Anna stood in a bookstore, barely able to believe her eyes. There, spread wide on a special display shelf near the entrance, were copies of a hardback publication produced by a major scientific organization and distributed by a major New York publisher. The title mocked her:
Heresy: The Confessions of the Apostles
She picked up a copy, shaking her head in disbelief as she thumbed through it. There for all the world to see, in exquisite detail, were all the papyri she and Dyson had found. Line-by-line translations of all thirteen leaves were there, running along the margins. Accompanying body text presented a simplistic account of their discovery, while omitting the involvement of Raphael or any of the other more unscrupulous persons involved.
She thought back over the months since they had made the find.
What we’ve lost is immeasurable!
But the devastation didn’t end there … around her.
What I’ve lost! She recalled the auction the previous month when the original leaves of the second trove had been placed for bid. They had made world headlines, promoted by a giddy atheist organization as “the words that finally brought Christ to his knees.”
They had sold for millions.
Anna and Mercer, upon learning of the upcoming book she now held in her hands, had fought against the first trove being included in its pages. For months they had tried to convince first the museum curator in Milan and then the Italian government to keep them hidden away, that at least in this one small way they might keep the damage from being total. But they had been overruled, due largely to the promised licensing and royalty fees and the number of zeros flashed before the eyes of the officials making the decision.
She, her students, Mercer, and the hired scientists in Switzerland had all been offered generous fees for writing their own accounts of the finding and analysis of the scrolls, as had anyone closely associated with the find. Anna, her students, and the dean had turned the offer down flat. The others, of course, had been all too happy to tell their stories.
Flipping through the book, she came upon the smaller individual leaves that had accompanied each trove, the treasure maps in each box telling where the other was located. She looked at them, studying the small diagrams as she had so many times when looking at the original formerly in her possession. She tried to imagine the hand that had drawn them, the author of each leaf, who so long ago had created a heartbreaking tragedy with a very, very long fuse.
Who were you?
She couldn’t bring herself to imagine Paul himself sitting down and penning the things. Even if it was only wishful thinking, she still had far too much respect for him to believe he could have—or would have—done such a thing.
Why not just take the secret to your graves?
Her sorrow weighed heavily within her. Try as she might, she had been unable to convince herself that the entire thing hadn’t been her fault. It had colored everything she had done, everything she had thought, every choice she had made since.
When a dozen universities around the world had come to her offering lucrative new positions, she had turned them all down.
I’ve done enough damage.
Her sister had implored her to reconsider, emphasizing the bright new start she would find in a new place, with new people. Anna, however, had been immovable in her decision.
I’m not destroying anyone else’s name.
“I should have burned them the moment I laid eyes on them,” she whispered to herself. “The past should stay buried. It’s like a disease … infecting the present and destroying the future.”
She considered the book in her hands, her mind falling back to a question she had never been able to answer. She flipped to the double-page spread depicting the so-called confession of Peter, and as she yet again read its perfect Greek, her ire rose.
Who leaked this in the first place? How did it get out of the lab?
There had been only one answer.
Raphael.
How many other antiquities are you going to steal from their rightful owners? How much more pain are you going to inflict?
She thought of the bullet scar on the front of Dyson’s shoulder, still an angry pink, but healing.
Oh, Jack …
She thought of him. Of that first kiss. And of the many that had followed. She allowed herself the barest of smiles.
She had worked hard the last few months to put the past behind her, the pain, the guilt, the grief. She had walked away from her old life, her old school, her old responsibilities. A new apartment in a new town had helped alleviate the pressure of accusing eyes, but in its place a new loneliness had built as she avoided unnecessary contact with those around her. Her savings, consisting largely of the life-insurance settlement she had received following the deaths of her parents, had provided a measure of financial security so she wouldn’t have to seek employment for some time. Given time to think and reflect, she was beginning to learn to let go, to put herself first, to realize there are things beyond one’s control. She had almost convinced herself of it.
Almost.
Maybe I’ll go back to teaching history somewhere, she allowed. Someday.
Anna placed the book back on the shelf. Even as she had stood there, two had sold.
How ironic, she mused, and how typical of us. The number-one Christmas gift this year is a book denouncing Christ as a fraud. Who would ever have believed such a thing could happen?
She walked the mall, knowing she no longer lived in the same world. This one was cold. Hollow. Joyless. Meaningless.
She sighed, a prayer drifting from her mind with no real destination.
If only you existed …
She passed the shop windows, finding no warmth in the gleaming tinsel and colorful ornaments that lined them. Clothing and electronics, jewelry and accessories, none held any appeal.
An empty holiday for an empty world.
She had seen quite enough for one day, and her feet were crying out for relief. She tried to remember where she had parked her car.
