The Woman who died – part 2

Mary Magdalene

Mother told us so often the story of what happened on the third day after the Rabbi Jesus’ death that I could almost tell it as well as she. Early in the morning, just as the sun was rising, mother with a group of women followers set out from Jerusalem to the place where the body of the Rabbi had been hastily stored just as the Sabbath was beginning. The day promised to be warm and sunny, but the sun was not yet hot enough to burn the dew off the plants beside the road. When mother told the story she would describe hearing the birds of the dawn chorus singing in the trees, and would tell her audience that on the walk she got unreasonably angry with them for singing when her Rabboni was dead. A wry smile would always come over her face at this admission, and she would go on to say that the birds must have got to the tomb first and were rejoicing at what had happened, but she had yet to find out!

When the group got to the tomb, it appeared that the problem of how they were going to remove the stone from the entrance to the tomb was solved, for the tomb was already open. A second look told them that the soldiers who were guarding the entrance were slumped down, one either side of the tomb entrance. The women thought that they must have been attacked, but when they looked closely, they could see no blood. Then one of the men made a loud snorting snore, and the women relaxed thinking that they were just in a drunken stupor. They became panic stricken when they entered the tomb, and all there was in it were the cloths which they had hastily wrapped the body, lying on the shelf where Rabbi Jesus body had been placed, and the head cloth was lying beside it on the floor. The other women ran screaming from the tomb, shouting that Roman robbers had been and stolen the body of Rabbi Jesus. It must be the Romans.

Mother didn’t run, she sat down and buried her face in her hands. In the silence she became aware of the smells of the place, not the rotting putrefaction of a body that had been lying there for three days. There was the smell of the rock, newly cut to make the tomb, and the dust that was thrown up everywhere, in the heat of summer. There was a faint smell of some unidentified flower, fragrant and subtle. With her head still bowed, she put her hands down on either side of her, feeling the grooves in the rock shelf made by the chisels which had hacked the tomb from the hillside. She became aware that the light in the tomb was getting brighter. In confusion she looked up, and saw standing to one side of the door, lounging against the wall, an angel. When we asked her what an angel looked like, she would always tell us that she didn’t know. She just knew he was an angel, but he was form and light, he was substance yet insubstantial, he was fearsome and gentle, but above all he was the most wonderful smell and the most pure sound. When he spoke she said that she could have listened to him for hours. He asked her what she was doing looking for the living among the dead? Didn’t she know that Jesus had risen from the dead, as he had told his followers he would? Mother always said at this point that she was dumbfounded. Rabbi Jesus had told them what was going to happen to him in Jerusalem. It wasn’t that they didn’t believe him, it was just that they didn’t know what to expect. When the angel finished speaking, he stopped existing in the tomb, leaving just a memory of his smell and an echo of his voice.

Now Mother ran too, but she ran straight to the rest of Rabbi Jesus’ followers to tell them what they had found. When Peter and John headed quickly out of the door, she ran straight back with them. When she reached the tomb again, John had got there first, but was waiting white faced outside. Peter was made of sterner stuff, and he took a deep breath, ducked and went in. They both came out fairly rapidly, and ran off in the direction they had just come. Mother was so overcome, and so confused, still, about what was happening, that she went to sit on a bank nearby. Hearing steps on the stony path nearby, she turned, and thinking it was the gardener, asked him where the body of Rabbi Jesus had been taken. No matter how many times she told the story, she would always put this bit in about how stupid she had been at the time, not understanding either the Rabbi or the angel she had just seen. So she asked the figure where the body of the Rabbi had been taken. Then in the figure spoke, simply calling her by name ‘Mary’. She knew instantaneously that it was him, and she got up and began to run towards him, calling him Rabboni, ‘Master’, and meaning to throw her arms around him. But the Rabbi stilled her, and stepped back, and told her that she could not touch him, yet. He then asked her to go back to the rest of his followers and tell them that she had seen him, and get them to leave Jerusalem and go to Galilee where he would meet him again. Mother was most reluctant to go, as she had lots of question to ask, and she was afraid that he would disappear again without answering them, but he seemed to sense her need, and he told her that they would meet again, and he would answer all her questions.

