Andrew the Friend – part 4

Thursday
On 15th Nissan, Mary and Martha came with Lazarus to celebrate Passover with us. Martha got busy organising the buying of a lamb, big enough to feed all of us, and small enough to make sure it would all be eaten before dawn. Lazarus and Judas took the beast to the Temple and waited in line to see it slaughtered by the Priests. We live in a very special time. For generations we have not had a Temple where we have been able to perform our rituals, and now we do. Truly we are a blessed people.

Mary, Martha and the servant working for the follower who had offered his house for our use, had the job of making enough unleavened bread for our Passover meal. The making of the unleavened bread is a skilled job, at least that is what mother always used to say. You have to mix flour and water together and cook it as soon as it is properly mixed. You can’t let it rise at all. If bubbles start to appear as it is cooking, then you have to quickly prick it all over with the tip of a knife. In the story of the Exodus from Egypt we had to eat unleavened bread as we knew we were going to be leaving in a hurry and didn’t have time for the bread to rise. So we eat it now in remembrance of that night. It also has the advantage of being a very light bread, and as it is flat, easy to pack in your bag. We have often eaten it as we have travelled around. It lasts for days, but it does lack taste. In Jerusalem where there is little fuel, men and women from the local villages spend weeks before the festival making matzos for those who come without their own supplies. Still, at the end of the cooking marathon, Martha bought in more to supplement what had already been made, which she didn’t think would be enough for all of us, for the whole seven days of the festival.

The Seder meal took place in the large room of the house where we were all staying. When we began to gather from our errands around the city, Jesus was already there waiting for us. He had a cloth over his arm, and a bowl of water ready. He motioned to Peter to sit, so that he could wash his feet. Peter refused outright, saying that it was the job of a servant to wash our feet as a welcome, as we entered the house. Jesus told him that he was making the point, yet again, that the Kingdom of Yahweh was not like earthly kingdoms. In Yahweh’s kingdom it is those who are the least, that are the most respected, and we could not expect to take our places in the kingdom if we did not learn that lesson. At that Peter, as usual, went over the top and told Jesus that he should wash not only his feet, but his face and hands as well. Jesus laughed and clapped him on the back, and told him that washing just his feet would be fine. It was odd having my feet washed by Jesus. He took them into his hands so carefully and gently. He washed them making sure that all the dirt and dust of the road was removed and that they were completely clean. His touch and his care moved me beyond anything else he has done or said. It is good to be a servant in the Kingdom of Yahweh.

I think the Seder meal itself is like a dance, we take story and food, prayer and wine and we weave them together. We share and we join, we laugh and we cry, and sometimes we dance as well. We enter into the meal wholeheartedly, completely, fully. The Seder meal is something we have shared all our lives, so no matter who we are we all know the parts we have to play. After the first blessing and the first cup of wine, John as the youngest that night asked the four questions a child present would ask. ‘Why is tonight different from all other nights? Why do we…’ And Jesus wove the narrative of the Haggadah to tell the story of our escape from Egypt. I looked properly for the first time at the Matza, the unleavened bread as one was broken and the small piece put back on the pile, and the large piece put safely away to be eaten later. We heard again of the urgency of the situation; that we had no time. John then asked why we ate no vegetables, only the bitter herbs, such as romaine lettuce or endive. It is eaten dipped in a sauce which is supposed to represent the mortar with which the Israelites bound the bricks together as they built for the Egyptians. It certainly looks like mortar, and some samples I have seen could be used to build houses. It tastes no better either. We also dipped parsley in the salt water and ate it, and were reminded of the tears of the slaves kept in captivity in a strange land. Not one dipping, but two, something we would never usually do, and so the child has to ask why? Then the final part of the story. Why is the meat exclusively roasted? The story here dips into the strange way in which we left Egypt; that Yahweh sent a great sickness over the land, and all of the firstborn were killed, from the son of Pharaoh, to the last sheep in the field. Only those who had smeared the blood of their sacrificial lambs on the posts of their doors, were saved. The passover lamb had to be roasted and eaten, and nothing was to be left over. The people had to eat with their cloaks and staffs at the ready, with all their belongings packed and ready to leave when the call came. With dawn and the discovery of death, with the confusion of the Egyptians, the Israelites slipped away to begin their long adventurous journey home.

Our Seder that night was like all other Seders across the land, in any places where Israelites meet together, until Jesus took again the afikoman, the large part of the broken Matza that he had put to one side. This night he blessed it and broke it into the olive size pieces required. His blessing was personal;
‘This is my body broken for you. Whenever you meet together break bread and remember me.’
The room fell silent as we all took in the words which Jesus had just said. Peter opened his mouth to say something, but Jesus silenced him with a look, put his piece of the afikoman into his hands and moved around the table giving us all our piece.
‘Now eat’, he said. And we all did.
He picked up the third cup of wine of the meal and blessed it and gave it to each of us in turn
‘This is my blood of the new covenant between me and you, between Yahweh and his people. When you meet together take wine and bless it and share it as you remember me.’
Then he picked up the fourth and final cup and began the words of the Hallel beginning with psalm 113

“Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, you his servants; praise the name of the Lord. Let the name of the Lord be praised, both now and for evermore. From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised. The Lord is exalted over all the nations, his glory above the heavens. Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth? He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes, with the princes of his people. He settles the childless woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise the Lord.”
Then we moved on the Psalm 114. When we reached to traditional end of Psalm 118 Jesus stood and stretched.
‘I would like to go and pray now. Who will come with me? There was a lot of groaning around the room as it was late. We had been busy all day, and eaten and drunk well, but we reluctantly gathered our cloaks and headed towards the door. As we were letting ourselves out of the door someone suddenly asked ‘Where is Judas, he was here not so long ago?’ Everyone turned to look at Jesus. ‘He has gone to do what he must do. Let us go.’
And at that moment he looked unbearably tired and sad.

