A.D. 33 (28 page)

So he did. And the truth in that song was far more than his mind could hold.

I WAS STUNNED by the beauty arising in my heart and mind and soul, quickened by Talya's song—I could barely contain it all.

And even then, as I was thinking the beauty was too great for such frail vessels as mine and little Talya's, he sang more, and now to me. And to Saba. And to all who had ears to hear.

My son was singing to us of our Father! Of Yeshua…Of himself, the truest part of him, and of me, the me that was now risen and complete, joined in Yeshua's identity, like water in a bowl and the bowl in the water at once. He was the Way. The Truth. Life. No one could know the Father without this joining.

And the song said more, all at once, like the opening of eyes to see an entire landscape once darkened by blindness. The mystery Talya sang to me in that single note could fill a hundred scrolls.

I stood high in that arena and I trembled with wonder.

TALYA'S EYES were closed, but he was seeing and he was singing. And Talya was so filled with joy that he suddenly had to laugh. He had to use his mouth to laugh and so he had to stop singing. So he did.

He started to chuckle with delight even before his voice trailed off. The laughter bubbled up and spilled out of his mouth, and even in the middle of all the light he thought that laughter was wonderful too.
What an incredible body I have that can laugh like this!

So he threw his arms in the air, eyes still closed and full of light, and started to jump up and down, giggling. What a wonderful, wonderful body he had!

And then he remembered that he was still in the arena, and he stopped in the middle of his laughter and opened his eyes.

The brilliant, colorful light was replaced by the sight of many thousands in that bowl-shaped arena, all staring at him. But half his mind was still aware of that light, so everything seemed to glow a little.

He was standing alone, three paces from the post, and there ahead of him was the lion, lying on its belly with its tongue hanging out of one side of its panting jaw. The beast watched Talya like a cat resting after chasing a mouse.

Talya was so taken by the magnificent creature that for a moment he forgot where he was. But then he remembered, and he looked up to see Saba on both knees, his arms spread wide and his face lifted to the sky, weeping softly. How wonderful was Saba!

And beyond Saba, Kahil, seated tall on his stallion, staring at him with black eyes, frozen in shock. Lost. How beautiful was this poor man, so wounded to hurt so many!

Still not a soul moved.

Talya looked past Kahil to the warriors, who seemed not to know what to do, and beyond them to the platform where the queen and the king stood, staring dumbly.
Shaquilath has lost her daughter
, Talya thought, and his heart broke with hers.
The king has great kindness that's been covered up by fear and greed.

How or why these things came to Talya, he didn't know, because he wasn't as much knowing them as experiencing them.

And more, he was experiencing the truth, which was this: here he was in a small body that could easily be torn in two by the lion's jaws or cut down the middle by Kahil's sword, but this would lessen him no more than losing a finger, because he wasn't his finger any more than he was his body.

Here he was, that small boy, but here he was also: the son of the Father, who was more powerful than a hundred thousand bodies.

A voice whispered to him from his memory of the light.
In this world you will have trouble
, it said,
but take heart…I have overcome the world
.

Talya looked at the lion again, then walked toward it. He could feel the dust under his bare feet, soft like clouds. The lion, seeing him come, flicked its ears, then continued its panting, looking about lazily.

Talya stopped in front of the beast, mesmerized by its golden fur.

Still no one spoke. The lion looked up at him, stretched its neck, and yawned before returning to its lazy distraction.

Talya, the lamb, was loved even by the lion. And then Saba's words from Dumah came to him.

A child will lead them.
Today, he was that child.

“What is this?” Kahil snarled.

But nobody was paying him any mind.

Talya walked up to Saba, who was watching him in wonder. They smiled at each other and Saba beamed with pride.

“What is this?” Kahil repeated, twisting back to glare at the platform. “I demand what I was promised!”

New voices rippled through the crowd, as if Kahil's objection had broken their spell. But they were exclamations of wonder for Talya.

The king, Aretas, lifted his hand and they quieted. He stared at Talya curiously for a moment.

“My word is my word. You will have what was promised.” He paused. “But let the boy speak.”

Saba rose to his feet.

Talya stared at the king. They were going to kill him then? For a brief moment fear shot through his heart, but then he saw a young boy like himself, maybe only eight years old, smiling at him from the one of the nearest seats. The boy was dressed in rags and his face was dirty and Talya suddenly remembered the orphans still in Dumah and everywhere in the desert.

