- 16 -
So many things began to happen from
this point in time. Many incidents I remember but I did not write them down
immediately in a journal. I think that they happened mostly in the sequence
that I recall them.
I shall not dispute the times and
places with what others have written about. I do dispute the content of many
events I was witness to and now being described by others who probably were not
there.
I had wanted to meet this man Jesus.
I said as much to Mary and Martha. They told me that I was lucky. Jesus and his
entourage had accepted an invitation to come and visit in a few days time. I
was of course also invited to visit and finally and formally meet this rabbi.
The crowds at the gathering in the
hills dispersed the next morning. Jesus and some of his inner circle had left
the area during the night.
It was then that I began to become
acquainted with the rabbi’s closest friends.
Though I had slept in the cart near
the sight of the gathering, I had not expected to stay. I had been mesmerized
by the moment and thought that I might miss some event or some precious words.
J.D. had ridden out in the dark to
find me. I had given him instructions as to where I was would be traveling.
Indeed, there were many campfires all
over the hills that night. I was later to be told that it was not a good thing
to advertise a crowd in the open with campfires that could be seen a great
distance away. A Roman patrol if it had been in the area would have
investigated.
As soon as Jesus had moved on, so did
half the previous day’s crowd.
The rest of the crowd this morning
was being worked on by the closest followers of Jesus. James and Matthew had
moved on. One man, a large man, came up to me and J.D. and stated that the
rabbi needed funds to spread the word. I was a bit taken aback. Suddenly the
magic of the moment passed.
I smiled and handed the man a few
silver coins and then began to leave with J.D..
“Where is Jesus now?” I asked this
stranger.
“He is praying in the desert. He
prepares for the final days.”
I said nothing and left.
I thought nothing of this until
several days later.
J.D. and I arrived at Martha and
Mary’s place. Their brother was back from a business trip. I had not met him
before this. The house was alive with a festive atmosphere. I entered the house
and there in a corner sat Jesus with everyone crowded around him both sitting
and standing.
Jesus was surrounded by men and there
seemed to be heated debate with some men dressed and giving the impression as
being rabbis and part of the Temple
Some remark passed about Jesus having
a little to much wine to drink and why was he in the same house with low lifes
and prostitutes. The man making the comments was the big man who asked me for
money a few days before to support Jesus’ cause.
Jesus stood up to meet the towering
man eye to eye. In Jesus’ case he was looking upward. Through the glassy eyes
of a man who had drunken a little bit too much, Jesus said something like.
“Simon. Simon. You are a pillar of
virtue. You are a rock fit to build a sturdy house on. When I am gone, you will
not regret me these few earthly pleasures.”
Then I saw what I saw so many times.
Simon melted in the presence of intense eye contact with his master and tears
appeared to be forming in his eyes.
Simon was a man in awe of Jesus. He
knew that Jesus was someone great and great with his message as well. I often
felt that Simon in his primitive emotional and semi-educated fashion understood
on his own level the same things that I too surmised on my level of analysis
and speculation. And that inner thought was that one was in the presence of
someone nearly divine.
Suddenly there was a commotion near
the door to this crowded room. A woman’s voice was heard. She was demanding to
see Jesus.
There was a parting of the way and
she came into my view. She was one of Mary and Martha’s friends. She in fact
had made the comment at the wedding about Herod and “his damn taxes.”
Mary, the friend of Mary and Martha,
walked forward holding an alabaster jar. She was wearing a simple dress and was
barefoot. Her hair flowed loosely to her waist. She was women in her prime and
about the age of thirty.
All were silent as she knelt and
started to cry profusely with her head just above the sandaled feet of the
drunken rabbi. She pulled off his sandals. She then poured a fragrant ointment,
the whole bottle, onto Jesus’ feet. The room was filled with that pleasant
fragrance. The woman then began to wipe the feet of this young mysterious man
with her long hair.
