A.D. 33 (21 page)

The silence following his cry was deafening. Terrible offense rose up within me.

How could he say such a thing to such vile creatures as these Romans? They knew exactly what they were doing! They had crucified hundreds, thousands, and each time they knew the full effect of their torture, and they took pleasure in it.

How could Yeshua pardon them in the very act of their brutality against him? How could he release the religious leaders from their guilt so easily?

“He turns his cheek,” Saba said with wonder.

Yes. Like the Father who did not judge. The Father who had abandoned Yeshua in the bowels of this horrifying nightmare. But I dared not confess my thoughts to Saba while he suffered.

It was all I could do to not throw myself at Yeshua's tormentors even as they stood at the foot of the cross.

The hours passed. Neither of us seemed able to move. I knew that Yeshua saw us, because his slumping head was often turned in our direction, and when it was, I could not hold back my tears.

Others who had followed him during the past few years now sat on the ground in small groups, weeping softly or dumbstruck.

A hundred times I thought I should approach him and give him my tears. Or rush up and end the torture somehow.

A hundred times I found myself unable to move.

At noon, the dark clouds that had been encroaching upon Jerusalem for the past day finally swept over the city like a black woolen blanket, blotting out the sun. Even the sky now seemed to mock Yeshua as he overlooked Jerusalem, not as a king, but as a dead man.

Those clouds smothered Golgotha with silence, and I thought,
Now it will end
. But it didn't. The soldiers waited, some seated, two standing.

I swallowed. “Saba.”

He looked at me.

“What is the Way of Yeshua? Tell me again.”

Saba looked at the bloody crosses against the dark sky, and I thought he wouldn't answer because that Way seemed to have failed even Yeshua now. But he did, in a trembling voice.

“There are two realms, heaven and earth, both among us, both within us,” he said, as if reciting. “To enter the eternal realm of the Father even now, one must be reborn with faith, as an infant who knows the Father. The means to see this path into the realm is new eyes that see the realm of peace instead of the storm.”

His throat tightened as he swallowed. He continued, resolved.

“The means to acquiring this sight is surrender. To deny oneself and follow him.”

His words hollowed out my heart.

“Love without judgment is the expression of the realm of heaven on earth. This and the power to chase away the storms.”

A tear snaked down his dark cheek.

“He surrenders his life,” he said.

Then Saba fell silent.

“And where is his power now?” I said under my breath.

The horizon roiled with black clouds.

“I don't know. But he will send his Spirit to comfort us.”

“I don't want his Spirit,” I said. “I want him.”

“His Spirit is him.”

“No, Saba!” I said, gesturing to Yeshua's bloodied body sagging on the beams. “
That
is him.”

And then I lowered my head and gave in to my grief.

Saba placed one hand on my back. I wanted to say more, to air all my doubts, but I couldn't bring myself to shatter Saba's reverence. Nor question Yeshua's character.

Now I understood why his inner circle had fled. Why one of them had betrayed him. Why Peter was now absent.

Their master had failed. He who claimed to be one with the Father had proven himself to be just a man. He, like all, was only human, subject to the world and to death.

Lightning stuttered through the black layers of cloud on the distant horizon. A cry tore through the air.

“My God!”

I jerked my eyes toward Yeshua and saw that he'd managed to lift his head and prop it against the vertical post. He was staring up at the heavens.

“My God! Why have you forsaken me?”

For a moment he struggled to keep his head lifted, then he let it drop and his body sagged.

I heard someone cry out, saying that Yeshua was quoting a scripture that seemed to hold meaning for them. But it meant nothing to me. Terror flooded me, thinking he had died.

I pushed myself up and hurried forward, stumbling on the broken ground, eyes fixed upon him. Tears spilled from my eyes and I began to run. Past Stephen who was kneeling with head bowed, now silent and rocking in his defeat.

Past two groups of women seated on the ground. Past a Roman soldier absently watching the crucifixion.

I could see Yeshua's face close now and I knew. Behind those closed eyes he was swimming in turmoil. Nails like fangs bit through his hands and feet, bleeding him. The serpent that was Rome and the world had struck its fatal blow with the help of religious leaders.

Yeshua…Yeshua…my dear forsaken son…I'm so sorry. I'm so very sorry…

Then I was there, at the foot of the cross. I fell to my knees and gripped the bloody post with both hands and began to sob, head hung low. I was alone there, kneeling in his blood, ruined with sorrow as all of my anguish spilled from me.

I thought I should say something to Yeshua, but I couldn't lift my head. And I had no words. My whole body shook with hitching sobs.

Dear Yeshua, my son…Do not feel forsaken…Forgive me…Forgive me…

They were the only thoughts that washed through me now as I wept—for how long I don't know. For me, time was no more.

I sobbed because he was a son. I sobbed because he was in pain. I sobbed because the Son of Man was forsaken by his Father.