I will not leave you as orphans…

He looked along the crowd and saw many children. Whether orphans or not, he didn't know, but weren't they all lost, alone?

A child will lead them.

Suddenly this was all he could think about. His mother had gone to save them two years ago and assumed she'd failed, but she was wrong. This was a part of how she would save them, by saving him. All of what had happened was part of what had to happen for the sake of so many.

He turned to where his mother stood high in the arena. Tears wet her face but she stood tall, the greatest of all mothers in his eyes, so proud of him.

The king had told him to speak. So then he must speak.

“Mother…” For a moment he couldn't say more because he was overwhelmed by love for her and his throat was knotted.

Her soft voice reached down to him, gripped by emotion.

“Speak to me, my son.”

He looked at the king, who seemed curious; at Kahil, scowling; at Saba, who had fresh tears on his cheeks. Then back at his mother.

“We have to take comfort to the others in Dumah. All of the orphans, everywhere…they wait for us. I see now. We must return to the desert and show all the motherless their Father.”

She looked at him for a long moment, then started to descend. The people parted before her.

“You are right, Talya,” she said, stepping slowly down the stone benches, eyes fixed upon him. “Do not be afraid.”

Talya looked at Kahil, only eight horse lengths away. The prince sat on his stallion, trembling with rage, eyes black and fierce, and Talya thought,
The jinn are shaking his body. He's afraid.

But Talya wasn't afraid.

He turned to Aretas. “You must allow us to return to Dumah and to the desert.” His voice rang out for all to hear. “We have to tell the outcasts that they are loved! Maviah is the queen of those who need to hear, the mother of all the orphans who cry. She, not Kahil, is the one who will bring the kingdom of power to the desert.”

He knew, even as his voice carried to every ear in the great stadium, that he was speaking words their old minds could not understand, but he must speak them anyway.

He pointed at the viper, keeping his eyes on the king. “Kahil is blind and afraid, because his eyes have been scraped out by the hatred of his fathers and jinn, but he could learn to see. Then he too will love the outcasts as he loves—”

A terrible scream of rage cut him off. Motion blurred in the corner of his eye.

Turning slowly, he saw it all unfold, and he knew he must allow it to happen.

He saw Kahil screaming, standing in his saddle, leaning forward with his long, curved blade in his hand, pounding the white stallion's flanks with his heels.

He's coming for me. He's going to cut my head off with his sword.

And he did come, flying past Saba, who was shoved back by the sudden onrush. Closing in on Talya, now only ten paces away.

Alarm flashed through his body, and with it realization. He was going to die. Still, it was only his body here that would die, now instead of later. Yet there was no now or later in the eternal realm.

Kahil drew his blade back, mouth wide like a viper that had learned how to roar.

He's going to kill me!

But there was another roar. One to Talya's left—low and rumbling at first, then rising to a snarl, then a sound of fury that shook the ground.

A rush of golden fur and sinew and rippling muscle streaked low to the ground to intercept Kahil.

Talya watched, stunned, as the lion launched itself to the air, claws extended, fangs wide. Kahil jerked his head toward the threat, but his awareness had come too late.

The lion took the dark prince from his saddle in full flight. His jaw crushed Kahil's head while they were still in the air, before the man's scream of rage could turn to fear.

They landed, lion on top, ten paces from the frightened stallion, who veered to miss Talya's body.

Then there was only the lion hunched over his kill.

It had happened so fast and with such brutality that none could react.

The lion released his prey, gazed down at the fallen warrior for a moment, and looked around, growling softly. Satisfied, he turned and trotted toward Talya, tongue lolling out of its mouth, gently panting.

The lion stopped two paces from him and sat down on his haunches, looking about as if nothing had happened.

Talya blinked, realizing that he had forgotten to breathe. So he breathed now, drawing his fingers into loose fists because they were trembling.

Kahil was dead, and for this he felt only empathy.

The lion was his friend. Imagine that!

The lion and the lamb.

His mother was in the arena now, walking toward him, calm and queenly. She reached him and took his hand. Then gave it a gentle squeeze.

“What a beautiful boy you are,” she breathed.

Then she reached out for Saba, who'd approached from the side, and all three stood and faced the king and queen of Petra.