Andrew the Friend – part 3

Wednesday
Preparations for Passover begin on the 14th day of Nissan. No matter where you are, it is a special time of year, but we were in Jerusalem that year. Everyone who can, comes to the city at the centre of the world, and the world is there to greet them. Passover is one of our three pilgrimage festivals together with Shavuot and Sukkot, and we are expected to travel, leaving behind only those needed to watch and guard or who are too infirm to make the journey. In Jerusalem Israelites gather from the four corners of the earth, drawn by the Temple and its Holy of Holies built for us by Herod.

But it is not just the ceremonies that draw us in. The markets flourish when there are so many people to buy. Merchants come from all over the place to hawk their wares, from Arabia to China and by ship from all around the Great Sea. You can buy everything from the vegetables, matzos and bitter herbs for the feast, through to cloth and metal work, pots and pans, wooden items of all kinds, in fact anything saleable can be found somewhere in the city. The colours; red and yellow woven into carpets and exotic fabrics, stacks of oranges, lemons and pomegranates raise the spirits and are such a change from the white of the rocks, the dull green of the olive trees and the blue of the sky. The smells are particular to a city. So many bodies living close to each other in the hot temperatures. The excrement, human and animal. Offal from the slaughter of the animals required to feed so many people. Rotting vegetables left over from the markets. The stray animals eating what they can scrounge from the streets. The smells of exotic herbs and spices layered over the other less pleasant smells, and around every corner food for sale, being prepared in doorways and on street corners, fresh fruit and olives, bread and fish, wine and fresh clean water from the city well.

Added to the other smells on this day in particular is the smell of burning. Moses was commanded by Yahweh that we should eat lamb and unleavened bread before the escape from Egypt, so to make sure the ritual cannot be contaminated, all leaven is burnt. Every uneaten bit of bread or anything made from flour that can possibly have risen, even just a little bit, is burnt. We keep bits of bread specially to make sure we have burnt all leaven. This day is also the Fast of the Firstborn. Jesus as a first born, and a son always observed this as a Fast day. I am not, so I didn’t need to, but somehow we all usually ended up fasting until sunset, no matter where we were at the time. It would have been difficult moving around the food markets, but Jesus was insistent that we join him in the portico of the Temple. He seemed possessed by an energy that we had never seen before. It felt as if he was somehow running out of time, to teach us, to teach the people. And he was, though we still did not see it, we still could not read the situation around us.

Andrew the Student – part 2

Sometimes my quietness was an advantage. The young and the hesitant seemed to gravitate towards me to ask their questions. I remember one day when Rabbi Jesus had been teaching for hours, and it was now nearing the middle of the day. There was a vast crowd sat around him, we thought about 5,000 in number. We could all see that they were getting restless because they were getting hungry and thirsty. I was sitting on a stone near the edge of the crowd listening with one ear and looking around to see whether there were any villages nearby where I could find food to feed everyone. Then I felt a gentle tap on my arm. I looked down to see a young boy holding a basket containing five loaves of bread and three small fish.
‘My mother has sent me with some food for Rabbi Jesus.’ He said, ‘But there are so many people here, I can’t get to him. What can I do?’
I thought for a moment, then took him by the hand.
‘I know Rabbi Jesus. Come with me.’
I took his hand and we wove our way through the seated crowd. When we got to Jesus we stood and waited, until he stopped talking, then we went round and stood in front of him. I explained the situation, and the boy held up his basket.
‘I know that this will be enough for you Rabbi, but the people, they need food and drink as well. What can we do for them?’
Rabbi Jesus thought for a while then he looked around.
‘Have we got some more baskets? Divide this food between the baskets, then take it out and feed the people.’
‘But this food won’t feed all these people!’.
Rabbi Jesus just smiled, so we divided the food between the baskets putting a small handful in each. Before we left his side Rabbi Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven and with the crowd watching closely he prayed and blessed the food. Then we set out certain that we would go no more than a few steps.

What we saw though, was that hands reached out to the baskets, some took food, but more put food in. Packets of food which the sensible and prepared had brought with them, were opened and shared. Water bottles were passed around. People sat and talked together in small groups discussing what Rabbi Jesus had been saying. What could have been a very difficult situation became a time of great sharing and generosity, thanks to the actions of one small boy who shamed the adults in to sharing what was they had brought with them. By the time we had moved right through the crowd, there were twelve baskets full of leftovers, which we took back to Rabbi Jesus. He smiled and gestured for us to sit and eat, while he carried on teaching. We indeed saw a miracle of generosity that day.

