by Brian Godawa
When he arrived at the bed, he saw Simon and Aaron were gone. It didn’t surprise him in the least. What did surprise him was that he found the general and his Essene lieutenant over by the soldiers’ beds, checking on their well-being.
Alexander approached the two men as they finished talking to one of the wounded. “General. I see you care more for your men than for your own welfare.”
Simon turned, and Alexander saw that the general actually looked well. He had weathered the poison quickly.
“I told you, doctor, I have a tolerance for viper poison. It’s the sting of human serpents that is the hardest to overcome.” Simon and Aaron shared a knowing smile of inside meaning.
“Let me check your wound.”
They returned to Simon’s bed, and Alexander unwrapped his shoulder. The wound was looking better. The infection was leaving.
“Praise God for your healing,” Alexander said and wrapped him back up.
Simon said, “So, doctor, I’ve been warned of your Christian heresies.”
Alexander asked, “Are you afraid of my sting?”
Simon chuckled. “No. And do you know why?”
Alexander stopped and looked at him curiously.
“Because I’ve seen the way you’ve treated my men and the way you’ve cared for the innocent sick and dying in this stadium. As a matter of fact, besides Aaron here, you are probably one of the only men in this city I trust will not betray me.”
Alexander said, “It is only because Jesus the Messiah cared for me when I was wounded in my soul.”
Simon gave him another smile. “So tell me about this heresy of yours. What makes a man of compassion and healing so dangerous?”
Alexander considered how to phrase his words before speaking. “I suppose it’s the same thing that made Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and all the prophets so dangerous to Israel. Jesus prophesied judgment upon this adulterous generation because they did not recognize their visitation of Yahweh.107 He is going to destroy the earthly city and temple with its covenant and replace it with a heavenly city and temple, a new covenant forever.”
He saw Simon considering his words with arched brow. Aaron remained angrily silent.
Simon noticed this as well. He said to Alexander, “It appears you have done the impossible twice. You’ve gotten me to obey you, and now you’ve gotten Aaron to remain silent on religion.”
“We have already had an extended debate on the issue,” Alexander demurred.
“You two know each other?”
Aaron sighed. “My men saved him and some others from bandits in the desert a while back.”
Simon looked back and forth between them. “I take it your debate did not end well.”
Alexander said wryly, “I’d say Aaron was not used to women being quite so bold and engaged as my wife was.”
Simon grinned at his lieutenant. “Ah, yes, my good monk here is not used to dealing with women unless they are washing his clothes or cooking his food at the community.”
Aaron steamed with anger. Simon slapped his back with humor. “Don’t worry, Aaron, I won’t tell any of the other men that you couldn’t handle a woman.”
Then the general turned back to Alexander. “Where is your wife?”
“She is safe in the mountains with our children.”
“Yet you remain here in danger of your life?”
“Jesus gave his life for me. The least I can do is bring his healing of both body and soul to those of this condemned city.” He would not tell the general of his plans for escape with the Christians.
Simon stared at him, impressed. “And that, my dear doctor, is why I am going to appoint some of my guard to watch over you and protect this infirmary. I thank you for your service, and I only hope to find more heretics like you who are men of such worthy character. But I am afraid my unusually silent lieutenant and I must return to my headquarters to prepare for the visitation of the Romans upon this city.”
CHAPTER 28
Jordan Valley
Cassandra held the blanket tightly around her shoulders. The night was a bit chilling for summer. But she couldn’t make a fire for fear of being discovered. The insects in the foliage around her—cicadas and crickets—blended into the sound of the Jordan River nearby to lull her into sleepiness.
She had traveled a good twenty miles through the valley on horseback already. She had done everything she could to stay concealed. The Kharabu had taught her much over the past few years. She had watched them track others and avoid being tracked. She had asked questions about safety and self-defense and had practiced in preparation for the very conflict that now consumed the Land.
She tried to console herself that she had left her children in the very capable and loving hands of the Pella congregation. She wasn’t abandoning them. She was simply leaving them with others until she returned. And Thelonius had promised he would keep a protective eye on them as well. He was staying in Pella to help guard the city in the absence of the Kharabu leaders.
Or was she just deceiving herself? For the mind is never so clever as when it is involved in the act of self-justification.
She was going to Jerusalem to find her husband. To see if he was still alive and to help him if she could. She had made a covenant in marriage to be Alexander’s helpmate in the ministry God had given him. She had no right to force that calling upon her children, to place them into that danger. Leaving them with those in safety was the most loving and motherly thing she could do to protect them.