Mother’s life from then on was one full of meaning and purpose. Having been the first to tell the Apostles what she had seen, she would tell the story to anyone who would listen. She would talk to the crowds, telling them the stories that the Rabbi had told her. Her role as the first person to meet with the newly resurrected Jesus gave her a standing among the Apostles; the Apostle to the Apostles, the messenger to the messengers of Yahweh, those Rabbi Jesus had chosen to be the main carriers of his message to Yahweh’s people. As she grew older and less able to travel, people began to come to her here in Magdala, and she would always have a welcome for them and a story and she would share the bread and wine as Rabbi Jesus had done at his last meal before his crucifixion, as they had been commanded by him to do.

Every child says that they will not forget their mother, for good or ill. I will never be able to forget my mother, because the stories she has told of our ancestors, of Rabbi Jesus will continue to be told for generations to come, starting with me, and my daughter.

The Woman who died – part 1

Mary Magdalene

People say that one of the most romantic things that you can do is sit on a beach at sunset and watch the sun drop below the watery horizon in a blaze of colour. I am sitting on a beach now. I can feel the contours of the sand shift beneath me as I move. I can lift up handfuls of sand and let them trickle through my hands, I can smell the water of the Sea of Galilee stretching out to the horizon in front of me, and feel the gentle evening breeze cool my face, after the heat of the day has passed. But I am numb to the core of my being, because today we have buried my mother.

She wasn’t young, of course, but she was only ill for a few days, and then she was gone. People from nearby villages who knew her, and even those from places further afield, like Tiberius, must have known that her end was near, because her funeral was the biggest ever seen in Magdala Nunayya, ‘The place of the tower of the fishes’. With the heat around us, we have to bury our dead within 24 hours, so some people must have walked all night once the news spread that she had died. Some of the leaders of the new Christian community came to help our Rabbi Mark say Kaddish and eulogise her. I know that she was my mother, but the words which were spoken about her were quite extraordinary.

My mother has always been a story teller. When we were children she would make up such wonderful stories as we sat around the table after the evening meal. We would plead with her to tell us the stories from the Talmud, but our favourite was her version of the passover story. Traditionally it is the oldest man present at the passover meal, who when asked to tell the story by the youngest child present, will teach the family about the exile of our ancestors in Egypt and how we escaped the clutches of Pharaoh. In our household, Dad would start the story, then look at mother, and she would carry on. We could feel the drudgery of making the bricks from clay in the hot Egyptian sun. She could make us see the blood of the slaughtered lamb running down the posts of the doorway to tell the angel of death to pass over. We could smell the fear of the exiles as they reached the shores of the Red Sea and realised that Pharaoh’s army was catching them up. We joined in the relief and joy of our ancestors as the last one of them stepped on the safe, dry land and the waters came crashing down on the men, horses and chariots of Egypt, killing them all. And the prayers of thanksgiving we said with our passover meal were all the more heartfelt for her story telling.

Mother’s favourite story though, was one that she was actually involved in. After Dad died, I think she became rather lonely. Not that there weren’t plenty of people around her. The problem was that they were not Dad. It was as if she had lost part of herself. Then Rabbi Jesus came to Magdala Nunayya, and sat down beneath a tree in the market place, and told stories, stories of God, the like of which we had never heard before. Mother fell in love all over again, with the stories, with God and with Rabbi Jesus. It was as if in him and his stories and teaching, she had found the right shaped piece to knit her broken soul back together again. When he moved on from Magdala, Mother just left with him, joining the band of women followers who helped to look after the Rabbi and his friends.

My eldest brother was both worried and ashamed when she went off, and set off to find her and bring her back. He found her, but he did not bring her back. He never really explained what had happened, but I know that he spoke to Rabbi Jesus, and he must have persuaded my brother that mother would be safe with him. We heard stories of course about what Rabbi Jesus was preaching and saying, and we were with family in Jerusalem the fateful year that the Roman authorities arrested, tried and crucified him.

I remember how mother taught us to swim from this beach. She said that is we lived by the sea, we should learn to swim. She would tie her robe us like a man working in the fields and wade into the water. She would get us to close our eyes, keep our heads up out of the water then lie on our stomach on her outstretched arms. She would support us in the water, gradually letting go as we relaxed and began to float. She would laugh when we realised that she had stepped back, and for the first few times we would panic and sink. She would step forwards and haul us out and begin again, until we could step into the water and float on our own, then begin to paddle like a dog to move through the water. She will never do that for her grandchildren now.

