The Galileans: A Novel of Mary Magdalene (40 page)

The more Joseph thought about his talk with Nicodemus, the more certain he became that he should warn Simon Peter and the others about the dangers inherent in their coming to Jerusalem. The people of the capital city were not like the Galileans, fired by a patriotic nationalism which could burn more strongly than caution. Long accustomed to being ruled by Rome and profiting by that rule, the Judeans would not easily be stirred up against the Roman masters from whom they made an excellent living. Nor would the priests wish to disturb the temple worship, except to welcome the true Messiah, which they certainly did not consider Jesus of Nazareth to be.

All in all, Joseph was sure that a visit by the Nazarene to Jerusalem could mean nothing but trouble, so he decided to leave the next morning and travel eastward toward the Valley Highway, hoping to meet the Company of the Fish and perhaps persuade them not to come to Judea.

The road to the Jordan from Jerusalem led northeastward to Jericho. It was still before noon when Joseph’s swift camel pushed into the resort city. A mere village before Herod the Great had transformed it into a popular watering place, Jericho had now been taken over largely by the Romans as a winter resort. Herod had erected a winter palace here and brought to it the healing waters of the hot springs at Callirhoe near the Dead Sea by means of an aqueduct. A large theater, public markets, and the inevitable forum betrayed the Roman influence, and the streets were always crowded with people of widely different nationalities.

Joseph paused only to munch bread and dates and cheese from a pack he carried and to find water for his camel and himself before pushing on northward along the road that paralleled the Jordan. He had not gone far before he saw a group of people beside the road in a little glen. The presence of large numbers of sick and demented would have told him he had found those he sought, even if he had not seen Jesus Himself in the center of the group and spied among the women a graceful figure whose hair, glowing like fire in the midday sunlight, could belong only to Mary of Magdala.

Tying his camel to a tree at the edge of the crowd, Joseph made his way to where Mary was standing. She kissed his cheek and took his hand but put her finger to her lips, warning him to be silent, for Jesus was speaking. The lesson was soon finished, and when the crowd began to disperse, the Teacher came over with His disciples for the food that Mary and the others had prepared.

Joseph had never been so close to Jesus before, except that day in the temple when he had fought his way through the crowd. As he waited with the women, he studied the man of Nazareth. Once, when he raised his eyes, Joseph found himself looking directly into the eyes of Jesus, and suddenly he felt the same thing that Nicodemus had described to him, a feeling as if a loving and protecting arm had been put around his shoulders. It was a strange feeling, this sudden sense of peace and certainty that came over him, one he did not remember feeling since he had been a child in Galilee years ago and his father had spoken approvingly of something he had done.

When He finished eating, Jesus stood up and walked to the edge of the glen, where the road to Jericho passed. And as Simon Peter and the others followed, He turned and spoke to them.

“Behold,” He said, “we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles; and they will mock Him and spit upon Him, and scourge Him, and kill Him; and after three days He will rise.”

Just then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, pushed forward importantly. “Teacher,” James said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”

“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked.

“Grant us to sit,” James said promptly, “one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”

Jesus raised His head. “You do not know what you are asking,” He said quietly. “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”

“We are able,” the sons of Zebedee said in chorus.

“The cup that I drink you will drink,” Jesus promised them. “And with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized. But to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant; it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

A murmur of anger arose from the other disciples, who resented the preferred position which John and James had always claimed because they were among the earliest followers of Jesus. But before anyone could speak out against them He said reprovingly, “You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. Whoever would be great among you must be your servant. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” He turned then and went on toward Jericho.

Joseph walked along with Mary, letting Hadja load as much of the tents and cooking gear as he wished upon the camel.

“Why did you come, Joseph?” Mary asked. “I sent word by your friend Nicodemus that I would see you in a few days.”

“I want you to tell Jesus that there may be trouble if He goes to Jerusalem,” he explained.

“Why didn’t you tell Him just now? I saw you looking at Him.”

“Something happened to me back there. I felt as if Jesus had reached out and put His arm about me, although He was at least twenty paces away, and then I seemed to forget about everything else for a moment.”

“Joseph!” Mary cried, her eyes shining. “I had been hoping this would happen. Now you know what He means to those of us who love Him.”

“I do feel somehow different, perhaps closer to Him,” Joseph admitted. “But if He is really the Messiah, should I not have recognized it suddenly, like a burst of light?”

“The recognition of Jesus comes to each of us in a different way,” Mary said quietly. She looked over the crowd walking along behind Jesus, chattering, grumbling, and quarreling, and added sadly, “To some it never comes.”

“Don’t they understand Him any better yet?”

Mary shook her head. “Simon Zelotes and Judas keep them stirred up all the time. They can think of nothing but an earthly kingdom.”

“Do they still expect to crown Jesus king in Jerusalem itself?”

“Yes. And most of the others believe it now.”

“But Jesus must know what they think. Why does He not teach them differently?”

“I think He has decided there is only one way to make people understand why He came into the world,” she explained. “You heard Him just now; He has said the same thing several times before.”

“But why is He going to Jerusalem if He knows it may cost Him His life?”

“Don’t you see?” she said. “Jesus is willing to die if it means that people can be shown the way to God again only through His death.”

Joseph remembered the things he had observed in the temple and Jerusalem the last few months since his eyes seemed to have been opened. The Jews had indeed moved far away from God in their emphasis upon form and ritual and upon the worship of the law itself instead of the Most High, who had made both man and those laws. “Then I came here to no avail,” he admitted sadly.