Jesus’ reaction was untelling. If I
had done something so outwardly sensuous as this in my younger days and with my
young husband, he would not have just stood there.
Anyway, looking at this whole scene I
saw three things. I saw that Jesus was committed to some other agenda than reciprocating
into a sensuous act with this woman. I saw various degrees of shock and
curiosity amongst the onlookers. I saw a woman on her knees in a form of
extreme penance and anguish mixed with a joy of performing this strange act of
contrition.
Jesus caused strange reactions in
everybody he met and especially the women he let get close to him. I have heard
and sometimes shared comments about these feelings and emotions on the women’s
side of the tent regarding this man.
One voice spoke and began to break
the mesmerizing spell of the moment.
“If this sinner, this adulteress, had
wanted atonement, she could have contributed this valuable ointment to the
cause. It could have raised several pieces of gold to help feed us and help the
important message to be spread.”
I would later come to know this man
presently speaking as Judas, one of the followers of the Baptist pointed out to
me the other day.
Jesus replied to Judas.
“Our hosts in their rich house could
not meet me at the door and have a lowly servant offer me water to wash my
dusty feet.”
I saw Martha and Mary look at each
other in despair. Their brother showed no reaction.
Jesus then spoke to the
women on her knees in front of him
“I told you yesterday woman. Go thy
way and sin no more.”
Martha and Mary came forward and
helped this other Mary to her feet who was still emotionally upset and took her
to another part of the house.
The lofty looking rabbis left with
each talking to one another in low voices and showing signs of distress and
disgust with the negative shaking of their heads. They in their non-verbal way
seem to be expressing a “who is he?” and “what sort of behavior is this?”
attitude.
Martha and Mary’s brother, out host,
left the room.
Most of Jesus’ followers left the
room as well. I think that they thought that the host was likely to throw them
all out. I think these scenes and being thrown out of a host’s house was
nothing new to them.
Jesus remained standing in silent
thought. I stood there and kept looking at him. He gave me a sideways glance.
“Have we met before?” he asked me.
“Yes and no Manny.”
“Manny?” he replied.
“I saw you at that wedding over a
week ago.” I stated.
“I don’t quite remember.” He replied.
I reached for a cup of wine on a tray
and offered it to him. He took a single gulp of the whole cup.
“Wedding you say?” He said to me.
I took the cup from his hand and
gestured for him to sit.
“Are you that Persian woman? I
believe somebody mentioned something about you.”
I took two cups of wine from a tray
and handed him one cup and I took a sip from the other cup.
He stared at me in curiosity.
“I have been here in this house
before. Men and women mix in this house in the Roman style. Do you have any
objection to my sitting and talking to you Manny?” I asked.
He make a slight smile at his
nickname and gestured for me to sit and then began to speak.
“I appear to have upset people again.
I am good with a big crowd outside but here inside, my manners are a bit too
sparse for some.”
The host would return sometime later
to salvage his status as host. Jesus and his crowd had not left the grounds.
The earlier incident would be forgotten like many incidents in a dysfunctional
families. Lazarus, our host, loved his dotty sisters and would tolerate their
eccentricity about this new holy man being in his house.
In that time before Lazarus’s return,
I had my little Manny all to myself.
From the moment I opened a door in
communication with this strange man, I used my instincts and followed a role I
knew so well with my distant son. I assumed the role of friend and confident,
of favorite aunt and doting mother.
And indeed our age difference was I
think enough to let him respond in a similar manner reciprocal to my own.
My Manny started with the story of Mary
with the ointment bottle.
Mary was the wife of a steward of
none other than King Herod himself. Her husband managed a great farm nearby.
King Herod probably did not know this husband and had never visited that farm
ever.
Mary was accused of adultery by what
constituted a small village of workers on that huge estate. Her husband cheated
on her. She cheated on him. Maybe the husband wanted a new wife without the
negative news of a divorce reaching his employer. Perhaps the wives of some of
the workers wanted payback or were just jealous.