The Women who saw – part 4

Mary, Martha and Jesus

Mary and I wove our way through the streets dodging soldiers and citizens going about their daily business. We had left behind all of Rabbi Jesus’ followers cowering in the house, wondering whether soldiers would be looking for them as well. They had followed the soldiers from the garden, where Rabbi Jesus was arrested, straight to the High Priest’s house, where Rabbi Jesus had been taken first to be questioned by Ciaphas and Annas, but they had been badly scared when they had been challenged by the High Priest’s servants gathered around a fire near the back door, through which Rabbi Jesus had been taken. When Rabbi Jesus was marched passed them across the Courtyard of the Gentiles to the gate in the Temple wall nearest to the Antonia Fortress, shaken, they hurried back to the safety of the room where they had shared Passover.

At Golgotha, the place was crowded with people coming to watch the spectacle of a crucifixion, but on this day the crowd was silent. They had cheered the Rabbi when he arrived in Jerusalem, and we had heard from some of the crowd that Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor had wanted to release Rabbi Jesus, but the crowd that the High Priest’s servants had gathered in front of the Antonia Fortress, called for a murderer called Barabbas to be released. The citizens at Golgotha were bewildered at the speed with which Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth had gone from hero to a criminal, who was going to hang on a cross until he was dead. On either side of him thieves were already stretched out against the sky waiting to die. When Rabbi Jesus was laid on the cross flat out on the ground, and the nails were hammered through his wrists and feet, a collective shudder went through the crowd. If it could happen to him, so it could happen to any one of us. As the cross was raised up with his bruised and bloody body hanging on it, Mary spotted Mary of Nazareth, Rabbi Jesus’ mother, and Mary of Magdala standing near to the foot of the cross, and pulled me to go and join them.

So we stood there, heads raised to heaven, prayers on our lips, our minds blank to everything apart from him, motionless, through the heat of the day, watching him die, hoping for the angels to come and release him from his pain. When at last, his follower John came and stood with us, Jesus called down from the cross asking John to look after his mother. John went to her side and put his arm around her. Words over, action done, late in the afternoon, as the black storm clouds gathered, Rabbi Jesus made one more effort to speak.
He cried out ‘It is finished’,
and he died.

A great bolt of lightening seemed to cut the clouds in two, and across the city a great wailing shout went up. We all turned towards the Temple Mount, expecting to see something going up in flames, but a great whisper seemed to emanate from the Temple and roll across the city, which when it reached us told us that the great curtain in front to the Holy of Holies, which I had seen early this morning, had torn in two from top to bottom, and though the open doors, everyone in the Court of the Israelites had been able to see into the holiest place – and there was nothing there.

The Women who saw – part 3

Mary, Martha and Jesus

When I left Martha at the entrance of the Temple, I picked up my skirts and ran to the corner of the Temple wall where the Antonia Fortress stands. I had no plan in mind to get me in to the fortress, so I just stood in the shadows looking up at the two tall, square, thick walled towers with the well guarded gateway in between, designed to keep the troops safe from rioting locals. And I waited. Eventually a patrol of soldiers returning to the fortress marched into view. The gate opened for them, and I slipped in behind one of the men. He looked round at me and gave me a wink, thinking, I presume, that I was a local prostitute coming in to see one of the soldiers. I blushed, but I would even have given myself to one of the soldiers, if I could have got my Teacher released safely. As the soldiers peeled off, I slunk away into a dark corner, and sunk down to the ground hoping no one would notice me there.

Little was happening in the court which was lit by the light of a dozen flickering torches. There was the odd soldier crossing from one side to another and disappearing through doors. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself by moving, so I think that I must have dozed for a minute, because I came too suddenly, as a great cheer went up among a group of soldiers coming through one of the doors into the courtyard, dragging a man tied to a rope, behind them. When he raised his face, and the moon shone full on it, I knew that it was the Teacher they had there. I got up, and started to move forwards, but more soldiers poured out of another door carrying various things in their arms.
‘Let’s play the Kings Game’ someone shouted,
and a great roar went up. The next few hours were the longest of my life. I seemed to be trapped in a nightmare from which I couldn’t wake up. Images kept floating before my eyes; the scratches etched by long use into the paving slabs of the courtyard; the dice falling and tumbling onto the pavement; the whips coming down again and again onto the Teacher’s back and shoulders; the cruel words and taunts spewing from the lips of the soldiers; the red, red cloak that soaked up the Teacher’s blood, and the crown of thorns, which one soldier won the right to jam down on the Teacher’s head, so that the thorns pierced his skin and blood poured down his face. Finally the mock sceptre they forced into his hand and the mock bowing and scraping they did before him, as if they believed him a king.