Although we would be away from Capernaum for weeks at a time, Rabbi Jesus would regularly circle us back to our homes so that we could see our families and make sure that they had enough food to manage. Sometimes he took advantage of our boats, and would sit out in the lake and preach to the crowds sat on the shore. More people could see him that way, and the water seemed to bounce his words better towards the people. It was strange though. I never heard him shout when he was teaching, but I never heard a complaint that someone couldn’t hear. Everyone from the smallest child to the deafest old man could be reached by the words of Rabbi Jesus

Then the time came that Rabbi Jesus started to send us out to preach and teach for him. He sent seventy two of us out in pairs to all of the villages in the area we were going to next, to begin to teach and proclaim his coming. He gave us some very specific instructions.
‘Do not take a purse or bag or sandals. Do not greet a friend if you should meet them on the road. You have a place to go and be, to which Yahweh has sent you. Go there with all haste. When you enter a house say “Peace be to this house.” If you are made welcome then your peace will rest on the people in that place, if not it will return to you. Eat and drink what is set before you without embarrassment. Now you are workers in the Kingdom of Yahweh. You are worthy of your wages. Do not move from house to house. When you reach a town, if you are made welcome, eat what is set before you, heal the sick and tell them “The kingdom of Yahweh is near you.” If you are not made welcome, leave the place. At the edges of the town make a great show of wiping off the dust from your feet and telling them that they are no better than Sodom. The Kingdom of Yahweh is for those that see and hear, and believe.’

We all went off with great apprehension. I was almost sick with anxiety, but even where we were not made welcome, I felt confident and had the right words to say. Mostly people welcomed us and fed us. When we laid hands on the sick, just as we had seen Rabbi Jesus do, at our commands, at my command, the lame were healed, the blind had their sight restored and demons were cast out.

It was a very energised and enthusiastic group who gradually gathered again around Rabbi Jesus. Each of us had great stories to tell. Rabbi Jesus was full of praise for us all, and was constantly praising Yahweh for all that had happened in his name. We were inclined to boast to each other about who had performed the greatest miracles or seen the most miraculous things. Rabbi Jesus had to bring us back to earth by reminding us that it was not us performing the miracles. We were only doing so because our names are written in heaven. Written in heaven? Well it felt really good. I felt as if I had been waiting my whole life just for this. Who would have thought it!

From then on Rabbi Jesus would send us out regularly. We became skilled at preaching and healing, but always we came back to Rabbi Jesus as children come back to their father. We thought that this would continue for ever, or rather, we didn’t think. For all that we were constantly moving, constantly preaching and teaching in different places, we were so taken up by what we could see happening in front of us, we didn’t look of to see the dark clouds gathering on the horizon. Oh yes, we occasionally saw Pharisees and Sadducees coming and taking a prod at Rabbi Jesus, but he would always have an answer for them, always be able to turn their learning on them, in a way none of the rest of us could. We didn’t see their anger and resentment. We didn’t really see their minds when they looked at the large gatherings they could never have held with their rules and laws and which were now being held by love. We didn’t see ourselves circling in a spiral towards Jerusalem for the Passover. Even if we had, we had no idea what was going to happen there. We should have known, Rabbi Jesus had told us plainly enough, but we had not believed him. All we could see was the love of the crowds for us. We missed the hate of the people in power, and we were shattered when it hit us full force like a storm in the night.

Andrew the Fisherman – part 2

I found him as I had been told standing in the middle of the river Jordan looking as though he was drowning men and women and then raising them up alive out of the water again. I guessed these must be the people who had heeded his message and wanted to be saved. When he had finished everyone lined up on the shore, he climbed out of the river sat down on a large stone, and began to talk to the large crowd seated on the ground before him. I sat and listened, and was captured by his vision of the coming Messiah who was only just out of our sight. The Messiah would usher in Yahweh’s kingdom here on earth. We could all be part of that if only we were baptised and repented of our sins. I wanted so much to join John in his wait, but I knew that my family relied on me to help Simon earn enough money and get enough fish to eat, so I left and returned to Capernaum. But I sat there on the shore day after day thinking about what John had said, and I became more and more desperate to return to him, but the fishing was not good and I could not leave.

It was then that I bumped into a carpenter from Nazareth who had come to make some repairs to a building used by the Romans. I was pushing through the streets carrying a basket of fish, and he had a bag of tools slung over his shoulder. His tools met my fish and there was only one thing that was going to happen, the street looked more like a river as a stream of fish slithered all over the muddy track. The carpenter dropped his bag and began to help me re catch the slippery fish. When we had got them all back, now covered in mud, he apologised again and asked whether he could help clean them, as I was not going to be able to sell them all covered in mud. So we walked down to the lake side together and bonded over a pile of muddy fish. He was the kindest man I have ever met. He didn’t have to help me at all, but it seemed natural for him to want to do so. We talked as if we had always known each other, and he seemed to know all about the things which were bothering me.

