Hadja withdrew and Mary called for her maid to prepare her for bed. She knew that anger and emotional disturbance tended to bring on the seizures, so with an effort she controlled herself and put all thought of the conversation with Hadja from her mind. Almost as soon as she lay down, she was asleep.
IV
A few days later Mary of Magdala was walking by the lake with Hadja when she noticed a small group of boats approaching the shore just north of Magdala. The main fishing fleet had already put ashore and the fishermen were unloading their catches, but these boats were not loaded and did not contain nets. Instead they seemed to be almost packed with men.
Mary shaded her eyes with her hand and watched the boats. “Those are not fishermen,” she said to Hadja.
“They seem to be coming from Bethsaida,” the old steward said.
“Can you tell who they are?”
“The tall man in the lead boat looks like Simon of Bethsaida,” Hadja said. “He is the leader of those who follow Jesus of Nazareth, so I imagine the Nazarene and His disciples are in the boats.”
Mary stiffened. “They will touch shore a little way from here. I will wait while you bring the Nazarene to me.”
“Jesus is at no one’s beck and call,” Hadja said. “If you want His help, you must go to Him yourself and ask it.”
“Who is He that I should beg Him for favors?” she said.
“Many believe He is the Son of God,” Hadja said simply.
With an effort Mary gained control of herself. She had no desire to bring on a seizure here in public; it would only confirm the rumor that she was possessed.
“We will go back to the house,” she said and set off at a rapid walk along the shore toward her home which was some distance up the steep slope overlooking the lake. Before she had gone far, Mary realized with rising panic that her senseless anger at a man she had never seen had already betrayed her. She could feel the familiar premonitory tenseness of her muscles, the flashes of light bursting like stars before her eyes even when she closed them in desperation. She held out her hand to Hadja, wordlessly begging him to guide her so she would not fall. She knew that if she fell the seizure would be upon her before she could rise and she would be unconscious almost immediately.
Hadja had been with his mistress through many of the attacks. He took her hand and guided her along the road as she stumbled blindly beside him, but while they were still following the shore, the boats in which Jesus and His disciples had crossed from Bethsaida grounded on the beach a little beyond them. A number of people had seen the boats approaching and as Simon Peter helped Jesus from the lead boat they crowded around Him and for the moment blocked any passage.
There was no pride in Mary now, only a desperate need to pass through and get home before the seizure reached its climax. Half-blinded by the light that blazed before her eyes even when they were closed, she clung to Hadja as he tried to lead her through the crowd. The people were thronging around Jesus, waiting to listen to His words.
“We cannot get through,” Hadja told Mary. “We must wait for the crowd to part.”
“I can’t wait!” she cried. “Get me home, Hadja!”
“Perhaps if you asked the Nazarene for help—”
“Do anything!” Mary, half-conscious, was beyond caring now, her face already drawn by the beginning of a seizure. “Only get me home.”
Half-carrying his mistress, Hadja cried out, “Make way for one possessed by seven demons!”
As the old steward had shrewdly surmised, his cry was the only one that would have opened the way. Frantically trying to get away from one who was possessed, the crowd opened a wide path for them as if they were lepers. No one wanted to be near any demons the Nazarene might exorcise from this beautiful woman in the rich silken robe who was being supported by the old man. Some recognized Mary and, having heard the rumors of her malady, scrambled away all the more desperately.
Mary did not know where she was being guided, nor did she care. Already her mouth was so drawn by the seizure that she could only moan, “Help me! Help me!” Her body was beginning to jerk in the familiar spasms.
Hadja tried to support her but he was old and not strong. She sank to her knees as they came toward Jesus, who stood on the shore listening to a question being propounded to Him by a group of men who had come to meet Him.
“Help me! Help me!” Mary sobbed blindly in her agony and her shame.
Suddenly the contractions of her muscles ceased and her mouth relaxed. Wonderingly, she opened her eyes and found that she was no longer half blind. Never before had a seizure ended so abruptly; they had always run their course and afterwards she had slept, sometimes for a whole day and a night, awaking with a feeling of exhaustion, both mental and physical.
Now it was as if nothing had happened, and strangest of all, she felt no loss of pride at finding herself on her knees before this man whose robe was of rough homespun and whose sandals were worn and patched. Slowly she raised her head until she could see His face. The eyes that looked down at her were filled with warmth and suddenly Mary felt such peace as she had never known flowing through her.
She knew that when she had cried out for help, this man had healed her of her infirmity. But He had done more than that; He had given her something else, perhaps an understanding of herself which she had never before possessed. No word passed between them and Jesus did not touch her, but Mary knew instinctively that He understood the gratitude that flooded her heart. Bowing her head, she bent forward and kissed Jesus’ feet, feeling the taste of the dust upon her lips while the tears of gratitude she had found at last poured down to wash the dust away.