If he had once cried out in pain, or once showed the agony he must have been in, I told myself that I would have run to him and taken the consequences, but he was stoic, looking almost bored, as if he had withdrawn somewhere deep within himself. The only time I heard him make any kind of sound, was just as the sun began to rise, and a group of soldiers disappeared for a while and returned carrying the crossbar of a cross which they lashed to his outstretched arms, across his bloodied shoulders. Then I heard him sigh, as if he knew that this signalled the end.

I left as soldiers were being ordered up and sent out in groups to line the streets on the way to Golgotha, the place of the skull. Again slipping out with a group of

The Women who saw – part 2

Mary, Martha and Jesus

In the hours of darkness it is easier to move around the city as there are a lot less people, but there isn’t much light apart from the moon. Some of the wealthier house owners put lamps outside their houses, and keep them burning through the night. Soldiers patrolling the streets carry flaming torches with them, but we wanted to be unseen. With the Passover having just finished, there were piles of bones out in the cobbled streets waiting to be collected up by the night soil men or chewed on by the packs of dogs roaming the streets. The bones are swept up into carts, along with all the other effluent from a city full of people and animals. The carts rumble around during the night, but most people just tune the sound out. It is taken out to nearby villages to be used to fertilise the fields. Mary and I walked as fast as we could up to the Temple Mount. I peeled off to cross over on the bridge to enter the gate into the Courtyard of the Gentiles, while Mary carried on to the entrance of the Antonia Fortress which is built right against the far corner of the Temple wall.

I marched through the gate unchallenged, the guard seeming not to be worried about me, even though it was the early hours of the morning. I then passed through the colonnaded portico, where during the day the money changers and sellers of sacrificial beasts sit and ply their trade Then I was out onto the vast expanse of the paved courtyard. It is designed to hold the many thousands of people who come for the major pilgrimages each year, and is, I am told, one of the wonders of the world. I didn’t see any of the wonders, I didn’t hear the echoes of the voices from all around the globe, the high-born and the lowly who had left the place after the day’s ceremonies, to go and eat, and now sleep. My eyes were locked on the buildings in the centre of the courtyard. I crossed the court and passed through the balustrade, into the complex which only we Jews can enter. I crossed the Court of the Women and climbed the steps to the Nicanor Gate, and then I stopped. No woman is allowed through that gate into the Court of the Israelites. I could be severely punished if I was caught, but the dark and a momentary distraction of the guards, allowed me to slip in.

Standing in the shadows, I saw a sight no woman is allowed to see. From the narrow strip of the Court of the Israelites, I could look across the Court of the Priests to the Holy of Holies. In the gentle light of the full passover moon, the gold covering its walls, shone with an unearthly glow. Behind the curtains, on the front of the building, which I am told were woven in Babylon with a panorama of the universe, were, I knew, the doors, twice as high as the tallest man, and covered with gold. It took me some minutes to stop myself from gaping, and several more minutes to drink in the scene which I knew that I would never ever see again. Then I came to my senses and looked around the torch lit courtyard to see if there was anything happening that I could eavesdrop on.

There was a large group of men gathered around in front of a door in one of the courtyard walls. I assumed that this was the house of the High Priest, Ciaphas. Keeping to the shadows, I moved as close as I dared. The group were too far away for me to clearly catch what was being said, but then Rabbi Jesus was mentioned by name. I moved closer and tuned my ears into the conversation. I gathered that he had already been here, and that the High Priest had questioned him and brought witnesses against him, for what I wasn’t quite clear. There was a degree of admiration in at least one voice when when he talked about Rabbi Jesus’ response to the charges against him. From here it appeared that he had been taken to the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, who had been unwilling to order his execution, so, on discovering that he was a Galilean, he had sent him with an escort across the city to the Place of Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee. Quite where he was now, no one seemed to know. As the group soon began to break up and wander away, I slipped back through the Nicanor Gate and into the Court of the Women, where I allowed myself to breathe for the first time in several hours, since I had heard of the arrest of Rabbi Jesus. I returned slowly to the house thinking about what I had heard and wondering what had happened to Mary.