“You have seen and heard the power of Yeshua as promised,” his mother said, as a queen in this realm might say it. “Now we are needed in the desert.”

I HAD HEARD of kingdoms far beyond the oasis of Dumah that give birth to life where none should be, kingdoms beyond the vast, barren sands of the Arabian deserts.

Yet none of these kingdoms were real to me because I, Maviah, was born into shame without the hope of honor.

But there came into that world a man who spoke of a different kingdom in words that defied all other kingdoms.

His name was Yeshua.

One look into his eyes would surely bend the knee of the strongest warrior or exalt the heart of the lowest outcast. One whisper from his lips might hush the cries of a thousand men or dry the tears of a thousand women.

Some said that he was a prophet. Some said that he was a mystic. Some said that he was a fanatical Zealot, a heretic, a man who'd seen too many deaths and too much suffering to remain sane and so had given himself to be crucified.

But I came to know him as the anointed Son of the Father, from whom all life flows; a teacher of the Way into a realm that flows with far more power than all the armies of all the kingdoms upon the earth joined as one; the Son of Man, who undid what the first Adam had done.

Yeshua, the only Way to know the Father. The only Truth, the only Life.

It was Yeshua who told me that I'd been created with the breath of God in his image and then glorified his identity in me. Yeshua who'd shown me how the knowledge of good and evil had darkened my world, causing me to live in grievance and shame so that I could only stumble in darkness and death, lost to that glory.

It was Yeshua who showed me how the Father had raised me from my death with him, and breathed his life into me through him, and so glorified his identity in me once again. Yeshua who showed me how beautiful and powerful he is in that realm, and how beautiful and powerful I was as well—he in me and I in him. All else was only the lie of that serpent, who accused me.

It was Yeshua who showed me that my purpose was to be like him on earth, sharing my love with a world still enslaved by darkness.

To love them as myself.

In the wake of such a stunning display of power, Shaquilath released Arim and Fahak but remained distant upon reuniting us. Twice now, she'd seen Yeshua's power, but her grievance over the loss of Phasa, her daughter and her idol, darkened her heart. She was fearful of what she could not comprehend.

Aretas again restored my right to find my way in the desert as queen without either his support or rejection. So long as he received his taxes, he would let me contend with the Thamud and Dumah, he said. Then he ordered that we be supplied with all we needed for our journey and sent us away.

We left within the hour.

Now we sat upon our camels three hours east of the city. Here, where Yeshua had appeared to Saba and me in the flesh and opened our eyes to the truth of who he was and who we now were.

Saba, Fahak, Arim, and Talya faced south on the dune with the towering red cliff to our rear. Spent coals from our fire still darkened the white sand in the wadi beside us.

“You say he made this fire?” Arim asked, staring down the slope. “This very fire just here, with his own hands?” His camel shifted under him and he twisted to us, beaming. “Then was I not right? He raises the dead even as he raised Lazarus and now himself!”

“Not only Lazarus,” Saba said, eyes fixed ahead. “Us as well.”

The old sheikh Fahak stared at Saba, still at a loss, as he had been since leaving Petra. “Raised? Then my sagging flesh could be young to love many wives once again,” he muttered. “To this god I would enslave myself.”

I could not help but grin. “Be careful not to enslave yourself to your body, mighty sheikh. It will soon return to dust.”

He grunted but remained silent.

He would know soon, I thought. Both he and Arim, in ways not even Arim could yet comprehend.

Saba sat to my left, Talya to my right atop his camel, bared of shirt now, to be like Saba. The calm that now lived in his eyes filled me with wonder. He was still a child, only eight, but I was humbled to be in his presence.

He turned and gazed at the dune a hundred paces to our right. There, the lion lazed on its haunches, watching us. Talya had asked if he might take it, and Shaquilath had agreed. But Talya didn't need to take the lion. It followed without encouragement.

That a lion should be drawn to a boy was a marvel to all of us, particularly Arim, who kept as much distance between his camel and the lion as possible without appearing to have lost his bravery.

I glanced at Saba and he gave me a gentle, knowing nod.

Saba, whom I hated so that I could love and whom I would wed. And how deep was that love, which I had never thought possible. I would expect nothing of him; I would give my life for him.

“We should go, my queen,” he said, gazing south again. “They await us.”

I nodded. It would take us ten days to reach the orphans in Dumah.

