The Galileans: A Novel of Mary Magdalene (46 page)

Neither of them noticed the man who shortly fell into step beside them, until they looked up from their earnest conversation and saw Him there. He was slender, dressed in a long robe, with a hood about His head that kept His face almost hidden. His hands, too, were hidden by the long full sleeves. Something about Him was familiar, Joseph thought, but could not tell exactly what it was.

Joseph and Cleopas gave the stranger a pleasant greeting. “What is this conversation which you are holding with each other as you walk?” He asked politely.

“Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” Cleopas asked, astonished.

“What things?”

“Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people? And how our chief priests and rulers delivered Him up to be condemned to death and crucified Him?”

Watching the stranger while Cleopas told the story of what had happened that morning, Joseph could not put aside the odd conviction that he knew this man, perhaps well. If he could have seen His eyes he thought he would have been able to recognize Him, but the stranger kept the hood pulled well over His face.

“Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer all these things and enter into His glory?” the stranger asked when Cleopas finished the story of Mary’s having seen Jesus.

“I believe they were necessary,” Joseph said earnestly. “For I know that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ.”

The stranger did not speak, but Joseph felt his own heart suddenly warm and fill with a strange feeling, a sensation oddly like the one he had experienced when he had met the eyes of Jesus across the room in the Palace of Caiaphas three days ago and had been flooded with a divine assurance of His identity.

“How can you say He is the Christ, Joseph, when you saw Him die from the spear thrust in His side?” Cleopas argued. “And when with your own hands you laid His dead body in the tomb?”

“I know He is the Son of God,” Joseph said simply. “And One who is of God cannot be overcome even by death.”

When He spoke again, the stranger’s voice was more gentle, and as they walked along the road He discussed with amazing learning the prophecies contained in the Books of the Law and the Prophets concerning the Christ who was to come, showing how they applied, like a garment cut to one’s very measure, to Jesus of Nazareth.

Cleopas’s home was at the edge of Emmaus, on the road leading to it from Jerusalem. When they came to the path leading up to the door, the stranger started to go on, but Joseph said impulsively, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.”

When Cleopas added his entreaty, their still unknown companion finally acquiesced and went with them up the path and into the house. Cleopas went immediately to bring wine and a basket of bread to refresh them from the long walk as was fitting when guests entered one’s home. When he put it upon the table he said courteously, “Will you bless and break it for us, sir?”

The stranger reached out and took a piece of bread from the basket. As He did so, the sleeves of His robe fell back from His hands and Joseph saw them for the first time. And now he knew why the man who had joined them on the road to Emmaus had seemed familiar. Even if there had been two pairs of hands in the world with those same marks where the nails had been driven through, it was hardly possible that the identical wound would also be upon the wrist, where the manacles applied by the guards that night on the Mount of Olives in the Garden of Gethsemane had cut into the skin. As Joseph stared, still hardly able to believe his own eyes, the visitor reached up and pushed back the hood. And now Joseph saw again those same gentle, loving eyes he remembered so well, and the little row of puncture marks across the forehead where the thorns of the crown pressed down so roughly by the soldiers had penetrated the skin.

He started to rise from the table, but just then Jesus began to bless the bread and the wine, and he was forced to hold his tongue. When it was finished, he heard Mary’s voice in the outer room and, excusing himself quickly, went to tell her the glad news and bring her to Jesus, so that they might fall down and worship the risen Lord together.

“Jesus is here, Mary,” he called to her. “He joined us on the road and is in the other room.”

“Oh, thank God,” she cried, her eyes shining. “I have prayed that He would reveal Himself to you.”

“I saw the nail prints in His hands, the cut on His wrist, and the pricks of the thorns upon His brow.” He held out his hands to her. “Come. We will go and worship Him together.”

But when they came into the room only Cleopas was there, looking at them a little foolishly from the cupboard where he had gone to get the wine. “The stranger left, Joseph,” he said. “I turned around for only a moment to get the wine, and when I looked back He was gone.”

“He was here when I went to get Mary,” Joseph said dazedly. “I know it was Jesus by the prints in His hands.” He turned suddenly to Mary. “You don’t doubt that I saw Him, do you?”

“I knew He would reveal Himself to you when He was ready for you to know the whole truth,” she cried, her eyes shining, while tears of joy streamed down her cheeks.

“But Cleopas was in the room and he did not recognize Him.”

“That was what the Master intended,” she said softly. “You are a physician, Joseph. You knew that He was dead, for you put His body in the tomb. But now you know that He lives again, for you have seen in His resurrected body the very wounds in His hands that we saw as you laid Him in the tomb. Together we must proclaim to the world the truth that has been revealed to you on the road to Emmaus. The truth that Jesus, being crucified, has indeed risen from the dead. No man can fail to know now that He is indeed the Son of God.”

The Galileans

© Copyright, 1953, by Frank G. Slaughter.

Previously published as a Doubleday edition in January, 1953

1st printing: December, 1952

2nd printing: March, 1953

Also previously published as a selection of the Family Bookshelf, January, 1953, P
ERMABOOK
edition published April, 1954 by special arrangement with Doubleday & Company, Inc.

1st printing: March, 1954

First printing in 2012 by eChristian, Inc. as a derivative work
, © Copyright, 2012 by Frank G. Slaughter, Jr. and Randolph M. Slaughter.

eChristian, Inc.

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Scriptures are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Some Scriptures quoted by people in the text are quoted from the King James Version.

Cover and interior design by Larry Taylor.

Produced with the assistance of Livingstone, the Publishing Services Division of eChristian, Inc. Project staff includes: Dan Balow, Afton Rorvik, Linda Washington, Linda Taylor, Andy Culbertson, Joel Bartlett.

ISBN: EPUB 978-1-61843-061-8

ISBN:MOBI 978-1-61843-062-5