I sobbed because I was his mother.

None of the soldiers ordered me to leave. They had grown deathly silent. And still I wept uncontrollably, as if my heart had been torn from my breast.

Then, when my sobs began to quiet, he spoke from the cross, words filled with resolution and unreserved relief.

“It is finished.”

I opened my eyes, struck. The ground at my knees was soaked in blood. Death had taken him?

Without thinking, I lifted my head. There, the post in my stained hands. There, his feet punctured by a thick spike that pinned them to a wedge of wood. There, his ravaged body and his head, hanging and tilted to one side above me.

His eyes were still closed. Beyond him, the black sky.

But now his chest rose and fell with less effort. Now his face was perfectly serene. Not as one simply asleep, but as one who was fully aware of a peace from another world. As one released into an inexplicable bliss.

For several long seconds I was transfixed by his surrender. I could not comprehend his tranquility, his restfulness as his body hung, pierced by the fangs of deep suffering.

And I knew then that the end would come quickly.

More tears slipped down my cheeks as I stared up at Yeshua, so broken by the cruelty of the world.

I finally placed a kiss on my bloodstained fingers and touched them to the cross. Then I rose to my feet and returned to Saba's side, drained of feeling.

Six hours after the Romans nailed him to that cross, he uttered his last words: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Then he sagged one last time, and I felt utterly abandoned, because I knew then that he really was gone.

Forever gone. Forsaken not only by his Father but by the whole world.
Even as I will not die, so neither will he
, Yeshua had said. But Yeshua had died. And Talya was forsaken.

The ground shook with an earthquake that sent Arim scampering for safety.

The sky was black and I thought,
Now even the dark storm laughs with thunder
. A part of me wished the quaking ground would open up and swallow me.

The earthquake seemed to terrify the soldiers. There was a flurry of activity around the crosses. They quickly broke the legs of the men hanging next to Yeshua, to hasten their end, and pierced Yeshua's side with a spear to make sure he was dead. Then they fled, leaving only a small groups of women and a few men to gaze upon Yeshua's slumping corpse.

That evening, they took down his body and laid it in a tomb belonging to one of his disciples called Joseph, because no one had set aside a place for Yeshua, who would not die.

No one—not his mother, not Mary or Martha, not Lazarus or any of his inner circle, not even Stephen, nor Saba—could speak.

Our hopes had been crushed.

Yeshua was dead.

I would have to save my son, Talya, on my own. And I had to do so quickly, before he too was dead and laid in a tomb.

ONLY SOFT WEEPING could be heard in Bethany that night. Death had overcome not only Yeshua, but all of us who knew him. There were no words to explain what had happened so suddenly and brutally.

What could be said when death overcame the one who had claimed to overcome death?

Mary, who'd anointed him only six days earlier, stayed in Jerusalem with Martha and Miriam to anoint him once again, this time his corpse. They were afraid to leave his body unattended for fear that robbers would steal it. We quietly wept on each other's shoulders, before Saba, Arim, and I returned to Bethany.

Some comfort might have come from the disciple John, who would take responsibility for Miriam now, but not even he could find any words. Nor could Stephen, who'd looked at me as though absent from his body when I told him I was returning to Arabia.

Nor Peter, who, I learned, had repeatedly denied knowing Yeshua even while he was being sentenced to death by the Roman governor. Nor any of his disciples, because all, including me, felt the weight of our own denial of Yeshua's power. It had been crucified with him.

Who dared to speak of hope?

Saba too was silent and kept wholly to himself except to agree with me that we must return to Arabia. Why he so readily agreed I did not ask. Our journey to Petra would take four days—we would consider our options on the way.

We left Martha's house before the sun rose on their Sabbath. Saba took the lead, followed by me and then Arim, wise enough to remain quiet.

Thoughts slogged through my mind as the camels plodded east, but I did not share them for fear that Saba would only offer more of what I already knew, none of which now made sense or comforted me.

We crossed the Jordan, then turned south, the same way we'd come, and still none of us spoke of Yeshua. When we came to shade beneath towering cliffs, Arim suggested we rest to escape the heat, as was the Bedu way.

“We push on,” I said. “There's no need to waste daylight.” Neither he nor Saba argued.

When the sun set, Arim again suggested we rest, this time for the night.

“A few more hours, Arim,” I said. “While it's cool.”

And so we put Palestine farther behind us, Arim now humming quietly to keep himself company.

The stars were bright and the moon high when Saba finally pulled his camel off our route, led us into a small ravine, and came to a stop.

“We must rest now,” he said. He dismounted without seeking my approval. He was right, of course. The night was already half-over.

Arim bounded to life, gathering wood, laying out the makings for tea, building a fire, singing under his breath all the while. Unlike Saba and me, he hadn't been so deeply invested in Yeshua. But I knew that once he began talking, he would speak of what had happened, so I remained silent, as did Saba.

