“Bikri,” I murmured. The vision of my grandfather’s betrayer, now a wizened, pitiful old cripple, rose in my mind.
“Bikri, indeed, if I may say so, sir. Falsely denouncing your grandfather, of blessed memory. Never was a finer man, nor a kinder, nor a more generous, than your mother’s father, whose name you bear.” Samson spat noisily and messily before wiping his chin on his sleeve. “Thrown in prison by old Herod on the word of a scoundrel like Bikri.”
“They say Bikri was afraid for his own life.”
Samson bristled. “Even so! He was supposed to be your grandfather’s friend! And it wasn’t just fear. It was greed! Now Herod Antipas holds title to what should have come to you.”
“Never mind,” I urged, despite dark thoughts of my own.
Evil, it seemed, was never completely vanquished. The demons merely disappeared for a time and then claimed another host willing to do their bidding. Just as King Ahab of old had located false witnesses against Naboth, Herod had carried out a similar plot against my grandfather, except that my grandfather died in prison before his trial.
Shaking off the grim recollections, I added, “People say old Herod went through many horrors before he died. And we all know what became of Bikri. Father took me to gaze down on Bikri twice a year as I was growing up. Passover and the Day of Atonement. We always stood on the parapet above the portico where Bikri lays. Father said to me, ‘Remember, son. Bikri is an example of God’s justice.’ I go there still when I am tempted to doubt God is a just and righteous judge.”
“Struck down in his prime before he spent half of the bribe money he received and now lives as a friendless cripple most of forty years,” Samson agreed. “God is just … at least in the case of Bikri. Still, I miss your grandfather. No bringing him back. And what he missed. The joy of watching his grandchildren grow up. I’m of an age now, dreams of grandchildren for me and Delilah. That’s my goal.” He patted the donkey and mused awhile as we rode. “It was wrong to steal his vineyard, wasn’t it, sir?”
We passed the time in silence, each of us trying to reconcile what we believed of a just and merciful God with the injustice and evil all around us. I saw Samson give me several sideways glances, as if regretting bringing up painful memories.
Finally, deciding to change the subject, Samson passed the remainder of his grapes to me. “Sir, have you considered what you will name this year’s vintage? In light of all that these vines have struggled with? All the hardship they have so faithfully endured to present you with such a gift as this harvest will bring?”
Until that moment, I had not considered what I would have stamped on the clay amphora that would hold this wine. “I will name it Eliza. There will never be another like her.”
“Excellent choice, sir. Most appropriate. This will be the finest wine ever made in the winery of the House of David ben Lazarus.”
As the grapes ripened and neared harvest, John the Baptizer preached about a spiritual harvest. He became more strident in his message. He called Herod and his wife adulterers and compared them rightly to Jezebel and King Ahab. As for the politically appointed religious leaders, the Baptizer told them to their faces that they were vipers and false shepherds who had betrayed God and his beloved people. Just like the prophet Elijah, John made enemies of many dangerous men that summer.
Judah again came to supper. John the Baptizer was on his mind.
Judah washed his broad hands and patted his muscled stomach. “I am full and happy,” he said to Martha. Then he turned to me. “So. When will you be ready to journey to the Jordan to see this prophet for yourself? Can we leave tomorrow, David?”
I trusted my sister and my steward with managing the vineyards and the fields in my absence. Martha was a woman of strength and good sense.
“All right, then. I am curious about this prophet … curious, if nothing else. A few days’ journey. Always best to see for myself.”
“It’s settled, then,” Judah concluded, acting as if I could not see the wink he gave my sister, acknowledging the success of their plot. “I’ll bring the horses round in the morning.”
Chapter 3
Martha prepared provisions enough for Judah and me to travel for five days. Dried figs and apricots, flat bread, and goat cheese were packed into a rucksack. I carried a wineskin so we could add wine to improve the water we found along the way.
As if afraid I might still back out of the pilgrimage, Judah rode up to my gates just after dawn. Seated on his splendid bay, he was leading a gentle, white mare for me.
I could not manage more than a perfunctory nod in reply to Martha’s cheerful “Shalom!” as we set out to join the stream of pilgrims moving eastward.
I turned my head slightly as we rode toward the narrow path that led to the garden and Eliza’s tomb. A pang of longing surged through me, but I set my face forward and squared my shoulders. I was certain that by the time I returned from my pilgrimage, Martha would have packed up Eliza’s personal belongings, removing all trace of her from the house, and distributed her clothing to the poor. Though they did not speak of it, I knew Judah and Martha had planned my journey to remove me from this final act of letting go.
By noon the broad way had narrowed. Judah and I were far from alone on the dusty road leading down from Jerusalem to the wilderness of the Jordan. Word about John, who was called “the Baptizer,” had spread far and wide. The hungry hearts of my oppressed people were stirred by the rumor and the hope. Bands of common folk flocked to hear his preaching. Those moving down from the mountains were met by returning pilgrims. An excited murmur passed from one group to another. Was John the long-awaited Messiah of Israel?