When we finally finished, I offered him food and a bed for the night, as it was now too late to set off on his journey home. So that night he sat and ate with us and shared the sleeping platform in Simon’s house. When he left the next morning I thought that I would never see him again. That really bothered me, along with all the questions I had from my visit to the Baptiser. So when the fishing picked up again, Simon sent me to Jerusalem with some preserved fish, and instructions to sell it for as much as possible in the market, and then pay the taxes we owed to the Temple. I then took the opportunity to find the Baptiser again, and this time I committed myself to him and was baptised in the River Jordan.

So it was that I was there sitting at the feet of the Baptiser when he looked up and looked over our heads to the opposite bank. He hopped off the stone he was sitting on and plunged into the river, crossing it to meet with the man on the other side and greet him with a hug. I thought the man looked familiar, but he was too far away to see clearly. As we all watched, the Baptiser jumped back into the river and handed the man down. Then they waded together into the middle, and the Baptiser plunged the man under the water, as we had seen him do hundreds of times before. We were about the turn away, when as the man came up out of the water, the sky above him seemed to be rent in two and a voice came as clear as anything ‘This is my son, my beloved, in him I am well pleased’.

We were all struck dumb. Was this man the onet we had been thinking and praying about, what the Baptiser had been preaching about. Was it really true that the Messiah, Yahweh’s son was here, now. We had seen the signs in the sky. We had heard the voice, hadn’t we? We were witnesses. It just had to be true. The two of them waded out of the water towards us. Those nearest rushed to give them a hand to get out of the water. Everyone started talking and asking questions, wanting to know what had happened, and what we were going to do now. John hugged the man again, and I realised as he turned around to face me that this was the carpenter, Jesus of Nazareth. I cried out his name, and he smiled and waved at me in greeting, but then he turned away and without answering any questions headed out into the desert.

The crowd turned to the Baptiser. Why is he leaving us, where is he going, Can we follow him? Who is he? Question after question poured over the Baptiser. Most he ignored. He just looked after Jesus and said ‘I am not worthy to unlatch his shoes, yet he would have me baptise him’ then ‘Leave him be. It is not yet the time for him to begin his work. He will return when Yahweh has purified him for the task ahead.’ And with that he refused to say anything more he just sat on the bank staring at the water. Someone in the crowd remembered I had called him by name, and he had acknowledged me. He turned and asked me what I knew. I became the centre of attention as I told them all I knew about Jesus, the carpenter from Nazareth.

Andrew the Fisherman- part 1

I am a fisherman from a family of fishermen, born in Bethsaida in Galilee, on the edge of the Sea of Galilee. My father taught me the skills of working with net and boat to catch fish in the sea, as he taught my brother Simon also. My father was taught by his father, and his father was taught by his before. For time out of mind my family has lived here on the shores of the sea, catching fish to make a living.

We also have our small plot of land given to the family when we settled here after we returned from Egypt in the time of Moses and Aaron. There we grow barley for bread and have an olive tree for oil. Our women folk help us growing vegetables like leeks and cabbages alongside herbs to flavour our food like dill, cumin and mint. When the fish come we can eat like kings with fish, bread, olives, and figs. Although a meal is always better on a baking day. If not we eat whatever bread is left over, dipping it in the cooking juices of the fish to cover the taste of the mould growing on it. Kings don’t eat mouldy bread, but we can’t afford not to. We don’t grow enough barley to throw any away, and none of us has enough time to forage further and further away from the village for fuel for the communal oven to cook the bread daily. The oven is heated about every three days and the women living around our courtyard rush to get their their barley ground and the bread risen and in the oven while it is still hot. It is not an easy life for them. I would not want to have to pound the grindstone for hours at a time to turn grain into flour, only to have husband or sons complain when they get a bit of grit in their bread.

But I am getting away from fishing. Simon and I are skilled at using the shore net. We sit on the shore of the sea, and because of the way the ground slopes down into the sea, you can see a long way out, and you can see shoals of fish swimming around. Depending on how far they are from the shore line we can either cast out our own nets, one of us remaining on the shore, the other wading out with the other end of the net and walking around the shoal back into the shore so that we have them all rounded up. Or if the fish are too far out. One of us will run back to the village of Capaernaum where we live and rouse one of the boats from there, maybe James and John bar Zebedee. They come and we work a net between the boat and the shore to catch the fish. Sometimes we will go out in the boat into the deeper areas of the sea and help our friends fish with nets between boats, or just casting from one of the boats. Different fish live in different parts of the lake, tilapia, carp and catfish. You just have to know where they are and when. That is the skill of fishing. Any fool can throw a net into the water, it takes skill to know where to throw the net.

But even skilled fishermen can have long days when we go out and catch nothing, or days of stormy weather when it is too dangerous to take the boats out. Then we eat like paupers, as we have no money to buy from the market, and the little on our land has to feed the whole family. Simon is married and has his wife and children and mother in law to support. I will marry when I have enough money saved to pay for the materials to build a house where I can take a wife to live. In the meanwhile I also live with Simon since the death of our parents.

