A.D. 33 (20 page)

Laughter erupted behind us. They weren't done. I started to turn back, but Saba took my face in his hands, focusing my attention on his eyes.

“Hear me, Maviah.”

More laughter…

“Listen to my words.”

“Saba—”

“Listen to me!”

He was being strong, but his eyes too were misted. I nodded, pushing down my panic.

“He is Yeshua. He will find a way.”

The words cut through my fear.

“Do not allow darkness to blind you. Find your faith. Promise me.”

I hesitated, then nodded.

He stared at me for a moment, then took a calming breath and lowered his hands to my shoulders.

“You have to go to Bethany. The others—”

“Bethany? No! I can't leave him.”

He touched his finger to my lips. “I will stay. Stephen and Lazarus, his mother, they're all there. Tell them. Bring them.”

“Why?”

“They must be told. There's no more you can do here without putting yourself in danger.”

“Danger? He's in danger! I can't just—”

“He is Yeshua!” Saba thundered, releasing me. Then again, with eyes blazing, thrusting his trembling finger toward the inner court, “Yeshua! Have you forgotten his Way?”

I swallowed. Then settled. Saba lowered his hand.

“Bring them,” he said. “They must be here when he is released.”

My mind filled with images of Stephen plunging into the Sea of Galilee at the sound of Yeshua's voice. Of Yeshua's mother holding me as I wept in Nazareth. Of Mary anointing Yeshua's feet with nard.

I nodded.

“Find the camels. Take both.”

Another nod.

He took my hands into his own and held them for a moment, then squeezed them. “Run.”

I ran.

THE SUN had risen but the sky was encased in billowing gray clouds as I rushed through Jerusalem on my camel, leading the other by its rope. I don't remember passing through the streets, nor the faces of those yelling at me when I galloped by, nor the nature of the guard's warning as I crashed through the gates. I don't remember the path leading up the mountain, urging the camel to run faster.

There was only one Way to find salvation from the troubles of this world, and he had gone silent. Once again, I was lost.

Mounted and at a full run, I must have made the journey to Bethany in less than half an hour, but it seemed endless.

Stephen would know what to do.

His mother, Miriam, would offer comfort.

Yeshua would save us all. He had to. Talya depended upon him as much as I did. The world depended upon him.

If any in Bethany had heard of Yeshua's arrest, his followers would be rushing to Jerusalem already. But I met no one on the path over the Mount of Olives.

And when I reached the village and drove the camels toward Martha's house, I saw only smoke there, drifting up lazily from the courtyard, as on any other morning.

I dismounted before the camels came to a halt and I ran for the courtyard. Gentle laughter reached my ears. I crashed into the gate and flung it wide.

There: Mary, eyebrow raised at Arim. And Martha, holding a bowl with one hand on her hip, ready to scold. Stephen was bent over the fire, blowing at the coals. Lazarus reclined against the wall, one knee hooked in his elbow.

And Miriam, the mother of Yeshua, turning from the table with a smile on her face. The laughter had been hers.

One glance at my disheveled hair and distressed face and they all stopped.

“Maviah?” Mary stood. “What is it?”

Miriam's smile began to fade.

“Tell us,” Martha snapped. “What is it?”

I held Miriam's gaze, afraid to speak her son's name, because in that moment she became me, receiving news about my little lamb.

“Yeshua,” I said.

Only that. Only his name, and yet she knew the rest already. For a moment her eyes looked dead to the world, as if she'd always known this day would come.

“He's been arrested,” I said. “Only arrested.”

“By whom?” Stephen demanded, on his feet now. Lazarus stood behind him, watching me without expression.

“The religious leaders.” My words tumbled out. “I was there, in Herod's court, when they brought him. It was your Sanhedrin. And Saba sent me. He's there with him…”

“Take a breath, Daughter,” Miriam said quietly.

And with those words all of the emotion I'd battled crossing the Mount of Olives overwhelmed me. I lowered my face into my hands as gentle sobs shook my shoulders.

I felt a hand on the back of my neck, then an arm, pulling me close.

“Hush, my dear Maviah.” It was Miriam, whom I should be comforting. “Do not fear. My son knows what he's doing.”

I wrapped my arms around her and held her even as she held me.

“I'm so sorry. Forgive me.” I sniffed, determined to be strong. Yeshua was mocked, but he wasn't hurt. “I saw him. He's fine.”

“Yes. That's right.”

“I've never seen anyone so strong,” I said, pulling back.