An excited hum rose from the crowd as they realized that they had witnessed another miracle by the Nazarene. Mary did not resist when gentle hands raised her to her feet, or when Hadja, with his arm about her shoulders, guided her through the crowd.
Behind her she could hear one of the group around Jesus ask for a sign from heaven and His voice replying sternly, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and lowering.’ O you hypocrites! You can discern the face of the sky, but can you not discern the signs of the times? A wicked and adulterous generation seeks a sign and no sign shall be given it but the sign of the prophet Jonah.”
Some childhood memory kindled a spark in Mary. The story of Jonah and his strange adventure with the whale was a favorite of Jewish children and she had loved it as a girl. But she was sure that Jesus was referring to something else now, something she could not remember.
“What does He mean by the sign of the prophet Jonah, Hadja?” she asked.
“Jonah was sent by God into the city of Nineveh because of its great sinfulness,” he told her. “He cried out, ‘Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed.’ But the people humbled themselves and asked God to forgive them and were spared.”
“Was that why the Nazarene healed me?” Mary asked. “Because I humbled myself and begged for help?”
“He turns no one away who seeks Him,” the old man said. “In humbling yourself you repented of your greatest sin, the sin of pride.”
Mary nodded slowly, her eyes shining. “And I am not ashamed, Hadja.”
“That may be an even greater miracle than His healing you,” the old steward said. “Jesus once told His disciples, ‘He that is least among you all, the same shall be great.’ Others in high places have not been ashamed to serve Him. Why should you?”
Chapter 16
Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?
Matthew 11:3
South of the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan wound a serpentine course toward the Sea of Judgment, sometimes called the Salt Sea, through a green and fertile valley that extended at no point more than ten miles from the river itself. Heavily lade
n with mud and silt, which in times of flood was deposited upon the land, the Jordan annually replenished the fertile soil along its banks very much as did the Nile its valley in Egypt. Since ancient times the deep rifts that split the country in two here, between the Great Sea and the vast deserts of Arabia to the west, had been cultivated intensively. Irrigation canals brought water from the Jordan, and many rivers and brooks poured into it along its course, offering additional sources of life-giving water.
From the narrow strip of the Jordan Valley, the mountains rose steeply, on the east to a hilly plateau divided by four rivers. From north to south, beginning almost at the level of the southern end of the Sea of Galilee, these were the Yarmuk, the Jabbok, the Amon, and the Zered near the southern tip of the Salt. Sea.
Extending from the River Jabbok, the center of the area known since ancient times as Gilead, to the Arnon, which poured into the Sea of Judgment, was the province of Peraea, ruled over by Herod Antipas. Eastward the district bordered upon the domain of King Aretas, a frontier that had been in a state of battle almost constantly since Herod had divorced the Nabatean princess. Generally the region of Peraea was referred to by its inhabitants simply as “beyond Jordan.” At the northern end of the Salt Sea, the Jordan Valley rapidly narrowed and the mountains belonging to the ancient kingdoms of Ammon and Moab rose directly from the water. Near the River Arnon in a grim and rugged region overlooking the metallic surface of the Sea of Judgment was the lofty mountain upon which stood Herod’s palace-fortress of Machaerus. Fortified first by the ill-starred Alexander Janaaeus of the Hasmonean line, it had been greatly reinforced and enlarged by Herod the Great as a buttress against the Nabateans of the desert to the east, and had later been turned into a luxurious palace by Herod Antipas, who inherited it from his father.
Just below the summit of the mountaintop upon which the fortress stood, passages had been hewn from the solid rock leading to a number of dungeon chambers. In these it had been the custom of the Herods, both father and son, to imprison those whom they wished to remove from the face of the earth. It was here that John the Baptist was imprisoned when Herod, on the urging of Herodias, arrested him.
John’s imprisonment, though galling, could have been more unpleasant than it actually was. When he was taken from his dungeon for a daily period of fresh air in the courtyard, he could see from the mountaintop the lush area of the Jordan Valley around the fords at Bethabara where he had preached. From time to time his disciples were allowed to visit him, bringing news of the outside world. In this way, John had learned of the miracles his kinsman had been performing in Galilee and in Jerusalem.
When Jesus did not announce His identity as the Messiah, whose advent the Baptist had so confidently preached, John began to doubt. If Jesus really were the Anointed One, He would possess the power to free John himself from imprisonment. Yet he had not done so. Out of the depths of his doubt and his increasing despondence at being confined, John sent two of his disciples to Galilee to see Jesus.
“Are you He that is to come?” they asked as they had been instructed. “Or do we look for another?”
“Go and show John again those things which you hear and see,” Jesus answered. “The blind receive their sight and the lame walk. The lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear. The dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.”
Jesus knew John would understand this reference to the words of Isaiah concerning the coming of the Messiah:
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing.
