Judas shook his head, ‘My heart hardens when you speak of the soul without telling us how we are to liberate our bodies! First, you must liberate us from our oppressors. Then, only then, we will eat of your teachings!’
‘If you liberate your souls,’ the master said, ‘if you change your souls, then the world will also change, not the other way around. The world is as hard as it is, because in your hearts you are hard.’
‘You are not in me, and you do not know how I feel,’ Judas said.
‘You say I do not know you, but you have no faith, Judas, and because of it you do not know yourself. Faith melts away hard hearts and wakes the mind so that it can know itself.’
Simon-Peter remembered his dream, the multitudes and the bread and the fish, and his faithlessness in the stormy seas, and now he understood! Yes! Of a sudden he saw his ordinary self, fall away from him, the self that was made up of country, of folk and family. In his heart a vision arose of another self, a higher, more clearly his – self. And this self was none other than his teacher, who sat among them.
Fish and Fisherman were one!
He realised then, that what his master had given them had many names, and yet had only one name. This bread, this food, these teachings, this kingdom brought down to earth, was an intimate thing – a light that pierced his soul. Suddenly all that his master had said had come true! The river of the world roared in Simon-Peter’s ears then, and he told himself,
This is that something you can never take hold and yet once you have it, you can never lose it – your own eternal selfhood, which is given to you by Christ!
‡
‘What a riddle!’ I said to Lea.
‘Yes…but he understood it, pairé,’
‘Well, are you going to elucidate it for me?’
‘It just means, quite simply, that a man’s word, his I AM, is the God in the man.’
‘The God in the man is his Word! Oh! Yes…the fish and fisherman were one, pupil and teacher, lower self and higher self! I see my, child!’
‘And that moment of grace, of exquisite, concentrated knowing, would never leave Simon-Peter. Even many years later, when Roman soldiers nailed his racked and tortured body to an upside down cross, he would recall it with joy: that once, amid life’s dream he had caught a glimpse of his true self.’
‘What every man would seek to see outside himself!’ I said, ‘Even though it is always looking at him, from within his own heart – Christ, the Son of the living God!’
Lea smiled like a proud parent.
47
THE BEARER
Joseph of Arimathea stood at the gate of his garden rubbing his beard. The people called this place ‘the paradises’ because it was not far from where stood the tomb of Adam and the shrine of Jeremiah. Its verdant lushness also separated Jerusalem from the harsh desert, and that hill of the gallows, used by the Romans for their crucifixions.
The day was not yet woken from sleep and in the cool airs Joseph bent to remove a weed. He was a wealthy and prominent member of the Sanhedrin and an Israelite, deemed worthy to represent the people of Israel, but if the truth were told he was more at ease in his garden with his weeds than at the temple.
‘Who would know him from an ordinary man?’ his wife would say to her neighbours. ‘He wears old clothes and old sandals and when he’s not digging in his garden he is visiting the Essenes! Anyone would think he has no family!’
Joseph sighed now to think on it. Over the years he had been designated a ‘friend’ of the order, which meant that he was given generous hospitality at any of their houses, whether they be monasteries in the desert or fraternal houses in the towns.
‘He gives those ascetics everything, while his family must cope with crumbs!’ his wife would say, ‘even that house in Jerusalem he owned with Nicodemus has been given over to them! It’s no small wonder they love him so!’
Joseph passed a hand over his brow. He knew the Essenes did not love him only for that house, which they had made their own, but also because he had entered into their teachings with energy and with vigour and had withstood many trials and passed many tests.
He paused to take in the aroma of his garden, the fragrant scent of dew and wet grass, and his mind turned from his wife’s nagging, to that time not long ago on the banks of the Jordan when he had seen something remarkable. After witnessing the Baptism of Jesus he had gladly neglected all his duties at the Sanhedrin, and yes, he had left his family and friends to follow Jesus from place to place, town to town, in order to listen and to learn from him.
One evening, as he was near to falling asleep, Jesus came to him and said, ‘Joseph of Arimathea, wake up, my brother! You should return to your home, for the time is near reached when you must prepare your grave.’