Magdalene

by Angela Hunt

  My heart lightened as we joined hundreds of other pilgrims on the road to Mt. Zion. Though we were not ready to strike against Rome, Yeshua needed to enlist the religious leaders in our cause, and most of them lived in the holy city. How could we expect to defeat Rome unless our people united?

  We traveled in groups of four and five, and Yeshua walked with his head covered so he would not be recognized. Hundreds of pilgrims filled the roads, traveling by donkey, camel, chariot, wagon, and on foot. As we walked, we sang the psalms of ascent: “How deeply loved are your dwelling-places, ADONAI-Tzva’ot! … Happy are those who are strong in ADONAI, who set their minds on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem …”

  I had never felt such anticipation. We’d heard, of course, that certain misguided religious authorities were plotting Yeshua’s death, but I was convinced they would join our cause once they’d had a chance to hear our rabboni’s message.

  I walked past a Roman legionnaire on the road and met his smirking expression with a steely gaze. Why should I cower before him? Victory was almost within our grasp.

  * * *

  Yeshua was the talk of the city when we reached Jerusalem. Some called him a prophet and a wise teacher; others insisted he was a deceiver and a fraud.

  I was hoping Yeshua would court the religious leaders privately, meeting with them under cover of darkness as he had previously met with Nicodemus, an important leader of the Pharisees. I was on my way to speak to Judas about housing when Yeshua began to walk toward the temple mount.

  A wave of apprehension swept through me as I hurried after him. Why had he slipped quietly into Jerusalem if he intended to address the festival crowds?

  By the time I caught up, Yeshua had crossed the bridge that led to the Royal Porch. Moving as quickly as the mob would allow, I walked over the Royal Porch and followed Yeshua into the Court of the Gentiles.

  That court, which any reverent person may enter, teemed with life. Money changers sat at tables; herdsmen offered goats, lambs, oxen, and pigeons for sale. I strode through the stench and clamor of that bustling space and paused only an instant before the marble tablets which warned Gentiles, on pain of death, not to proceed farther.

  Yeshua had proceeded into the Court of the Women, so-called because it was the farthest point a woman could venture. Ducking my head, I climbed the steps to that court and stood on the raised gallery that ran along three sides of the rectangular chamber.

  I looked down on the hubbub and searched for Yeshua. Finally, I spotted him standing beside one of the thirteen trumpet-shaped chests designated for charitable contributions and the required temple-tribute. He opened his arms and taught those who were willing to listen. Several priests stood at the edge of the crowd, their eyes scanning the assembly as they pretended not to listen to our rabboni.

  “I haven’t been teaching my own ideas,” Yeshua was saying, “but those of Him who sent me. If any man will do his will, he will know whether my teaching is from the Holy One or is merely my own. Those who present their own ideas are looking for praise for themselves, but those who seek to honor the one who sent them are good and genuine.”

  “What about your disciples?” one of the priests shouted. “They don’t observe the Shabbat or obey the Law of Moses!”

  Yeshua’s eyes blazed with sudden anger. “None of you obeys the Law of Moses! In fact, you are trying to kill me.”

  The group released a collective gasp, then voices wrapped about Yeshua like water around a rock. When one of the priests accused him of being demon possessed, I wondered why these people couldn’t accept what had been obvious to me from the day I met Yeshua: the Holy One had sent him to deliver us from the Romans. He had to be our Messiah.

  A woman tugged at my sleeve. “Is that the man they are trying to kill?” She pointed at my rabboni. “Why do they hate him?”

  “Do you think,” another woman asked, “he could be the Messiah?”

  “What do you think?” I answered, looking from one woman to the other. “Would you expect the Messiah to do more miraculous signs and wonders than he has done?”

  The tinny sound of distant trumpets interrupted us. It was the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles, and we had entered the temple in the midst of a beloved ritual. To commemorate Moses’ drawing water from the rock at Horeb, on the first morning of the Festival of Tabernacles and every morning thereafter, a cohanim, or priest, carried a large golden jug from the temple mount to the spring of Siloam. Surrounded by worshippers, he drew water from the pool, then returned to the temple and walked into the inner court.