But, having his fill of flatbread and a portion of the small rabbit that Saba had caught, and seated with a steaming cup of tea, Arim could no longer remain quiet. He stared at me across the fire, nursing his drink.

“The Romans are dogs,” he muttered, spitting to one side. “One day, they will all be crucified. As Saba says, to live by the sword is to die by that same sword. May a thousand crosses bleed them.”

The dying fire popped. Neither Saba nor I spoke.

“Could not one of Yeshua's more accomplished mystics raise him?”

Such a simple question, spoken by such a simple man. I kept my eyes on the fire.

“What I mean,” he continued, “is that he said his followers would have the same power as him. Stephen said they have done many works in his name, even casting out devils. Did he not raise Lazarus? This is what I told Stephen—”

“You said this to Stephen?” I blinked at him through the coils of smoke. “Have you no heart, Arim? The man is overcome with grief! None of his followers believe any longer. They are all crushed.”

“Yes, of course. And so raising Yeshua would—”

“Don't you understand?” I snapped. “Yeshua wanted to die! We misunderstood his words on death, thinking they were only symbolic, but now they make perfect sense. He went to his death willingly.” I turned away. “He orchestrated it. His way is of heaven. One can find heaven only by escaping this world in death. He leaves us to do the same.”

“Or perhaps he only meant to test his followers,” Arim said. “Daring them to raise him.”

My face felt hot.

“Don't be absurd!” I said. “Not even Stephen would attempt such a thing. What did he say when you suggested this?”

Arim shrugged. “Nothing. But Yeshua's power in healing so many…This wasn't true?”

“His power was in life. Not in death.”

Saba cleared his throat. “My queen—”

“No, Saba. Do not tell me that I am only blind. Yes, I am. But he is now dead. Which is worse?”

The fire's glow lit his round eyes. Now that I'd voiced a part of my regret, I felt free to speak all of it.

“You cannot deny that he purposefully enraged the religious leaders of Jerusalem by entering on the donkey and then taking a whip into their holy temple. I didn't understand it then, but now I see. He might as well have taken a sword into their inner sanctum and slashed the veil in two. Not even the Romans would dare such an affront to the religion of the Jews!”

Arim stared at me, teacup sagging in his fingers.

I faced Saba. “Nor can you deny that he set up his own betrayal. Nor that he gave himself over to death, offering no defense. You say he rebuked Peter for using the same sword he'd told him to bring to the garden. So he pokes his finger in Peter's eye as well. It is no wonder the man denied him!”

My fingers were trembling. I didn't know where all my words came from but I wasn't able to hold them back.

“This isn't a symbolic death. They butchered him on that tree and he practically begged them to do it. Now he calls us to do the same?”

“Y-you…” Arim fished for words. “You're saying he threw himself on his sword to make a statement, knowing he'd already gone too far by defying the leaders?”

I looked away and lowered my voice. “Of course not. I'm not saying I understand any of it. And I'm not denying the power that he had in life. Yes he raised Lazarus. Yes he calmed the storm. Yes he gave me power in Petra. But all of this in life. Now he's dead, and we are powerless. All of his promises have ended only in death.”

“No, Maviah!” Saba's jaw was set. His eyes bore through me. “We are
not
powerless. I felt his power. I breathed it as I stood by his side. His Spirit is alive even now, I can
still
feel it.”

“Then you alone, Saba,” I said, voice shaking. “Peter denies him. John and Andrew and Philip—all of them are hopeless, after so much time with him. They are crushed! Crushed, Saba!”

“And yet I cannot deny what I have seen and experienced. Our eyes are blinded by grief and so we walk in darkness. We have lost all of our faith and so we flounder in this storm. We suffer only because we haven't followed him in death—”

“Are you going to kill yourself too, then?”

“Not in body—”

“But that's the problem, Saba,” I cried, standing abruptly. “Yeshua is dead in
body
! Do you have any of his power? Any of it at all?”

He stared up at me, speechless.

I snatched up the knife Arim had used to skin the rabbit, strode for Saba's camel couched five paces from the fire, and nicked its hindquarters. The animal roared its protest as a small gash parted its hide.

I spun back to Saba, who had stood, and I shoved the blade back at the camel's small wound. “Show me your power! Heal him!”

Saba's jaw flexed, but he didn't move.

“Heal him!” I cried, then shoved my finger to the south. “Then go and raise my son from his tomb in Dumah! Show me the power of the mighty Saba, who like his master has overcome death!”

The camel, startled by my anger, clambered to its feet and trotted into the night.

Tears blurred my vision. I had said far more than I'd meant to. Even more than was on my mind.

Shame washed over me. I flung the knife to the sand and strode into the darkness, toward a small rise. There, beside a boulder, I sat down, hung my head, and let myself weep.

