Man in White

by Johnny Cash

  “O God,” cried Saul from his sleeping berth, “renew my mind. Cleanse it of all evil and trouble and let me think only of you and your will.” Still, it was hours before Saul slept, and then he slept fitfully that first night. His memories drifted into dreams, disturbing dreams of Stephen, of Michael, and at times of the Nazarene himself.

  He did not remember his dreams clearly at first light. He washed himself thoroughly, then stood facing the direction of the Temple and began his morning prayers. He refused to allow himself to think of his dreams of death when they attempted to crowd themselves back into consciousness. “Sanctify me for your service, O Lord,” he prayed.

  After the third night and day, Saul was no longer hungry. He began to feel light-headed and as if he were “above” his body. His mind was clear, and, beginning with his evening prayers on the fourth day, he stood in a state of prayer, moving back and forth on his heels reciting the Scriptures he had known from youth. He repeated a promise from Isaiah, and as he spoke the words aloud, he felt that the prophet must have had him, Saul of Tarsus, in mind when he wrote them: “Fear not, for I am with you; yes, I will help you; yes, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.”

  He was interrupted by a knock at his door. His room was dim. He had not lighted an oil lamp. He quietly moved to the edge of the window by the street and looked out. The street was at eye level, and there, an arm’s length from his own face, were the feet of a Pharisee standing at his door. The golden hem of the fine linen cloak told him so. Leaning a bit and looking up, he recognized the man who was knocking at his door a second time— Master Nicodemus.

  What does he want? thought Saul, moving quietly across the room to hide in the darkness. Nicodemus knocked again, louder. Go away, traitor, Saul thought, almost aloud. He stood still. Nicodemus did not knock again but slowly turned away from Saul’s door. He knows I’m here and won’t see him, Saul thought.Maybe then he’ll know how a true son of Israel feels about the polluters of the faith of our fathers. His face fairly shines with the same self-righteous piety as Stephen’s and the other Nazarenes’. All is not peace and joy in the Temple of God. His wrath will work his vengeance on all who oppose and betray him. Not one will be spared. Not even Nicodemus. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!” Saul said aloud with a clenched fist held high in the darkness of his room, alone against the wall with no one but God to hear. Had anyone been in the room, he would have seen the fire in Saul’s eyes.

  He paced the room flaring in anger, yet he was undeniably a little curious as to why Nicodemus would have been calling upon him. To admonish him more for certain, but he might have been able to force Master Nicodemus to admit to being active in assembling with the Nazarenes. This Saul had long suspected, and this thought made Nicodemus smaller still in his eyes. Imagine this Judean sage sitting part of the time in the highest council of the Jews and then sitting in the dirt with the wild Nazarenes the rest of the time! He had to stop thinking of this man; else he would be ill. “Renew my mind, O God,” he cried. “Prepare me for your service.”

  His bed seemed harder than ever that fourth night. He had not lighted his lamp for fear that Nicodemus would return. He renewed his vow to speak to no one for the entire seven days of his self-exile. He tossed back and forth on the woven straw mat covering the solid rock ledge. His room was black, and each time he turned his weakening body toward his room, he could see through his one small window a handful of stars in the clear, moonless sky. His mind was a whirling machine. “Where are you, God?” his mind cried out. “I love to do your will. I live only to serve you, yet you are so far from me.”

  Is God up among those stars? he wondered. Surely the Creator is greater than his creation. Somewhere out there above the earth lived the one true God. Yet this was another mystery. Did not God command that the wilderness tabernacle be built according to his own specifications in order that he himself could dwell among man? Was not his divine presence in the Holy of Holies in the Temple? And did not God dwell in the heart of man? In the mind of man? In the soul? He often felt God’s presence, but it was fearsome. Could the goodness of God abide with the evil of man—with Saul himself? No matter how committed, no matter how dedicated Saul was, would God manifest himself in Saul’s life?

  His doubt plagued him. Frail mortal that he was, no matter his sacrifice, no matter his dedication, would, could, the Omnipotent be manifested in his weak human flesh?

