Peter leaned up against the mast and dozed.
The storm struck at nightfall, blotting all light from the sky. It blasted the sail and nearly capsized them. Peter was startled awake. He strained to release the line and let the sail luff. James and Andrew stumbled over two bulkheads to secure it. Peter gripped an oar and battled against the mounting elements with the others. The boat cowered before white-capped rollers.
“Brace yourselves!” A voice cracked like thunder above the tumult of the tempest.
A breaker reared high and smote them, heeling the boat to its rail. The force tore the rudder from Andrew’s hands, slamming him into a bulkhead.
“Reverse the oars on the starboard!” Peter leaped aft and caught the rudder. “We won’t survive many more like that!”
The boat came about as they abandoned their windward course. They rowed hard in the following sea, but the angry waters matched their strength and exceeded it. Breaker after breaker flooded the stern.
John left his place at the oars and seized a bailer. Lightning flickered in his eyes. “Bail for your lives!” The gale extinguished his cry.
“Look out!”
A white-capped roller crashed over the stern, flooding it with water. The boat foundered. Only the bow remained high.
Peter struggled in chest-deep water to hold the rudder. “We’re going down! Where is the Master?”
James half crawled, half swam toward the bow. “I think he’s up here! Master! Master!”
The shriek of the tempest swept away his plea. A flash of lightning lit the darkness that hid the Master.
“He’s sleeping!” Peter cried. “How can he sleep in this storm? Doesn’t he know we’re all going to drown?”
“Master!” James gripped the forward bulkhead and reached for Jesus. “Master! Don’t you care if we die?”
A hand gripped Jesus’ shoulder as he moved through the garden. He turned and searched his Father’s eyes.
“Something’s wrong,” he said. “They’re usually right here, anxious to hug us and talk.”
His Father’s brow contracted. “If we call, maybe they will answer.”
Jesus peered into the depths of the garden. “Adam! Adam, where are you?”
No answer came from the darkening glen.
Jesus faced his Father again. “We’ve lost him.”
“But I like Adam,” his Father said. “Call again.”
“Adam!”
“Master!” came the reply, soon repeated with growing intensity.
“Master!”
“Yes,” Jesus said. “Something has happened to Adam. He’s in trouble, and I must go to help him.”
“You go,” his Father said. “I’ll wait here.”
The cry grew stronger as Jesus stirred and awakened to the storm and his disciples’ distress. He sat up, and another lightning bolt flickered across the bow, revealing him to the men he called his own. They twisted their waterlogged bodies toward him. His face glowed in the night as he yawned before their piercing gaze.
“Lord,” they cried in unison, “save us! Save yourself!”
Jesus rose while they gripped their oars in a final effort against the tempest. He knew he needn't fear for himself. His Father held his back, but these children of his—these children of Adam—hadn’t learned that yet. He stood in the midst of the raging sea as breakers swamped the boat. In the flash of the elements, every eye beheld him standing chest-deep in water, his hand raised above his head. His voice boomed above the fury of sea.
“Peace, be still.”
The surf fell at his word. The wind d
ied, and their boat buoyed high on a flat, calm sea. The clouds parted, revealing a moon and stars. The men stood agape, frozen in silence. Jesus stepped forward, gripping a halyard, and spoke gently.
“Why were you afraid? Don’t you trust God yet, instead of yourselves? When will you learn that he will always take care of you, no matter how desperate life seems?”
The men stared at Jesus, speechless. Jesus waited, letting his question sink deep. At last, Peter spoke.
“How do you do it? You slept in the storm, yet even when you awakened, you were at peace. How did you keep from being afraid, even when our boat was sinking and death was near?”
Jesus caught Peter’s eye.
“I have told you before, Peter, that I am like you. Even a god cannot trust in his own strength without ultimately experiencing what you just experienced. Self-reliance always results in fear, isolation, and death. I do not rest in the possession of almighty power. My peace comes not because I am master of the sea and sky. I trust always in my Father’s might. I rest in his love and care. It is the power of his word that stills the sea and my heart.”
Peter shook his head. “But life is daunting—scary. It is the hardest thing in the world to surrender to God’s will no matter what happens, to believe that we can fully trust him instead of ourselves.”
Jesus laid his hand on Peter.
“But you can succeed in this endeavor,” he said, gazing deep into his eyes. “Take it to heart. You have just seen the truth of it. In the same way as I trust my Father’s will, so you must trust in me regardless of what you see. As men, our greatest battle is to surrender our will.”
Nothing but the rhythm of the oars broke the silence on their voyage to the other side of the lake. The sun broke free from the horizon as the beach drew near. The boat crunched up against the sand. James jumped out and set the anchor. The men welcomed the land more enthusiastically than usual, with cheers and greetings. They moved up the beach.
“I think the town is up this path,” John said, “past that graveyard. I hope so. I’m famished after—”
A hideous shriek bludgeoned the morning. A creature, matted and torn, descended from the tombs. Its eyes glowed, and it rushed at the men as if to dismember them. The glare in the demon’s eyes overwhelmed their exhausted psyches, summoning once more the terror of the night. They ran, scrambling backward and falling over themselves to escape.
Peter sprinted thirty yards before he glanced back. “Jesus!” He slid to a stop in the sand, followed by each of his companions.
Jesus stood where they had left him, his hand raised above his head. The wild brute writhed before him. As the disciples gaped at the spectacle, Jesus spoke.
“Come out of him!”
The demoniac fell at Jesus’ feet. Its shrill voice resonated, like a litany of many voices speaking at once.
“What are you going to do with us, Jesus, son of the Most High God? In God’s name, don’t torture us!”
“What is your name?” Jesus asked.
The pitiful creature glared at him, twisting its head this way and that. The dissonant chorus shattered the morning once again. “My name is Legion, for we are many.”
