Fifth Gospel (36 page)

W
E ARE NOT ALONE!

E
ven before Lazarus-John had arrived to tell them the news, Mariam had known it. For she had heard the howling of the wolf and she had come awake and remembered! Dear God! This was her dream come to life! The dream she had dreamt over and over on her way to Egypt those many years ago. She did not open her eyes but lay there as the agony came into her heart, a longing to be with her son, and something more! A suffering that echoed a thousand times in the stillness, for it was not only her own suffering and grief that concerned her, but also the anguish felt through her by heaven itself!

When
finally she opened her eyes she was in that room full of women in the house at Ophel owned by Veronica. In a moment came Lazarus-John’s whisper in her ear.

‘It begins!’
he said.

Then it was into the night for all of them: Magdalena and her sister
-in-law on either side, with Salome and the others, Joanna Chuza, Martha and Lea, trailing behind them.

On her mind were his las
t words to her after the Pascha before he left to take his disciples to Olivet.

‘
Be consoled, the Holy Spirit is always with you…I will go now and when you see me again, you will sorrow exceedingly, but as the Father is with me, so must my Mother be with me to the very end. Follow me, find me, stay with me. Be the eyes of heaven!’

Her benumbed and tired eyes filled now with tears
to think on it and as she stumbled and was caught by Magdalena, and she told her from afar, as if she were not upon the ground but upon a mountain, ‘Where is he, Magdalena? We must find him!’

With difficulty
they made their way through the crowds, for all had come out into the streets of Ophel having heard the noise of the many guards and the uproar of the soldiers. Her son’s disciples, Andrew and the sons of Zebedee now joined them, and some way off she could see Philip and Bartholomew looking on. Soon Simon-Peter was at her side and falling at her feet.

‘Mother! They
have him! They have our Lord!’

She could only
nod to Simon-Peter and continue walking amid the cries of grief and lamentation that rose up from the people who loved her son. When they came near the gates of the city she saw him. Those who came too near to him were struck by the soldiers and told to return to their houses.

‘What will you do with our Lord!’
they cried.

‘Yes what will you do to him?’

‘You should mind the company you keep!’ they told the people. ‘This man is a blasphemer and a heretic, an inciter of rebellion! Go back to your hovels, lest you be tried with him and suffer his fate!’

The
se ignoble guards struck her son with cords, and kicked him and spat on him.

He fell.

The mother made to go to him but the crowd swelled and prevented it.

Lazarus-John said to her
, ‘I will go and alert Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea and Gamaliel…go on ahead with the others, I will find you again!’

She
followed the crowds as they passed through a door made in the wall and beyond the pool of Bethsaida to the forum, descending with the growing numbers of citizens down a steep street and turning south towards the whereabouts of the house of Ananias, father-in-law of the high priest. A number of Roman guards came then, and a centurion upon his horse.

The centurion interrogated the crowds concerning the commotion but no man answered him.
She struggled to move forward through the multitudes and called out in Latin, ‘They have seized an innocent man, and they take him to Ananias without a Roman trial!’

The Centurion came closer and leant over the neck of his animal to bring a torch to her face.

‘I recognise your voice!’ he said.

And she too recognised his
, though she did not know from whence.

‘What is his name!’ the man
pressed.

‘Iesus Nazarenus!’ she told him.

The man heard it and was gone into a memory, his horse whipping the air ahead of the crowds.

Magdalena
, beside her, was overcome with grief and said to her, ‘Mother…how shall we endure it?’

She
let out a breath and the world grew still, as still as a light beam caught fast through a gap in trees. In this splinter of a pause floated sun-like stars, and she was directed to their seeming. In her mind came the face of her old friend Mary. The dead mother of Jesus stood before her with the sun in her eyes and a smile playing about her mouth. She gestured upwards to heaven’s vault and when Mariam looked, she was lifted out of her soul to a place where there was nothing but love and light and life.

When it was over she realised the crowd had moved on through the gates and the other women
were crowded around her. Her eyes moved over them, each face creased with pain and panic. A soothing calmness came into her voice, ‘Be consoled my little ones…we are not alone...’ she told them.

TRIALS AND VISIONS

T
he
stepbrother
of Jesus was asleep in the sanctuary of the Temple. Before that he had spent the hours since the Paschal feast on his knees communing with God and in contemplation of his destiny.

Years ago
after his baptism in the Jordan, Jacob son of Mariam, had let go of the power of his inherited birth right and had wandered the land like a fish without a sea, not belonging to any place. The corrupt priests and hypocritical rabbis of the temple could not draw him to their side and he did not feel at ease with the Essenes, though they welcomed him always in their outer circles. He did not even consider himself a Nazarite in the strictest sense, and so could not call himself a true follower of John the Baptist.

He was a man in search of a spirit home.

As the years passed conflicting words had reached him concerning his stepbrother. He had heard of John the Baptist’s testimony and rumours had abounded of Jesus’ healings and his exorcisms, his sermons and signs. Other rumours told that his stepbrother was a magician, a sorcerer ruled by devils, that he had broken the laws of their forefathers, that he had blasphemed and desecrated the Sabbath.