“There is nothing more hypocritical
or cowardly than a crowd of people standing in judgment of a woman who perhaps
was not totally responsible for her actions…
“Anyway to make a long story short. I
was there and they wanted to take a human life and I would take the first stone
for any woman accused. And besides, where was the man also involved in this
sin?
“I told those bastards that he who is
without sin to cast the first stone.
“So much of the law is dead and
obsolete. They want a new country, a leader to lead them and all they do is
look backward, backward, backward…”
He told me so many other things. By
the time Lazarus and Martha and Mary returned as hosts, I knew that I had found
my father’s long lost prodigy.
- 17 -
Having a precious jewel in one’s
possession sounds great. The problem is holding onto the jewel.
Unfortunately, after I spent some
quality time with Jesus that day, I kept running into what I will call the
committee.
Those surrounding Jesus were a mixed
bunch of people. There was an outer core of James, his brother, Mary (another
Mary), his mother along with assorted cousins and half brothers and half
sisters. There was also this Simon person. They also called him Rocky or Peter.
These were the original ones of his hard core Galilee
base.
This outer core with the exception of
Rocky were all family. This family did not seem to be a very close family that
I could see.
The closest circle were what I called
the worldly ones. They were Matthew the tax collector, and two brothers James
(another James) and John. James and John, the brothers, were called the “sons
of thunder”. Whenever they were around, their loudness and boyish enthusiasm
centered all attention about themselves and the subjects that they were to talk
about or address. Even Jesus with his charisma could not compete with their
energy once it was ignited. It was they who went ahead of the group and scouted
out any town or village that would be willing to welcome Jesus as a visiting
preacher.
This Matthew, James and John sub
committee were once followers of the martyred John the Baptist figure.
I have heard lately that Jesus was
supposed to have been a cousin of this Baptist fellow. I heard no such thing
when I first encountered Jesus.
The next layer surrounding Jesus were
the rabbis and scholarly crowd.
It was here that Jesus was most
successful. His knowledge of most of the Jewish sacred and semi-sacred texts
was phenomenal. He had a perfect memory.
I understood from my old friend Hiram
that there were many sacred Jewish texts floating around. Some cults were
focused on one or two ancient books. Only a handful of scholars had any idea
what the true inventory of sacred books was in the Jewish culture.
There was something Jesus disclosed
to me. As a recognized child prodigy with a perfect memory, he was made to
recite volume after volume of Jewish law. In fact, Jesus looked back with
regret. His name and fame of a child was that of someone more like a freak
going from town to town and from synagogue to synagogue for a small fee or
donation.
Jesus wept. He felt that he had been
denied a childhood because of his talents.
Let us go back to the committee.
At any one time Jesus seemed to be
dominated by any one segment of these people surrounding him. When one part of
the committee was out of sight, another part of the committee zoned in to
Jesus’ attention.
Indeed, when it got hectic and
crowded in the traveling rabbi’s group, the master would disappear for days at
a time. Nobody would seem to know where he was. Few, if they knew, were not
willing to tell what he was doing or where he was.
It is here where I discuss the person
of Judas. Judas was slightly younger that Jesus. He was about the same build
and height of Jesus. On some occasions when I had not seen Jesus for sometime,
I mistook Judas for Jesus from behind.
I had originally thought that Judas
had been one of Jesus’ commune siblings. I thought this because of similar
features and that when they were together, they seemed close. In fact, when ever
anybody else such as Simon, Matthew, James or John said anything to the rabbi,
Jesus might question facts being presented to him. Whenever Judas presented
facts to Jesus in public, Jesus rarely questioned him. Jesus trusted Judas and
anything he reported to him.
Then again, I knew why Judas and
Jesus were so tight. Judas was Jesus’ brother in law.
We had just been discussing this
relationship when Lazarus assumed his role as host at the gathering and my
first official meeting of the rabbi.
It took me many more months to piece
together clues of a branch of this genealogical tree.
