The Galileans: A Novel of Mary Magdalene (39 page)

Also in winter occurred the Feast of Dedication, and Jesus had come to celebrate the feast, along with the huge crowds that always arrived in Jerusalem for the feast days. Jesus was teaching in the temple and Joseph, often there to visit his patients, stood at the far edge of the crowd, listening. A group of Pharisees managed to get some temple guards together. They had pushed through the crowd, and one of them, more brazen than the rest, demanded loudly, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”

“I told you.” Jesus’ words lashed at them like whips. “And you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness to me. But you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.”

He paused and looked out over the crowd. Joseph saw that the anger had faded from His eyes now, to be replaced by a look of sorrow. “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

For a moment, the full implications of that statement did not penetrate the minds of the men who were questioning Him. When it did, the Pharisees suddenly began to shout, “He has blasphemed! Stone Him! Stone Him!” Some of them even pushed forward to seize Jesus, but He raised His hand, and the force of His calmness and certainty of purpose held them back.

“I have shown you many good works from the Father,” He said. “For which of these do you stone me?”

“We stone you for no good work but for blasphemy!” the spokesman for the Pharisees shouted. “Because you, being a man, make yourself God.” The common people understood little of the minute points of the law so beloved by the Pharisees, the breakage of which was called blasphemy. But in matters of religion they were accustomed to look to the Pharisees for leadership, and when the cry of blasphemy was raised, many of them took it up.

Jesus looked scathingly at His tormentors. “Is it not written in your law,
‘I said, you are gods’?
If He called them gods to whom the word of God came (and scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?” He paused, then went on, “If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

“Blasphemy!” The Pharisees took up the cry again. “He has blasphemed against the Most High. Let Him be stoned!”

Simon Peter and the sons of Zebedee were close beside Jesus, but they seemed stunned by this sudden happening. Joseph elbowed his way through the crowd. “Jews of Jerusalem!” he shouted. “You know me, Joseph of Galilee. I have bound up your wounds and nursed you back to health when you were sick. Listen to me!”

A momentary hush fell over the crowd, for many of them had been healed by his medicines and his skill, and they respected him and trusted him, as a man naturally trusts his physician. “You all know that I have kept the law from my youth,” Joseph told them. “These Pharisees would have you stone a good teacher because He has shown you what they are, whited sepulchers, hypocrites, liars. Then they can say, ‘We have not done it, but the crowd.’”

“He lies!” the leader of the Pharisees shouted. “Stone the blasphemer!” they shouted again.

“To the gates!” And the mob once more took up the cry.

Clawing hands were already tearing at their clothing, and all seemed truly lost when Joseph heard the sound of marching feet. He looked up and saw a group of soldiers led by a centurion passing along the lower terrace on their way back to Antonia from the first guard period of the day. The officer he recognized as a man named Trojanus, whose wife Joseph had cured of a severe fever only a few months before.

“Trojanus!” he shouted in desperation. “Trojanus! Would you see the physician of Pontius Pilate killed by the mob?”

The Roman turned, and his eyes quickly took in the situation. The entire garrison knew that Joseph was a friend of Pilate and his wife and also served as physician to the Roman troops. At a sharp command from Trojanus the soldiers lowered their shields and, using the butts of their swords as bludgeons, plunged into the crowd. Like a battering ram, the column easily forced its way through the cursing, snarling mass of humanity and surrounded the small group that was the target for the buffeting of the mob. “What is the trouble here?” the centurion demanded.

“The Pharisees seek to have us stoned,” Joseph explained breathlessly. “Can you guard us as far as the road leading to Jericho?”

Trojanus looked doubtful, until Joseph added, “I will be personally responsible to Pontius Pilate for your actions!”

“Make a good story of it then,” he said, grinning, and Joseph knew that he had won. “Tell how I saved your life when it was in great peril.”

Guarded by the soldiers, the small party left the temple and crossed the city to the gate where the road from Jericho entered. Not many of the crowd followed. It was one thing to drag a defenseless Jew accused of blasphemy outside the gates and stone him to death, but quite another to attack Roman soldiers and bring down the wrath of Pontius Pilate upon all the Jews in Jerusalem. By the time they reached the gates, only a small crowd of the curious followed, and when the party set out toward Jericho they were unmolested.

Jesus had not spoken during their dramatic rescue. Looking at the sadness and disappointment that showed in His face now, Joseph thought Mary must indeed be right. Jerusalem had failed Him, just as had Galilee, and Jesus must be glad to be away from it.

Joseph bade the little group good-bye at the gates. The Master walked ahead on the road making His way back across the Jordan River, alone and lost in His thoughts, while the disciples followed along behind, quarreling among themselves at the ill fortune which had forced them to leave Jerusalem just when it seemed that they were near the height of their success. None dared blame their leader for precipitating the controversy that morning, but a few upbraided Joseph for taking them out of the city under the Roman guard, insisting that they might have been able to hide inside the walls and thus continue their plans for making Jesus king in Jerusalem.

Joseph thought of Mary often but had little news from her. From information picked up by Nicodemus on his travels about the country, it appeared that Jesus was avoiding Galilee, perhaps fearing that a return to the site of His more successful ventures would cause the revolutionary spirit of His disciples and the people who followed Him to flare up anew.

A devout Jew, Joseph had always viewed the temple as a symbol of everything sublime in the worship of the Most High, a holy place dedicated to a holy purpose. But now he began to see things which, in his concern with the higher principles of God’s worship, he had never noticed before.