Tears had filled her eyes. “No one,” she said.

Then she took a breath and nodded. “So we must go to him.”

She gathered her dress, turned from me, and spoke to Martha as she crossed the courtyard.

“Bread, Martha. And a clean tunic, if you have one.”

“I do,” Stephen said, heading for his bag.

Lazarus stopped him. “Mine. It will fit him.” He stepped into the house.

“Ointment,” Miriam said to no one in particular. “And bandages.”

She was being his mother. Only that.

Arim approached me, full of courage. “Do not worry, my queen. Yeshua cannot be harmed. He will need none of these things.”

“Some clean cloth, Mary,” Miriam said. “And water. Hurry.”

They moved quickly under the direction of Miriam. The urgency was palpable, as was a haunting dread, but they'd all grown accustomed to threats and danger, and none offered their thoughts beyond what had already been said.

We four women mounted the camels and were led away from Bethany by Stephen, Lazarus, and Arim, who hurried before us. When we were halfway up the Mount of Olives, Stephen spoke.

“Whatever happens, you can be sure that with Yeshua, all is well,” he said. “You have no reason to fear for your son, Miriam. None.”

She nodded once. Seated behind her, Mary had wrapped her arms around Miriam and pressed her head against her back, perhaps both drawing and offering courage.

We pushed the camels, who might have objected after the hard ride from Jerusalem. But they were quiet. The towering clouds over our heads drew only passing comments from Arim who, being from the deep desert, regarded them as a great promise of rain.

“You must remember,” Stephen said, “we see the storm, but Yeshua sees only peace in the place of this storm. To him, all that threatens in this world is like a ghoul without power.”

Miriam was silent. As were the rest of us.

We urged the camels onward, trotting where the road leveled, leaning into the steeper sections.

“You will see,” Stephen pressed. “There's nothing to fear. Tell them, Lazarus.”

“There's nothing to fear,” Lazarus returned after a moment.

“You see, Miriam?” Stephen clapped his hands once to make certain the point wasn't lost. “Not even death!”

Miriam said nothing.

Neither did I. I had looked into Yeshua's eyes and watched tears trailing down his cheeks. I knew that his inner circle had fled. I had seen Yeshua's fear in the garden and heard his cry of anguish, as if all the world's troubles were heaped upon him. How could I face any storm without fear if he, the master of storms, couldn't?

All of this I kept to myself. I couldn't speak my concern in front of his mother. Nor the others. Nor hear them voiced aloud myself.

All I knew was that Saba had to be right. Yeshua had to make a way because Yeshua
was
that Way.

So I clung to this promise and I rode in silence, casting occasional glances at Miriam, who kept her thoughts to herself and her eyes on the road ahead.

We did not stop until we crested the knoll from which we could see across the Kidron Valley. There Miriam slowed and then brought her camel to a halt. As one we looked at the great city ahead of us. Jerusalem, crowning glory of the Jewish world. Jerusalem, with her towering white walls and majestic temple.

There was no sign of trouble. No sign of any uprising or impending doom. No sign that the city was even awake.

“It was here that Yeshua wept for Jerusalem,” Stephen said, voice subdued. “He did not weep for himself, because this world holds no power over him. Isn't this what Yeshua has shown us?”

He didn't wait for our response.

“And if he claims he will tear down the temple and rebuild it in three days, though symbolic, who will do it if he cannot?” He turned back to us, eyes bright. “No one but Yeshua! You see? His work isn't finished!”

He was right, I thought. And Stephen wasn't finished either.

“Hasn't he shown us his power before?”

“Many times,” Martha said.

“Many times. You, Mary, with our own eyes, saw your brother walk from his tomb.”

A grin crept onto her face. “I did.”

“And you, Lazarus! You were that dead man and yet here you stand, breathing!”

There was a far-off look in Lazarus's eyes as he smiled there beside Stephen. “Yeshua has overcome death,” he said.

“As have we!” Stephen thrust both of his index fingers into the air now, marching with great courage. “Do we not have that same power even now? Will we not do what he has done and even more? Will we not ask what we will in his name and see it done? Will the mountains not tremble before us and the storms run in hiding before our voice?”

“Yes,” I said. All that I had forgotten crept back into my mind.

“Will we not calm the storm and heal the sick and raise the dead and handle those vipers who would sink their fangs into our flesh?”

“Yes,” Martha said, staring at Jerusalem.

Stephen spun to her sister. “Yes, Mary?”