Fishing gives you a lo of time to think. Sitting on the shore or in a boat watching and waiting for the fish, there is plenty of time without interruption. I like to think about what the Rabbi has said in the synagogue and the passage from the Torah that was read. I like to think about the conversations with the people I meet when I take fish to sell in the market. Mostly I sell to other townspeople, but sometimes we have passing merchants looking for new markets or wanting to buy our fish. Sometimes Roman soldiers come for fish for themselves or their families. They are very interesting to talk to. They come from so far away, from places I have never heard of. They talk about lands that I can only imagine from the descriptions they give me. I sit and wonder who I am, and why I am here and not there, and I wonder what it is like not to be one of Yahweh’s chosen people. I know I am one of Yahweh’s chosen people, and we are waiting for our Messiah to come and save us. The Torah is full of references to his coming, but we have no idea of the time or the place, so we wait, and I fish and think.

One day a passing merchant told me about a strange man he had met down by the river Jordan. He was gathering people around him and preaching about making a straight way in the desert for Yahweh’s chosen one. This man lived in the desert eating locusts and wild honey and was dressed in the skin of wild goats. He was taking his followers to the Jordan and dunking them in the river and proclaiming them cleansed from their sins. I was really interested, and so with Simon’s permission I set off to find this John the Baptiser.

Innocence – A Christmas Story – part 3

As time passed the events of those few days faded in my memory. For the first few days I would take them out, polish them up and play them over again in my head, hoping to hear again the words that had been told to me, and picture the glories of what I had seen. But then came the soldiers. They asked us for the baby born to be king, and when we did not tell them, because we did not know, they carried out their terrible task to pull from each screaming mother any baby boy aged two years or under, and kill him. That included my baby brother. He was torn from my mother’s grasp while soldiers held her and father to stop them from interfering, while one man took his sword, and with a look for confirmation from the centurion killed my brother. When they let mother go she ran screaming to his lifeless body and threw herself over him as if she could give him life again. Father would have fought with the soldiers, but one held a sword at my older brother’s throat and promised that if he saw him try anything funny, he would come back and kill him as well. Father looked into his eyes and saw the truth of what he said, and with difficulty held himself in check. I ran to him and put my arms around him. The family tableau, mother, father and children, alive and dead holding each other up watched the soldiers march away watched by the rest of the guests in the caravansery.

As time passed the birth and the death became more dream like, a tangled dream in which I joined the Messiah’s army, poor woman that I am, and fought the hated Romans at the gates of Jerusalem. I heard about the prophet Jesus of Nazareth, and waited eagerly to see if he was the man. To see whether the word of the prophets was going to be fulfilled in him. The name was certainly right, but there were many men called Jesus. But this one was a healer and preacher of the word of Yahweh, he was not a king coming with a mighty army. I didn’t see him when he briefly came to Nazareth. I was busy running the caravanserai then with my husband and children. Not that I would have recognised the baby in the man. As it was I didn’t see my baby Jesus again until the day he died. But that is another story.

Innocence – A Christmas Story – part 2

But that wasn’t the only strange thing that happened in those few days. As is our custom Mary and Joseph went on the eighth day to Jerusalem to have Jesus circumcised, according to the law. After Mary’s purification they took him to the Temple to present him, before returning back to us. It is only a half day’s walk to Jerusalem from Bethlehem. I think they were going to stay just another two or thee days to make sure Jesus was still well enough to travel, then they were to return home. Then star appeared that night over the stable again. Father noticed it on his final round of the walls. By this time most people had set off to return to their own homes, so the caravanserai felt very empty. Mary and Joseph had remained in the stable as it was quieter for the baby. But the star reappearing had father worried that the shepherds would appear again, so he set an extra watchman on the walls that night. What trotted past our walls was not a whole lot of drunken shepherds, but some rich travellers on camels. Like the shepherds they seemed to know where they were going. Straight to see the baby in the stable under the star. This time I went with father and mother and a few of our men, well armed with knives. The sight that met our eyes was extraordinary. Outside our little stable were three exotic men obviously from the East, keeping watch over six camels. They pulled out great knives as we approached, and I thought that there was going to be a battle, but at a call from one of the men, Joseph came out with a richly dressed man, and thanked father and the men for coming again, but everything was alright. These men had seen the star in the east and had followed it here, to come and worship at the feet of a new powerful king. They had not expected to find a baby, but this baby was what they had come all this way to see. Father sent the men back to watch the caravanserai, and he, mother, I and my older brother entered and sat, at the request of the eastern travellers. At the feet of the baby lying in his cradle were ornate carved wooden boxes, open to show their contents, gold, more than I had seen before or since, frankincense and myrrh, which we saw a lot of being carried by passing traders, and fabulously expensive, here overflowing on to the floor.