The booths of those who sold animals, spices, and other precious objects to be offered as sacrifices to the Most High were, he knew, a necessary and natural part of the temple worship. But now he saw the cheating that went on. A tender and pure lamb sold this morning to a pilgrim of Cyprus and delivered over to the priests to be killed and burnt upon the altar often appeared in the same seller’s stall that very afternoon, while a mangy animal costing less than a third as much as the pilgrim paid was killed in its stead.

The lower court of the temple swarmed with peddlers selling all kinds of curios to the pilgrims who thronged here. And since only temple shekels could be given as offerings, the money-changers did a thriving business turning money from the hundreds of cities of the empire into approved coin, at a tremendous profit to the changer. Daily Joseph saw messengers from synagogues of Israel in far-distant cities of the empire pour into the temple, bringing the “tribute” required of all Jews, which they were happy to pay as their duty to God. But while the priests lived in magnificence and luxury, the poor who had scraped up their last denarius for the temple tribute went hungry and often without shelter. And meanwhile the priestly hierarchy grew richer and richer every year.

In moments of self-examination—which his profession gave him all too infrequently—Joseph admitted to himself that there had been no change in the temple and its practices. These injustices had been going on for centuries. What had happened was a change within himself, a new vision that let him see through the outward gloss to the pettiness beneath, the outright thievery masking under the guise of worship, and the constant political plotting among the Sadducean groups who controlled the temple and therefore the religious life of Israel.

Nor were the Pharisees really any better, he saw now, although he had always prided himself upon belonging to that select group. In their pettiness over details they had completely lost sight of the fact that the individual man was important in the sight of God.

“What is man, that thou art mindful of him?”
the Psalmist had asked. And then had gone on to say,
“Thou hast made him little less than God.”
Now Joseph knew what it was that appealed to people so much in the teachings of Jesus. It was the fact that the Nazarene brought to them an assurance that the Most High loved each of them as individuals. There could be no greater assurance of this concern for the individual than the words of Jesus: “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

What a comfort such an assurance of the love of God for every man was to people bowed under the burden of the law that the Pharisees worshiped so devoutly. It was easy to understand now why they would follow one who assured them of the forgiveness of their sins and the concern of the Father for each of them.

More and more as the months wore on, Joseph was tempted to leave all this sham and pretense, the thievery, gluttony, and luxury in the guise of the worship of God that characterized Jerusalem and the temple. If he had thought Mary would join him, he would gladly have given up his successful career and returned to Magdala to live with her. And the more he thought of the quiet garden at Demetrius’s old house overlooking the lake and Mary’s happy voice singing there, the more he was convinced that only in Galilee would he find the peace he seemed to need more and more.

Nicodemus returned from one of his trips late one afternoon in midwinter. Joseph had just come home from visiting the sick, and when he saw his friend’s retinue before the house he hurried over to greet the lawyer.

“I traveled fast so as to reach Jerusalem before nightfall,” Nicodemus said, embracing Joseph, “for I bring bad news.”

Joseph caught his breath. “About Mary?”

“No. She was well when I saw her last. Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem, Joseph.” Nicodemus’s face was grave. “He is walking directly into the hands of Pontius Pilate and Caiaphas.”

“But I thought He was still in Tyre.”

“He left there several weeks ago and traveled through Galilee without attracting the attention of the crowds.”

“Did Herod Antipas know He was in Galilee?”

“He may have. But Jesus was careful not to stir up the people, and Herod may have been content to let Him pass.”

“Did you see Him yourself?”

“Yes, I came upon the Company of the Fish, as they call themselves now, by accident at Tarichae, at the south end of the lake. Jesus was starting down the valley road with His disciples. Your betrothed was with them and sent you her love. She hopes to see you here within a few days.”

Joseph felt a warm glow of happiness rise within him at the thought of being with Mary again.

“I listened to Jesus teach for a while,” Nicodemus continued. “And when He stopped, a young man asked Him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’”

“What did He say?”

“He just looked at him for a moment,” Nicodemus said. “And then He asked, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: Do not kill. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and mother.’ Then the young man said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth.’ Then Jesus said, ‘You lack one thing,’ He said to me. ‘Go, sell all that you have, and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’ I wanted to follow Him, too, Joseph,” Nicodemus said earnestly. “I wanted it more than I have ever wanted anything in my life. But, like that young man, my riches were like fetters about my ankles, holding me back.”

“Did you see Him any more?”

The lawyer shook his head. “No. I had to come back by way of Sepphoris to finish up some business with Herod’s stewards. But all the way back to Jerusalem I kept thinking about what he said and the way His love encompassed me as I listened to Him speak.” He stopped and took a deep breath. “I’ve made my decision, Joseph. I am going to do it.”

“You are going to sell all this?” Joseph asked incredulously.

“Yes. An accounting will be made of everything I possess. When it is finished, I will sell and give all to the poor. If Jesus will take me then, I shall become one of His disciples.”

“But you are a rich man,” Joseph protested. “You employ many people and give much to the poor. Who will defend the poor without pay in the courts of law if you leave Jerusalem?”

“None of that is important now that I know the truth,” Nicodemus said earnestly.

“The truth?” Joseph frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Jesus is the Messiah, Joseph. I am convinced of it now.”

And so the rest of the winter passed uneventfully. Joseph had already given up all hope that he and Mary could be married anytime soon. To ease some of the pain of loneliness, he threw himself into his work and into keeping alive, through teaching and ministering to the sick, and to the poor, the loyal band of followers that Jesus had developed during His short stay in Jerusalem. Among the believers were counted several members of the Sanhedrin and many influential teachers, as well as merchants and artisans, devout Jews who saw in the pretensions of the Pharisees and the emphasis upon form and accumulation of wealth that characterized the rule of the priests a veritable travesty of the things that the worship of the Most High meant to the really devout Jew.