Jerusalem's Hope (15 page)

And then, in the eyes of Yeshua, he had glimpsed hope again, a tangible awareness that time and this earthly existence were an aberration in eternity.

You will see her again.
Yeshua promised.

How could Yeshua have known that this was the one question for which Nakdimon required an answer in order to go on! Death was not the final chapter. It was a beginning of something else. Beyond this life was life eternal, and somehow Yeshua held the key to that door. He alone had stepped out of eternity and demonstrated the power to call back the soul and breathe life into clay once again.

What could he mean by that? Was Yeshua's claim arrogance? Madness? Or truth?

Before? How could that be?

Nakdimon's visit to the Galil had burdened him with more questions than answers. And yet he was certain of this one thing: Yeshua of Nazareth was no mere mortal man. He held a power of life and death, and more so than the temporal authority of an earthly king who could condemn or spare a man from execution. Every human, including kings and princes, was on a journey toward the grave. Man's destiny led him irrevocably to physical death. But Yeshua proved that death had no power over those who trusted him and called on his mercy!

What a wonder was in this revelation!

What joy and illumination would come to the hearts of all mankind if every knee would bow to such a one as this! If only it was true! If Messiah's kingdom was established now, could he not call forth the righteous dead from the dust and make them live again?

All these things were in Nakdimon's thoughts as he stood over the beds of his sleeping children. He whispered their names with renewed hope for their future. “
Shalom.
Peace. Hannah. Susanna. Ruth. Sara and Dinah. Leah. Little Samuel.” What would their world be like if Yeshua came to Jerusalem as Messiah and King?

“Shalom,”
he said again.

KI IM

I
n the midst of a dream Emet heard the click of a dog's nails on pavement and the tramp of footsteps approaching the door of Zadok's home. A muted whine was hushed by a low command.

Were these things parts of his dream?

A rapping intruded on Emet's vision. He felt the vibration of the knocking come through the air, then noticed the scrape of the bench legs on the stone floor as Zadok pushed away from the table.

“What?” the shepherd demanded.

Red Dog and Blue Eye stood beside the entry, their tailless hindquarters showing a slight quiver of unalarmed anticipation.

Not an enemy, then, or a threat,
Emet thought.

“Sir, she's having an awful time,” Emet heard Lev's voice explain. “I couldn't do nothing, so I come for you.”

Zadok coughed, cleared his throat, and opened the door, nodding Lev into his front room where a lone lamp flickered above a length of scroll.

Everything outside remained pitch black. Which watch of the night was it? How long had Emet been asleep?

“Did I do right, sir?” Lev queried with downcast gaze. Evidently disturbing the chief herdsman at his dwelling was not undertaken lightly.

“Yes, yes,” Zadok assured him. “Go back. Keep her quiet. I'll be there soon.”

Emet sat up and watched as Zadok took the time to carefully roll up the scroll he'd been studying and replace it in the urn. Avel and Ha-or Tov, wakened by the disturbance, stirred as well.

Avel queried, “What's . . .”

“The matter?” Ha-or Tov concluded when a yawn interrupted his friend's question.

Beside the shelf Zadok studied the three staring children, then made a decision. With a peremptory gesture he said, “Come on, then. Time to find out what we're about here. Hurry it up.”

Merely seconds passed before the trio were ready to follow the old shepherd.

With a rattle of the door on its leather hinges, Zadok, two dogs, and three sleepy and curious boys exited into the Judean night, heading again for the lambing barn.

The pregnant ewe remained stock-still and shivering. As Emet neared the pen, a convulsion passed through her body and she strained without visible result.

Zadok took down a lamp in his giant callused hands and passed it to Lev, saying softly, “Not any too soon. You were right to get me. She's in a bad state.” Then to the boys he added, “Keep out of the way and out of the light. Pay attention and y' might learn something.”

Lev patted the ewe, assuring her in soothing tones that the master was here and everything would be all right, that they would help her.

Despite the breadth of the load she bore, it was clear to Emet that the ewe was rather narrow and delicate compared to other sheep. Zadok's hands were too big to assist easily in the birthing.

“I tried all I know'd,” Lev offered apologetically. “Nothing worked.”

“You've grown since last lambing,” Zadok observed. “Your hands are big as mine. Watch me: I'll try to hook a foreleg with one finger.” Zadok expended the utmost care as he worked to extract the lamb. Beads of perspiration appeared above the strap of his eyepatch and trickled down the crease of his scar.

Emet saw Avel and Ha-or Tov staring with the same wide-eyed wonder that he experienced himself.

“Got it!” Zadok announced with terse excitement, then, “No. No. That foot doesn't belong to the same body. I'll have another go.”

Once more the scene in the lamplight was a frozen tableau of Lev's anxious grimace, the silently intense onlookers, and Zadok's minute, almost imperceptible movements. Zadok remarked to his young audience, “Sheep are tough in one way: they can live rough, crop poor grass, and make do with little water. But delicate in another: can't be rough in birthing lambs.”

A measured groan came from a nearby pen, but no one paid it any heed. All were focused on the present drama.

Just when Emet wondered how much longer they could remain motionless, Zadok declared, “Got the right one. Tangled, though. Have to maneuver around more.”