And then in my innocence I asked those questions no adult can ask.
‘Why have these men come to see this baby? My baby brother looks better than he does, and he has one tooth.’
There was a silence in the stable, then the mother, Mary, spoke up.
‘Do you listen when you go to Synagogue to the readings from Torah and the Prophets? Well, if you do, you will know that every so often the prophets tell us that a Messiah is coming. The prophets are people who have come close to Yahweh. They didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, and neither do I. I do know that an angel called Gabriel came to me and asked me to be the mother of Yahweh’s son.’ (At this point all the adults took a deep breath in, apart from Mary’s husband who was nodding his head gently as she told her story) ‘I didn’t have much time to think about my answer.’ she continued ‘I was only betrothed to Joseph then, so I didn’t know how Yahweh would accomplish it. I thought about the shame I would bring to my parents, (Lots of adult nodding of heads here) about how much I would hurt Joseph (Here he held out his hand and caught hers in his large calloused one) and whether I would be stoned to death for adultery.’
‘What is adultery?’ I asked
But my mother shushed me. I opened my mouth to ask why they wouldn’t answer my question, but mother gave me one of her looks which promised a smack if I kept on about it, so I turned to listen to the story again.
‘I thought about what the angel said. Thought about how much I love Yahweh, so then I said ‘Yes’ to him. I would have Yahweh’s baby. I had heard, as you have heard, that the prophets tell us that the Messiah is going to be born in Bethlehem. The angel never said that we had to go to Bethlehem. Neither did Yahweh say that to Joseph when he met him in a dream when he assured him that I was carrying his baby and had not committed adultery.’
I opened my mouth again, but mother fixed her steely eye on me and I shut it. I would have to ask later when nobody was around.
Mary continued
‘I had no idea that this baby might be Yahweh’s promised Messiah, just his son. Then came the news of the census, and Joseph told me that we would have to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem. So I began to wonder. It is not a good thing to have to make a long journey when you are pregnant. You remember how big your mother was when she was expecting your baby brother? So I walked until my feet ached and my ankles swelled up, then I sat on the donkey until I couldn’t cope with being kicked by the baby and jogged by the donkey, so I would walk again. I walked and rode, and rode and walked for five days to get here. We didn’t think we would get here in time, as it was we only just made it to Bethlehem before it was dark. You remember that by the time we knocked on your father’s gate, it was very late indeed, and this was because we could find nowhere else in the whole of the town to stay. You have heard the story of the shepherds and the story of these wise men. The rest you know, because you have been here, you have seen with your own eyes.’
‘What is going to happen now?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know’ Mary replied. ‘Yahweh is only gradually revealing his plans to us all, as the days pass. I expect I shall find out soon enough what he wants next. I am slowly learning what it is that Yahweh wants from me. I am sure that it will take a lifetime to learn. I think it is time now for you to go to bed. I need to clean up baby Jesus, he has got rather smelly while we have been talking.’
‘You mean he has shit himself,’ I said ‘My brother does that as well’.
At which point my mother leapt up, grabbed my arm and began to pull me out of the stable all the time hissing at me in a loud whisper
‘You shouldn’t say things like that’
‘Why not?’ I said ‘It is true!’
‘Yes, but you don’t talk about it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I said so’.
And as this was the final answer to any argument between us, I had to let it go. I would go back in the morning and talk to Mary. Maybe she would give me a straight answer. She had so far. But when I went back in the morning, Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus and the Kings, their camels and servants had all gone, slipped away in the night, leaving just a small pile of gold in payment, which I took to my father.

Innocence – A Christmas Story – part 1

I have often talked about it with my friends. For them also, that baby’s birth made a big impression on all of us. The birth itself would have left a mark on us, but the aftermath left a scar which has never really healed. Because of that baby I lost my brother, because of that baby, just about every family in the town, and we were all mostly closely related, we all lost a baby boy, and for why?

The story begins with a journey. It is not one that I had to make. I am an Inn Keepers daughter, so travellers came to me and my family’s caravansery. My parents knew that at that time we were going to be busy. They had seen the notices hammered up around the town. There was to be a census, and everyone was to be registered at the family town. Our Bethlehem was the family town of the great King David, so kin from around the country were going to descend on us. The town planned. The elders discussed. My mother and the other women got on with doing what needed to be done. Food, water and shelter for an unknown number of people and animals, for several days.

I might only have been six years old, but I had my jobs around the caravansery, and I got on with them as the place steadily filled up with more men, women children, horses, donkeys and camels than I had ever seen before. I don’t know why our outer stone walls did not bow out with everyone walking, talking, sleeping and cooking together inside, waiting for the appointed day and appointed hour of the census. As well as those coming for the census we had our regular guests, travelling from the south to Jerusalem, from the North down to Egypt, or west to the coast of the great sea. We tried to keep everyone happy, but even my father with all his store of tact and patience became rather short tempered.

So it was as night was falling, with the cock was letting us know, as if we didn’t know already, that it was time to damp down the fires and try to sleep, that there came a knock at the gate. Father charged past.
‘Not one more person can I fit in here, no matter what story they have to tell or how much money they offer me.’ he puffed.
He flung open the door, and before the man could say a thing he said
‘Sorry, there is no room at the Inn’.
Father bent and deftly fielded a small child who was trying to toddle out of the door, and handed him back to his mother. Just as the door was almost shut the man outside said desperately,
‘My wife is having a baby. We have tried everywhere else, there is no place for us to go. She can’t have the baby out here surrounded by the wild animals. We will never survive.’
Father opened to door a bit more and peered around. I peered around him, having come to see what was going on. There on the ground was a young woman with a very large bump, which she was rubbing, obviously in pain. Father took one look and yelled for mother. They had a quick conversation, then mother stepped outside the door to help lift the woman to her feet. She turned to me and told me to bring some hot water and rags to the stable cave, out in the field where we kept our own sheep and oxen, then she led the woman away crooning to her all the while,
‘It will be alright’.
The man followed silently, leading their donkey.