The first night of our journey, campfires dotted the rugged hillsides. I gathered sage and made a small fire. We spread our cloaks and settled in. After our meal, Judah closed his eyes and fell asleep. I lay on my back and studied the vast, star-studded canopy above me. Countless jewels glistened in the moonless night. I remembered the Lord’s promise to Abraham—that his descendants would be as many as the stars in the sky and the sands of the seashore. How could this ancient promise be true?
In recent years under Tiberius, there had been a slaughter of thousands of observant Jews. Thirty years before tonight, this very road had been lined with crucified Jewish leaders who had refused to worship the Roman emperor. Thirty years before tonight’s tranquil sky, a slaughter of innocent children in the vicinity of Bethlehem had occurred when a rumor surfaced that an infant king had been born there. Shortly after that, the dynasty of Maccabee priests had been killed off. Now Rome had replaced righteous leaders in the Temple with corrupt puppets like Caiaphas and Annas. History proved that from the beginning, the great political powers of earth were determined to destroy our identity as Jews. Two hundred years earlier, the wars of the Maccabees had been waged against the Greek Empire for the sake of our religious freedom to worship and live as Jews. Jews had won our right to worship the God of Abraham at a great price.
Under the rule of the first generation of Maccabees, we remained a free and holy people, dedicated to the One True God. Then, year by year as our elders passed away, the sacrifices of our freedom fighters were forgotten. For the sake of convenience, new Jewish leaders made alliances with Rome. For the sake of Rome’s protection, we had given up our freedom and our identity. We were now in exactly the same situation as we had been when Judah Maccabee fought against the Greeks who required our people to offer polluted sacrifices to pagan gods.
Who would stand up to Rome? Where was the savior of our people? How could we now withstand the persecutions of Rome and remain a people who worshiped the One True God?
I whispered my evening prayers and then spoke in my heart to heaven: If ever there was a moment when we need the Messiah, now is the time.
The shuffling footsteps of a multitude awakened me the next morning. As the road narrowed, the flood of pilgrims overflowed as they surged away from Jerusalem and toward the Jordan, trampling the wildflowers on the hillside. The
crowd increased at each byway and crossroad.
My fellow travelers were made up mostly of young, strong men. Unlike the joyful families who normally choked the highways during religious holidays, these fellows were of military age and had the lean look of rebellion fixed on their faces. As they passed us, they glanced askance at Judah’s mounts staked out and placidly grazing. The am ha aretz—the people of the land—had no resources to keep animals as costly as horses. It made us suspect to them as well.
Judah inclined his head toward a heap of boulders that formed a sort of gate above the pass. Roman soldiers in uniform stood watch above us.
Judah remarked under his breath, “Look at them. Stationed there under the guise of protecting travelers from bandits.”
I replied, “Hoping for a reason to slaughter Jews.”
“Then they truly are afraid of this fellow, John the Baptizer.”
“Can Rome think there is danger in one man who lives in the wilderness?”
A grim-faced peasant overheard us and said, “We pass through the stone gate as sheep, but perhaps there will come a day when John will send us forth as lions.”
His friend rested a hand on the hilt of a rusty sword. “I long for that day, brothers! When the courage of the Maccabees is revived and we take back our nation!” His accent was thick with the dust of Galilee.
Judah nudged me, then urged the peasant, “Be careful what you say, Galilean. You don’t need to draw a sword to have your tongue cut out as a rebel.”
The peasant challenged me. “Some say the Baptizer will rally us to fight when he calls all of Israel to overthrow Herod Antipas and Rome. What do you say, brother?”
I paused long before I answered, knowing that both Rome and the Herodians had planted spies among us. A careless word could bring a charge of treason and lead to crucifixion. “I’m curious about this wild man, this John. Why he stays out of Herod Antipas’s territory.”
“He’s more afraid of Herodias, the wife of Herod Antipas, than he is the Romans,” the peasant interjected. “The Baptizer has taken a great dislike to her and Antipas. He preaches openly about the sin of their illegal marriage.”
His friend added, “That witch would have John killed the minute he dares step foot in the territory of Antipas. What we need is a combination of a prophet like Elijah and a general like Joshua.”
The peasant smiled, revealing two missing front teeth. He put a finger to the space. “This from a Roman foot soldier and his friends, who beat me in the marketplace for entertainment. A tooth for a tooth, the Scripture says. Perhaps John is sent from God … the fellow to help us pull a few Roman teeth.” He gestured toward a group of Sadducees, who stepped to the side of the road to pray. “The prayers of religious leaders who do not believe in God are no use to us, brothers.”
Judah pared an apple and offered a slice to the travelers. “Prophets seldom make good generals.”
The peasant spit through his gap as we passed beneath the gaze of the sentries. “I ask only for the Baptizer to call down fire from heaven first, and then I’ll wade in and finish the job.”
I surmised these coarse Galileans were neither spies of Rome nor of Herod, nor any real threat to anyone but themselves.