Lev studied the panting ewe. Her head drooped and her mouth hung open in silent agony. He pointed out these signals to the concentrating flock master.

“No time, then,” Zadok concluded, “we're losing her.” And he exerted pressure with two fingers of one hand.

At this crucial instant Avel leaned forward, blocking Emet's view. Ha-or Tov put his hands over his face.

But Emet wanted to see! Careful not to interfere with the light, Emet worked his way around the pen for a better view.

Zadok's thumb and forefinger gripped something. The muscles in the shepherd's neck tightened as he tugged.

A tiny hoof appeared, followed by a foreleg, then a shoulder and then another foreleg.

So that was what Zadok meant: twin babies, entangled in the womb. And the mother was too diminutive to allow easy correction of the snarl.

The scruffy head of a lamb appeared, then the shiny nose of another followed, then another tiny hoof. “That's it,” Zadok muttered to himself.

“One foreleg bent back and caught in the hind of the other. Have to bring them both together.”

Emet was entranced and horrified at the same time. How could this be so urgent and move so slowly? What would happen to the lambs if the mother didn't survive?

Hands around the heads and shoulders of the half-birthed lambs, Zadok braced himself and tugged.

From immobility everything came with a rush.

The lambs came free together in a gush of blood. Zadok sat back in the straw, cradling both babies in his arms.

The ewe gave a single feeble bleat, then toppled over on her side. She was dead.

A bulge in her flank caught Zadok's attention. “There's the cause,” he said. “Third lamb in there.” Turning toward a startled Avel and Ha-or Tov, he commanded gruffly, “Take these two. Rub them with straw, but keep out of the way.” He thrust the two infant lambs at the boys.

Emet tried to climb into the pen with the others but was roughly ordered back by Lev. “Not you, stump!” the shepherd said. “Too little.”

Zadok first checked the ewe's glazed eyes and protruding tongue, and then drew a short, curved knife, like a small claw, from somewhere in his robes.

Almost before Emet could comprehend what was happening, Zadok had sliced open the sheep's belly and produced a third lamb, identical to the others. Lev took it without being told and plumped down in the pen, showing Ha-or Tov and Avel how to rub the babies briskly with knots of straw. The chafing dried the damp fleeces and encouraged the infants to breathe and move, just as their mother's tongue would have done had she lived.

Emet cried without realizing it. Three lambs, all born alive and all orphaned at the same time, and he was too little to even help them!

Straightening up, Zadok surveyed the scene. “Well,” he said, as if considering what was to be done next. Stretching cramped muscles, he peered into an adjacent pen and remarked, “Seems Old Girl got along without us.”

Since he was of no use to anyone, Emet clambered around the rails to where he could also see into the other enclosure. There a ragged, patchy-fleeced, knock-kneed elderly ewe nudged an oversized lamb lying on the straw. Bumping it with her nose, she pushed her baby to stand, but there was no response.

Another death! Birth was hard and cruel and dangerous.

“That's the answer,” Zadok mused aloud. Then to Lev he explained, “Old Girl's had a stillborn. We'll put these three onto her to foster. She's always let down milk enough for three.”

Soon the three white orphans—“All ewe-lambs,” Lev remarked—were in the same pen with Old Girl. But the aged ewe would have none of them. As they plaintively circled her flanks, Old Girl dodged and sidestepped, wanting nothing to do with babies that were not her own.

Would this tragedy never end? Was there no remedy that would save the lives of the babies?

Zadok and Lev conferred over the limp body of Old Girl's stillborn offspring. “She's mostly blind,” Lev put in. “It's possible.”

What were they speaking of?

Once again Zadok's blade glittered in the lamplight. With practiced skill he skinned the dead lamb, then divided its bloody fleece into three parts.

As Emet shuddered and wondered at the callousness of it, Lev tied a strip of fleece to each of the three white lambs.

Zadok knelt beside Ha-or Tov and Avel. “It'll be all right,” he said to the boys. “Now where are we at? Here, Old Girl,” he crooned to the distraught and pacing mother. “Here's your flock.”

Emet held his breath as Zadok placed a lamb under Old Girl's nose. Cautiously at first she sniffed the fleece, which held the scent of her dead baby. She withdrew a pace.

The lamb, clearly frightened of Old Girl, struggled in Zadok's grip, casting around imploring looks that Emet believed were aimed straight at him.

Old Girl advanced and sniffed again.

Then she nuzzled the lamb's head and neck, swiped her tongue over the baby, and made low crooning sounds of her own. When Zadok released the baby she tottered uncertainly at first . . . and Old Girl nudged her firmly toward her udder. When she pushed the baby again from behind, the lamb's head butted Old Girl's bag . . . and everything fell into place.

The three white orphan lambs in their borrowed coats were accepted by Old Girl with barely a struggle. Soon they were nursing as the aged ewe made happy, chuckling noises from deep in her throat.

Avel had remained silent as they watched the gruesome operation of skinning the dead lamb and transferring its hide in pieces to the backs of the three orphans. Ha-or Tov was among the trio, guiding each to Old Girl's milk-swollen udder.