A.D. 30(77)
Yeshua’s words whispered through my ears: You can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move.
It took only a few moments, and then Yeshua kissed the boy on the forehead and whispered something else in his ear.
The boy looked at his hands, aghast. His mother was scrambling to her knees, stunned. Then the boy began to cry out, not with fear or sorrow, but with shock and joy, for his hands were those of any boy’s, perfectly formed. He wriggled his fingers before his face, surely for the first time in his life.
“How is this possible?” Saba whispered.
Indeed, how? I could not contain my smile.
Pandemonium broke out about Yeshua, but I will never forget what he did next, for even as they expressed their wonder and praise, he calmly looked over to where I stood not twenty paces distant on the hill.
The breeze lifted his hair and swept the cloak about his feet. I saw a man who was tired, though the day was young. A man who bore more than the weight of this world upon his shoulders. Who knew far more than he could possibly say.
And I saw a man who loved me as he loved the boy, in a way that none other had nor could. For this love I would die.
Then Yeshua smiled at me.
Just one slight, knowing smile, but it delivered to me more comfort and revelation than even his undoing of a crooked limb. He was indeed the Father’s son, I thought. And was I not his sister?
He loved all as if they were his brothers and his sisters. How he loved them, equating himself with those who were downtrodden and unclean, demanding they be treated as though they were he. All of life had enslaved me, for I too had been the lowest of the low. Yet Yeshua loved me as his own.
And as he looked into my eyes, I loved him in a way I had not known was possible.
Judah had come to find his king, and he had. But Yeshua had found me.
And yet I was still blind to his way of seeing the world.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
OUR SAIL south to Tiberias took only an hour, for the wind was blowing steadily. Elias was his boisterous self, bragging of his catch the night before and inquiring about our visit. But none of us was of the mood to offer the fisherman more than simple words with little meaning, and he soon quieted with the rest of us.
Phasa remained stoic though smothered by fear, I believe, for Yeshua’s knowledge of her identity, along with his warning, haunted her still.
Saba had used strong words in persuading Judah to leave Capernaum, mind ever fixed on our mission.
And Judah had surely left part of his heart on the Sea of Galilee’s north shore, with his new master, for he appeared like a water bladder deflated until we had reacquired our camels and set off once again for Sepphoris.
Only when we had covered half the distance to Sepphoris did Judah open his heart to me.
“Maviah…”
I looked over at him upon his camel.
“Now you see, yes? Now there can be no doubt. He is the Anointed One.”
I was not looking for a messiah as in the Jewish tradition, but my heart had been taken captive.
“I see that there is none like him.”
“And none ever to be.”
“His followers,” I said. “They will be like him. Even greater, he said. How is this possible?”
His eyes were bright. “Those who follow will know. My destiny is now set. I must return.”
As would I some day, I thought. “You heard what he spoke to me.”
“And to all of us,” he said, lips curled in wonder.
I lifted my voice. “And you, Saba. You heard. What do you make of it?”
Saba’s camel made several strides before the man responded in his thoughtful way.
“Fear is the devil, always, and throws one into darkness. To accept is the best way—this is the teaching of all the sages.” He paused, then offered his verdict. “He is the greatest man I have seen.” And then, after a breath, “Perhaps he is more than a man.”
High praise from the stoic black warrior who’d traveled farther than any other I knew.
“And this power he speaks of?” I asked, my mind on the wonder that had overcome me at his mere glance.
Saba stared ahead at the horizon.
“It is beyond this world.”
“How might one find it?”
“In following,” he said.
“Yes, but how does one follow?”
But Saba had no answer, for we all understood that this was yet the mystery.
“I must join him,” Judah said, swaying with his camel’s slow gait. “I cannot wait, you understand. Herod will be another month in Rome, perhaps two. I cannot waste away in the palace while Yeshua gathers his disciples. I must return immediately and then come back to you when Herod arrives.”
He was going to leave me? Though held safe in the embrace of courage, I felt stung.