From the Shores of Eden

by Shelley Penner

  For over an hour he sat watching the crowd gather. He enjoyed watching people and discovered over the years that he actually liked most people. Growing up he had considered the poorer class barely human. The least of them could not have survived on the charity he doled out. Now, since hearing Jesus’s inspiring words, he kept only what he needed to survive and gave the rest to whoever he met who needed it.

  Suddenly he spotted a familiar figure amongst the approaching crowd and his breath caught, his heart leaping with relief and gladness. After all these years, Myra looked just as beautiful as ever. She looked small and vulnerable walking slightly behind her mistress, head down and eyes on the ground modestly. At one time, near the beginning of his quest, Bartholomew might have immediately jumped up and run toward them, but with experience and maturity had come an understanding of how Myra might react to meeting him again after what he had done to her. He rose, heart pounding, and approached them slowly. He saw the moment when Myra recognized him. Her eyes widened and she shrank as if trying to hide behind her mistress. Bartholomew bowed his head in a gesture of respect to the older woman.

  “Mistress,” he said, “I am Bartholomew. May I know your name?”

  She eyed him suspiciously, uncomfortable that they had no male escort to protect them. “I am Sarah, wife of Amos the apothecary. Why have you accosted us?”

  “I desire to address your slave, if I may.”

  “Myra? Why?” The old woman looked at her slave and recognized the fear in her huddled stance.

  “We knew one another in the past. I have a great need to beg her forgiveness.”

  Understanding came into Sarah’s eyes and she hesitated a moment, then wrapped a comforting arm around Myra’s shoulders and drew her forward. “You may speak.”

  Bartholomew went to his knees before them like a penitent, head bowed. “Mother Myra, what I did to you remains inexcusable. I was a self-indulgent, willful, callous brute and I didn’t realize the true horror of my actions. I deeply regret the harm I did you. I deeply regret the pain I caused my father, who loved you. I have searched for you for years and the search has changed me. I am no longer that depraved young man and the memory of what you suffered at my hands pains me deeply. I know what I did remains unforgivable, but still, I live in hope that you might find it in your heart to forgive me.”

  Myra shuddered as she stared down at him, wondering if this was just a ruse to make her lower her guard so he could get close enough to assault her again. Then she saw Jesus entering the grove with four of his disciples and she recalled him preaching of repentance and forgiveness, of God’s love even for the worst of sinners. She looked down at the young man prostrate before her, awaiting her judgment, and felt a sudden release of fear, of anger, of pain. She remembered him in her arms, tiny and sweet, the fruit of her own womb and she barely past childhood herself.

  “I forgive you,” she sighed. She felt a profound peace settle over her heart. Bartholomew rose to his knees with tears in his eyes and kissed her hand. “Bless you, Mother.” After a moment’s hesitation he turned to the older woman and said humbly, “If you would permit me, I would like to sit with you and Myra to hear the words of the Master.”

  The mistress turned to her slave, looking for assent or denial. The two women’s eyes met, and Sarah nodded in response to what she saw in Myra’s gaze.

  “We welcome your companionship.” Nevertheless, Sarah sat between the young man and her slave woman.

  For the next two hours they listened in respectful silence while Jesus told stories of a shepherd rejoicing in the recovery of a lost sheep, then of an estranged son returning home to a joyous welcome. Bartholomew felt as if Jesus spoke directly to him personally, even though he doubted Yeshua could recognize him from this distance in such a crowd. They had known one another for such a short time and his appearance had changed considerably. By the time the sermon ended and Jesus began ministering to those who came for healing, the sun had set and twilight dimmed almost to darkness. The disciples kindled torches to light the scene. Bartholomew turned to the two women and asked, “May I see you safely home?”

  Sarah nodded her assent and replied, “We will find the protection of your escort most comforting on the dark road. Thank you.”

  As they walked, they shared memories of other times when they heard Jesus speak and the things he had said.

  “His teachings are all about love,” Myra suggested shyly.

  Bartholomew nodded, realizing she was correct. “‘Love one another as you love me’,” he quoted, “and ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. And Jesus teaches about forgiveness too — the prodigal son. My search for you, Mother Myra, has consumed my life for so long. I remember you from my childhood, but I really know nothing about you. If I may, I would very much like a chance to spend time with you.”

  He saw the fear and doubt in her eyes and added, “If you feel uncomfortable alone with me, perhaps Sarah would be willing to accompany us.” He looked at the older woman pleadingly. The two women acted more like mother and daughter than mistress and slave and Sarah seemed quite protective, an attitude he appreciated.

  “Do you wish this too, Myra?” the older woman asked.

  Myra hesitated for a moment, plainly reassured by the thought of a third person in the room with them. Then she replied wistfully, “They never permitted me to hold you as a child or talk to you or mother you. I think your father’s wife feared I might win your love away from her. I could only watch from a distance with longing. I would like to learn who my son has become.”

