“He said it.”
“Then you know! If you search your heart and find any grievance, even against the Romans, it exposes your lack of faith in the Father, who abides in the heart, for this is the kingdom of heaven as well. But believe in him and his way and you will be saved, because nothing that happens in this world threatens you. Let go of this world to master it. Seek his kingdom first and all will be added—or not, it doesn’t matter. Do you see?”
Only with the dimmest vision, I thought.
“Yeshua says always: be anxious for nothing. And what is anxiousness but what the Greeks say? It is merizo, ‘to divide,’ and nous, ‘the mind.’ To have a divided mind, torn between security and fear. But we will only be anxious until we release all that we believe will save us, even knowledge, for faith, not knowledge, saves. This then is true salvation from all of life’s suffering in this age and the next.”
He grinned, nearly ecstatic.
“This is his meaning when he teaches that no one can serve two masters. There are two masters calling for your attention in every hour: the kingdom of this world symbolized by money, and the kingdom of heaven, which is spirit. Both are here—within and among us. You must choose to see the kingdom of heaven and abide. Until you forget and serve the other once again.”
“Forget?”
He hesitated. “Unfortunately, yes. We forget far too often. But Yeshua’s teaching calls to us still and we remember.” Again, with his finger lifted. “If enslaved to the desire for wealth, let this go. If enslaved by grievance, turn the cheek. If your significance is in being mother or father or wife or husband or child or in having any of these—indeed, if you cling even to your own life—these too let go. Have instead a new mind set upon the kingdom. Do not be anxious, but rather repent—see beyond your old mind, you see? Only have eyes to see what is true beyond what you think. Trust the Father. Then you will master this world with pleasure rather than be mastered by it. Then you will find the power to command any storm.”
Stephen was a master with words, I thought. He should one day stand before the crowds.
“You do this?” I asked. “You trust?”
Stephen stared at me, then shrugged. “As I said, I am only a common man with simple thoughts prone to forget such a simple truth far too often.”
“I trust,” Sarah said quietly.
We both turned to her. She’d been sitting as quiet as a flower, minding her own thoughts. And now her tone betrayed no doubt.
She faced us and spoke in hardly more than a whisper. “I think I trust.”
“Then you will walk in his kingdom, Sarah,” Stephen said. “There can be no question.”
The breeze brushed my face. I felt as though I had entered a dream of impossibilities. And yet had I not seen the storm calmed?
Stephen stood and brushed the pine needles from his cloak. “Now I must prepare.”
“Prepare for what?”
He turned to me. “You haven’t heard? For Yeshua, of course. A great many know that he comes today. Today is the day, you will see.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I WAS LYING on my back, staring at the ceiling of our room, when I first heard the commotion. Sarah was with me, and Saba appeared at the door.
“He is here already, on the other side.”
Gathering ourselves, we rushed from the house and stopped short at the view. There, just beyond the town, hundreds were hurrying. To where, I didn’t know, but it could only mean he had arrived.
Sarah was the first to run, and then I, on her heels.
“Stay close, Maviah!” Saba said. “Stay with me.”
But I hardly heard him, for I was already caught up, rushing to stay with Sarah, who seemed to have forgotten that she was weak from her illness.
“Sarah!” I had to follow her—she was my eyes.
She ignored me, desperate to reach the same destination as everyone else.
Then we broke over a grassy slope west of the village and Sarah pulled up sharply, so that I ran into her.
Even with milky vision, the sight took my breath away. A thousand at least had already gathered. More streamed from the slope beyond. Only three months earlier in Capernaum there had been hundreds—now there were sure to be thousands.
How they loved him! Because he loved them as himself, as if they were he. What you did not do to the least of these, you did not do for me.
The least among them were those who’d sinned by breaking the law and were now outcast in accordance with their Law as given in their religion. Were they not the sexually deviant and lepers and hungry children and the poor and diseased and sinners of all types that crowded close? Yet Yeshua loved them and honored them—all except those who judged from afar whom he called hypocrties because they were no better deep inside.