For his part
Jacob had kept himself aloof from all of it, not wishing to know what truth there might be to one or other rumour. That is, until the Paschal week.

Of late
Jacob had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the holy day and to unite with the heart of his people. He was tattered and thin after long months of wandering through the land, long months of punishing his body with fasting and prayer, and had sought a place to rest his head. But here, in Jerusalem, he could not avoid his stepbrother, who seemed to be everywhere, speaking out against the priests in one place, condemning the rituals of the temple in another. Making more and more enemies as each day came, not only in the Sanhedrin but also among the people.

He had
not seen Jesus since that afternoon at Nazareth those years ago and on hearing him in Jerusalem these last days it had been hard to imagine him the same man, so strong and full of authority was his mien and so powerful were his words. Yes. His baptism and those years of wandering had made Jacob’s ears sensitive and discerning, and he heard the ring of truth in his stepbrother’s voice and over the holy days this had formed in him a question.

After all this time
, and after all the wanderings and painful prayers…do I now realise that I have been in search of something, which I have always known?

On the eve of the Paschal feast
he took himself to the house given over to the Essenes where he knew his family would be celebrating the Pascha. He took the steps that led from the outside of the house up to the cenacle, the upper room lit by candles, but when he came to be standing beneath the lintel, not quite in view and yet at the threshold of the room, he was taken by incertitude. In his heart something told him that the circle around his stepbrother was closed and that there was no room for him. He was overcome with a feeling of grief for it and had decided to go, when a man he recognised, one of his stepbrother’s disciples, brushed past him making for the stairs. He had seen him at the temple, speaking to the priests. His name was Judas Iscariot, wild-eyed and taken by his thoughts he did not excuse himself but continued on into the darkness.

Disconcerted, Jacob
had made his way to the temple where he waited in the cold, awful wind for the gates to open to allow those enter who were in charge of preparing the morning offering of the
Chagigah
. In the court of the Nazarites he kneeled, and alone and confused, fell to sleep until he was disturbed by the sounds of the bleating of the animals and a great commotion.

As
he came out into the streets to see what had caused it, he realised that he had slept long, for the night was near given over to the green light of morning. A great crowd had gathered at the palace of Caiaphas. Many stood beneath lamps and torches and he went to them.

The
pregnant moon hung in the west as he made his way through the outer court and into the inner court of the palace. He looked about for anyone he knew.

‘What has passed?’ he asked a man.

‘The heretic Jesus of Nazareth is seized and stands trial,’ the man answered.

With a vacant nod Jacob glanced about at a number of men huddled around a coal fire in
the middle of the court. The glow of the fire’s blue flame threw shadows over a face he recognised, another of his stepbrother’s disciples. Jacob went to him but when he came near he heard a Levite say to the man, ‘Are you not Simon-Peter, one of those who followed Jesus, the heretic?’

The
disciple buried his face in his wool robe and said, ‘No…I am not!’

‘Yes, I saw you at the Garden!’ a
nother Temple guard added.

‘No! I tell you
, you are wrong!’

‘He lies!’ said a woman
nearby. ‘I have seen him with the Nazarene!’

He turned on the woman,
‘I do not know what you are saying, addled woman! For I know not the man! Leave me be!’

A
cock crowed then and perturbed by it, the disciple hunched his shoulders and ran off into the crowds.

Jacob did not go after him, he continued
on to the palace where he was recognised and allowed passage. Once inside the great rectangular hall surrounded by columns he searched among the many faces. The torches flapped in the breeze and in that cold light he saw no face he recognised. A great uproar was heard coming from the front of the hall, where on the raised platform sat the high priest, Caiaphas, among members of the Sanhedrin. From what Jacob could see there were only just enough men present to make a quorum, that is, twenty-three priests and rabbis, in a half circle formed by seats. As he made a way through the crowds he realised that the man who stood before these elders, surrounded by his accusers, was his stepbrother.

What
had become of him since the supper in the cenacle made Jacob take a deep breath. Nothing could have prepared him for what now met his eyes. His stepbrother was a battered man, leaning to one side, with one eye bruised and the other squinting away at the blood that oozed from cuts to his scalp and his forehead. His nose was broken, his lips were swollen and he shook from his head to his bare feet, for his garments had been torn from his body and his hands were trussed up before him like an animal ready for the slaughterhouse.

A rising up of indignation was caught in his throat and his eyes filled with tears. He looked about for a support and found a column and leaning against it, transfixed, he watched and listened while the room erupted in screams for his brother’s blood.

Caiaphas was speaking to Jesus from his grand position on the dais, ‘Witnesses have heard your words, which make of you a defiler and a seducer and a heretic!’

Jesus did not answer.

One by one came the accusers came to shout out their charges and claims.

‘He said he would destroy the
Temple, and rebuild it in three days!’

‘But he did not say he would build it with his hands!’

