A.D. 30(76)

Who could go through life not judging the Thamud or the Romans? It seemed impossible to me. But he said even more.

The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son. And then immediately of himself as judge, Do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set.

Then I would know this Father, I thought. Not a god who demanded the stoning of a shamed woman. Nor the gods of the Bedu, full of retribution and punishment. But this Father who was Yeshua’s Father.

And further, I would gladly allow Yeshua, this Father’s son, to judge me, for he would not accuse me before the Father. The sytem of the law on earth was their judge and mine, and a false one at that, surely. In either case Yeshua would not condemn me but surely follow his own teaching and turn his cheek if I offended him, just as he taught others to do.

To be so loved without condition was beyond my comprehension.

Perhaps I was misunderstanding. Who could love in such a way?

He spoke also of dividing the sheep and the goats—those who loved the outcasts and those who did not. Those who did not would endure terrible suffering. This I knew to be scandalous to the Jews, because their religion taught that if a person was outcast or unclean or ill or poor, it was punishment from their god for sins and uncleanliness.

Yet Yeshua said to treat those same poor and outcast with love and kindness, for this was how the Father loved them all.

But he went even further, having the audacity to personally identify with those outcasts and downtrodden, saying: Truly, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.

He was equating himself with those their religion said were deserving of their punishment. Truly he loved them as himself. Was he then saying that I should look at the hungry and downtrodden and see them as if they too were Yeshua? It seemed to stand all reason on its head.

But I was naïve about their customs and could not know the intricacies of his teachings. I only heard what I heard and made of it what I could, overwhelmed by the good news that fell upon my ears that day.

Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. Everyone who hears these words and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.

The teaching returned to me thoughts of the shifting sands of the Nafud and how easily one could sink. And of Petra, that renowned city of rock from which Phasa had come to marry Herod.

His preoccupation seemed to be this: We were to see the world with new eyes, and with a new heart of love as the Father loves. We were to love the unclean and clean alike rather than judge them for their sin; to love even enemies; to live as the Father’s children by loving as he loves, without judgment, for the Father judged no one.

This was how Yeshua and his Father loved me, and it was too staggering to comprehend.

Yeshua spoke of many things, but always it was his presence that spoke with even more authority than his words. Indeed, I did not speak to him that day, for the demands on him were great, but I felt no need to—being close to him and listening to such powerful words flow from a place deep within him were enough.

Later I saw for the first time Yeshua undo what had been done in the physical realm. I was standing with Phasa and Saba, gazing out at the waters, for Saba was searching for our boat captain, Elias.

“He is there, tending the boat,” Saba finally said, pointing. “The sun is high, we must leave soon. We cannot be gone yet another night or the palace guard in Sepphoris will grow suspicious. We must leave—”

“Look!” Phasa cried.

I turned to follow her gaze. A woman dressed in rags lay prostrate on the grass before Yeshua, who knelt on one knee before a young boy, hand on the boy’s cheek. The mother was weeping, begging for her son, who looked to be starving, for his arms and legs appeared as sticks. But it was the boy’s hands that caught my eye.

They were crooked and withered at the wrists, like broken branches.

Yeshua took the young boy’s hands in his own as I watched. He then put one hand behind the boy’s neck and pulled him close to his breast, as a father might his son.

I could not hear the words he whispered in the boy’s ears, but I saw the boy begin to sob as Yeshua held him. And I watched the boy’s crippled hands as he attempted and failed to clutch Yeshua’s cloak.

Before my very eyes, the hands began to straighten. I could not fathom what I was seeing, but neither could I deny it. Like trees emerging from the earth, the boy’s hands grew. Even Saba gasped.