  He was suddenly ashamed of his lack of understanding of the person of God. He is omnipresent and omniscient. The prophet said he is in heaven above and in earth beneath, and the psalmist said, “He is in the very substance that made me.” In the wilderness tabernacle had he not indicated his presence among them with a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night? How big is God? How small is God? He is everywhere, yet Saul could find no peace in him anywhere.“Let me labor in your service,O Lord,” he cried. “In this noble task which you have appointed unto me, let me find peace. Let me find joy. Let me find you!” But Saul was not to be comforted. After the night was half-gone, he fell into an exhausted, troubled sleep. Then the horrible dream began.

  He dreamed he was in a whirling flood of water. The rain was pouring down and the day was half-dark. Saul reached out for the shrubs and vines that grew along the edge of the water, but the force of his body in the raging flood pulled the plants up by the roots. He went under, then he was back up, then under again, then back up. He saw a large stone jutting out from the bank and with clawing fingers grasped it. It was solid, and if he could only hold on, he could pull himself out of the flood. He strained every muscle in his body; his fingers were raw and sore as he groped around the large stone, trying to hold on. But a sudden wave opposed him and washed him back toward the rock, and as he realized he was going down in the water, he awoke himself with his own cry for help.

  He sat up trembling and sweating in the cold, dark room. “I understand the dream, O Lord,” he muttered. “The psalmist said ‘The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer.’ And I know, Lord, that the flood signified your enemies, my enemies, all the ungodly men. But in the dream, why could I not hold on to the rock? O God, don’t forsake me. Don’t let me be washed away. I have a service to perform for you.”

  After a long time trying to silence his troubled mind, Saul finally drifted off to sleep again and the dream continued. He dreamed he was walking on the shore beside the raging floodtide. He was wet and cold. He was conscious that he was dreaming in a not-too-deep sleep, watching himself in his own dream. It was a strange feeling. He knew the fasting was partly responsible for his mental state, yet even aware enough to realize this, he couldn’t wake himself. He saw himself shivering from the cold, and all of a sudden he was cold, but he was falling into a deeper sleep now and could not come out of the dream. He twisted and turned on his ledge, in a sweat.

  Cries seemed to come from the water, and there appeared to be many, many people in the water, but he couldn’t recognize any faces. Voices were pleading and moaning now, and the river became a sea he could not see across. Thousands of people were in the water, and their voices were strange, foreign. He still walked along the dry, rocky shore, but it was getting darker and he didn’t see the small stream until he stepped into it. The stream was just a rivulet, and as it ran into the sea, he could hear voices laughing and weeping with joy. Some seemed to be singing and praising. It seemed that the water from the rivulet in which he stood was working some kind of magic on the pleading souls in the water. The people were struggling to move in his direction. He heard some of them call his name. Why were they calling to him to save them, and why were they trying to reach this particular spot where the stream ran into the sea? He trembled with fear. The water in the stream had a strange,musky, sweet odor, and for the first time he realized his feet were warm where he stood ankle deep in the . . . blood. “It’s blood,” he screamed, and he awakened.

  Dawn was breaking, and the knock on the door seemed to pierce his temples. He cover
ed his ears with his hands, and with his head down and his eyes closed, he tried to keep out the world outside and go back into his dream. He was confused and irritated by the interruption. Even though the dream was frightening, he had to think, pray, and immediately interpret its meaning before any of it was forgotten, but the interruption persisted. Rabbi Baanah ben David knocked loudly at his door and called out now, “Saul, Saul. Open up.”

  Saul sat still for a long time, for it was a few minutes before the rabbi gave up and left his door. Maybe he will forgive me when he realizes that I have taken a vow, thought Saul. He will understand. Maybe even now he understands and is praying for me.

  He walked across the room and looked at himself in the polished metal mirror. His face was ravaged from the torturous night of little sleep filled with nightmares. He poured cold water from the pitcher into the basin and washed himself thoroughly. As he washed, the words of the psalmist flowed out of his lips as the dream replayed in his mind. “Save me, O God, for the waters are come in unto my soul . . . I am become a stranger unto my brethren . . . the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up . . . I chasten my soul with fasting.” He was very weak. The ordeal of standing and washing himself was exhausting, but the mirror showed a brighter face. He brushed his hair neatly. Saul studied himself, hoping that he didn’t appear to be fasting. He wanted strength to be reflected in his face, but his eyes showed confusion. “The blood,” he said. “A symbol of sacrifice, but what blood? Whose blood? The people in the water were calling my name in foreign tongues. I wish I could just forget this disturbing dream.”

