An Echo in the Darkness(67)

He groaned and put his head in his hands.

Sitting here in this desolate place, he could believe her god had delivered her from certain death as a child. Why then had he abandoned her later when her love of him had been even stronger?

Looking up at the holy mount, Marcus’ mind whirred with questions. He felt strangely connected to this landscape of devastation. In a sense, it reflected the devastation of his own life when he lost Hadassah. The light had gone out in his life, even as it had gone out in Jerusalem. With her, he had felt alive. In her, he had known hope. Near her, he had tasted joy. She had awakened in him a yearning that tore his soul open, and now he was left bleeding in the aftermath. Wounded. Lost.

He clenched his hands. He shouldn’t have asked her to become his wife. He should’ve taken her into his home and made her so. Had he done it, she would still be alive.

Around him, heavy silence lay like a shroud over the ruins of Jerusalem. He could almost hear the screams of the dying . . . the weeping of thousands echoing across the valley.

He heard someone crying now.

Marcus listened and then rose and went toward the sound.

An old man stood weeping before the scarred remains of the temple’s last remnant of wall. His palms and forehead were pressed against the cold stone, his shoulders shaking with sobs. Marcus stood behind him and watched with a sense of inexplicable sorrow and shame.

The man reminded him of faithful Enoch back in Rome, steward of the family villa. Marcus’ father had been tolerant of all religions and had allowed his slaves to worship whatever god in whatever manner they chose. Enoch was a righteous Jew. He followed the letter of the Judaic law. Following the letter of the Law was the very foundation of his faith, the rock on which his religion was built. Yet, Enoch had never had the opportunity to make the necessary sacrifices his laws demanded. Only here, in Jerusalem, would that have been possible. Only here could Enoch have given the appropriate offering to the chosen priesthood to sacrifice on the consecrated altar.

Now, nothing was left of that hallowed altar.

Pax Romana, Marcus thought, watching the old man grieving for what was lost. Judea was finally at peace, and that peace was built upon blood and death. What cost peace?

Had Titus known how great was his victory over the Jews? Had he realized how complete his triumph? He had torn away from them more than buildings; he had ripped the very heart out of their religion.

The people could go on studying the laws. They could go on prophesying in their synagogues. But for what purpose? To what end? Without the temple, without the priesthood, without the sacrifices for the atonement of sin, their religion was empty. It was finished. When the walls of the temple came tumbling down, so, too, did the power of their almighty unseen god.

“Oh, Marcus, beloved, God cannot be contained in a temple. . . .”

Groaning, Marcus pressed his hands over his ears. “Why do you speak to me like this?”

The old man heard and turned. When he saw Marcus, he hurried away.

Marcus moaned. It was as though Hadassah stood beside him among the ruins of this ancient city. Why did the echo of her words come so vividly to life here in this place of death and destruction? He spread his arms wide. “There’s nothing here! Your god is dead!”

“You can’t contain God in a temple.”

“Then where is he? Where is he?” Only the sound of his voice echoed off the remnant of wall.

“Seek and ye shall find . . . seek . . . seek . . .”

Marcus left the shadow of the war-scarred wall and picked his way among the rubble until he found the center of the temple. He stood upon a large half-buried boulder and looked around.

Was this the same rock on which Abraham had laid his son Isaac for sacrifice? Was this the inner sanctuary, the Holy of Holies? Had it been here that the covenant was made between God and Abraham?

Marcus looked out over the hills. Somewhere out there Jesus of Nazareth had been crucified, outside the gates of the city but within sight of the place where the promise had been given. “God sent his only begotten Son to live among men and be crucified for our sins . . . . through this Christ, all men can be saved and have eternal life,” Satyros, the ship captain, had said.

Was it coincidence that Jesus of Nazareth had been crucified during Passover? Was it coincidence that the beginning of the end for Jerusalem had begun during the same celebration?

Thousands had poured into this city for celebration—and been trapped here by civil war and Titus’ legions. Had everything that happened been by chance, or was there a plan and a message to all mankind?

Perhaps if he rode to Jamnia, he would learn something from the leaders of the faith. Satyros had told him a Pharisee named Rabbi Jochanaan had become the new religious leader and had moved the Sanhedrin there. As quickly as the idea came to him, Marcus dismissed it. The answers he needed would not come from any man but from God himself, if God existed. And he wasn’t sure who he was looking for anymore. Did he search for Adonai, God of the Jews, or Jesus of Nazareth, whom Hadassah had worshiped? Which one did he want to face? Or were they one and the same, as Satyros said?