The Expected One (34 page)

Mary considered his words, trying very hard to be brave and accept them. She had been raised as a princess; this was why she was given the name Mary, a title reserved for daughters of noble families within the Nazarene tradition. She had also been trained by the Nazarene women, led by Easa’s mother. The Great Mary had taken over the younger Mary’s training at an early age, to prepare her for life with the Son of David, but also to school her in the spiritual lessons of their specific reformist creed. Once she was married to Easa, Mary would don the red veil of the Nazarene priestesses, the same red veil worn by the Great Mary.

But now, that was not to be.

Mary could not endure the loss of it and began to cry again. As she did, a terrible thought struck hard and a jerking sob cut through her.

“Easa?” she whispered, terrified to ask the question.

“Yes?”

“Will — who will you marry now?”

Easa looked at her with such astounding tenderness that Mary thought her heart would burst. He took her hands and spoke to her softly, yet firmly.

“Do you remember what my mother said when you last entered our home?”

Mary nodded, smiling through her tears. “I will never forget it. She said, ‘God has made you the perfect mate for my son. You two shall become one flesh. There will be no more two, but one. And what God has joined together, no man can tear apart.’ ”

Easa nodded. “My mother is the wisest of women and a great prophet. She saw that you were made for me by God. If God has decided within his plan that I shall not have you, then I shall have no other.”

Relief flooded through her. Of all the things she could not bear, another woman at Easa’s side was the most unthinkable. Another reality struck her then with stunning force.

“But…if I am to be John’s wife…he will never allow me to become a Nazarene priestess.”

Easa’s face grew very serious as he answered. “No, Mary. John will insist that you keep the law in strictest observance. He despises the reforms of our people, and he may be very hard on you and enforce severe penance. But remember what I have told you, and what my mother has also taught. The kingdom of God is in your heart, and no oppressor — not the Romans, nor even John — can take that from you.”

He lifted Mary’s chin and looked directly into her huge hazel eyes as he spoke. “Listen closely, my dove. We must walk this path with grace, and we must do what is right for the children of Israel. This means that I cannot at this time oppose Jonathan Annas and the Temple. I will uphold their decision so that the teaching of The Way may continue in peace and grow across the land, and I have agreed to do two things as a show of my support. I will attend your wedding to John with my mother, and I will allow John to baptize me in public to show that I recognize his spiritual authority.”

Mary nodded solemnly. She would walk the path that was now laid before her; this was her responsibility as a daughter of Israel. Easa’s words of love and strength would get her through it.

He kissed the top of her head lightly, then turned to take his leave.

“You are so strong for such a little one,” he said gently. “I have always seen that strength in you. You will be a great queen one day, a leader of our people.”

He stopped at the door to look at her one last time and leave her with a final thought. He touched his hand to his heart.

“I will be with you always.”

John the Baptizer was not as easily manipulated as Jonathan Annas and his council had anticipated.

When they came to him with their proposal, John railed against their lack of righteousness and called them vipers. He reminded them that there was already a messiah in his cousin, a prophet chosen by God, and that he, John, was not worthy to fill such shoes. The priests countered that the people were calling John a greater prophet, the heir to Elias.

But John answered, “I am none of those things.”

“Then tell us what you are so we may tell the people of Israel who would follow you as a prophet and a king,” they asked.

John answered in his enigmatic way, “I am the voice in the wilderness.”

He sent the Pharisees away, but the canny young priest Caiaphas had caught John’s strange pronouncement, “I am the voice in the wilderness,” as a reference to the prophet Isaiah. Was John actually calling himself a prophet through a maze of scripture? Was he testing the priests in some way?

The priestly envoys returned the next day, and this time they petitioned John for baptism. He insisted on their repentance of all sin before he would consider it. This rankled the priests, but they knew they must play by John’s rules or risk losing him as the key to their strategy. Receiving baptism by John would strengthen their position with the multitudes who were announcing John as a prophet, which was precisely the point.

When the priests affirmed their repentance, John immersed them in the Jordan, but reminded them, “I will indeed baptize you with water, but he that comes after will be mightier than I in the eyes of God.”

The priests stayed with John that day and spoke to him of their plan once the crowds had diminished at the riverbank. John wanted none of it. Among the objectionable issues, he was entirely opposed to taking a wife and certainly not a woman who had been betrothed to his cousin. But the council was prepared for John’s objections and had considered them carefully due to his vehemence the previous day. They spoke of Lazarus, the righteous and fine noble from the house of Benjamin, and how that good man feared for his pious sister to be married within the Nazarene influence.

The Baptizer flinched at this revelation. This notion was John’s weakness. Although he deferred to the prophecies that Yeshua was the chosen one, he had growing concerns about the path his cousin was walking with the Nazarenes and their blatant disregard for the law. John dismissed them and called the discussion to a close.

The priests left without any change in John’s resolve.

Later that day, Easa arrived on the eastern banks of the Jordan to fulfill the promise he had made to Annas. A large entourage of followers attended Easa, and this meeting of two such celebrated men attracted the people in throngs along the river. John put out his hand to stop Easa from coming forward.