The whole ministry of Jesus began
many years ago. The young prodigy with a good memory became a student of the
great scholars and rabbis that haunt the eaves of the great Temple
Even without assets or a family that
could support him, Jesus had found patrons. The student would become a great
teacher. It was here where Jesus first met Judas as a fellow student in a study
group.
Introductions were made and Jesus
married Judas’ sister. Jesus’ wife died in childbirth along with the child. As
a result, Jesus went through some sort of emotional meltdown.
Manny left Jerusalem
The overall flow of Jesus’ present
ministry was in a way a continuation of the hermit, holy man, and prophet of
John the Baptist.
Being able to muster great crowds and
work them into religious fervor was not a good thing in a country that had for
centuries been a sort of theocracy but now was part of a greater empire.
The Romans did not touch the Baptist.
On that they played their Herod card.
Many groups on all tiers of Palestine
When John the Baptist died, a gap
opened up. These many groups, cults, economic haves and have-nots did not want
to loose some of the momentum and unity building that started and flowed about
the Baptist.
Looking at Jesus and maybe other
active and in the know followers of the Baptist, one saw a race for a leader of
a cult to gain followers and gain some political clout in Jerusalem
or Caesarea .
A preacher who could control
thousands of souls could start a revolution or just as well tell their
followers to be patient and accept the foreign rule.
Out of all these possible contenders
for a new national spiritual leader and well thought of teacher and rabbi was
the figure of Jesus of Nazareth.
At first, I could not understand all
the comings and goings of parts of the committee. Genuine disciples of Jesus
were going about the countryside and living a new life. They were preaching a
message of tolerance and love. Other disciples were coordinating these efforts.
A visit from Jesus to these areas and these dedicated disciples who were living
and teaching, this visit was like honey on top of a cake.
Funds were raised. Stipends were
given out. Consensus was growing as to how powerful a voice, a rabbi and
possibly a prophet could have among the people. Jesus was being watched by many
levels of the people in power. He was no immediate threat.
Jesus was still small onions. In
comparison to the Temple
As a business woman with interests in
caravans and other investments, I saw Jesus as someone building a network of
people to help push for his spiritual agenda.
In the back of my mind, I thought
about the possibility of a network of people that could ferment and start
revolution. I knew in my heart of hearts, considering what I saw, that any
revolution in this small country would be swiftly crushed by Rome
The beast of Rome
Jesus was not about rebellion. He was
though I think a progressive social thinker and would be reformer. If he could,
he would take land from the rich and redistribute it amongst the poor.
Something like that could only be done with the consent of those who governed.
It was not likely to happen.
The message, both spiritual and
social, got stronger and stronger toward the end. I think that the nest step
with a socially popular preacher was to attack and or to carve out a strong
niche among the Temple
I sensed that amidst the emotional
chaos that followed the death of his wife and child, Jesus had gone out amongst
the peasants to work. As a day laborer and a migrant and a vagrant, he touched
the land and the people close to that land.
Jesus knew the people and the people
were beginning to know him. It was Jesus who was fond of talking about the
basic goodness of all people. In his early life as Temple Temple
Jesus was fond of telling his parable
about how a Samaritan found and cared for a traveler who was robbed and left
for dead.
It was to me, on one occasion,
revealed that the traveler left of dead was Jesus himself in his younger
vagabond and homeless days.
Jesus loved traveling through Samaria
Instead of ostracizing Samaria
- 18 -
Another of Jesus’ inner group were
his patrons.
Indeed, a powerful man among the Temple
Martha and Mary had been giving funds
for a while until their brother put his foot down and said no to any more money
for their holy man.
As I said, there were many patrons in
many parts of the country. No doubt Matthew the tax collector gave an estimate of
my net worth over to Judas who appeared to be the treasurer of the whole
operation.
My first few months after having been
introduced to Jesus was to have a few encounters with the group. Judas came to
me often for money. I was glad to contribute in a modest but healthy fashion.