  By midmorning, he was beneath the window with the scrolls of the Law and again found himself at peace in the Scriptures. He read the book of Exodus, and his brilliant imagination took him along with Moses through the wilderness wanderings. He was with Moses on Sinai. He, in his mind, helped build the tabernacle. He could see the priestly garments of Aaron as clearly as if Aaron stood before him. He saw the Ten Commandments, carved in stone by the hand of God. He heard the children of Israel in wickedness and idolatry and admired Moses’s righteous anger. Saul cherished his precious scrolls of the Scriptures and fingered them lovingly.

  He noticed again the tattered, rodent-eaten ends of the scroll of Chronicles. It was still not repaired. Maybe he would replace it—he would make a new scroll. Yes, he would get new parchment and copy it himself. He would throw away the defiled scroll. He would restore those words of the Most High. “This Temple which I have sanctified in my own name, I will cast out of my sight . . .”

  Troubling words, but an unspeakable thought in Saul’s mind. The destruction of the Temple? The destruction of the very Covenant? Never. The heirs of the Covenant had failed before, for Solomon’s Temple had fallen, but never would it fall again, for men such as Saul would always consecrate themselves and protect the Law and the Covenant. The dwelling place of the Most High in this, his city, should never fall.

  It was dark again on the fifth night when he rolled the scrolls up and, without lighting a lamp, stored them back in their niche in the cubicle, dropped the velvet covering over them, and lay weakly down upon his mat.

  He had not allowed himself to think of the dream in the past few hours, for somehow he had the feeling in the back of his mind that the dream somehow concerned the Gentiles. He had not allowed himself to give any thought to the vile, idolatrous Greeks or to the despicable Romans, even though he knew that some of them would be harboring his victims when he started his work of preserving the unity of the religion of his fathers in just two days. The Romans were generally tolerant of any and all religions, even in Rome, the city of Caesar, itself. They didn’t really believe in their own gods, so how could they be expected to take seriously the God of the Jews and the proper worship of him? The Macedonians and Cilicians were even harder to understand. They worshiped everything, including their own bodies. They had a god for everything, for every sin, and couldn’t understand a Jewish God who wasn’t worshiped through love’s sensual pleasures. It is the mentality of these cultures that weakens and waters down our religion when they live among us, these polluters who would worship a poor, wandering, crucified Galilean rabbi. Such a one was Stephen, Saul thought in self-consolation.

  He realized that his mind was wandering back to the Nazarenes, and he stopped himself. “Two days hence, the obliteration of the sect of the Nazarenes will be my task,” he mused, “but for now, O Lord, let me meditate on your Holy Book.” In his mind he was walking through the parted waters of the Red Sea, and he finally fell asleep.

  The sixth night and day passed, and Saul became weaker. There was not one ounce of fat on his already-slim body. He felt light-headed, and as he walked around his room the sixth day, he could barely feel the floor. Even wide awake he felt that he was above his body. It was a pleasant feeling. He was not the least bit hungry; he hadn’t thought of food after the third day. He read the Scriptures for short periods of time, then meditated upon them for longer periods. He sat for hours beneath the window. He was one day from beginning his work of destroying the Nazarenes, and the Word of God was all that filled him. He was more reassured than ever that he would accomplish his task. Reciting aloud from Joshua, he felt a personal message in the verse. “This book of the Law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate upon it day and night, that you will observe to do according to all that is written there, for then your way shall be prosperous and you will be successful.”

  Just before the seventh night began, Rabbi Baanah ben David knocked at his door again. Saul moved quickly from the window and into the gloom. He would not break his vow, though he was lonely and would have loved to talk to his old friend. Baanah was one of the few people he talked to at all. Saul hadn’t many friends, but he loved the rabbi.