The Women who saw – part 1

Mary, Martha and Jesus

Jerusalem is a city mainly made up of white stoned, single room boxes stacked one on top of another, clinging to the sides of the valleys and hills on which it has grown up over the centuries. On any place that is flat enough, or man can hack out a level area, the authorities build. So punched out of the jigsaw of the stone boxes, the soldiers of Rome have built a fort, the king has built himself a palace, and the religious princes have built an enormous Temple to the glory of Yahweh. Outside of the city wall, from our house in Bethany on the other side of the Kidron Valley, we look over those hills and valleys, revelling in the shared glory of the city at the centre of the world.

Few of the houses will take more than an extended family when we gather together for feasting, so if you need to meet with a larger number of people, you have to know where to look, and who to ask. Luckily when Rabbi Jesus asked Mary and I to arrange for a place in Jerusalem, where he, and his friends and close followers could share the Passover together, I knew just where to ask. Some of the houses are deceptively small on the outside, but at some point their owners have hacked out the rock to which their houses cling, and have created rooms that are large enough to house a family and more, in some comfort. The hills of the city are honeycombed with these house extensions.

If I had left Mary to do the organising, no one would have had any food to eat for the Passover. I sent servants out to the markets in Jerusalem, using the money that Judas gave us. They came back with bitter herbs, bread, wine and the carcass of a large lamb which had been slaughtered by the Priests in the Temple. Mary and I set a fire and roasted the lamb ready for Rabbi Jesus when he came from the Temple with his followers. The law requires that there are at least 10 people per lamb, so that all of the meat is eaten at the feast, and none left over. We were going to be a group of round about 20 people, so I made sure that there was plenty of unleavened bread to go with the meat.

When Rabbi Jesus came in, he insisted on taking the bowl of water and cloth and washing his followers feet. They were scandalised that he was doing this instead of the servant, who was hovering nearby. Rabbi Jesus just said that he was doing this because in his Father’s kingdom, status didn’t matter, so even though he was the Rabbi, it was as much his role to was the feet of guests, as it was the servants. Once he had washed everyone’s feet, they all sat down to eat, and the servant, Mary and I brought the bread and meat to the table. When everyone had eaten, and every scrap of meat had been cleaned off the bones, the Rabbi took a piece of bread, blessed it and broke it and handed a piece to each of his followers saying,
‘ This is my body, do this in remembrance of me’.
Then he took a cup of wine, blessed it and handed it to his followers one at a time saying,
‘This is my blood of the new covenant. Do this in remembrance of me.’ Mary and I were clearing the table, but we stopped and watched what the Rabbi was doing. His followers looked puzzled at what was going on, but they took the bread and then the wine as he gave it to them. It was a long time later before it dawned on us all, just what he meant by this. He must have known what was going to happen next, but we didn’t really understand.

When everything was finished I went to sit down for a while. Rabbi Jesus led his followers out of the room, saying that he was going to take them to pray in a garden of olives at Gethsemane, which belonged to a friend. Everyone followed him out of the room. Mary slipped out after them. I sat down quietly in a corner of the room, expecting them all back later, to sleep on the floor here, so that they would be ready for the following day’s celebrations in Jerusalem. I must have dropped off to sleep, as the next thing I knew, the door was banging, and Mary rushed in. She was so out of breath from running up the street, that it was a while before she could get a coherent sentence out. When she did, my blood chilled as she told me that Roman soldiers, along with servants of the High Priest had arrested Rabbi Jesus while he prayed. As she paced around the room ringing her hands, I got my brain back into gear. Eventually I came up with a sort of plan.
‘ We need to know why they have arrested him, and what they are going to do with him. I will go to the Temple. You are younger than me, so can you run on to the Antonia Fortress and see what you can find out there. Come back here as soon as you hear anything.’
It would be dawn before we met back here again, and by then we both knew what the fate of the Rabbi would be.

The Woman who was caught in adultery – part 2

The accusers crowded round me again, and started throwing more questions at him. The more they pushed him, the more frightened I became, as it became clear to me that they really did want to take me out of the city and stone me to death, but they wanted Jesus to condemn me, for some reason of their own.