For my support I was likely to be told where and when Jesus might be preaching.
I went so far as to rent a modest
house in the country some distance from Jerusalem
Judas was keen on sending certain rabbis
from the Temple
At first, I tried to be there every
time Jesus preached. But my personal schedule and business affairs made it
impossible for me to leave Jerusalem
I noticed that for Jesus, the theme
of his preaching sometimes changed. It changed from a strong social theme to a
strong religious theme. This change of theme seemed to change depending on who was
in the crows listening that day.
I saw high ranking Roman soldiers in
full gear sitting on horses and listening to Jesus’ preaching. No doubt they
were on official spying business for the Roman administration. Also, members of
the Temple
Small gatherings in patron’s villas
saw visiting rabbis treated royally and the preaching to be in pure orthodox
manner.
When the crowds far away from Jerusalem
Jesus was indeed becoming popular.
Traveling about in my cart on business I sometimes ran into Jesus or one of the
growing numbers of his officially sanctioned disciples.
I loved catching Jesus unawares. He
may have only been passing through a town himself with no scheduled stop.
The people in the village or town
many times turned into an instant festive crowd and atmosphere. People would be
running to fields to announce Jesus’ presence. The crowd would swell.
Everywhere in these crowds were
people who were blind or could not walk. Then the miracles seem to happen. Then
commotion usually happened.
Sometimes Jesus and his followers
could control the crowd. After the reaction of the blind being made to see or
others dropping their crutches and walking unaided, the crowd sometimes turned
into a mob. In these instances, Jesus and his bodyguard looked for a quick
exit.
I have heard stories of Jesus curing
lepers. I have not seen but I believe at this point of his career, he was
honing his spiritual energy and talents. I do believe some of these stories
about the curing of lepers as being true.
The crowds seemed to be following
Jesus everywhere. He seemed to be too much in demand. There were too many
hangers on at my little house in the country. I stopped supplying it. Still
they stayed and waited news of Jesus.
One of my last acts of funding was to
feed one of these crowds. The crowd was large. It was hot. It was growing late.
Jesus and his preaching were reaching epoch proportions. I was asked for my
cart and funds to go into a nearby village and buy food. Truly I bought every
cooked loaf of bread in that village and probably half of the smoked fish of
the entire village’s whole year’s supply.
When I returned, the food got
distributed to the crowd. I believe that the legend of Jesus multiplying loaves
and fishes was born that day. I heard it repeated soon after in other places.
He truly might have fed thousands on his own on another day. Those other
stories of other days I did not witness. These stories may be true. After all,
he did change water into wine. I had been there. I had tasted it.
Crowds, as I saw them, never exceeded
a few hundred at any one time. It was a crowd of thousands that head of the
committee Judas was aiming for.
All this activity seemed to me to be
on a schedule. There was a plan. What that plan was I would not discover for
sometime and not until after the tragic events took place in Jerusalem
It was about this time that I got
word from my son in Persia Persia Arabia .
Good. No Rome
My son’s decision to move operations
sounded wonderful to me. My family would be together again. Many caravans start
and stop on that coast of Arabia . We had some
interests in ships trading in that region as well.
It was time for me to move on.
I was packing and making travel
arrangements for all my books and property here in Palestine Jerusalem
As coincidence would have it, Jerusalem
As my townhouse was now nearly empty,
Judas asked permission to stay there if necessary. I consented.
Judas also wanted use of the donkey
that had pulled my cart and had been stabled just outside the city wall. I had
to wonder where so many coins had gone in those previous months. If I had not
been so infatuated and mesmerized in my father’s lost prodigy I would have
asked Judas for an accounting of all funds I had advanced to him on behalf of
Jesus, my little Manny.
I saw so much success and potential
in Jesus. I knew I was looking at him as a model of hoped for success for my
own son to achieve on his missionary quest.
Judas, oh Judas. Where did all my
money to you go?
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