When Jesus Wept (9 page)

The pilgrim route avoided the problem by crossing to the east side of Jordan. However, I disliked it unless traveling with crowds going home from a festival in the Holy City. Crossing wild stretches, it was the most dangerous. So I chose to take us
by the coast road. Parts of it, like that between Joppa and Caesarea, were still under construction, but it was patrolled by the Romans and safe. Subduing bandits was something Rome had brought to Judea, but at a very visible cost.

Just west of Jerusalem, before we reached Emmaus, we encountered three crosses erected beside the road. Mercifully, the occupants were already dead so we did not have to endure their pitiful cries for water or for death. The ravens had already been feasting.

The womenfolk covered their faces, but I forced myself to look. Crudely lettered, the indictments were attached above each head as part of the Roman economy of execution: one spike for each hand, one for the crossed feet, and a fourth so that the legal requirements were strictly observed.
S
IMON OF
A
IJALON
, R
EBEL,
one sign read.
J
ASON
, M
URDERER,
another.
P
HILIP OF
H
EBRON
, C
ONSPIRATOR,
noted the last.

I prayed for their souls and for their families and for my own.

We spent the first night of the journey at an inn outside Aijalon and the second at a caravansary in Joppa. The uncompleted road north from Joppa was no more than a cart track, but the breezes from the sea were bracing. As I rode, I watched fishermen putting out in tiny craft on the Great Sea of Middle Earth and marveled at their bravery.

A great Roman war galley passed us, coasting southward toward Alexandria. Its square sail was filled and drawing smartly, and the triple rank of oars were banked. The slaves chained to them were getting a momentary rest from the labor that would eventually kill them. It was said no one got away alive from being a galley slave.

It crushed my heart to think that Judah might be a prisoner
on that very ship. I asked Adonai to protect him, wherever he was, and to grant him release from the common fate.

It was while I was still pondering and praying that we reached a tiny village separated from the sea by a conical hill. I did not know its name. It might not have had one. It boasted no more than twenty rude stone buildings and a single well.

It was unremarkable except in one sense: it was empty. No one was beside the well. No children played in the street. A pair of goats badly in need of milking bawled from a pen, but no one came to attend them. No smoke rose from cook fires or ovens.

“David?” Martha said urgently. “David, what is it? Is it plague … or something worse?” Making the sign against the evil eye, my sensible, rational sister spit between her fingers.

“There are no bodies and no … smell,” I said, trying to sound controlled while being far from easy in mind myself. With relief I spotted some movement beyond where the street curved around a rocky outcropping that had been too large to move. “Wait here,” I directed, kicking the mare into a lope.

Outside a hovel, sitting on a wooden stool, was a toothless, elderly woman. In her arms was a sleeping infant. At her feet a little girl, perhaps two years old, played with stones and bits of stick.

“What happened here?” I demanded.

The crone shaded her eyes with a palsied, withered hand. “A penny, kind sir. Adonai blesses those who help the poor. Spare a penny?”

“Where is everyone?”

“Gone … all taken. Except old Bethulah. Alms?”

“Taken … how?”

“Taken. All of them, by the Romans.” Old Bethulah made
a sweeping gesture that gathered up the missing inhabitants of her village and flung them over the hill toward the sea.

In singsong chant, the old woman’s voice cracked as she droned over and over, like a sinister lullaby: “Taken by the Romans. Taken by the Romans …”

A chill coursed through me. What would the Romans do if a village was accused of harboring rebels? I did not need the vision of the three crosses to provide the answer, but it came just the same.

By now Uri had driven up with the cart. “Don’t follow until I ride ahead and check,” I ordered sternly.

Martha refused. “David, I’m frightened. I’m not staying here without you. Either we turn back or we go forward together.”

The road curved around the hill, approaching the sea again from the southeast. As we cleared the obstruction, the incessant sound of hammering reached me. My worst fears seemed about to be fulfilled. Would the Romans crucify an entire village: men, women, and children?

Of course they would, if it suited their purposes. They would destroy an entire city to provide an example of Rome’s stern, irresistible justice. At the fall of Carthage, Rome had pulled down every stone, sold fifty thousand people into slavery, and slaughtered the rest.

“Turn back,” I said, gesturing to Uri.

The trail was too narrow to turn just then. We had to drive ahead to find a wider place.

The hammering grew louder. The drumming clashed with the rhythm of the breakers. I heard cries and shouts and demands for water echoed by the clamor of sea birds.

Everything I dreaded to see was about to be unveiled.

Before us the coastal plain rolled down to the water. Halfway
between the hill and tide, on a level headland perched above the waves, fifty to seventy people toiled with picks and shovels … building a new road.

Under the lazy supervision of a Roman corporal, the entire male population of the nameless village scraped and raked and leveled. Children carried stones. Women toted baskets of sand. While an Imperial surveyor checked the perfection of his engineering, a squad of ten soldiers played at dice in a hollow out of the wind. They barely glanced up as we approached.

When I spoke to the corporal, he replied testily, “The new road will help that dump of a village grow. But do you think these wretches show any gratitude? Not a chance! All they can think about is that they only have to serve for two more days and then they go back to rotting in their hovels! No gratitude at all!”

He could not have guessed at the strange gratitude in my own heart at that moment.

The further we traveled toward the port of Caesarea Maritima, the more nearly completed was the Coast Road. Our pace increased with each perfectly level, expertly banked mile.