She was walking into a den of lions, the furnace of fire. But she was no prophet of God like Daniel. Jesus had told his followers to flee Jerusalem, not to enter it. For just like the Babylonian exile, of two men in the field, one would be taken into captivity and one left. If two women were grinding at the mill, one would be taken away into exile and one left.108
Cassandra prayed, asking Yahweh to allow her to be one of those who was left behind to survive the desolation.
Or would those who were not taken simply be executed in the aftermath? If Jerusalem did not surrender, the Roman policy would be to enslave the choicest and slaughter everyone else in response to stubborn resistance.
She was ready to die, ready to give her life for the greater cause of the Gospel. She had learned such an attitude from her mentor, the apostle Paul.
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.
2 Timothy 4:6–8
She mused over the words of her old friend. Those who have loved his appearing. That appearing was at hand. The parousia, the coming of his presence.109
The end of all things was at hand. These were the last days of the old covenant, the end of the ages. The messianic age had arrived in Christ.110 Paul had declared that God’s wrath on the people and city was to be complete and “to the utmost.”111 Like the wilderness generation of old, this adulterous generation had filled up the measure of their sins.112
Her chances of surviving were not high.
She thought of the crown of righteousness laid up for her. But before she could drift off to sleep, she felt a strong hand cover her mouth from behind. She was lifted roughly from the ground in the strong arms of a dark stranger.
• • • • •
Michael and the four other archangels warmed themselves at their fire. They had made a small clearing to sleep. Raphael was in the brush guarding their perimeter.
Uriel and Gabriel were quietly debating one of their many differences of opinion.
They were interrupted by Saraqel entering their camp carrying a squirming Cassandra.
“Put me down. I can walk,” she complained.
Saraqel said, “I’m tired. I don’t want to chase you if you run.”
“I�
�m not going to run! You’re treating me like I’m the enemy.”
As Saraqel set her down, she saw the six other Kharabu staring at her.
Uriel said, “You may not be the enemy, but you didn’t do what Michael told you, and you’ve been following us like a spy.”
She gave him a sour look. “Like a spy? I was following you for safety.”
She looked to Michael for approval.
Michael approached her and said, “Cassandra, you cannot go with us to Jerusalem. We’ve told you this repeatedly. We have a mission.”
“I’m not asking for you to protect me. You just don’t understand marriage. You’re a bunch of…” She stopped herself. Michael and the others stared at her expectantly. Would she say it? They almost dared her to with their looks. But she said, “bachelor warriors” instead of “angels.”
Michael smiled at her. “Indeed we are. But may I suggest to you, Cassandra, that in your zeal for the kingdom of God, you may have misunderstood your highest calling.”
“What do you mean?” she said.
“Well, it is true that Yahweh has a special love for those who are martyred for the faith in these last days. He promises them blessing and reward. Theirs is the first resurrection. And you, like your husband, are not afraid to shed your blood for the sake of the Gospel. This is an honorable heart that you have. But I need to tell you something, Cassandra. Jesus does not want you to be a martyr.”
Her eyes became misty with sadness.
He continued, “He does not want you to die for the past. He wants you to live for the future.”
Her look of confusion began to clear up. She listened with all her heart.
Gabriel was sitting behind Michael with his hands warming in the fire. He said to her, “Remember when you and I first met on your father’s merchant ship?”
It was his first mention of such an encounter. Suddenly, she remembered as if being hit by an arrow.
All this time she had been around the Kharabu captains, and she had never recognized Gabriel as that angelic visitor on the corbita all those years ago. Now all of a sudden, she did. It was as if she had been blinded to his identity by some kind of enchantment.
But not any longer. Her eyes were opened.
She’d planned to kill herself that night. She was going to cast herself into the sea to avoid being used as a tool to hunt down other Christians. Gabriel had appeared as a shining one and stopped her.
Gabriel now said, “Do you remember what I told you then?”
“That Yahweh had a plan for me. That I was to bring salvation to many.”
“You remembered.” He smiled at her. “Now you must believe it.”
She wanted to. She had to. But she couldn’t help thinking how like a failure she had felt. Had she been pursuing a false glory in wanting to be a martyr? Accepting God’s call to be a martyr was one thing, but pursuing it for spiritual pride was another.
Michael said, “When the Son of Man ascended to David’s throne at the right hand of God, he was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages would ultimately serve him. Soon the saints of the Most High will receive that kingdom of dominion to possess it forever and ever. And the kingdom will grow by raising families to multiply and fill the earth, obey the Lord, and disciple the nations. They must be taught to observe all that he has commanded.113
“Go back now to your family. Take dominion. The time to die for the faith is over for you. Now live for the future. Build the kingdom.”