I didn’t see the baby actually being born. Mother kept sending me back for things she had forgotten. At last when I returned there was a blue faced naked baby bawling away. There was nothing wrong with his lungs. As I watched, mother expertly showed the new mother how to cut the cord, and then rub baby over with salt and oil, just as I had seen her do with my baby brother when he was born, then she wrapped him in the swaddling clothes that the woman, whose name I gathered was Mary, had brought with her. Mother held out the baby to Mary, and showed her how to latch him on to her breast. He started to suck hard, and Mary screwed up her face in pain. Mother laughed,
‘Don’t worry’ she said. ‘He needs to do that to bring down the milk. Your body will get used to it, and he will get more expert as well. It will become a pleasant experience for you both, but probably not tonight. What are you going to call him? Joseph after his father? No, Jesus? That is a nice name. Welcome to the world Jesus ben Joseph.’

Mother and I returned to the caravansery and I headed straight to bed. I was so tired. Mother headed to give my brother his last feed, before she too went off to sleep. Father had set a servant to patrol the walls, and another to keep an eye out for less than honest travellers packed in the courtyard who might want to take advantage of the large numbers of people staying that night.

I had not long been asleep when there was a shout from the watch on the wall. Looking out over the fields he shouted he could see a light, a big light, as if there was a fire somewhere up in the hills. When some of the men got up to join him on the wall, the light had gone. Father was just cursing him for a fool, when someone pointed to the sky where a huge star had appeared, and seemed to be hovering over the entrance to our stable cave in the fields.
One of the men on the wall cupped his hands to his ears and said
‘I can hear voices and shouting and running’.
Father shouted at everyone to be quiet, and the sounds came clearly to the men on the wall. We were just about to be attacked. Father rang the bell, men picked up their knives, father distributed spears, bows and arrows to the servants, women gathered their children to them and the animals got in the way. Torches were lit, and the men on the wall watched and waited. But the attack did not come, it passed us by. The feet, the shouting, and strangely the singing, passed us by. It seemed to be heading to our stable. There was a sigh of relief and people began to relax, then mother shouted up to father
‘What about Mary, Joseph and the Baby Jesus?’
Father pointed to several of the men who looked as if they would be good in a fight.
‘Come with me’, he roared.
He opened the gate and ran out, followed by the men carrying torches. Mother closed the gate behind him, and people started to drift up on to the walls to see whether they could see what was going on. But there was no sound of fighting coming to us over the clear night air. Eventually we could see a line of torches straggling back across the fields. Recognising father among them, mother threw open the gates into the courtyard.
‘What just happened,’ she asked.
‘It was a whole lot of drunken shepherds. They claimed they had seen a tear in the sky and angels singing, telling them that a baby who is to be the saviour of the world had been born in Bethlehem. A star would show them where. By the time we got there they were offering gifts of lambs to Mary and Joseph. What are they going to do with them – drive them all the way back to Nazareth? We hustled them out, although Mary and Joseph seemed more bemused than frightened by them. I told them not to come back again, but they were so happy to have seen the baby that they promised like lambs – like lambs- get it!’ Mother just looked stony faced at him. After all her worry of the last few hours it appeared that that was one joke too many.

The Grumpy Gardener makes a decision – part 1

I have a decision to make, a really hard decision that will affect the rest of my life. I thought that leaving my own country to come here to Jerusalem to make a garden was a big decision. Then it was the adventure of it that drew me, and the knowledge that I was skilled and able enough to do what was being asked of me. I also liked my new master, and knew that we could be friends as well as master and employee. This time I am making a decision to do something about which I really do not feel skilled enough, to go to unknown places where I may not be received warmly, and may even demand my life. Still, I am contemplating my decision.

This part of my life’s story began the day my garden, or rather my master’s garden, near the city walls of Jerusalem was invaded by a group of men searching for palm branches to lay on the path before their teacher, Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth. They stripped my palm trees, trampled my beds of flowers and hopped back over the wall. Rabbi Jesus later came himself to apologise for the damage caused. My master gave me the opportunity to sit and talk with him, as he himself had done several times. I was captivated by this kind and gentle man who talked so eloquently and with love about his God, Yahweh, a God I had been learning about since arriving in this country. Always before, Yahweh was spoken about with awe and power – a god of rules, and anger if you broke them. I was devastated when only a few days after our talk Rabbi Jesus was taken by the Temple Guards, tried, condemned to death, and nailed to a cross at Golgotha, the place of the skull, the execution area just outside the city walls. But that was not the end of the story for on the third day of his death, stories began to be circulated that Rabbi Jesus had risen from the dead, and had been seen by his followers. I didn’t believe them until I spoke to one of his followers, by the name of Thomas. Then I believed.

The weeks after talking to Thomas seemed to pass slowly. Most of Rabbi Jesus followers had left Jerusalem after his death. Despite their absence stories and more stories were circulating, and the authorities began to try to clamp down on the rumours and whispers. But it was like trying to stop water from running through a hole in a pipe. The harder they tried, the more stories burst out in other places; in the market, on street corners, at the gates of the city, by the water wells, whispered in peoples homes and it was rumoured, even in the palace of Herod Antipas himself.