Did I park outside Creighton’s? Or was it …
She paused, deciding she had gone the wrong way. She turned and headed up the opposite side of the mall, trying to remember.
And then she noticed something in the window of a trinket shop, on a clearance shelf. The object was resting in a cradle of molded acrylic, its color unmistakable. Its mottling unique.
A small oval piece of red stone, about five inches in diameter.
Travertine.
One whole side had been polished mirror flat, and into this, in flowing script, was engraved in silver a verse from Proverbs: Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.
Anna’s breath caught. Her heart leaped. She rushed into the store, reached down, and held the stone in her hands. She clutched it to her heart, praying a silent thanksgiving.
“Can I help you?” a young salesclerk asked as he approached.
“I think perhaps someone just did,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Where did you get this?”
He shrugged. “I don’t remember seeing it before.”
She paid for the stone. The clerk wrapped it and its display stand in white tissue and dropped them into a small bag.
“No returns on clearance items,” he informed her. “Happy Holidays.”
“Merry Christmas!” she replied with a smile as she left.
The overcast sky grew dark. The biting wind intensified, its teeth sinking into all who had dared venture outside, sparing nothing and no one. Strings of colored lights swayed upon the eaves of homes, dotting the barren December landscape with splashes of pointless color.
Anna drove along, headed home. She would be receiving a call from Jack that night—he had promised.
I did so want to be with you a
t Christmas, she sighed.
She drove through the wooded countryside, the darkness all around her more than mere night. It seemed oppressive, heavy. The cold was dense, seeping in through every crack and crevice, trying to reach her. Feeling uneasy, she switched on the radio, hoping a carol or two might warm her spirits.
“—and we have long maintained just such as this,” came a voice, tinged with the sound of a Hebraic upbringing. “Jesus, yes, did walk the streets of Jerusalem, but as a great moral teacher, not as the Son of God.”
“But if he was lying about being deity,” the host asked, “how could he have been a moral teacher? Would a man like this lie about such a crucial issue?”
“He never said he was deity,” the rabbi insisted.
“Oh yes he did,” Anna argued. “When the high priest asked him, ‘Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One,’ he answered, ‘I am.’ But I forgot … We’ve tossed out the New Testament …”
“… thus, you can’t lend the New Testament any credence,” continued the rabbi. “It’s now been proven false …”
“Figures,” Anna moaned.
“… and I must say I want to thank Dr. Anna Meridian for finally putting this issue to rest,” the rabbi went on.
“Don’t thank me,” Anna said.
“God’s truth always triumphs,” he promised. “And thanks to Dr. Meridian, the whole world now sees that we—”
She shut off the radio. The silence now seemed a comfort.
Snow began to fall. It glowed in the beams of her headlights, large flakes obscuring her view ahead. She slowed as the fall became heavier, wary of the deep ditches on either side of the street. As white obscured the woods around her and she began to lose sight of the road, she decided it might be a good idea to pull over somewhere, to get indoors and wait it out.
A light was shining ahead. As she drew near, a simple roadside sign appeared, which read Faith Bible Church—Unto Us a Child Is Born.
The building behind it was a small one, not too unlike the church in which Anna had been raised. Its steeple soared into the dark sky, vanishing amid the flurry and fog. Its snow-tinged roof and open shutters, all black, contrasted with its white clapboard siding. Warm light glowed from behind frost-veiled window glass. Smoke rose from a chimney and was swept immediately aside.
Anna pulled off the road into the parking lot gravel crunching beneath her tires as she came to a stop. She emerged from the car, hefted the strap of her purse over a shoulder, and glanced around as she shut the door.
She didn’t notice that her phone had slipped from her purse onto the front seat.
Less than a dozen other vehicles surrounded her own. The wind had grown much colder since the mall, and more fierce, causing her to flip up the collar of her coat and hold it tight around her face. She made for the church entrance, the footing treacherous in high heels.
A sign above the door read Welcome, Stranger.
She climbed the wooden steps, pulled on the old brass handle, and entered. Inside the tiny vestibule, she found the air warm and filled with the fragrance of baking bread. Flowers in vases rested on a modest walnut table to one side. The door to the sanctuary was open, and a voice came from within.
She went in, taking a seat on a pew near the back. Few people were there, fewer than twenty, she estimated. One little girl several rows ahead turned to look at her, a lingering glance. She returned Anna’s smile.
The pastor was an elderly man, fragile and gray, clad in a shirt and tie. He used no microphone, as far as Anna could tell. His voice was that of a much younger man, strong and vibrant.
