Judah seemed at a loss.
The Pharisee spoke barely above a whisper now, as though afraid his words might carry beyond the walls. “With Yeshua, God seems to be intimate, as though breath itself. The rabbi calls him even Abba. And we his children, to be born not of Abraham but of Spirit. Such things are not spoken elsewhere. And yet he asks us to follow.”
“But to follow where?” Judah demanded.
“This too is a mystery.” The Pharisee sighed. “You must understand… to have faith is to let go of knowledge as the means to salvation. To do so, one must embrace trust and mystery rather than make knowledge one’s god, as the Gnostics wrongly do. It is not where that matters so much as simply following. Faith, you see? Trust, like a child. It confounds the mind.”
Something in the Pharisee’s soft-spoken words struck a chord of intrigue deep within me. Such concepts were far too lofty for me to understand. And yet they pulled at me like an ancient memory.
“What good is a path without a destination on earth and what good is a kingdom if not made real to overthrow the Romans?” Judah said, standing once again.
“Perhaps he means this as well,” Andrew said.
Judah paced, hand in his beard. “He must!”
“Yes and no,” the Pharisee said. “Not yet and already. Paradoxes all, understood only by the heart, beyond the mind.” He paused for a moment, perhaps expecting Judah to challenge him, then pushed on.
“But what can I know, for I am only a teacher of the Law, and Yeshua fulfills that Law by overturning it always. If he is from God, then all we think we know is now suspect. His is a dangerous path to follow, requiring trust, not knowledge.”
“And you,” Judah said, “do you see this kingdom you describe so well?”
The Pharisee was careful with his reply.
“No. I only say what has come to me upon much reflection. In the larger part, his words offend all that I once knew. But I cannot deny the authority with which he presents himself, and so I dare find myself here yet again. Surely it’s why we’re all here when we might be in our appointed places, breaking bread.”
They grew silent. It occurred to me that Judah might come to check on me. So I returned to the courtyard door and quietly eased it open.
“You are missing something,” Judah said, sitting. “A kingdom requires a king and a king rules on earth. I did not come to find one who turns the cheek while Rome punishes God’s children.”
Then I was out in the cold, knowing that Judah had found less than he’d hoped for. I was thankful that Phasa, who paced beside Saba across the courtyard, had heard none of this talk.
She stopped and faced me as I approached. By the light of the rising moon, I could see that her mood had not brightened in my absence.
“Well?”
“Nothing. They talk of religion.”
“Then you must return and tell them we would have a place to sleep. I find this intolerable. Ten hours under the hot sun on camel and over the sea—”
“It’s nothing compared to two weeks through the Nafud,” I said. Only a week earlier I wouldn’t have dared speak so boldly, but our familiarity had rid me of my fear. “Forgive me, Phasa, but we are all worn.”
She stared at me for a long moment, then offered a conciliatory nod and crossed her arms. There was nothing more to say.
Truly, I felt as drained and as hopeless as she, for after such disappointment we did not have even a fire to warm us. Judah had all but forgotten us, so taken was he with his Messiah, who, by the sound of it, would only lead him to unanswerable riddles and nonsense.
I was lost in a moment of self-pity when the gate behind us creaked and I turned to see a man of average height step into the courtyard and close the gate behind him. My first thought was that the sage had finally arrived, but by all appearances this man in his simple tunic was yet another fisherman. A mantle was draped over his head for warmth, shielding his face.
We watched from the shadows as the man walked toward the house in even, measured steps, arms folded with a hand buried in each sleeve. He did not hurry. He did not look up. He did not seem to notice that he wasn’t alone. He moved like a man who bore the weight of a long day upon his shoulders. Perhaps he was another disciple who’d been summoned.
Perhaps they were all beginning to wonder who their leader really was.
The man reached the door and stopped, his back to us lit by a full moon. For a long moment he remained perfectly still, as if trying to decide whether to enter.
Slowly his head turned toward us. Moonlight lit his face as he stared at us from beneath his mantle.
The moment I looked into the brown eyes of this man, I knew that Yeshua of Nazareth could surely see into my soul and know my every thought.