‘If that is so why are we told that our angels weep for us?’
‘They weep when men do not learn from their suffering! You see, pairé, only men can transform the wisdom they gain from suffering into love; and only love can save all of creation.’
All of creation – now there was a hefty weight!
‘But is love not happiness, Lea?’
‘Love does not always make us happy, for happiness should not be preferred over goodness.’
‘Then what good is love, if it makes one unhappy? Oh I am confounded!’
‘Love helps us to endure our suffering, it makes us steadfast in our sorrow.’
I was unable to suppress a faint moan, which escaped my lips in reply, for now I thought of the love that kept those in the fortress from despair, the love that enabled so many to endure hardship and suffering, and I knew deep down that she was right.
‘You see, you can see it!’ she said, and began, without waiting for another comment from me, to conjure before my eyes a picture of John the Baptist sitting upon his rock, watching over his flock like a faithful dog awaiting its master.
‘A kind wind from the north had come to tame the heat, and his followers were taking advantage of it, since they could do no work,’ she said.
And as she spoke, I could see it myself, with my inner eye.
‡
Into John’s communion with God there entered the words of the red-bearded, hawk-eyed Judas. John opened an eye. The man was standing among the fishermen and he was saying,
‘Well, for my part, I’ll only believe he’s the Messiah if I hear that he’ll make Israel great again. I want to hear him say that he’ll avenge our enemies, that he’ll kick out the Romans and the priests, and release us from the bondage and the curse that we have suffered! I am after the joy and the glory that was promised by the prophets! And, I shall not let that fish off the hook!’
John had discerned darkness in that man’s heart at his baptism and would have turned him away if his angel had not told him Judas’ destiny was sealed in the circle of those who would recognise the coming one.
The fisherman Andrew spoke next.
‘Stop zealot! Stop for heaven’s sake!’ he said. ‘Your words are daggers in my ears! You speak of hooks…but you should spend some time on the sea! That would settle you down. Out there you have no charge over anything…you are always at the mercy of God and what he will do for you! Not the other way around!’
‘I only require what has been promised,’ Judas gave back. ‘Why else do our people eat and breathe and breed if not to make a body for the Messiah who will come to save us? Why have we come to this river to be soaked in its icy waters if not to prepare for when he comes?’
‘Wait a moment, Judas!’ Simon, the brother of Andrew said, with an officious air. ‘He has come! Did you not see the lighted wings that flew over his head yesterday? I saw the whole world stop from adoration of it. Even those devils that live in the plants and in the river, in the trees and stones, were gathered together to see it before scurrying from the place in fright! He is come, Judas! Now we can all rest easy, for all men will be brothers.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Judas said, with a snake for a mouth inside that red beard, ‘and the cow will sleep with the lion, and the chickens shall play with the fox! Fairy tales! Only through blood and war shall anything be accomplished, my brothers. Believe me! Only through blood and war! Love is not the way of our God! He is a hard God. We know our God don’t we? He bares our backs and roasts our carcasses, and milks our veins! He is that same God that swallowed up Sodom and Gomorrah into His belly! The same God Who sent plagues and flood and famine to those who did not mind Him! If this God is born into a man, as the baptiser would have us believe, then He will also be a hard-hearted God – a God of war! What else could he be? I will wait…I will watch and see.’
Simon regarded him with a frown. ‘It looks like you have not seen anything at all, Judas! These two eyes saw it. I saw no hardness, only a gentle glow and a tender light. Whether an angel or a spirit, who can say? But it was divine, of that I’m sure! It came and I saw it. Andrew saw it too didn’t you, my brother? And what about you, James, did you not also see it, and you, little John? Did you not see how the lighted wings, silent and tender, fell over the chosen one whom our master baptised? Philip, what do you say?’ he trawled their hearts for an answer. ‘And you, Nathanael, surely you if no one else?’
‘I saw something,’ Nathanael affirmed, ‘but I can’t tell what it was for certain! Besides, the man Jesus is from Nazareth…I told Philip before, nothing good comes out of Nazareth!’