Past midday we came to a place opposite where Elijah the prophet had been taken up in a fiery chariot hundreds of years before.
I heard the Baptizer’s stern, rasping voice even before I saw him: “Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.”1
The crowd was intense and silent, listening. Judah and I made our way along the west side of the Jordan. John was preaching on the riverbank. He was square built and sturdy like a laborer in a stone quarry. Sun-coarsened face was framed by a beard, which was long, parted, and braided. Black hair was tied back. Dressed in camel skin and wearing a wide leather belt, he matched my childhood mental image of Elijah.
The prophet directed his ire at the Pharisees and the Sadducees I had seen praying by the road.
“And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.”2
Heads snapped up, and the skeptical expressions of the religious rulers hardened into anger. They had lived their lives in hypocrisy, counting on their genealogy to save them.
The Baptizer had offended the authorities in Jerusalem from the beginning. Although they themselves had no authority from God, they greedily accepted their positions from Herod, who was granted his authority directly by Rome. Under their tables, religious money changers at the Temple paid bribes to the Herodian officials for concessions granted to them. Any threat to Herod was, in fact, an indictment of their hypocrisy as well.
Even at such a distance as the Jordan was from Jerusalem, John’s denouncement of Herod was dangerous to the status quo.
Judah and I spotted priests and Levites sent by the Temple magistrates. Arms crossed and chins upturned in fury and defiance of John’s message, they waited among the throngs for their opportunity to discredit the prophet.
A family of three brothers emerged dripping wet and joyful after their baptism. A trio of Pharisees stepped up to the riverbank.
With a broad smile, John called to them: “Have you too come all this way to repent and be baptized?”
The youngest of the brotherhood of pious Pharisees, a fair-skinned fellow who appeared as though he had never spent a day working, raised a bejeweled hand and mocked, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”
John replied, “I am not.”
The second Pharisee, darker and older, roared, “Are you the Prophet?” by which he meant the enigmatic figure promised by Moses the Lawgiver.
John shook his shaggy head. “No.”
Then the three religious rulers were joined by others who pushed their way through the crowd to stand and challenge John’s preaching.
“Who are you?”
“Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us.”
“What do you say about yourself?”3
“What right do you have to preach as you do and demand repentance?”
The ordinary folk stirred and began to shout back at the religious rulers: “Let him alone!”
“He speaks to us the truth about Torah!”
“Why do you come here to threaten and trouble a man who teaches us the truth?”
“Go back to Jerusalem and leave us in peace.”
The possibility of violence grew. I leaned closer to Judah when he grasped my arm. “We should go,” I urged. “Now. Or be caught in the middle of something …”
Judah nodded but hung back. “A moment more. I want to hear the Baptizer’s answer.”
I was certain if anyone tried to harm John there would be a riot. Then I spotted the bodyguards behind the Temple officials. Disguised soldiers moved forward through the throng. They covered their military clothes with civilian cloaks. But their coarse features and cold eyes identified them for what they were: cousins and relatives of Herod on the family payroll!
I turned to go.
Then, suddenly, alone in the gently flowing water of the Jordan, John raised his arms to quiet the crowd. He replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet. “I am the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord!’”
Again the eldest Pharisee questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
John declared, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”4
I stopped midstride and turned, searching the crowd. Had I heard correctly? The one we had been waiting for was here? The Lion of Judah! Among us? And yet we did not know him? Did not recognize him?
A mixture of amazement and confusion surged through the onlookers. The Pharisees regarded one another in astonishment. Soldiers, hands on the hilts of concealed daggers, glared at those who surro
unded them.
Who did John recognize that we did not? I thought of Samuel the prophet who searched the fine strapping sons of Jesse until he at last anointed the youngest … a shepherd boy … who was to become King David. Jesse himself had doubted the prophet’s judgment when David was selected, but the Spirit of the Lord knew the identity of the future ruler of Israel.
Judah caught up with me as I turned. His eyes were wide. He was breathless. “Did you hear that?”
I nodded, scanning the multitude for the one to whom John referred. There was no hint on the expression of anyone that he might be the Messiah in disguise.
Judah held tightly to my sleeve. “Did you hear?” he repeated. “The Baptizer says the Righteous One is present! Surely we can’t turn back now! What if he is revealed and we might have met him? If the Lion of Judah is about to roar, we must stay!”
I recognized the jackals of Herod’s guards and the pet dogs of the hired priests. No one I saw appeared to be the Lion of Judah, and yet John the Baptizer had guaranteed that none of us would turn back until the identity of the long-awaited Messiah, the promised Son of David, was revealed.
Judah and I camped out under the stars that night.
Cook fires dotted the hillsides like the bivouac of a vast army. In truth, however, we were a divided camp. The Pharisees, eager to carry back news about a new rebel messiah, joined the soldiers on the top of the ridges.
I gazed beyond the ridgeline at the stars in wonder that the Anointed One was alive and might be viewing the same night sky. Perhaps even at that very moment, Messiah broke bread by the glow of a nearby bonfire.