“Jesus cannot be quantified,” he said, “or measured, or captured in a laboratory. We do not need science to prove to us that we love our children. We do not need science to tell us our parents are real, or our wives, or our husbands. We know these things are true because we have experienced their lives in our own, every hour of every day … teaching us lovingly, touching us deeply, making us who we are. And those of us who are of the body of Christ experience our Shepherd and Lord every bit as vividly and every bit as surely. Yes, our faith is based first in fact, and that fact is sure, despite what some would now have us believe. But we also know Christ … We do not simply know of him.
“Those who speak of Jesus Christ as but a figure of history do not know him. They do not understand that he is as real and alive as any living person, speaking to us through his word today, in the present, as surely as we speak to each other. He is not just a figure of the past, like Christopher Columbus, or Abraham Lincoln, or even Moses …”
Anna smiled, delighting in every syllable. Sound doctrine … How long has it been since I’ve heard it?
“We know Christ lives. We know he rose from the dead, appeared to his disciples, and for forty days went among the people that all might see for themselves that he had conquered death. He did not leave them without evidence, and while we do not need the proof the world might demand, he has not left us without it. We have not seen his face with our own eyes or placed our hands into his wounds as did Thomas, but we know as surely as we know each other that he lives today. The noted Harvard Law School Professor Dr. Simon Greenleaf once stated that there is more solid historical and reasoned proof for the resurrection of Christ, as would be presented in a court of law, than for most of the unquestioned events of human history. Any fair and impartial jury, he asserted, would conclude based only on the evidence that Jesus indeed rose from the dead, just as the Gospels tell us. And no one ever doubts whether Cleopatra sailed the Nile.
“My friends, he was raised by the Father and is alive. Through Christ, God stepped down out of that unimaginable, timeless realm beyond our own and became a man, entering the finite sphere he had created for us. He took on physical form and walked among us, and through death and resurrection was raised incorruptible, the firstfruits of us all. And so shall we be raised on that last, great day.”
Anna listened, her eyes glistening.
The sermon ended. The gathered families rose, exchanged pleasant words, handshakes, and hugs, and moved toward the front of the small chapel where pies, cakes, and other refreshments waited.
Anna stood, smoothed her dress, and gently made her way up the outside aisle. The pastor, speaking with a young man, noticed her approach and paused to point him toward the dessert table. As she neared, the old gentleman was standing alone.
“Good evening,” she said.
“Welcome, my dear,” he said. “I’d guess life for you hasn’t been easy of late.”
Anna was surprised. “You know who I am?”
“Yes, Dr. Meridian.”
“From the news,” she surmised. “Of course.”
“Perhaps.”
“This whole thing has haunted me,” she said. “I’ve felt terrible for what I’ve done to the world.”
“Don’t,” he said with a comforting smile. “What has happened, had to be. And you have been greatly blessed, Anna.”
“I don’t feel blessed,” she confessed. “I’m not even sure I believe anymore. A little while ago, earlier tonight, I found something that could be a sign, but—”
“Few of us are called upon so, my dear. Yours is a special part, set aside only for you. Be thankful.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will.” He laid a hand on her shoulder. “The harvest is coming.”
She looked into his soft eyes, wondering.
“What brought you to us tonight?” he asked.
“The snow,” she said. “I came in to get out of it.”
“Snow?” he asked.
“Oh yes,” she said. “It’s really coming down. I was lucky to get here. We may be stranded.”
“Oh dear.”
He went to a window and looked out. She followed.
The snow had stopped, leav
ing behind but a light dusting.
“But it was so much worse than this,” she said, confused. “I could barely see. I’ve been in so many snowstorms … It was a bad one.”
He smiled kindly. “Quite often, when in the midst of a storm, things seem worse than they are.”
“Yes, but …” She pondered his words, pausing before she spoke again. “You’re a good shepherd. These people are privileged to have you.”
“There are many wolves. These few are my flock, entrusted to me. Many who were among us have left … These remain. It’s my job to see them safely home.”
“That’s beautiful,” she said, smiling.
“You’re welcome here anytime, Anna.”
“Thank you, Reverend.”
He took her hand, silently thanked her, and went to the others. Her brow furrowed, she turned and looked outside again.
“I just don’t understand …”
Mystified, she made her way toward the door. As she pulled her keys from her purse, she noticed a man in the back row, right where she herself had been sitting. He wore old clothes, long out of fashion—a gray suit with a fedora. Its wide brim obscured the upper part of his face. As she walked past, watching him, he subtly tipped his hat and gave her a pleasant smile. Anna, strangely drawn, smiled back.
Again, the comforting scent of warm bread hung in the air.
She went outside. The air seemed not as cold, not as harsh. The world smelled new.
She reached for the door of her car, pausing as it opened, noting only then that the man had followed her outside.
“Lovely night,” he remarked from a short distance opposite her.
“Yes,” she agreed.
“God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God,” the man said, “to those who are called according to His purpose.”
Puzzled, Anna looked at him.
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