“You come to me for baptism?” he asked. “Perhaps I have more need to be baptized by you, as you are the chosen of God.”

Easa smiled in return. “Cousin, this is how it must be now. It becomes us to fulfill the path of righteousness.”

John nodded, showing no surprise or other emotion at Easa’s blatant statement of acceptance. This was the first time the two of them had come together since the manipulations of Jonathan Annas and their first opportunity to size up the other. The Baptizer steered Easa away from the ears of the crowd and spoke in carefully considered words, measuring his cousin’s perspective.

“He who has the bride is the bridegroom.”

Easa showed no reaction to John’s words. He simply nodded his agreement to this arrangement.

John continued, “But the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. I can take joy in this, your selfless gift of righteousness, if it is true that you give it freely.”

Easa nodded his assent once again. “I will be fulfilled to be the friend of the bridegroom. I must decrease for you to increase, and so be it.”

It was a word play, a dance of sorts, between the two great prophets as each took notice of the other’s political stance. Satisfied that his cousin had agreed peacefully to submit his position as well as his bride, John turned to the assembled throng on the banks of the Jordan. He made a pronouncement to the people before calling Easa forward.

“After me will come this man, who is preferred before me — because he was chosen before me.”

Easa was submerged into the river as John’s words rang out. These were carefully chosen, indicating that if John were to step into the shoes of the messiah, then Easa would be the heir to his throne if anything were to happen. “He was chosen before me” was a clear indication that John still acknowledged the prophecies from Easa’s birth. This phrasing would protect John with the moderates who supported John and were afraid of the Nazarene reforms, yet still honored Easa as the child of the prophecies. His first words, “After me will come this man,” were an indication that John was considering taking on the role of anointed one. John, the wilderness preacher with his wild clothing and extreme evangelical style, was perhaps an easy man to underestimate. But his actions and words from the banks of the River Jordan that day marked him as a far savvier politician than many imagined.

As Easa emerged from the water, the crowd cheered these two great men, kindred prophets who had been touched by the Lord. But then there was silence in the valley as a single white dove appeared from the heavens and flew gracefully over the head of Easa, the Lion of David. It was a moment that would be remembered by the people of the Jordan Valley and beyond for as long as the earth endured.

Caiaphas returned to the River Jordan the next day with his contingent of Pharisees. He had planned his strategy regarding John very carefully. The baptism of Easa the day before had not served the purpose that he and Annas had planned. They believed that by submitting to baptism Easa would publicly acknowledge John’s authority. Instead, the event had served to remind the people that the troublesome Nazarene was the chosen one of prophecy. Now, more than ever, the Pharisees had to reduce the impact of this idea of Easa as Messiah. The only way to do that was to transfer the title of messiah to someone else as quickly as possible, and the sole acceptable candidate was John.

But John was troubled by the sign of the dove. Didn’t this bird appearing from heaven following the baptism prove that Easa was God’s chosen? John vacillated, returning finally to support of his cousin’s position. Caiaphas, who was a great student of his father-in-law, Annas, was prepared for this possibility and moved in to strike.

“Your Nazarene cousin was with the lepers this day,” he informed John.

John was stunned. There was nothing more unclean than those wretches who had been abandoned by God. And for his cousin to attend these creatures after his baptism was unthinkable.

“You’re certain that this is true?” he asked.

Caiaphas nodded gravely. “Yes, I’m sorry to report that he was in that most unclean place this morning. I am told that he preached the word of the kingdom of God to them. He even allowed them to touch him.”

John was astonished that Easa had fallen so far, so fast. He knew well that the Nazarenes had influenced his cousin profoundly. Wasn’t his mother a Mary, and a leader of that group? But she was a woman and therefore of little importance except that she influenced her son in a great way. Yet if Easa was immersed in the world of the unclean not even a full day after his baptism, perhaps God had turned his back on him.

And there was the girl to think of, this daughter of Benjamin. John was deeply disturbed that she was called Mary — a Nazarene name, an indication that the girl had been trained in their unseemly ways.

But the prophecy surrounding the girl herself had to be considered in all seriousness for the sake of the people. She was believed to be the Daughter of Zion as described in the book of the prophet Micah. The passage referred to the
Migdal-Eder,
the Tower of the Flock, a shepherdess who would lead the people:
“
And thou, O tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come…The kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.”

If Mary was indeed this prophesied female, John had an obligation to see that she stayed on a straight path of righteousness. Caiaphas assured him that the girl was young enough and certainly pious enough to be trained as John saw fit in the most traditional ways of the law. In fact, her brother begged them to do this before it was too late. The betrothal of this Benjamin princess to Easa had been dissolved based on his Nazarene leanings. This was perfectly acceptable within the law. Hadn’t the high priest, Jonathan Annas, written the documents of dissolution himself?

Most important, Easa and his Nazarene followers did not object to this decision, and promised to uphold John in his anointed position. Easa even agreed to attend the wedding feast as a show of his support. There was nothing in this proposal that was at all objectionable. If John would marry the Benjamin princess and become the anointed one, his baptism numbers would increase tenfold. He would reach so many more sinners and show them the path to repentance. He would become the Teacher of Righteousness from the prophecies of their ancestors.