A.D. 30(104)

It is difficult to explain what happened next, for I was at the bottom of the boat, struggling to keep my face out of the water that had filled the hull.

I remember hearing a roar louder than the storm itself, and I was thinking we had finally been overturned. But the roar passed over, rolling from one end of the sky to the other like the thunder of drums beating directly upon us.

And then the wind was gone, as if the roar had taken it and left. The rain stopped, not slowly, but as if the clouds had never opened. We pitched, but no wave rolled under us and the boat quickly settled.

I jerked my head up and the sight before me took my breath away. My vision was clouded, but this much I could not miss: a wall of rain and black storm clouds the size of the sky itself was fast retreating to the horizon, rolled up like a sandstorm in the desert. And in its wake, a perfect calm.

I turned my head and saw a light fog swallow us like a soothing breath. The storm had set upon us swiftly, but the calm chased it away far more quickly, like a nightmare vanquished by waking.

Stephen sprang to his feet, and Elias too. Then Saba. But none seemed able to speak. The gentle fog moved over the water, which was now like glass, without a wisp of wind.

“What in the name of—”

“Be quiet, Elias!” Stephen whispered, snatching his hand up to silence the fisherman. “Listen.”

I could hear nothing but the gentle slap of water against our hull.

“There!” Stephen held on to the mast with one hand and thrust the other into the fog. I heard it then, the sound of voices across the water. We were near the shore?

But as I strained for vision, the dull image of a boat drifted into view, not a hundred paces distant. Then another beyond it. The voices of exclamation came from there.

And then a single voice, chuckling softly, stilling the others. I felt the hair on my neck rise, for there was something about that voice…

“Why are you so afraid?” it said.

The master.

I could not mistake the voice that had spoken to me in Capernaum. It was Yeshua. And now I could just make out his form standing in the boat among huddled men.

My heart soared with hope.

“Do you still have no faith?” Yeshua said.

For a long moment, only silence. But I could not contain myself after so many days in darkness.

“Master?” My voice echoed over the water.

There was no reply. He wasn’t responding to me. Had he not heard me?

Stephen was not so meek. “Master!” I saw him throw himself from the boat. He landed on his belly with a mighty splash and immediately began to flail about, struggling to stay afloat.

For a moment we all just watched, taken aback by his impulsiveness.

Stephen twisted back for our boat, grasping at the water. “Help me!”

“Grab the oar!” Elias cried. “He can’t swim!”

Saba grabbed the oar and quickly unwound the tethers that secured it.

“The oar, Stephen!” Elias cried. “Take the oar!”

Saba thrust it out and Stephen clung to the carved blade, kicking his feet to keep his head above water. Together Elias and Saba hauled him over the side, and he sloshed back into the boat like a great landed fish.

He immediately sprang to his feet, gasping, spinning back to the boat in the fog.

“Master,” he called. “It is I, Stephen!”

“I see…” Yeshua’s voice was only curious. “Stephen the brave.”

Stephen glanced at me, and even in my blurred vision I saw him beaming. I looked across the water and saw we were drifting farther from each other, carried by momentum.

Why had Yeshua not answered my cry?

“I bring two for you, master! Elias can steer the boat next to yours. I bring… you can speak to them even now!”

“You could,” Yeshua said, voice intrigued. “Wait for me in Bethsaida, my friend. I will return soon.”

“Yes, of course. Bethsaida.”

“Bethsaida,” Yeshua said.

“We will wait for you in Bethsaida!”

Then I would see Yeshua in Bethsaida. My hope surged once again.

Stephen watched the boat as it drifted away, then turned to us, looking from one to the other.

“You see?”

None of us responded, yet my mind was swept away with what I had seen. Though I had felt Yeshua’s presence as if it were a power unto itself, though I had wept at his words over me, though I had watched him touch a boy’s shriveled hands and seen them made whole before my eyes—what kind of man could also command nature? Was he a god in the form of a man? And who was this Father who gave him such power? Who was this god who did not judge, as he himself had said?

I felt light-headed. My fingers tingled with the mystery of it all.

Stephen faced Elias. “You see?”