  I lifted my gaze in time to see the priest approach the altar with the golden ewer in his grasp. Behind him, a procession of priests carried willow branches and chanted the closing verses of the Hallel:

  “ADONAI, please save us! ADONAI, please prosper us!

  Blessed is he who comes in the name of ADONAI!

  We have blessed you out of the house of ADONAI.

  God is ADONAI, and he has given us light.”

  Around the altar, sages juggled lighted torches while acrobats performed somersaults. The joyous ritual, known as Simchat Beit-HaSho’evah, culminated as the priest poured the water over the altar, washing away the blood of the morning sacrifices.

  As the last of the water trickled into the font, I looked from the spectacle to Yeshua’s face … and saw that the observance had made him smile, but with a distracted, inward look, as though he were listening to something only he could hear.

  What was he thinking?

  I understood his need to speak in riddles—with so many Roman soldiers sprinkled throughout the Court of the Gentiles, he could not speak openly of messiahs and revolt and sedition.

  Yeshua strode through the Court of the Women, then stood at the top of the steps and opened his arms to the mob in the Court of the Gentiles. “If you are thirsty, come to me! If you believe in me, come and drink! For the Scriptures declare that rivers of living water will flow out from within.”

  His words resonated within me, and doubtless with every worshipper who heard him. As other priests blew the ceremonial trumpets at the conclusion of the water ritual, a choir of priests chanted the words of Isaiah: “Then you will joyfully draw water from the springs of yeshua.”

  Yes … yeshua means salvation. And in that moment, some of us understood. The cohanim had been prophesying of our rabboni for years, and here he was, proclaiming himself the source of cleansing, living water.

  But not everyone accepted his teaching. As my eyes scanned the congregation, I saw Yeshua’s brother, James. He stood among the pilgrims, his eyes fastened to Yeshua’s face, his brows pulled into an affronted frown.

  As the crowd began to disperse, I heard reactions to Yeshua’s comment. Some declared, “This surely is the prophet Moses spoke of.” Others wondered how he could be the Messiah from the royal line of David if his lineage didn’t fit the ancient prophecy. The Scriptures said our Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, yet most people knew Yeshua came from Natzeret.

  My rabboni stopped smiling when the temple guards, usually posted at the gates, surged toward him. My heart nearly stopped beating.

  The guards halted before reaching Yeshua, though they kept wary eyes on him as he continued to speak. Scarcely able to breathe in the tense atmosphere, I slipped from the gallery and wandered back into the Court of the Gentiles. After a while, the guards drifted back to their posts, but the tension in the air remained.

  I was about to search for Salome and Joanna when I heard one of the Pharisees accost a temple guard: “Why didn’t you arrest him? You’re the captain, you should have taken action!”

  “I have never heard anyone talk like that,” the guard answered. “He said nothing wrong.”

  “Have you been led astray, too?” Fire gleamed in the Pharisee’s eye. “Does a single one of us rulers or Pharisees believe in him? The crowds do, but what do they know about anything? A curse on their ignorant souls!”

  I caught my breath as Nicodemus, the tall man w
ho had sought a private meeting with Yeshua on one of our previous visits to Jerusalem, stepped forward and lifted a hand. “Caution, my friend. Is it legal to convict a man before he is given a hearing?”

  The other Pharisee snapped back at him: “Are you from Galil, too? Search the Scriptures and see for yourself—no prophet ever comes from Galil!”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Atticus did not need to be reminded of Jewish stubbornness. He’d seen evidence of it on an afternoon when his cohort had been stationed in Jerusalem for yet another religious festival. Flavius had entered the barracks with his hand on his sword and his cheeks flaming.

  At the sight of his friends’ heightened color, Atticus straightened on his stool. “What’s wrong?”

  Flavius released a stream of particularly colorful curses, then punctuated his exclamation by kicking an empty trunk. “Caesar should round up the lot of them! Use half of them for sport in the arena and sell the other half as slaves. That way they’d be doing the empire at least a little good!”