  He had spoken to him before about his feelings toward the Nazarenes, once becoming enraged over the subject. The old rabbi had cautioned Saul sternly about his wish to destroy their congregation. “There has been enough bloodshed in this city, Saul,” he had said in a fatherly tone. “The soil of Israel cries out not only from the blood of the prophets, unjustly murdered, but also from that of the many simply poor and downtrodden. Be careful that you do not shed innocent blood.”

  “Saul,” Baanah ben David called more loudly. “Why won’t you see me?”

  Saul stood quietly still until the rabbi gave up and left his door. He sat down upon his sleeping ledge. He suddenly realized that he was very, very lonely. He wanted to share his heartfelt convictions with his friend. Surely Baanah would understand now that the Nazarenes had to be destroyed. “Defilers of the Law are not innocent,Master,” he had said. “These ‘People of the Way’ would destroy the Law. They claim that faith alone in their dead Carpenter gives them sanctification and salvation, even eternal life.”

  “Many offshoot sects of Judaism have claimed such things before, Saul,” the rabbi had replied. “God laid out his plan for humankind centuries ago in no uncertain terms. A few hundred, or even a few thousand, malefactors at this late date are not going to alter it or change God’s mind. Let them go their own way. God’s truth is its own protection.”

  “God calls his people to action, Master,” Saul had responded with finality. Now weak and alone in his room, he would have liked to tell his friend his plans, share his dreams with him, but he must not. He must meditate on the task at hand tomorrow.

  Saul lay down for his seventh night. He felt faint, and it was a few moments before his head stopped spinning around. He knew somehow that the dream was going to recur. His thoughts were spinning as well, and he was into the dream even before he was sound asleep. He heard the voices in the water first. They were Gentiles, he recognized in astonishment, crying out to him in Arabic, Cilician, Greek, Macedonian, Latin! They were calling his name in their own languages. “Help us, Paul! Save us, Saul! Paolo! Pol! Paulus!” cried the multitudes of voices in the dark, whirling sea at his feet. As a child in Tarsus, Saul had often been called these names, but he had always responded nega
tively to hearing himself called “Paul,” the Gentile equivalent of the Hebrew “Saul.”

  On the dark horizon, he could see no end to the faces and upraised arms. He walked along the seashore confused and troubled that so many cried for him, yet he actually felt no need to help the strangers, those Gentiles who cried out his name in so many tongues. He didn’t see that rescuing them from their plight was his responsibility, yet they seemed to need him.

  Again he didn’t see the red stream until he had stepped into it and felt the wetness. Knowing it was blood this time, he awoke himself with a cry. He lay slightly trembling, staring at the stone ceiling. “The interpretation! The interpretation!” he whispered to himself, searching his mind as he rethought the vivid dream. No interpretation came to him, and he began trying to force it out of his mind.

  I will not continue the dream when I go back to sleep, he thought. I will meditate on the Word of God. His sharp memory recited the call of Abraham, word for word as it is written in Genesis. His mind dwelled upon Joseph’s bloodstained coat as he retold himself the story of Joseph and his brothers. Blood again. And with that his mind was back on his dream and the blood was on his feet and hands. “No, I will meditate on the Word of God,” he said silently, becoming sleepy and dreamy again. In his mind he saw the scroll of Exodus and was well into it before he fell into a faint sleep or a sleepy faint, whichever; he did not know or care. He was quoting a verse of Scripture about the Passover of the Israelites, which became a transition from awareness to the continuation of the dream.“. . . and the blood shall be to you a token upon the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you . . .”

  “The blood! It is all over me,” he cried in his dream. He turned from the sea and began clawing up the hill, following the stream and climbing toward a light at the top. Something was drawing him toward the light. It was frightening, yet there was something beautiful about it. He stumbled, and reaching to catch himself, he fell upon the bloody forehead of the smiling Stephen. Again aware that he was dreaming, he tried to awaken himself, but the light at the top of the hill held him in the dream. Weeping as he ran, fell, crawled, and stumbled over countless bodies all wearing the face of Stephen, he at last found himself lying in the stream of blood with his arms around the foot of the crucifix. He pulled himself up to look at the face, although he did not expect to see Stephen or his friend Michael. The light emanating from the man blinded him, but he could see the sign. The Nazarene!