I wept in shame.

I wept in bitter remorse.

I wept in fear.

But mostly I wept because I knew the light that once had shone into my world of insecurity and shame—that very light that I had shone on Talya and all of the Bedu outcasts—had been snuffed out by my own weakness. Worse, I had railed against the master, who had first given me sight.

Slowly my tears dried. I had few left. Lying down on my back, I stared at the stars, numb to the world. Judah, who had followed those stars to Yeshua, was dead as well. What hope was left for me?

I closed my eyes. Only Saba. Saba and Talya.

Breathe, Maviah. Gather your strength. Your son depends on you alone now.

My eyes were still closed when Saba came to me, there under the stars. I felt him beside me before I heard him. For a long while, I lay still, accepting his presence. Comforted by it.

And as my heart began to settle, I was able to feel his pain over my own. Being so caught up in my fear for Talya's life, I had once again neglected him.

My shame grew even worse.

I opened my eyes and saw him seated cross-legged next to me, staring out at the horizon. Saba, so strong, so loyal, so unbending.

So wounded and confused.

Without speaking, I pushed myself up and laid my head on his lap, holding his leg in my arms. After a moment, he put his hand on my shoulder and we held each other.

When I finally spoke, my voice was faint, stripped of the emotion that had choked me earlier.

“Forgive me, Saba. I forget myself.”

“You forget only who you are.” His voice was soft and low, a soothing balm. “There is no shame in you, Maviah. You are my queen and his daughter.”

He always thought of me. I wasn't worthy of him. My heart swelled at the thought of being his and he being mine always. What beautiful children we would make, he and I.

The thought caught me by surprise. But rather than pushing it away, I let it warm me.

“I also forget who you are,” I said. “The tower who is my refuge and strength.” The night was quiet. “I love you, Saba. I love you desperately.”

He remained silent.

I pushed myself up and faced him, tempted to smile. “Are you still trying to hate me so that you can love me?”

He brushed my hair off my cheek. “If so, then I have already succeeded.”

Because he loved me. This was Saba's way, and I cherished him for it.

I sat beside him, facing the darkness.

“Why is there so much fear in the world, Saba? Even Yeshua, in the garden…” A shiver passed through me at the memory of it, knowing now how terrifying was that cup he'd feared. And yet he'd surrendered his own will and accepted his fate, and was finally embraced by peace.

“He overcame fear,” Saba said. “And so he was made perfect, as it is written.”

He learned obedience through his suffering, and once perfected became the Way for all who would also obey him. So then maybe Saba was right. Maybe I too could have Yeshua's mind and humble myself by surrendering my own will, as he had. And there find his power…

And yet, his power hadn't saved him in the end.

Such a noble and pure and powerful man, I could scarcely fathom. I couldn't help but to think he'd always known that he would eventually die a horrible death.

“The voice, Saba…
I will glorify my name.
I heard it like thunder. It was so real then, but now I hear nothing.”

“Because we do not have ears to hear.”

“But what is that glory? The identity of the Father, yes, but what does it look like?”

“We do not know what it looks like when we are blind.”

He was unshakable and I loved him for it. But even so, he was both deaf and blind, like me. We were lost together.

I took Saba's hand in mine and kissed his knuckles.

“Then what will we do when we reach Petra?”

“We will show Shaquilath the power we promised to show her,” he said, gently caressing the back of my hand with his thumb.

“Do you have this power?”

He hesitated. “No.”

“Neither do I.”

“No. But he promised his Spirit.”

“I feel only the spirit of death.”

“I know.”

“So then, how will we show Shaquilath his power, if he is dead?”

“I don't know, Maviah. I only know that we too must surrender. We too must let go and forgive the waves that rise against us. How, I no longer know, but we've come too far now.” He turned his head and gazed into my eyes. “He said that when you arrive in the desert, you will know. We must only hold on to this promise.”

Confusion lapped at my mind again.

“You must find a way to let go,” he said. “If not for your own sake, then for Talya's.”

I looked down at his hand in mine. “It's like stepping out of a boat and walking on water,” I said. “Only now the first water walker is dead.” I looked up and searched his eyes. “Will Talya also die?”

He could have said no immediately, but he didn't. He hesitated, and that pause sent a chill through me.

“No,” he said.

I laid my head on his chest and swallowed.

“If he dies, I will die with him,” I said.

Saba kissed the top of my head. “Then you must let go, my queen,” he whispered. “You must forgive. You must surrender.”

WE JOURNEYED southeast for three more days, far away from the death in Jerusalem. But with each sunset, my own trouble only grew nearer. Nearly four weeks had passed since Kahil had given me his ultimatum—half of my allotted time.

What if we failed to win Shaquilath? I dared not speak to Saba about such an eventuality, because I knew that I would stop at nothing to save Talya. No amount of bloodshed would keep me from him.