  Atticus blinked. “Who?”

  “The Jews.” Flavius exhaled heavily, his nostrils flaring. “One of them had the gall to spit on me as I rode beneath a bridge. To spit!”

  “Why didn’t you arrest the man?”

  Flavius’s nostrils flared again. “I couldn’t. The bridge was crowded with them, all jabbering and pointing and jeering. I’d have taken them all in, but by the time I could send men up to the bridge, they’d be long gone. They’re like rats; they can vanish into the woodwork when it suits them.”

  Atticus pointed to an empty stool. “Sit down. Relax. This isn’t the first time you’ve been spat on, and it probably won’t be the last.”

  Flavius sat, his hands curling around the throat of an invisible opponent. “I’d like to find that weasly little Jew and strangle the breath out of him. Why don’t these Hebrews act like ordinary people? Like Romans?”

  Atticus felt a half-smile cross his face. “Well … perhaps it’s because they’re not.”

  Flavius ignored the comment. “Will we have to whip every one of them? They’re conquered. It’s about time they realized it.”

  “I’m not sure you or I would realize it if we were conquered by a superior army,” Atticus remarked, pulling a polishing cloth from beneath his mattress. He withdrew his sword from its sheath, then ran the cloth along the sharp edge. “We would fight until the end, wouldn’t we?”

  Flavius scowled. “Fight, yes, with my dying breath. But these Jews don’t fight. They argue. They withdraw into their silly rules and religious traditions. They play politics, and―” he glanced right and left, then lowered his voice—“you know there’s nothing dirtier than a man who plays politics.”

  Atticus tilted his head, conceding the point. “I’ve heard,” he said, taking pains to keep a pleasant note in his voice, “that most of the Jews don’t fight because they are waiting for their God. Apparently he has promised to fight for them.”

  Flavius’s expression changed as his anger shifted to surprise. “How can anyone possibly believe that? Look at them—conquered, scattered, entire villages hungry and poor―”

  “Even so, they believe. And if the Roman army hasn’t been able to shake their faith, I doubt our cohort can do it.”

  Flavius snorted. “Fools, that’s what they are. Any race that would follow an invisible God who leads his people into defeat—well, they deserve whatever happens to them.”

  Atticus held his sword up to the light, studying the long, sharpened edge. “Despite everything, they believe. So they might be foolishly stubborn … or they might be courageously faithful.” He cocked a brow. “Though Caesar reigns here, these people are far from defeated. Until they bow in submission, how can we decide which they are?”

  Annoyance struggled with frustration on Flavius’s broad-boned face as he glared across the distance between them. “You’ve been too long in this province, my friend. These people have addled your brain.”

  Atticus slipped his sword back into its sheath. “I’ll admit they can be trying. But they can also be . . . interesting.”

  Flavius rose, shaking his head. “I’m headed to the baths. I’d like to wash every last trace of this crazy place from my skin.”

  Atticus said nothing as he watched his friend go, then he leaned forward and propped his hands on his knees. Flavius was right; the people of this place had affected him deeply. But a bath wouldn’t help, for there was no way he could wash the imprint of Israel from his heart.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  I gained a daughter shortly after we left Jerusalem. We entered the region of Galil and I returned Hadassah to Uriah, but her father would not forgive her for leaving without his permission. Though she humbled herself and begged his pardon, Uriah glared at me and declared that Hadassah had exceeded the bounds of forgiveness. If she wanted to follow a prophet who associated with fallen women and ate with publicans, she would no longer be his daughter.

  And so she became mine. As we left Uriah’s courtyard, I put my arm around the weeping girl and looked back at the house. Uriah stood in the doorway, his red face set in anger, but Yudit stood in the window, tears glistening on her lined face.

  Our eyes met and caught and a promise was given and received. “Don’t weep, dear one,” I said, speaking as much to Yudit as to the girl in my arms. “You once said that you would be my family, do you remember? Now I will be yours.”