A moment later the demons vanished at the command of Jesus, and a man knelt before him, his eyes beaming.
“Praise God for his everlasting mercy!” he said.
Jesus reached down and grasped the man’s hand. This man needed him no worse than the others who joined him now with lowered heads. Once more, they had witnessed the reliance on God that he had learned in his short time on earth. The night’s lesson had been repeated. He smiled gently at them and said nothing, for clearly, none of them had missed it.
CHAPTER FIVE
The trees converged on Jesus. Their gnarled bodies twisted to strangle the light of a Passover moon. A few rogue shafts broke through the shadows as Jesus stumbled into the garden. He swayed, grasping at a passing trellis for stability. Peter and John rushed to support him. He seized them involuntarily and clung to them.
“I’m dying…” Jesus gasped out the odd words, struggling to take a few more steps. He groaned.
“I can’t go any farther.” They halted under an olive tree. “Wait here and watch with me.”
Jesus staggered forward twenty feet before he collapsed near the roots of an ancient olive tree. With a sob, he rose to his elbows and crossed his wrists behind his head.
The crosses of his youth lined the road before him. The rasp of the pitiful zealot gasping out his last on the crossbeams above him still haunted his ears. But worse were the words of the Psalmist that went round and round in his head: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning. O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but I have no rest…you lay me in the dust of death.”
He desired hell like he desired sin, and yet his Father asked him to go there.
“Please don’t ask me to do this, Father.” His voice broke. “Are you sure it’s what you want? There must be a better way…Father?”
“You may as well save your breath,” said a harsh voice from the shadows. “You can’t drink the dregs of disobedience without becoming disobedient yourself. If you go through with this…” the voice guffawed, “…you can say goodbye to your Father—forever!”
Jesus searched the gloom. Yet nothing but forms and shadows lurked there. It was true: sin and love were incompatible. Perhaps the magnitude of the sins of a fallen world could shut him out from his Father’s love. His chest ached as if it were true. He must escape this horror. He must return to his Father by any means. One word, just one, and he would be home…
Yet how then was his Father’s will to save the cosmos and man to be accomplished? His Father’s will…he didn’t want to do it.
He lay gasping in a timeless place, searching the darkness for another way. There must be another way. His passionate cries brought no answer save the words he knew so well, the haunting words of scripture. He must trust his Father’s will no matter what. There was no other way.
His cry pierced the night, followed by nearly inaudible words.
“Father,” he said, “I will do your will, not mine.”
“You have chosen poorly!” said the same crude voice from the shadows.
Jesus propped himself up against a boulder and peered into the night. A pair of eyes accosted him in the gloom.
“I don’t know why you bother. These creatures that you love are so ungrateful. They sully and betray your love.”
The eyes disappeared, reappearing a moment later near the men that called Jesus Lord.
“Look!” said the shadowed figure. “They don’t give a glass of Passover wine about you. They’re all asleep!”
His laughter tore through the night.
“I don’t see how you can love these loathsome creatures, but go ahead! Suit yourself. Throw your life away. Waste your eternal self for nothing!”
It did seem futile. Sin gripped men so tenaciously that few would be willing to break from it. Jesus turned from the specter and fell to the earth once more. He shrank from the thing his Father seemed to require of him. His Father was nearby. He would have a better answer. He always did. There must be another way to save men, another way to glorify God.
“Isn’t there another way?” He clung to the damp earth and moaned. “There has to be another way.”
Only the voice of Zechariah the prophet responded to his cry: “I will smite the Shepherd…”
There wasn’t another way, except in opposition to his Father. Would he trust him, even against his own will? His skin bled blood before the decision.
He would do his Father’s will.
Jesus struggled to stand but fainted, collapsing into the dirt. Again, he tried to rise, this time managing to keep his balance. He staggered toward his disciples, but the obscure figure blocked his way. The demon leered at him for a moment before he threw back his hooded head and laughed—an unearthly guffaw that shivered thr
ough the layers of time.
The malignancy of sin drifted over Jesus like a poisonous fume. Evil choked him with clawed hands. He must escape it—he must! He could. He could leave these…these—what did the demon call them?—loathsome creatures and stand with his Father again, innocent.
His head spun and his strength waned. He fell forward, clutching the ground in the blackness…
He blinked. Sunlight filtered through the trees. The glow of morning illuminated and transformed the dark earth in his hands. A man lay before him with a light in his eyes and laughter on his breath. His gaze embraced him. Jesus’ heart trembled.
“Adam!” he cried.
Adam vanished into the darkness of the garden hell, and Jesus’ tormentor towered above him once more. He clutched Adam by the throat, his limp and bloody body dangling from his talons.
He growled at Jesus. “What about Adam?” His sickly eyes glowed in the murk. “Adam is mine!”
Adam’s trachea whistled as the demon thrust him into the air.
“If you want him,” he said, “come and get him.”
As Adam hung in the balance, an abrasive monotone escaped the creature, wavering in the night like a witch's chant.
“What is the price of Adam,
For one who is willing to pay?
Surround him with bulls of Bashan.
Come join the bloody fray!
Behold him, forsaken and tortured,
Beaten past identity.
What is the price of Adam?
Come to the cauldron and see!
Pour him out like water,
Upon the thirsty ground.
Dislocate his every joint,
While we all stand around.
Melt his heart like wax until
It flows into his gut.
Banish every ray of hope.
Slam faith’s portal shut.
What is the price of Adam?
Come to my globe and see!
Strip him of every possession,
And hang him nude on a tree.
We’ll surround him with packs of rabid dogs.
We’ll pierce his hands and feet.
We’ll shatter his strength like a potsherd,
And offer him gall to eat.