  * * *

  Over the next several months, Bartholomew became a fixture in the home of Sarah and Amos. He found the old couple genuinely loved Myra and needed her help as they aged and grew more infirm. At first his visits remained awkward and self-conscious, as he hesitated to bring up painful memories for his mother and shameful ones for himself. However, they found they all had at least one subject they could discuss with enthusiasm — Jesus, his teachings and his miraculous cures. Slowly, over time, he managed to piece together the story of his mother’s life — kidnapped from her home in Gaul by Roman soldiers and sold as a slave at the age of eight. Her first owners fell into debt and needed to sell several slaves, including Myra. His father bought her at the age of fourteen. Just a year later she gave birth to Bartholomew.

  He asked her one day, “Did you love my father?”

  Myra considered thoughtfully. “I felt fond of him. He treated me very kindly. But he never gave me any choice. I was not a person to him, I was property. If he loved me, it was the way he would love a favorite horse.”

  “He exiled me to Qumran for what I did to you. I think he truly loved you.”

  “He had a wife. I’m sure he has replaced me by now with a slave he loves just as dearly.”

  “So you would not choose to go back to him?”

  “I am still a slave,” she reminded him. “I still have no choice.”

  “But if you had your freedom, what would you choose?”

  Again she considered for a while, then she said, “I love Amos and Sarah. They’ve become my family, and they need me. But I would like to see your father again, just to let him know I remain safe and happy. And that he should forgive you, as I have.”

  As time passed, trust continued to grow between Myra and Bartholomew, until they felt more like dear friends than mother and son. One day when Amos had invited him to stay for dinner, Bartholomew helped Amos and Myra bottle a new shipment of powders and tinctures in the apothecary shop while they waited for the meal to cook. As they worked together, Myra and Jacob laughed at an amusing incident Bartholomew described seeing in the bathhouse earlier. Suddenly he realized he felt happier than he could ever remember. For all the wealth with which he grew up, for all the self-indulgence, he had never before felt truly happy. An overwhelming wave of love washed over him, for Myra, whose courage and forgiveness allowed him this second chance, for the elderly couple, Amos and
Sarah, whose understanding and compassion helped to heal the damage he had done to her, and for Yeshua, whose wise advice had sent him searching for redemption.

  * * *

  Ten days before the Passover, James led a revolt in the streets of Jerusalem that turned into a bloody riot. Then he and most of his zealot soldiers disappeared back into the desert, only to strike again at a small military outpost on their way back to Qumran. The Romans put a price on their heads and retaliated by executing half a dozen captured rebels in a particularly cruel and painful way, by crucifixion.

  Despite the losses, the campaign won James the approval of Boethus and the Pharisees and convinced them that he was the new Moshe, meant to lead them to victory against the Roman oppressors. But Yeshua, already officially anointed the new David, stood in the way of their ambitions, with his guilt-inspiring accusations and his pacifist admonitions of ‘turn the other cheek’. And with the Passover, they knew exactly where to find him. They primed their dog with promises of reward, then sent him to do their bidding. Judas went straight to the Romans, claiming the bounty in return for information. For thirty pieces of silver, the same price the Pharisees charged to ‘ransom a soul’, he reported that the David, the King of the Jews, had led the raids. Since the Pharisees considered James the rightful king, Judas didn’t even believe he lied.

  * * *

  “Soon you will take your rightful place,” Boethus told James later in private.

  “What do you mean? Yeshua has already been anointed king.”

  “He has become a thorn in the side of the church with his seditious teachings. He does not act like a proper king.”

  “His pacifist teachings are hardly seditious,” James defended his brother.

  “We have arranged for the Romans to arrest him.”

  James felt a stab of alarm. “On what charge?”

  “That the King of the Jews instigated the riot in Jerusalem.”

  “But that was me…”

  “Exactly.”

  James shuddered with horror. “Don’t you realize what they will do to him? What they did to our men that they captured?”

  Boethus said dryly, “I have heard the news.”

  Rage suddenly rose in James like a red tide. He and Yeshua seldom agreed on anything, but he loved his brother, even admired him for his rebellion against the elite priesthood. He had yet to realize Yeshua did not truly ever rebel against anything, but simply and whole-heartedly maintained and defended his own position. Through clenched teeth James snarled, “You go too far, Boethus. I pledge to you, if my brother dies on the cross, you will feel the full weight of the Hand of God.”

  * * *

  By the time of the Passover supper, Yeshua had become aware of the plot against him, warned first by James and then by Ananas. But he had an obligation to fulfil that he refused to abandon. Like Daniel in the lion’s den, God would protect him. Or if it was God’s will that the Romans should take him, he would surrender to his fate.

  On the second floor of the temple at Mount Zion he delivered his sermon, then spoke the traditional prayers and blessings that preceded the Purity. He settled onto the floor cushions with his disciples around him. He poured the wine and broke the holy bread, sharing it around amongst them.