Her grin now split her face. “Yes!”

“Yes, yes, and yes!” Arim cried, both fingers lifted like his teacher's. “Before all the gods and unlike any other, Yeshua would make us gods on this earth!”

Stephen lowered his hands and looked at him. Blinked.

Seeing the question on his teacher's face, Arim quickly corrected himself. “No, we will not be gods. Only have the power of this god.”

“Close enough.” Stephen faced us. “You must not bring your fear into Jerusalem. It only mocks all that he has shown us! See peace instead of this storm; see light instead of darkness; see his power in the face of death, because Yeshua will not be harmed. In this way we will follow him. If the leaders mock him, they will also mock us, but we, like him, have overcome even death!”

His excitement had winded him.

“None of his teaching will have any power if he is taken from us now.”

Yes, I thought. So then, I should let all my fear fall away and put my faith in Yeshua instead.

“Let us enter Jerusalem as Yeshua did, with cries in our hearts for the coming king!” Stephen said. “We don't have the crowds, but all the angels rejoice even now. Yes, Miriam?”

Miriam hadn't removed her eyes from the city. Neither had she smiled. But she was his mother.

She hesitated, then offered a single nod. “Yes,” she said softly. “We must hurry.”

WE ENTERED Jerusalem with spirits buoyed by Stephen's faith. Still there was no sign of trouble that we could see; none that we could hear on the east side of the city.

We'd dismounted and led the camels by their lead ropes, hurrying for Herod's palace and Saba on the west side. We would find Yeshua there as well—unless he'd been freed, a prospect that Stephen put great faith in.

The others knew the city far better than I, but I led them, walking quickly. Merchants and pilgrims now crowded the streets and I wove through them, eyes on that palace rising against the gray sky.

None of us spoke as we neared, not even Stephen. We were all consumed by the same hope. Yeshua would fulfill his promise to us and we would see it with our eyes.

I broke into a run when we emerged onto the street that led to Herod's palace, just ahead.

“Maviah…”

But I ignored Stephen and ran faster. And then they followed, sharing my urgency, their feet rushing behind me. The only thing that mattered to me now was reaching Herod's court.

At the gate, one of his guards recognized me—a younger warrior with brown hair and kind eyes. The moment he saw me, he hurried forward and stopped in my path.

“Herod awaits you, Queen of Arabia.”

I slowed to a quick walk, relieved. So…I was expected. Something had happened.

I stopped before him to catch my breath. “And Saba?”

“Your slave?”

“Yes. He's with Herod?”

“I don't know.” His eyes darted to the others, who'd caught up to me.

“They're with me. What do you mean you don't know? You haven't seen my slave?”

His eyes were still on the others. “With you? I…Then I will have to send word to—”

“No!” I quickly calmed my voice. “Forgive me. Yes, I understand, but they must come with me now.”

He hesitated.

“Herod will demand to see them,” I pressed, searching for the right words. “The king has Yeshua in his court, and I've brought Yeshua's mother, also from Galilee.” I pointed to her. “It is critical that he question her immediately.”

The guard blinked. Then glanced between Miriam and me.

“Yeshua, the prophet?”

“Yes. You've seen him?”

“They took him.”

My heart skipped a beat.

“Who took him? Where?”

“To the prefect, Pilate. But…”

He stalled, as if unsure he was authorized to say more.

“But what?” I demanded.

“I was told that he is to be crucified.”

Crucified?
I hadn't heard him correctly.

“Crucified?”

“Yes.”

“No, you don't understand. I mean Yeshua, who was with Saba. The one from Nazareth who raises the dead.”

“Yes. Yeshua, the prophet.”

I felt the blood drain from my face.

“No. No, Herod would never condemn him. I'm speaking of Yeshua!
Yeshua!
”

He backed up a step, alarmed. “It was Pilate who condemned him.”

My mind was unable to comprehend this news. The very thought of crucifixion was unbearable. To punish him or scourge him or put him out of the temple, I might have understood. But to crucify?

Behind me, Mary began to weep. I glanced back and saw that Miriam's lips trembled as she silently wept. Beside her, Stephen had gone pale as clay.

I faced the guard and strode forward. “No! There's a mistake. You have the wrong man.”

“Forgive me, but this is what—”

“No!” I shouted, face hot, grabbing his breastplate. “No, no, this can't be.”

Mary's cry rose to a wail.

“No!” I was moving before my mind could stop me. I slapped the guard's face. “No, this cannot be!”