By answering John’s questions with the prophecies of Isaiah, Jesus avoided the public announcement of His identity for which the agents of Herod and the representatives of the high priest could have condemned Him. He understood John’s doubt and was trying to make the Baptist understand that he would not free him from imprisonment by Herod, even though He possessed the power. For if Jesus defied Herod—and Rome—by freeing John through a miracle, He would be pitting Himself publicly against political authority; He would be choosing an earthly kingdom in which He would be in immediate conflict with Rome, rather than the spiritual kingdom He hoped to bring about in the hearts of men.
To soften this blow to John’s hopes, Jesus added to the message these words, “Blessed is he who is not offended in Me.” Knowing John would understand that the kingdom of God was more important than either of them, Jesus was strengthening him in whatever trials were to come.
His eyes still filled with sorrow because He had not been able to save one He loved from further imprisonment, Jesus spoke again to the people He had been teaching when John’s disciples questioned Him. “Come unto Me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” He told them. “Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me.” The taking on of the symbolic yoke of obedience to God’s will was a part of the regular liturgy of the Sabbath service. “I am meek and lowly and you shall find rest unto your souls, for My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
II
One of Jesus’ most conspicuous miracles had been the healing of the demoniac—the popular term used to describe those suffering from mental disease—in the synagogue at Capernaum when His ministry in the lake region was just beginning. Later He had healed many others with similar symptoms and hearing of this, the authorities in Jerusalem sought a way to condemn even His success in curing mental disorders.
A new group of tormentors was sent from Jerusalem to Galilee with instructions to spread a rumor devised in the fertile minds of the chief priests. Not being known to the people who followed Jesus from day to day, they were able to mingle with the crowds and continue to instill the subtle poison that Jesus must be possessed by the very king of devils himself, Beelzebub, and was therefore able to cast out demons through this evil power.
It was not long before the vicious rumor came to Jesus. When it did, He took forthright action by attacking the source. Calling before Him the men who had come from Jerusalem for this special purpose, He demanded, “How can Satan cast out Satan?”
The scribes were dumfounded at having their argument turned so neatly against them.
“If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand,” Jesus continued with irrefutable logic. “If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan rise up against himself and be divided, he cannot stand but is at an end.”
Although the scribes were silenced by His logic, their libel had already spread widely and continued to damage Jesus’ cause. The accusation of being in league with the devil had been a shrewd move on the part of His enemies, typical of the objections that the Pharisees, with their endless hairsplitting on religious questions, would devise.
As the fires of controversy over Jesus and His teachings became hotter, and the enmity of the religious authorities in Jerusalem more evident, Jesus’ own family pleaded with Him to keep silent on controversial questions. They came one day where He was teaching beside the Sea of Galilee, a great crowd gathered around Him as usual. They were unable to get through, but word of their presence was passed from one listener to another until it came to those nearest Jesus.
“Your mother and brethren are yonder seeking you,” He was told.
Jesus slowly surveyed the crowd. His gaze did not pause when He saw Mary of Nazareth and the other members of His family standing at the edge of the crowd; nor did He give any sign of recognition.
“My mother and My brethren are those who hear the word of God and do it,” He said quietly after a moment and went on with His teaching.
Whenever Jesus taught the crowds, a number of devout women who followed Him to minister to His comfort remained at the edge of the gathering. Today Mary Magdalene, Joanna the wife of Chuza whose son had been healed by Jesus early in His ministry, and another woman named Susanna, together w
ith several others, were waiting there. They had seen Jesus’ family at the edge of the crowd but had not recognized them until their presence was pointed out to Jesus. When He spoke the words meant to show that His concern must now be always for the large family of sinners whom He sought to bring into His kingdom, Mary Magdalene sensed that they did not understand and were hurt by what He had said.
A few months ago she would, in their place, have felt the same hurt, for she had been proud then and unsure of herself, but everything had changed since the morning on the shore just outside of Magdala. Her talent for leadership and the greatness of her heart had made her the leader of the women who served Him. Seeing His mother and the others moving away now from the crowd, she hurried to catch up with them and touched Mary of Nazareth on the shoulder.
“The mother and family of my Lord are always welcome at my house,” she said. “I am called Mary of Magdala.”
Mary raised dull eyes to meet the younger woman’s gaze. “You heard Him,” she said. “He has rejected those who love Him.”
“You must not feel that way,” Mary protested.
“How else should we feel?” A stocky man who had been supporting Jesus’ mother with his arm about her shoulder asked harshly. It was James, the next oldest brother.
“You should feel proud,” Mary told him. “Proud that one with so much to give to the world lived in your house for thirty years.”
James had never forgiven Jesus for leaving him to maintain the family. “What does He give but strife and discord?” he demanded. “Our neighbors shun us because they say one of us is now an agent of Beelzebub. The agents of Herod watch the house constantly, hoping Jesus will come home so that they can arrest Him. And now He has shamed us before the multitude.”
Mary Magdalene turned to Jesus’ mother. “You bore Him in your body,” she said softly. “Surely you know who He is.”
The Crown and the Cross: The Life of Christ Page 17