“What happened to you there in the glen today is more important than whether or not you were able to warn Jesus,” Mary said quickly. “It means that you and I can live together in life and after death, even through all eternity—with Him.”

Jesus and His party spent that night in Jericho, and in the morning they set out again toward Jerusalem, now only about fifteen miles away. Just outside Jericho a man who had been sitting quietly beside the gate, with a stick in his hand such as blind men carried to tap themselves on their way, called out, “Jesus, Son of David. Have mercy on me!”

“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him.

“Master,” he begged, “let me receive my sight.”

And Jesus said, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.”

For a moment the blind man seemed not to understand, then he dropped to his knees on the ground, crying, “I see, I see! Blessed is the name of Him who comes in the name of the Most High!”

The people began to crowd around him, eager to see this miracle, for many of them were from Jericho and knew the man, but Jesus stepped around them and went on His way toward Jerusalem.

“Stay back and look at him closer if you wish, Joseph,” Mary suggested. “You can easily catch us on the road.”

Joseph did indeed want to examine this seeming miracle more closely. When the people around the once blind man moved away, he said, “I am a physician. Can you tell me anything about how you were cured just now?”

The begger stood up. He seemed to gain stature and no longer groveled. “Are you one of the Pharisees who doubt everything done by Jesus of Nazareth?” he demanded suspiciously.

“I too love Jesus,” Joseph explained. “But there will be those in Jerusalem who will ask me, ‘What cures have you seen the Teacher perform?’ and I would like to answer them for certain.”

“Tell them the truth then, that Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, received his sight again. All who pass this way between Jericho and Jerusalem know me.”

“Then you were not blind from birth?”

“Ten years ago, in a time of great sinfulness on my part, the Most High struck me blind as a punishment for my sins. Today, when I heard that the Expected One was passing, I knew He could heal me if He would. And so I shouted, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ You heard what He said then?”

“He told you your faith had made you well.”

“It was as if scales had fallen from my eyes, and suddenly I was able to see.”

“And you can tell me no more?”

“What more is there to say? Jesus has healed me, and I will follow Him to the end of the world. Are you going with Him to Jerusalem?”

“Yes.”

“Then we will walk along together, for I am no longer sure of the way. It has been ten years since I have seen this road.”

Bartimaeus was unable to travel fast, and so Jesus and His party were almost to Jerusalem by the time they caught up with them. From Bethphage and Bethany, suburbs of the temple city itself, a great mass of people had come out to meet Him, and His entry into the city was a triumphal procession. “Hosanna!” the crowd was shouting. “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” cried the people as they spread their cloaks and leafy branches cut from the fields upon the road.

Joseph made his way with difficulty through the crowd, but Mary saw him coming and ran to seize his hands. Her eyes were shining. “The people know Him, Joseph!” she cried. “God has shown the people of Jerusalem who He is.”

Joseph could not help being infected by the enthusiasm and the ecstasy which had gripped the rest of them. Simon the Zealot marched along with a broad satisfied smile on his face, as if this were the culmination of what he had planned. And even Judas Iscariot, who was rarely known to smile, seemed happy at their reception.

Simon Peter saw Joseph and strode through the crowd to slap him on the back. “Your doubts were needless, Joseph,” he cried, “just as I told you they would be.” He threw up his arms, and his voice rolled out across the crowd. “Listen, you people of Jerusalem!” he shouted. “Listen to the words of the prophet Zechariah:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass.

I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.

There was an instant of silence before the meaning of the prophecy struck the minds of the crowd. Then they understood that Simon Peter was proclaiming Jesus the Expected One, the Messiah predicted by the prophets, who would lead Israel to dominion over all the people of the earth. And when Simon the Zealot shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” the crowd took up the cry in a mighty roar of exultation.

Thus, in triumph, did Jesus of Nazareth enter Jerusalem.

Nicodemus and Joseph both turned over their houses and estates to Jesus and His followers, but the Master preferred to stay in Bethany, on the outskirts of the city.

On the morning after Jesus’ entry into the city, Joseph was carrying out his duties as
medicus viscerus
of the temple. This he usually did early in the morning, immediately after the opening sacrifices. He was binding the feet of priests suffering from “temple foot,” treating those whose digestion had been overtaxed by too much feasting, and otherwise looking after the health of the temple population. Just as he was finishing one of the tight starch bandages used to treat “temple foot,” a sudden hubbub arose on the lower terrace, sometimes called the Court of the Gentiles. Seconds later, one of the Levites ran past on the way to the room where the high priest spent most of the day. “The prophet of Nazareth is overturning the tables of the money-changers!” he shouted. “There is fighting on the lower terrace!”

Joseph dropped his
nartik
to the floor, assailed by a sudden dread. Could this be the beginning of the disaster they feared? Quickly he turned and ran across the terrace and down the steps to the lower level. From the steps he could see a mass of pushing, shouting, cursing men filling the lower terrace. And when he reached the alcove where the tables of the money-changers were located, he came upon a dramatic tableau.

Everywhere there was confusion, except in the center of a small circle where Jesus moved calmly along the terrace, turning over the small tables upon which the money-changers kept their coins piled, spilling the money upon the floor and leaving the tables themselves to be trampled into pieces by the people who fought each other and groveled on the stones picking up the coins. When He came to the stall of the animal sellers, Jesus broke them open, too, and so continued around the terrace, wrecking the places where the merchants and money-changers bilked those coming to sacrifice and shared their profits with the officials of the temple.