Jesus should have answered them, but he just sat there idly doodling in the dust. When at last they ran out of questions to which they were getting no answers, he looked up, and posed just one question for them ‘Are any of you without sin? If you are, then you may throw the first stone.’ I hunched over and flinched, expecting the stones to fall thick and fast, but nothing happened. Time passed, and still nothing happened. I raised my head, and straightened up. I looked around me, and saw that the only people still in the court were Jesus and myself. I looked back at Jesus into his smiling face. ‘Do you know,’ he said conversationally, ‘that it was the oldest ones who left first, and the younger ones only left when it became obvious that their trap had not worked.’ Then his face became stern again. ‘They have not condemned you, so neither do I. Go your way in peace, and leave your life of sin.’

I turned and began to walk away, my head full of jumbled thoughts. I had just reached the other side of the court, when I turned and ran back to where Jesus was still sitting. Rabbi, will you and your followers eat the Sabbath meal with me tonight. I want to thank you, and I want to know more about Yahweh. Jesus looked at me and smiled. ‘We would be delighted to’ he said.

After a hectic afternoon in the market buying more food for one meal than I have ever done. I cleaned my house from top to bottom, and I put away all the pretty materials I have draped around the house, that my lovers have given me over the years. I finally welcomed Rabbi Jesus and his friends to my house just as dusk was beginning. We lit the three candles to begin the Sabbath day of rest, and I pronounced the Kiddush, the prayer for the sanctification of the Sabbath. While we ate a simple meal of fruit and olives, bread and wine together, Rabbi Jesus reminded us of the story of our ancestors slavery in Egypt and the way in which Yahweh helped deliver our people from the cruelty of Pharaoh. The Rabbi’s friends talked long into the night, but eventually they stretched out to sleep on the floor, wrapped up in their cloaks. I offered my bed to Rabbi Jesus, but he refused, so I lay down to sleep, on my own. In the morning we all went to the nearest synagogue for prayers. I slipped in behind the division to watch the ceremony, beginning with the presentation of the shewbread. Later, an unblemished male lamb and a measure of fine flour mixed with oil were offered as a sacrifice as Torah commanded.

When it was over, and for the first time the three hours of the ceremony seemed to pass really quickly, we returned to my house where we ate and drank again. This time we had some fish I had stuffed and cooked the previous day, as well as bread and fruit and wine. In the afternoon Rabbi Jesus sat around with his followers and taught them. I sat and listened along with them. We ate again in the evening, and when we went out to observe the first three stars of the night appearing, I knew that these two days, when I had nearly been put to death to make a point, and then had sat at the feet of Rabbi Jesus would be days that would influence my life for the better for the rest of my days. For the first time, I knew that my life was important, not just to me, but to Yahweh as well, and that I had to honour that in the way I live my life. As the Rabbi had put it, I must go and sin no more.

The Woman who was caught in adultery – part 1

These last two days have been days of ups and downs. Let me begin with the downs. I was lying in bed yesterday morning, when suddenly a group of men burst in through the door and pulled me from my bed. They threw a robe over my head and bundled me out of my door. Now I will admit that lying in bed with me was a man, and he was not my husband, but still it was all rather scary. What was most annoying was that the man who was in bed with me, was left lying there, looking as sheepish as a man can when he has no clothes on and he is caught in the act of committing adultery. As I struggled with my captors and cursing as fluently as I know how, a little part of my brain wondered why I had been plucked up out of my bed, and just a little bit more of my brain was telling me that I should be scared. It is very rare these days that anyone is stoned for adultery, but this could be the day when they do it again, just to remind people like me what the punishment for adultery is.

After what seemed like hours, but would only have been minutes, we arrived in the Courts of the Temple. I was dragged though the crowd gathered there, and my captors threw me at the feet of a man sat on a seat in the shade. When I had spat the dust out of my mouth, I looked up, and to my amazement saw that I had been thrown at the feet of Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth. I had seen him the previous day when he had arrived in Jerusalem with a small group of his followers. I had stood in the shade at the edge of the crowd who sat to hear him talk about Yahweh. I have no illusions about what I am, so I knew I would not be welcomed to sit at the feet of such a popular and respected preacher. I had liked what I heard from him. He made Yahweh seem so much more about me than the teachers usually do, when they talk about keeping all the rules that the Pharisees and Sadducees say we need to keep in order to please Yahweh.

