Fifth Gospel(31)

A leprous child stood some distance from him stretching out a skinless hand for a morsel of food. Jesus went to the child with pity and love in his heart and he held the child’s hand in his to comfort him. He gave the child some nuts and soon the child ran away and returned with others, the afflicted and the desperate, the forlorn and the hopeless. They lamented and pulled at their hair and cried into their hands.

Someone called out, ‘Are you a priest come to save us from this disease that has taken us? Will you offer up a sacrifice to the gods on our behalf?’

‘A priest! A priest has come!’ more voices joined in.

A groundswell of joy and praise broke out around him and the people began to press him towards the threshold of their temple. It was with anxiety that he entered the ruined place, full of cobwebs and brick-dust and broken effigies and idols.

The crowd, moved by longing and hope, pushed him towards the altar and he could not stop them. Now from this vantage point Jesus looked about him and saw something emerge from the shadowed corners, a red-winged being. It peered at him and said:

‘Well well…you’ve come in and made yourself comfortable have you? Look at you, poor fellow, pale as a ghost! You can see that the world is perishing…the end of the world is near and you cannot stop it! So why not enjoy what time is left? You can lead this rabble and make something of yourself…go ahead…stand up on that altar and shout ‘repent, repent!’ This mongrel lot will follow anyone who says those words!’

Jesus looked about him at the expectation on the faces of the men and women and children. He was no priest, how could he give them what they desired? Looking at them he saw all the pagan peoples that he had met in his travels gathered together into one great corpse made from unwashed bodies and wild faces; a corpse of human suffering overflowing with wickedness and with desperation and disease. He sensed the smell of rotted flesh, of darkness, stagnant, dank – the odour of human degradation. The world whirled around him and in that moment he felt the universal suffering of humanity as if it were his own. It streamed into him like a rush of white fire from all the faces that looked up to him for comfort and he could not take a breath for the immensity of its weight.

‘What’s the matter? Don’t you like my handiwork?’ said the being.

Jesus shouted at it, ‘Who are you? Why do you do this?’

When the people heard his words they seemed to grow afraid, for they sensed an open traffic with evil and began to push and shove to flee from the temple.

But Jesus felt a pain, a dart of poisoned ice burst into a thousand lighted candles, each shimmering in the air ahead of his eyes. He was removed then, from that place and the people and the evil being.

In this realm of nothingness, he heard these words:

‘Listen Jesus...’

Aum

Evils hold sway

The ego of man struggles free

And guilt is incurred at the expense of others,

Which is experienced in the daily bread

Wherein the will of the heavens does not rule

Because man has separated himself from your realms,

And forgot your names

You fathers in the heavens!


Jesus recognised this voice! He shouted into the open vaults of the deserted temple, ‘Yes…evil holds sway because men have wanted freedom from the gods but now everything falls into ruin, the world is old, how can the people rise up to remember the gods again?’

The voice said.

‘Watch and wait Jesus, soon comes my Son and He will make the old new again!

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

A warm, love-giving radiance, entered into his heart.

‘I am knowledge and ignorance, I am shame and boldness, I am shameless; I am ashamed, I am strength and I am fear and I am war and peace, I am the truth and the speech that cannot be grasped. I am the name of the sound and the sound of the name; I am the sign of the letter and the designation of the division …I am Bath Kol, I am Sophia, the voice of the Wisdom that is All.’





15


REMEMBERING




When Jesus returned home he was twenty-four springs, though in his heart he felt himself as ancient as Mount Tabor.

His father had long awaited his homecoming and they were graced with some quiet weeks together before Joseph fell deeper into his illness and succumbed to it peacefully in his bed. Afterwards, custom dictated that he wait a year with his family, and he passed this time at work, reflecting upon his travels, allowing his experiences to enter deeply into him.

The Essenes of Nazareth had time and again attempted to recruit him for their order but Jesus had always said no. Now, on his return from the outlands, they came again, having heard of his travels, and he welcomed them, for he was interested in their warm conversation and the lively exchange of ideas, which they offered.