  Hadassah sniffed and nodded, but I knew she would mourn the loss of her loved ones. I would try to comfort her, but I knew some griefs could not be assuaged.

  As I entered my third year of working for our rabboni, I sensed that our movement had begun to stagnate. We made little progress, Yeshua often looked weary, and tensions among the twelve increased. Everyone sensed that Yeshua needed to act soon, but I did not believe we were ready.

  For one thing, Yeshua had not recruited an army. He had followers in nearly every town around Galilee, including several Gentile settlements, but he had done nothing to establish military authority or train skilled soldiers. I had always assumed that the twelve would become the commanders of his army, but even Peter, James, and John, Yeshua’s closest friends, did not exhibit the sort of discipline necessary to lead an advance against Rome.

  Tension thrived even among us women. Miryam, wife to Zebedee and mother to James and John, waited until after dinner one evening, then knelt respectfully before Yeshua. Like the others cleaning up, I would have been oblivious, but Hadassah saw her and gave me a hard elbow in the ribs.

  I turned, my arms filled with empty bread bowls, and stared as Zebedee’s wife asked if her sons could sit in places of honor once Yeshua had established his kingdom. “It would bring me great pleasure,” she said, pressing one hand to her breast in exaggerated humility, “to know my sons sat at your right and left hand.”

  I sputtered wordlessly as Yeshua turned to James and John, our so-called “sons of thunder.” He studied them intently, then he asked if they were able to drink from the bitter cup of sorrow he was about to drink.

  “Oh, yes,” they answered, nodding. “We are able!”

  A tinge of sadness filled Yeshua’s eyes. “You will indeed drink from it, but I have no right to say who will sit on the thrones next to mine. My Father has prepared those places for the ones he has chosen.”

  Zebedee’s Miryam rose with an abashed look on her face, and I glared as she scooped up a basket of leftover fruit and scurried toward the door. I wasn’t offended because she wanted to promote her sons—well, perhaps I was—but rather because her sons had done nothing to prepare for the coming revolution. Peter had at least purchased a sword, but James and John seemed content to wander throughout the countryside as if the victory could be won with singing and persuasive teaching.

  Even more disturbing was another recent development. Yeshua did not always speak openly; sometimes he took the twelve apart and spoke to them about his plans. After one of these private meetings, I caught Peter looking through ou
r supplies, probably trying to find something to eat.

  I pulled a small fruit loaf from a basket, but hesitated before giving it to him. Shadows filled the usually optimistic fisherman’s eyes.

  “Peter?” I lowered my voice. “What’s wrong?”

  He glanced about to be sure no one could overhear. “Yeshua told us he would soon suffer many things. He said he would be rejected by the cohanim and Torah-teachers. He said they would kill him.”

  I almost laughed aloud. How could they kill a prophet with Yeshua’s power? But, respecting the worry in Peter’s eyes, I nodded in sympathy. “Surely you misunderstood him.”

  “I thought I did. I pulled Yeshua aside and told him he shouldn’t say things like that. But he looked at me and said―” Peter hesitated, his eyes filling with distress.

  “He said what?”

  “He said, ‘Get away from me, Satan!’ I stepped back, not understanding how he could say such a thing to me, of all people …”

  I pressed my fingers to my lips and searched Peter’s eyes. This man was close to Yeshua, closer than anyone but John, yet in many ways Peter resembled an over-active child. He must have done something to annoy our rabboni, something he left out of the story … I patted his shoulder as a mother comforts a son. “I’m sure Yeshua meant nothing by that comment, Peter. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Do you think he will die?”

  “I think he was testing your commitment. Are you willing to follow him even if the odds are stacked against us? If you are, then you are also ready to follow him to victory.”

  Peter looked at me with something like relief in his eyes. “I hope you’re right.”

  “Of course I am. Do you really think Yeshua would be foolish enough to fall into a trap?” I laughed. “Not even my Yaakov, he of blessed memory and a simple nature, was so guillible.”