My problem is that I seem to have been set up to fail. I was married off by my parents, to a man who just wanted my parents money, and had no interest in me. I became pregnant, but the child died, and I nearly died giving birth. My husband could not have cared less about either of us. The wise woman who nursed me back to health told me that it would be unlikely that I would ever be able to have any more children. When my husband was told this, he divorced me, and married an even richer wife. I could have remarried, but I enjoyed too much the freedom of knowing that I could not become pregnant.

Our rules of purity mean that a woman is impure while she has blood, and for seven days afterwards, so for fourteen days in every twenty eight a husband and wife may not lie together. Some men can manage, and remain faithful to their wives, but many cannot. It has been very profitable for me to comfort these men. Some of the wives have even been grateful to me, as it can save them from becoming pregnant time after time. I like to do what I can for my fellow woman. I know that technically I am an adulteress, but I consider myself as providing a useful service to the women of Jerusalem. Still, if anyone wanted to accuse me of adultery, they could find plenty of witnesses among those women who hate what I am and what I do, because their husbands have strayed in my direction.

So here I am, kneeling at the feet of Jesus of Nazareth, wondering what is going to happen next. Those self righteous captors of mine now haul me up to stand on my feet, and I am looking at Jesus. When one of them says ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ Then they stood back, and left me, the accused, standing on my own, alone before Jesus. Jesus looked up at me and regarded me for a very long time. It was such a look as stripped my soul bare. I wanted to cringe before it, but then he just looked down at the ground again without saying anything.

The Woman who divorced – part 2

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The woman who divorced

There was so much conflict going on in my mind as I listened to this stranger playing back to me the whole story of my life. As he talked about the divorces, I lived again the humiliation of the four occasions when the men I had been married to, had lived with, shared a bed with had handed me a piece of paper and then pronounced the formal words of divorce ‘You are hereby permitted to all men’. A couple of the divorces I had wanted, the others I had not, but had to accept the Get when it was handed to me. As a woman I was never in control of what was happening. It always made me feel so helpless. It made me even more helpless to know that my husbands had had to go to the village Rabbi, and talk all about the most intimate moments of our lives in order to persuade him to write the Get. Our village Rabbi had to hear four times about my failings as a wife.

The stranger carried on ‘You couldn’t face the people in your village, divorced for a fourth time, so you just walked out, taking only what you could carry. You walked the roads for several weeks, begging for food and shelter. You met the man you are with now, in Jerusalem. He is a widower with a son. You didn’t want to risk being divorced again, so he has told the village that you were married in Jerusalem. People here think that was an odd thing to do, but they believe him.’ The stranger looked closely at me again. ‘I think you love this man, but you are too scared of failing again to tell him so. You could just tell him how you feel, and perhaps persuade him to renew your vows in front of his family and your friends. No one would know that it would be for the first time.’

I don’t know how long I just sat there looking at him with my mouth open. No one knows that much about me, not even the man I am with now. How on earth does this stranger know so much about me? I opened my mouth, and without thinking I just blurted out, ‘You must be a prophet sir, to know so much about me.’

The stranger smiled at me again. He looked at me as if I had just passed a test. ‘You are right that I am a prophet.’

‘But what are you doing here then?,’ I asked him ‘You are a Jew and this is a Samaritan village. We worship here on Mount Gerazim, and you worship in Jerusalem. Why have you revealed yourself to me?’

When he spoke again he said ‘It does not matter whether we worship Yahweh on Mount Gerazim or in Jerusalem. The time is coming when we will be asked to worship in spirit and in truth.’

I answered him excitedly ‘ We believe, as you do that a Messiah will come to save us all. Then he will explain everything to us, so our way to Yahweh will be clear.’

He turned from me then, and looked back down the road towards the village where a group of men were walking together towards us, laughing and talking. Quietly he said ‘ I am that man’.

I said nothing as I digested these words, and by the time I had thought of my next question, the man’s friends had come up to him, and had pushed me out of the way, asking him what he was doing on his own talking to a Samaritan woman.

I turned and ran back to the village, and my man. I told him everything that the stranger had said to me, well just about everything; I left out the bit about telling him that I love him until later when we are alone.
‘Do you think he could be the Messiah?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know’ he replied frowning, ‘Perhaps we aught to go and see for ourselves.’ So we called on a few of our friends and told them what had happened to me. They were intrigued enough to want to leave their houses and their food, to walk through the mid day sun to the well, to find out for themselves whether this man is truly The Messiah, The Christ