Of course. It was what Daniel had prophesied and Jesus had affirmed. The kingdom of God would start as a small stone that would take down Rome and in her the foundation of previous Gentile kingdoms that had held Israel captive—the times of the Gentiles.114 That stone would grow to fill the earth as a mountain. It would start like a small bit of leaven in a lump of dough that would eventually leaven the entire loaf.
Yes, the end of the age had arrived. But it was also the beginning of the age to come, the new Jerusalem come down out of heaven. Cassandra knew the promise Isaiah had given of the last days where the nations would be drawn to his holy mountain and they would ultimately beat their swords into plowshares.115 Those nations were flowing right now into the New Jerusalem of Christ through the Gospel that had reached all the earth.116
Cassandra was living prophecy. And she had shamefully forgotten it. She had focused on God’s judgment in these last days of the old covenant instead of the peace of God’s kingdom embodied in the new covenant. Her new life in Pella was her calling. To raise her family for the kingdom of God under the lordship of Jesus Christ.
She broke down in the weeping of repentance. She gave up her pride and her will and gave in to Yahweh’s calling. It was bittersweet because she knew she might never see her beloved Alexander again in this life. But she could see her beloved children and their life, a world transformed by the spread of the Gospel that would change their children and their children’s children.
The time to die for the faith is over for you. Now live for the future.
All the weight of the world came off of Cassandra and went onto God’s shoulders. She felt her knees get weak with surrender. It was not up to her after all. Not even her own faith. It was all a gift of God from beginning to end. And God’s kingdom would never be destroyed.117
She whispered to Michael, “I’m so tired. I need to sleep.”
“Yes, you do,” said Michael with a smile. He led her over to a blanket on the ground. “One of us will bring you back to Pella in the morning. And fear not, your husband is alive. I will get your letter to him.”
Cassandra snuggled up and fell into a sleep deeper than she had experienced for so long. After several years of running and fighting, she finally felt at rest. In the midst of the cosmos coming apart, she felt strangely at peace.
It shall come to pass in the last days
that the mountain of the house of Yahweh
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,
and many peoples shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore.
Isaiah 2:2–4
CHAPTER 29
Jerusalem
The Romans had been working for days clear-cutting all the trees within miles of the city and levelling the ground that led up to the city wall on the Mount Scopus side. They used trees, dirt, and stones to fill in gullies and ravines, creating a ramp a hundred feet wide. This would provide enough space for a sustained flow of infantry to pour into any breach they might accomplish.
Jews watched from their positions high on the walls. As their work moved closer to the wall, the legionaries creating the ramp were protected from projectiles of all kinds by large shields of timber. Further out, other soldiers were constructing hundreds of catapults, ballistas, and several siege engines in preparation for attack. Always out of range of arrows, but always within sight in order to inspire dread.
And it was working. A hundred Jews had congregated outside the walls, rejected by their fellow fighters inside the walls because they had counseled surrender to Caesar. Guards up on the walls cast aspersions and rocks down upon them as they prepared to approach the Romans to ask for clemency.
One of the Roman centurions on guard was given intelligence on this group and brought a century of soldiers to escor
t them to Roman custody.
But when they met the fleeing Jews away from the walls, the apparent refugees turned on their escort, pulling out hidden weapons.
The Romans were overtaken by the surprise and fled back to camp. Twenty of them had been killed in the trap.118
This was the story that was relayed to Titus as he looked out on the surviving legionaries who stood at attention before him.
He spoke to them, “Those Jews, whose only leader is despair, engage with forethought and intelligent strategy. While Romans, whom fortune has always favored for your discipline, now become so rash that you venture into battle without my command. By law, the punishment for such subordination is execution of every member of your squad.”119
The scolded soldiers tried to remain stoic in acceptance of their fate. The centurion who led them could produce no plea on their behalf as their leader. He’d led them into the trap, and they’d followed. The law was clear. And they all knew it.
Tiberius stepped up beside Titus and whispered to him, “Caesar, may I advise?”
Titus nodded. Tiberius said, “The battle has not even begun. The soldiers are restless and ready to fight for you. I believe they were impatient, not disobedient. You are within your rights to execute justice upon these fools. But if you kill them so early in this siege, it may work against you. It may dull the hunger for glory in the ranks.”
Titus lifted his brow in recognition of the logic. A stern general inspired the loyalty and respect of his soldiers. But a cruel one bred fear and mutiny.