  “I am the earth and the sky,” he told them. “I am both the earthly Mother and the Heavenly Father. At this wedding, I am both the Bride and the Bridegroom. I am the young woman who gives herself freely as a vessel to nurture her husband’s seed. I am the young man who gives his heart to shelter her. I am the father who punishes and then forgives. I am the mother who would willingly sacrifice herself for the sake of her children. This bread of love becomes a promise of respect to the Mother. Eat the Bread of the Earth and you make a covenant with God, that this Home He created for you in the beginning, you will preserve in all its perfection until the end of time.”

  The disciples hesitated, for this was not the usual pledge made during the Purity. When each of them had eaten of the unleavened bread, Jesus continued.

  “This wine of wisdom becomes a promise of obedience to the Father. When you drink of this wine, I, as God’s representative, make a covenant with you, that I will go ahead of you and prepare a place for you in the Kingdom of Heaven, that you might dwell in the house of the Lord forever. This wine is my blood. This bread is my body. When you eat of the Mother’s love and drink of the Father’s wisdom, you shall know the joys of true communion, and if all who follow me will nurture that seed of love and wisdom in their hearts, you will know Heaven on earth.”

  Again disconcerted, the disciples drank the wine. Then the youngest of them, Benjamin, asked hesitantly, “Master…what does it mean…that you will go ahead to prepare a place?”

  Jesus smiled sadly. “It means one of you has betrayed me. I know some of you took part in the recent riots in Jerusalem. I have it on good authority that one of you has named me as a leader of that rebellion. Soon the soldiers will come for me.”

  Amid the flood of denials and questions, Benjamin asked anxiously, “Should you not flee to the mountains? You would remain safe at Qumran.”

  “I think not. I suspect this attack originates with the Pharisees. If my death is not God’s will, he will intervene to save me. But if it is God’s will that I die for your sins, I will not attempt to avoid it. Just know that I love you and forgive you any transgressions if you only come to me with a sincerely repentant heart.”

  Later, as he knelt in the garden while his disciples slept, Yeshua prayed, “Oh, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. But, if this cup may not pass from me except I drink it, Thy will be done.”

  * * *

  Bartholomew’s workday had almost ended. He finished refilling the soap containers, placed clean towels on the shelves, then said goodnight to his employer and left the bathhouse. He no longer slept in the dressing room. Amos had recently invited him to stay in their home, offering him a pallet beside their hearth. He strolled down the street toward the apothecary shop when he spotted Myra running to meet him, weeping, her face twisted in anguish.

  “Mother Myra! What’s wrong? Is it Amos? Sarah?”

  He held her while she sobbed in his arms, shaking her head in denial, too overcome to speak. “Please,” he said softly, “tell me what has so upset you. I promise, I will do whatever I can to help.”

  At last, she managed to find her voice. “They have crucified our Lord Jesus!”

  The horror of this news felt like a punch in the gut. He had glimpsed the suffering of the rebels captured during the riots and it sickened him. “Why?” was all he could think to ask. That a man like Yeshua, so filled with compassion and love, should suffer such treatment seemed inconceivable.

  “Someone accused him of inciting the riots. The Romans judged him innocent, but the Pharisees demanded his death anyway.”

  “Boethus,” Bartholomew growled angrily. “He wanted to make James his puppet king, but Yeshua stood in his way. And I suspect James will prove less agreeable than he thinks.”

  He escorted Myra home and they sat with Amos and Sarah, talking, mourning and praying together until late into the night.

  “The best way to honor Jesus,” Amos said, “is to follow his teachings. To show kindness to our fellow men, whatever their station in life. To forgive those who sin against us.”

  “Yes,” Bartholomew said softly. “He gave his life for us.”

  “For us?” Myra questioned doubtfully.

  “To show us the way. To set an example for us to follow. If he adhered to the old traditions and kept to the established doctrines, the Pharisees would not have turned against him. He was a king, a member of the elite aristocracy. Yet he cared about beggars in the street, lepers and harlots, people no one ever cared about before. He gave them a sense of empowerment and worth. And the priests killed him for it. Because he didn’t act the way they expected. Because they couldn’t control him.”

  Two days later, more n
ews reached them — an earthquake hit Qumran and shattered the foundation of the temple. When the wall of the outer hall collapsed, it crushed Boethus and two of the Pharisee Levites.

  * * *

  Servants opened the doors to the great hall and ushered in the guests. The master, Meshulum of Cana, watched four strangers enter. He recognized Myra first. She had changed little in six years, still as beautiful as ever. It took longer to identify his own son. Meshulum rose to his feet, feeling a tidal wave of emotion.

  “Myra! Bartholomew…my son! I feared you both long dead.”

  “Father,” the son replied warily. Their parting confrontation had not given him much reason to expect the fatted calf. “How is Mother?”

  His father’s expression saddened. “I’m sorry to tell you that she passed away soon after your departure. You know how illness plagued her.”