At Caesarea our route turned east toward Megiddo. Once across the Plain of Esdraelon progress slowed again on the climb up the Galilean hills. Nevertheless, we skirted Sepphoris and still arrived at Cana of Galilee a full day sooner than I expected.

I put the extra time before the wedding to good use.

The area around Cana was swampy. Where the marshes had been drained, and on the adjacent hillsides, there were orchards of figs and walnuts and pomegranates. These interested me, but not so much as the vineyards occupying the lower, southwest-ward-facing slopes.

The wines of the Galil had a special reputation in the world. Moist air funneled inland by the ridges of Mount Carmel cooled the mornings and left behind a heavy dewfall. The afternoon sun could be intense, bathing the vines in warmth and light that promoted lush growth.

I spoke with several growers about their efforts. One point on which all agreed was that wine grapes were the most awkward of crops. Vines on soft soil, positioned below springs, produced lush bunches in abundance … and watery tasting juice. Vines that grew on stony, barren hillsides produced the more memorable vintages. The yield from such a vineyard was much smaller, but the wine was much richer—bolder and more flavorful.

As Hiram of Rumah said to me when I visited his winery: “No winemaker, no matter how skilled or talented, can find something in the wine that God did not put in the grape. Great wines are truly made in the vineyard, not the winery. It is the vintner’s job to let the wine be what it was created to be and not ruin it!”

Of course, when I explained about my investment in oak barrels, he remarked, “Too expensive. Never work out in the long run.”

The wedding festivities began an hour before sunset. The aroma of meat roasting on spits made my mouth water. An immense crowd was gathering—far greater than anyone had expected. Apparently the Galil, having seen more than its share of forced conscriptions, floggings, and executions, was seriously in need of some laughter and good cheer, at least for one night.

I delivered my gift of the special wine to the father of the groom. At his insistence, I broached the barrel and allowed both he and the bride’s father to sample it. They exclaimed over
its quality. I was reassured to find that, even after the rough sloshing journey, it had traveled well. Both men agreed that the many toasts drunk that night would be memorable for more than just the speeches being made.

It was while I was visiting with a former vinedresser of mine who had moved to Cana to plant his own grapes that I received two shocks in quick succession. The first surprise was the arrival of Jesus of Nazareth. Since this wedding was an important event in the life of the communities west of the Sea of Galilee, it made perfect sense that such a celebrity—for that was what he had become since I’d seen him with John, being baptized in the river—would be invited to bless the gathering. After all, Nazareth, his home village, was a scant handful of miles away. He was almost a neighbor.

Because I had been so recently forcibly reminded of how Rome treated dissenters, I somehow expected him to remain in seclusion. Still, I had heard no tales that he preached sedition or rebellion. Such accusations were leveled against John the Baptizer, but so far, not against Jesus.

The second shock came so abruptly on the heels of the first that it drove my curiosity about the young rabbi out of my head. Unwarranted and unwanted, my sister Mary had indeed chosen to come to the festivities.

I could not believe it. Mary was an outcast from all proper society and flaunting a relationship with a Roman centurion.

Before I could collect my thoughts, Martha was at my side, bubbling with indignation and resentment. “David! You’ve got to do something! I will die of embarrassment! What if someone thinks we asked her to come? Make her leave, David.”

Mary was camping in a grove of trees outside the town. It was before her tent, as it was being erected, that I confronted
her … quietly. I led her away from ears eager to absorb and tongues eager to repeat gossip. She was angry and resentful, but I also saw a flicker of fear in her eyes when I told her that if she stayed, the people would publicly shame her for the harlot she was and drive her away. They would make an example of her; it was already agreed to by the elders. I begged her not to stay—not to do this to herself or to Martha and me.

At last, as I gazed at her with sorrow—she still was my sister, after all, though she had humiliated all of us—she agreed to leave.

I returned to the feast, all my good feeling soured. Even Martha’s praise for me did not relieve the sense that the evening, in fact the entire trip, had been spoiled.

It was then I had my next encounter with the rabbi from Nazareth.

“You were at the riverside with John,” said a pleasantly resonant voice behind me.

Brown eyes containing dancing golden flecks regarded me as I turned. “Yes … I … his message is powerful … perhaps, too powerful … dangerous.” I felt myself babbling. My friend Judah had been with me at the Jordan when we saw the Baptizer, and then he had been arrested and carried off to captivity and likely to his death. Unreasonable, I know, but in that instant I somehow blamed John for what happened to Judah.

That resentment spilled over into a sudden distrust of the Nazarene.

“A true prophet,” Jesus said with certainty. “There is no one born of woman greater than John.”

“He … he speaks well of you also,” I replied, scratching my beard to cover some confusion. Having heard the man in front of me identified as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” how was I supposed to respond?

What were my choices? Did Jesus of Nazareth believe himself to be the Chosen One, the Deliverer? In that case, he was either a charlatan or a lunatic … unless …

Martha scuttled up to me, peered askance at Jesus, and plucked at my sleeve. “David,” she urged. “They’ve asked you to offer the blessing over the wine. Come with me. The
chuppah
is ready and the bride is coming. Hurry!”

Jesus smiled at me as I let myself be hustled away toward the ceremony.

The groom, dressed in spotless white
kittel
, was already in place. Accompanied by her mother and her soon-to-be mother-in-law, the bride was conducted seven times around the groom while the cantor sang a passage from the Song of Songs:

“My dove in the clefts of the rock,

in the hiding places on the mountainside,

show me your face,