“Maviah.” Stephen, behind me, voice strained.

Images of a Roman crucifixion pierced my mind. Revulsion rose through me, seizing my lungs until I couldn't breathe. To kill Yeshua, who had never lifted a sword, was unforgivable.

But to
crucify
him…

My hands were trembling. In the periphery of my vision I saw two other guards hurrying forward. Miriam was behind me, and I might have turned to weep with her. Stephen was there; I might have turned to him for guidance. Saba was somewhere; I might have rushed to find him.

But my mind refused to accept what I'd heard.

“Where?” I growled. “Where is he?”

The guard motioned to the city behind him. “There, beyond the city wall. Golgotha.”

I was already running, sprinting down the side street without so much as a glance behind me.

I had to find him, you see.

I had to know that the guard was wrong.

I had to prove to myself and to the world that Yeshua could not be killed. Not him. Not the one who'd calmed the storm. I had to make them understand that to crucify Yeshua would be to end the world.

Rage pushed me as I tore up another street, angling for the northern wall. I didn't care where my feet landed, nor who I pushed out of the way to reach the gate.

Where was Saba? My mind spun with dizzying fear.

I called out his name, but my voice was swallowed by a thickening crowd that suddenly seemed to be hurrying in the same direction as I—to the north. Their voices swelled with excitement.

Something was driving them. Something was drawing them. Some spectacle.

“Saba!” I screamed. But he was nowhere and I was lost in a sea of humanity, swept forward now with a hundred others. The sound of weeping reached me. Not one or two, but many women, wailing. A whip cracked.

Now blind with panic, I tore around the corner, shoved my way through a wall of onlookers, broke into the open, and recoiled.

The first thing I saw was his flesh, exposed through his shredded tunic. I saw his skin, but strips of it were gone, and his body was a bloody mess. Even his feet, which staggered under the weight of the massive crossbeam he bore on his shoulders.

All of this I saw at a glance, unable to attach meaning to the scene before me. I gasped and felt myself beginning to retch, and I impulsively snatched my hand to my mouth.

In that single moment, all I had come to know of Yeshua and his realm was undone.

Mocked. Crushed. Gone.

I knew it was Yeshua—this was his body, his hair, his strong hands. But it wasn't the Yeshua I had known. They'd reduced him to a slave, the kind bought for the sadistic pleasures of vile men who fed on their own bloodlusts.

And he had yielded to them.

He stumbled to one knee, groaned softly, then struggled back to his feet with a bystander's help. Someone jostled me and I stumbled forward on numb feet, carried along by the surging crowd.

Four grisly Roman soldiers, the kind recruited for loathsome cruelty, beat the pressing onlookers back, barking orders. A woman rushed in with a cup of water, her weeping eyes on Yeshua, but one of the guards struck the side of her head with the butt of his whip. “Away, you whore!”

She cried out and stumbled back.

This wasn't the Yeshua I had known on the Sea of Galilee. This was the one who trembled in the garden, begging for this suffering to be taken from him. The one who stood before Herod without uttering a single word to defend himself. The one who surrendered his flesh to be torn under their whips and chains. The one who seemed to have no power. The one who was only a man, subject to the kingdom of anguish and death.

Yeshua was like Talya now, at the mercy of tyranny.

The realization of his frail mortality swelled through my mind, and with it, a new thought consumed me.

I had to save him!

Every bone in my body cried out with this compulsion. I, who had been saved by him in Petra's arena, could not stand by while they tried to rob him of his power in this arena.

“Yeshua!” I ran out into the street and threw myself to my knees in front of him. “Yeshua,” I breathed, battered by dread. “Tell me what to do.”

I didn't know what I expected or what I possibly could do, but it didn't matter. It didn't because I saw his face, marked by trails of blood from a ring of thorny vines they'd shoved onto his head.

A voice was yelling at me, “Get back! Get back!”

But I was fixated on Yeshua's eyes, so hollowed by pain. Terror sliced through me. The anguish in those eyes was bottomless.

From the corner of my vision, I saw the guard draw his whip back. “Away, you bloody—” But then Saba was there, snatching his arm as if it were a twig. Throwing the smaller man back. He reached me in two strides, grabbed the back of my tunic, plucked me from the ground, and pulled me through the mob to the corner of a building.

Saba enfolded me in his arms and held me close, blocking my sight of the horror.

I leaned into him, weeping bitterly as the procession moved on. Saba hushed me gently, though his muscles vibrated with tension.