Then on the fortieth day after his death, with what seemed like a great clap of thunder breaking over Jerusalem, the story that Rabbi Jesus had said goodbye to his disciples and ascended into heaven was being talked about everywhere and by everyone. So the story went, he had met with a few of his closest followers in Bethany, a village on the Mount of Olives. He then blessed them all and was taken up into heaven. That much all the accounts agreed on. After that, depending on which story you heard, he might have just disappeared up through the clouds or followed in the example of one of the prophets, hopped into a great chariot with four horses, and been driven up into heaven. Some of the stories were even more outrageous than that. What had definitely happened was that the followers of Rabbi Jesus reappeared in Jerusalem and were seen every day in the Temple praising and glorifying Yahweh. The authorities were very loathe to do anything about them. Praising Yahweh could not be considered as a crime, even if the joyousness of their praises was infectious in a way that the solemn worship and sacrifices of the priests was not. People came to watch and see and the numbers coming to the Temple increased daily.

The Grumpy Gardener – part 2

“You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.”Psalm 139:5&6

The day after the raid on the garden when I was still clearing up the broken leaves and trying to shape the plants again to my satisfaction, my Master came walking in the garden bringing with him a kindly faced man, who came up to me and introduced himself as Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth. He then apologised for the incursion by his followers and the damage they had wrought in the garden. He looked around in some wonder, and asked me to give him a guided tour. I looked around for my Master, but he had gone, so I led Rabbi Jesus to in turn to each of the beds in the four quarters of the garden. I had had to build raised beds for the plants, as the whole city is on a rocky promontory and its soil poor and thin. The raise beds mean that the smaller plants are nearer eye and nose level, and the trees for a dappled canopy above, so I was really happy with the results. I got really enthusiastic when I talked about ‘fine sandy soil’ and ‘manure from camels and donkeys’. I showed him the fragrant citrus plants; oranges and lemons, planted at intervals along the edges of the beds, with the poor date palms at the four corners of the garden. Under trees of almond, cherry and peach, the beds are planted with fragrant roses and lavender, with blue grey artemisia to set off the pinks of the roses, and through the mounds of lavender, in their seasons, are hyacinths and scilla, their blue flowers enhancing the blue of the little lavender flowers. In their season, lilies grow in the shade of the pomegranate and red poppies wave in the gentle winds beneath the old olive trees.

“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” Psalm 139:7-12

At the end of the tour, Rabbi Jesus sat down on a seat near to the water fountain and motioned me to sit with him. He sat and contemplated the water for a while before saying,

“This is a place of paradise, a heaven on earth, and I am so sorry that it has been violated. What happened here yesterday was my fault. I came to Jerusalem riding on a donkey and my followers greeted me with palm branches and threw their cloaks before me. They see me as their king and messiah. The palm branches for us are a sign of a king, but I am not a king as this world knows it. Although my followers don’t yet know it, this was my final entrance into this beloved city. If my followers had not shouted their greeting, had not strewn palm branches before me, laid their own cloaks on the ground for the donkey I rode to tread on, then the very stones of the city would have shouted out a greeting to me.”

I looked at him in astonishment, wondering whether he was mad or deluded. He continued,

“I will not leave this city again. The Sanhedrin are preparing something for me, a trial and then my death, I believe.”

I looked at him shocked.

“If that is the case, then you must run away. You must escape.”

He looked at me, rather sadly, I thought,

“I cannot escape the task that I was born for. I have known all my life that Yahweh would ask much of me. It is only very recently that I have come to be certain that it is my life he requires.”

“But why are you prepared to give it?” I asked

“For you.” he answered simply, looking me straight in the face, “For you and for the rest of humankind. So that each of you will know and understand that Yahweh forgives each of you your sins, that he has provided me, his son to be an acceptable sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, both now and in the future. Your sins will be wiped clean with my death, and then all you will have to do is turn to Yahweh and love him.”

“But what about all the rules?” I asked

“The only rules I ask of you are, that you love Yahweh with all your heart, mind and strength and that you love your neighbours as you love yourself. These rules sum up everything the Priests of the Temple, the Rabbi’s and Teachers want you to do as a follower of Yahweh.”

With that he kept silence for a few minutes, while I tried to frame just one question out of the many that were bubbling around in my mind. He got up before I could say anything, rested his hand momentarily on my shoulder, and said,

“Any questions you have, wait a week, then ask my friends. They will be able to help you. Thank you for this vision of paradise. I will hold it in my mind as I face these next few days.”

He then released me, turned and quickly walked from the garden.

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Psalm 139:13-16

Rabbi Jesus was right. On the Friday morning when I went to the market the place was buzzing with the news that overnight Rabbi Jesus had been arrested and tried and today he was going to be crucified. I rushed back to tell my Master, and together we went to Golgotha, the place of the Skull, where cruel Roman justice was meted out. There on a cross, between two thieves, was the man who had sat with me in my garden only a few days earlier, and opened my eyes to all the possibilities of loving Yahweh. I almost wanted to reject everything that he had taught me about the love Yahweh has for me, but he had told me that this was going to happen, and that in the end everything would be alright. Standing at the foot of the cross looking up at Rabbi Jesus hanging there wanting desperately to believe in and love Yahweh, and have his love in return, at that moment I didn’t see how it was possible.

“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139:23&24