My thoughts returned to the question that had bothered Saba for so long before returning to Judea. If clear vision was required to see the path of faith into the kingdom, by what means could one's sight be restored?

“Tell me, Saba,” I said, following his eyes. “How can one see the eternal realm of the Father here on earth?”

He nodded. “By placing your identity in Yeshua's identity. Only then can you see the Way.”

“And what is that Way that is so easily forgotten?”

Saba thought only a brief moment.

“In any given moment, you, as the son, the daughter, of the Father, believe in and so are mastered by one of two perceptions of reality. One is seen in flesh—the passing system of the world, darkened by the knowledge of good and evil, deceiving and so enslaving all those sons and daughters who put their faith in it. The other realm is seen in the light, the eternal dimension of the Father flowing with love and power without grievance.”

He paused.

“Yes?”

“Yeshua, the second Adam, came as light into all darkness and undid what the first Adam did, restoring communion with the Father once more and making it possible for all who so choose to see in the light, and to know, as a child, their Father and his sovereign dimension of peace, power, and love, even now. This is eternal life—to know and so experience the Father and his eternal realm, now and beyond all time.”

My heart beat faster…I was eager to hear the rest. Saba continued.

“Our journey is to now believe who we truly are, having been raised from the dark grave into that realm of light with and in Yeshua.”

He faced me.

“Belief in Yeshua is this: identifying with him in his death, resurrection, and glory even now, he in you and you in him. Your true identity is this: you are the daughter of your Father, already made complete and whole, already at peace and full of power, though you often forget, each day, whenever you are blinded to your true identity and so search for and cling to whatever else might save you in this life.”

I smiled. Identity. It was all about our identity.

But Saba wasn't done. He faced the desert again.

“The only way to identify with your true identity is to let go of all other identities, and all offense that blocks your vision, and all vain imaginations of what else might fulfill you or save you from trouble in this life and that to come.”

“
This
is true surrender,” I said.

“Walking in the realm of the Father's sovereign presence here on earth, we will find peace in the storms; we will walk on the troubled seas of our lives; we will not be poisoned by the lies of snakes; we will move mountains that appear insurmountable; we will heal all manner of sickness that has twisted minds and bodies.”

I finished it off for him, because I knew as well as he.

“The fruits of the Sprit—love, joy, and peace—will flow from us as living waters, because the manifestation of the kingdom of heaven on earth is love. This is the evidence of the Spirit. In this evidence, all will see: there goes one who knows God and walks in the eternal realm.”

For a long while, we sat in silence, lost in awe at such good news. Imagine, if all people could love both themselves and their neighbor this way. This was our purpose now: to share this good news and to love as Yeshua loved us.

His teaching there by the vines near Bethany came to me.
Many will say to me, Lord, Lord…did we not do many mighty works in your name? And I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you.”
And…
Many will come in my name, saying “I am Christ,” and will deceive many.

I wondered how many…Perhaps many thousands or perhaps whole nations, for surely news of his power could not be contained, yet many who called him Lord and served him would still be blinded by their offenses and still lost in their storms of fear, misery, grievance, and judgment. My heart broke for them.

You will know them by their fruit
, he'd said.

Good fruit was unconditional love, without which all dogma and claims of authority were only noise.

What you do to the least of these you do to me
, he'd said.

Oh that everyone would know the Father! Oh that all would see what I saw and know as I knew such boundless rivers of love for all who were weary and downtrodden in this life! That they would taste the fruit of Yeshua and
see
that he is good. That this taste would forever wash away the bitter taste of the fruit that had opened their eyes to darkness and grievance.

Truly, the Way of Yeshua was profoundly simple. His meaning was simple, his burden was light…but the serpent's lies made for the weight of the world.

What great hope we had for all that was to come! And how powerful we were in his Spirit while yet in this realm!

We were the sons and daughters of God on earth.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Now and always.

I turned to my son who was not my son and whom I loved as myself. What a beautiful, beautiful boy he was. I had no doubt that he would one day flood the dry desert with the living water of a single word. He, who now sat shirtless on his camel like Saba, though thin and pale. Talya, a tenth of Saba's size. Talya, who was loved by the lion.

He looked up at me with bright, innocent eyes and my heart soared.

“The orphans are waiting for us,” he said.

I smiled.

“The whole desert awaits you, my son,” I said softly.

Then I nudged my camel and took us into the sands.