An Echo in the Darkness(129)
He heard the music of the language, the haunting call of it, and wanted to understand. He wanted to see and hear and have it sink in. He wanted to know what had drawn Hadassah to God and held her there with such determination and conviction until the end.
Who are you? What are you?
He looked around surreptitiously and saw the devotion and peace in some of the men’s faces, the hope. In others, he saw mirrored what he felt. Hunger.
I want to know what sustained her. God, I want to know!
The ache inside him grew. Yet he remained, listening earnestly to the men as they discussed in Greek the fine points of Judaic law. Laws upon laws mounted with tradition. Too complicated for him to understand in a few days. Too complicated for a lifetime. Frustrated, he withdrew and wandered along on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, thinking about all he had heard and trying to make sense of it.
Surely life hadn’t been so complex for Hadassah. She had been a simple, ordinary girl, not a brilliant scholar or theologian. Everything she had believed had all narrowed down to one truth for her: Jesus. Everything she did, everything she said, the way she lived—it all focused on the man from Nazareth.
If only his own life could be so clear.
What was this constant hunger that gnawed at him? It had plagued him even before Hadassah had come into his life. There was no definition for what he felt, no description of that for which he yearned. He had tried everything to fill the emptiness within himself: women, wine, games, money. Nothing was sufficient. Nothing answered the need. The void remained, an affliction of his spirit.
Traveling the short distance to Capernaum, he took lodging in a Greek inn. The proprietor was gregarious and hospitable, but Marcus kept to himself, untouched by the jovial atmosphere. The activity depressed him, and he took to spending evenings at the harbor, watching the fishermen bring in their catches for the day. At night, he watched the blazing torches as the boats glided over black water and fishermen cast out their nets.
A trumpet sounded six times, ushering in the Sabbath, from the roof of a synagogue on high ground that faced a holy city that no longer existed. He watched men and noted the four-corner fringed garment they wore. He had learned that the deep blue thread at one corner was a constant reminder to the wearer to keep the Law.
After a few days he grew restless and walked on to Bethsaida, but after several nights there, he headed east for Bethsaida-Julias. He had heard that Jesus of Nazareth had taught on the hillsides near the small city. But Jesus had been crucified over forty years ago. Would his words still echo on those quiet slopes?
He had thought he could find Hadassah’s God in this war-torn land that bore the stamp of Rome, but God eluded him. He wasn’t to be found on a mountaintop or in a holy city. God wasn’t at the altar stone in the heart of the temple. God wasn’t in a deserted house in a Galilean village or even along a lonely path to the sea.
How do I find you?
No answer came.
Oppressed in spirit, Marcus fell into despair.
He could find no peace. He had even lost all sense of purpose. His carefully laid plans had come to nothing. He wasn’t even certain anymore why he had come to Palestine. Worst of all, somewhere along the long road, Hadassah had slipped away from him.
He could no longer see her face. He couldn’t remember the sound of her voice. Only her love for her god remained clear. He wanted to imagine her here, walking these same shores, a child, happy. Maybe then he’d feel some peace. Yet, his mind betrayed him repeatedly, going back to a clouded vision of a dark-haired girl kneeling in the garden of his father’s Roman villa. Praying. Praying for his family.
Praying for him.
Why did that one image remain? Why did it so torment him? Why was that one burning light of memory all he had left of her?
Shunning people, Marcus remained in the hills east of Bethsaida-Julias, seeking solitude to clear his thoughts and find her again. He groped for justification for a quest that had lost all focus. The harder he tried to think on these things, the more jumbled his thoughts became, the more confused his mind grew, until he wondered if he was going mad.
His hair and beard grew. He took to following the shepherds with their flocks, standing off in the distance, watching. They took such care with the animals, guiding them to green pastures, making them lie down in the cool shadows to ruminate. The beasts drank from still pools built along the streams and followed the shepherd each time he pounded his staff on the ground. He watched the animals enter into a sheepfold, not bunched together, but one by one, each carefully tended by the shepherd. Some the shepherd anointed, working the oil into the wool about the sheep’s eyes and nose. And once inside, safe within the protective walls, the shepherd lay across the mouth of the fold to guard his flock.