I could not contain my thoughts and, there in my shattered mind, Yeshua's demise became his fault.

He could have stopped it, I thought. Even as he could have saved Talya. He still could stop this! There were only four guards close to Yeshua—they were no match for Saba, who could snatch Yeshua and rush him far away from all of this.

Overcome by this impulse, I pushed away from him and shoved my finger at the procession. “Save him!” I cried. “Save him! Kill them all!”

Tears flooded his eyes.

“Don't just stand there!” I trembled from head to foot, screaming at him now. “Save him! I am your queen, you are my slave!” I slapped his cheek and thrust my hand out again. “Save him!”

His face contorted in anguish, and his hand remained latched onto my tunic so I couldn't twist away or run.

I was breathing hard, but now Saba's own pain reached me, and I felt my anger melting. I began to sob and lowered my forehead onto his chest.

“Forgive me,” I whispered. It was all I could press past my aching throat.

I was only dimly aware that the march of death had passed through the gates leading up to Golgotha. Stephen would have reached Yeshua, surely.

But I could not bear to look at Stephen now.

I imagined Yeshua's mother, with a broken heart, reaching for her son. But my own shame would not allow me to console her.

Mary and Martha and the others—all were likely near him, weeping.

I was only near death. And near Saba, who held me like a tender flower, silently wetting my hair with his own tears.

The Romans were going to crucify Yeshua.

For a long time we remained as we were, broken and powerless. For a long time I stood immobilized, not daring to turn my head, much less follow the procession to watch. Unlike those from Palestine, I was unaccustomed to crucifixions.

How could I watch such brutal torture?

And if it were Talya?

My body trembled. If it were Talya, I would watch. For his sake.

“My queen.” Saba had lifted his tearstained face and was staring after them.

Something shifted in me then. I took a deep breath and set aside all of my selfish thinking and became who I was—a queen for the outcasts and a mother to the broken.

Miriam would care for her son in death.

I would care for Saba. He was all I had left. He and Talya.

Wiping his wet cheek with my thumb, I took his hand without any regard for the traditions of this land, which prohibited contact between a man and a woman in public.

“Come, Saba.”

We walked in the procession's wake, silent. The path was stained with blood. Ahead of us, women wailed and men cried out, some ripping their tunics. Others laughed, and still others mocked him.

But Saba and I walked beyond the walls in stunned silence, two foreigners who no longer belonged in this land of death. Our own awaited us, far away. Dark thoughts came to me then like black ravens in the night, and I batted them away, determined to be strong.

We followed the people up the hill called Golgotha, where two other crosses already bore criminals for all to see. But I did not lead Saba to the crowd gathered around the execution atop that knoll.

Perhaps I was too weak—too unfamiliar with the inhumane death penalty. Perhaps my own shame had imprisoned me once again. Perhaps I could not bring myself to watch as they nailed all of my hope to that tree.

“Come.” I guided him to an outcropping of rock fifty paces beyond the crowd and there sat down next to Saba, who hung his head between his knees. I wanted to comfort him further, but it was all I could do to numb my own pain.

For a long time, we said nothing. But we saw. And we heard. And we wept. It was the third hour by Jewish time—nine in the morning by Roman time.

We saw large hammers rising and falling, heard their heavy strike on nails that penetrated flesh and wood, heard Yeshua's guttural cries of pain.

We saw the crossbar being lifted into place under a sign affixed to the vertical beam—
THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS
. Heard the ropes scrape over the wood as they hauled up his body. Saw them drive a spike through his feet.

We saw Yeshua with his arms spread wide, stripped of his tunic, hanging from the beams, still wearing thorns for a crown. Heard his weeping.

We saw his mother on her knees comforted by John, one of only three from the inner circle that I could see. We saw the others—Stephen, who lay prone on the ground, sobbing loudly. Lazarus, with John and Miriam, dumbstruck. Mary and Martha with other women, wailing. Arim, who had fled upon first sight of Yeshua carrying his cross, had returned to Saba and me and sat in silence behind us, speechless.

We saw the other two crucified with Yeshua; heard one mock and one cry for mercy.

We saw the soldiers cast lots for his clothing. We heard the jeering of those same Roman thugs calling for Yeshua to come off the cross if he was the king of the Jews. Several religious leaders called out: “Let him save himself if he is the Christ!”

We heard Yeshua's words in response, straining for the heavens, “Father…Forgive them, for they know not what they do…”