‘He calls himself the Son of Man!’

‘No! He says he is the Son of God!’

‘But he heals the sick, and he casts out demons! Is this not a holy man, who can do this?’

‘He might cure the sick but he does it on a Sabbath
!’

‘H
e casts out demons because he is a demon himself and he is in league with them!’

‘He teaches false doctrines!’

‘He does not wash his hands before he breaks bread!’

‘But he speaks of peace and love and breaks bread with the poor!’

‘Yet he has members of the
Sicarri
as his disciples!’

These contradictions fell into
a confused rabble of voices.

Jacob saw the
well-respected member of the Sanhedrin Nicodemus enter the fray followed by Gamaliel and Joseph of Arimathea.

Nicodemus came up to the horseshoe of gathered men and said, ‘Why have you called this council without us? This meeting is not lawful! There has not been proper notice and an attendance of all the members of the council!’

The people grew quiet.

Gamaliel
pointed to Caiaphas and added his own words, ‘You have tried to prevent those of us who do not agree with you from being here! Such a trial conducted in haste while many of the council are preparing this morning for the ceremony is not legal!’

Joseph
was angry. ‘Where is the passage in the law that approves of trying a cause at night and so close to a feast day!’

Caiaphas stood and came forward
with a scornful eye. ‘My colleagues, it was not our intention to exclude you but we had to act quickly. If we had not seized this heretic and stopped him from inciting the people to rebellion the Romans would have done so and caused grief to the temple and to Israel!’

‘But these accusations only show the confusion of your witnesses
, for they bear no proof of his wrongdoing!’ Nicodemus said to him.

‘Well then!’ said Caiaphas, coming up to Jesus. ‘Let the man say s
omething himself!’

But there was only s
ilence from Jesus.

‘Why do you not give answer to these accusations?
’ Caiaphas taunted, ‘I adjure you to tell us if you are Christ, the Messiah, the son of the living God!’

When the voice came Jacob recognised no authority in it, it was the voice of a man, not the voice of a god, ‘If I tell you that I am he,
you will not believe me…and if I ask you who you think that I am you will not answer me, nor let me go…no matter what I say, I am condemned.’

‘Are you the Son of God?’
the high priest asked.

‘This is a question which only you can answer,
’ Jesus said. ‘For it only has value if you, yourself, can see the God in me. But I tell you, one day all will see the Son of Man, sitting on the right hand of the power of God coming in the ether-cloud realms of heaven. Then, you will know that I am He!’

He
knew in his heart that Jesus was speaking the truth! But he was torn from the vision by terrible words:

‘
Giddupha!
Blasphemy!’

H
e realised that Caiaphas had a blade in his hand. ‘Blasphemy and sedition!!!’ the man said, and took up the corner of his outer and his inner garment, and made a tear from top to bottom renting both. ‘What further need have we of witnesses! Now all of you have heard it for yourselves – with your own ears! What say you to this,’ he said to the crowds, ‘for life or for death?’

The hall resounded with such fierceness
, that it near reached heaven.

‘Death! Death! Death!’
was the chant.

‘No!’ Gamaliel cried, outraged. ‘A capital sentence
is not legal unless it is pronounced at a regular meeting of the Sanhedrin!’

But no one heard him. The priests were already coming off their dais. Each man took his turn to spit
into Jesus’ face or to hit him with a staff or to slap him with a hand before leaving the court.

Jacob
’s soul welled up with anger and he spoke out,

‘The golden band on your mitre has the graven words, “Holiness unto Jehovah”! It means you have the power to atone for those who blaspheme!’

There was a breathless pause.

The cold
, fierce gaze of the high priest moved over the crowd until it fell on him.

‘I will not atone for a man who profanes the name of God
, again and again!’ Caiaphas raised his staff and looked to the vaults of the hall. ‘I–will–not!’

A terrible
draft, unearthly and cruel, washed over the room, and Jacob saw shadows, and shadows of shadows, sweep over all gathered there. Like malignant birds borne by an unfelt wind they fluttered and he saw with his own eyes how these shades were inspired into the very souls of those present to entice them to rise up in a high pitch of hate and rage, so that snarling, like one great rabid animal, the throng moved on Jesus.

Caiaphas shouted out over the din, ‘Put this king in the dungeon until he is delivered to Rome, for only Rome can render him what he is due!’

By the time the members of the council had left the tribunal the crowds had descended upon Jesus and were revelling in trampling upon the fallen greatness of the man they had welcomed to Jerusalem like a king only a few days before. He was clubbed and beaten with fists and insulted and hit with staves and in the midst of this brutality, this coarseness and ferocity and profanity, he fell, and was swallowed up by the crowds and Jacob saw him no more.

Jacob was aghast. The representatives of the highest human knowledge in Jerusalem had failed to see the
Messiah of their people! But he was soon reminded of that peaceful morning when, looking into Joseph’s workshop, the image of his brother had surfaced on the face of Jesus, and he had not wished to see that Jesus was really one with his brother.