Empire's End

  “You’re a scholar, Rabbi. If you still study I could show you how Jesus is the Messiah we’ve awaited for so long.”

  He held up both palms. “I’m familiar with what The Way believes. You taught me years ago, remember?”

  “That was before I knew it was true.”

  “And now you know it’s true.”

  “Beyond doubt.”

  “How nice for you. All I want to know, Saul, is who delivered that stallion back here from Damascus.”

  I smiled at him as kindly as I could muster. “My old friend, if you don’t care to consider the evidence that Jesus is the Messiah, you’d never believe me about the horse.”

  “Try me.”

  “Let me just say he came from a lot farther than Damascus.”

  Nathanael shrugged. “Your men did say he was still there when they left, and they wouldn’t have given a drachma for his chances. Or yours for that matter. I heard you’d gone blind.”

  “The horse returned from Yanbu by himself.”

  Nathanael went rigid. As crisp and lucid as he had been, he abruptly sounded as if he needed to clear his throat. “By himself, you say?”

  I nodded.

  “Yanbu in Arabia?”

  “Yes, you know it?”

  “I’ve heard of it.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  And suddenly I knew why the Lord, through His brother James, had led me here. “Sure you do. That’s where you thought the Romans had finally caught up to me.” No wonder he thought he’d never see me again.

  He affected a look of incomprehension and shook his head.

  I stood. “Well, I just came to urge you to study the messianic prophecies.”

  Nathanael seemed to have somehow gathered himself and remained seated. “Few are as learned in the prophecies as I.”

  “Oh, I know. The Lord healed my blindness—but no man is so blind as he who will not see.”

  I left before he had a chance to respond and hurried to see Nicodemus in the subterranean hollows where the council members prayed or studied in private. The old man peered about to be sure no one else was within our hearing, then pulled me inside. “Gamaliel will join us in a few minutes,” he said.

  “Excellent.”

  “You know I have been persona non grata within the council since my sympathies toward the Lord were made manifest after His death.”

  “I apologize for my role in their attitude toward you, Rabbi.”

  “You knew no better, but I pray what I have been hearing about you is true.”

  “If it is that I now preach Christ, it is true.”

  “Praise God! But it is more than just a rumor here. You are not safe. You cannot leave today the way you came.”

  “What do you suggest, sir? I worked here a long time. The secret exits are known to those who would mean me harm.”

  “Gamaliel and I and a few of the others have learned to be creative.”

  “Gamaliel was always a voice of reason, but he is fully a Christ follower now?”

  “He can speak for himself.”

  I felt my old rabbi’s hands on my shoulders and turned to greet him. “Master, I owe you so many apologies, I don’t know where to begin.”

  “You were following your conscience, my son. Let us leave it all in the past. Now we must get you out of here.”

  Nicodemus pulled from behind a cabinet a cloth bag containing a thick, dark, hooded robe. “With this you won’t need a secret passageway. Leave it with one of the brethren and they’ll get it back to us eventually.”

  I pulled it on over my clothes and even over my bag. It was nearly a foot too long so I gathered it at the waist and tucked the material under a braided sash. “How is it you two have survived?”

  “To my shame,” Nicodemus said, “my wealth has made me visible enough that if anything happened to me, the public would know. And Gamaliel has been able to maintain his aura of wise neutrality, so these scholars—educated beyond their intelligence—still have not gathered that he has taken a position opposed to theirs.”

  “Brilliant.”

  I told them of my joust with Nathanael and asked if the Roman raid on Yanbu was common knowledge among the council. “I’m afraid so,” Nicodemus said. “But the rumor about you was mystifying. Everyone knew you had disappeared, but some thought you had been reassigned. Others heard that you had converted. But when news of the attack emerged, some caught wind that you had been the target, while most thought it was just another foray against a faction of The Way.”

  “I don’t know where I’ll go from here,” I said, “but I’ll be gone from Jerusalem in a week. Do you know Barnabas among the brethren?”

  “Of course,” Gamaliel said.

  “Everyone knows him,” Nicodemus said.

  “If either of you ever happen to become aware of the location of General Decimus Calidius Balbus, who led the assault on Yanbu, could you get it to Barnabas for me?”

  “Certainly,” Nicodemus said.

  “Now go,” Gamaliel said, and the two walked me toward a flight of stone stairs. “Just cover your head and look to neither side until you are far from the Mount. And beware, because much of the council remains in league with the Freedmen.”

  “Peter has assigned me to the Hellenists.”

  “He has assigned you to certain death, Saul.”

  “It’s Paul now, Rabbi.”

  We three embraced, and Nicodemus said, “Go in peace with the risen Christ.”

  Somehow I knew I would never be mature enough to perfectly rest in the Lord and trust that He knew best. That seems a logical place to reach if one simply acknowledges that the One who created heaven and earth and mankind is Lord of all. But though He had clearly told me the number of my days in Jerusalem, as the time drew to a close, I actually began to wonder if God had got it wrong.

  Perhaps it was the quality of Barnabas’ gift of encouragement that made me prize too highly the progress we seemed to be making with the Hellenists. These were bright, incisive thinkers. Snakes, no doubt, but interesting, exciting men with whom to debate and argue. It seemed they actually listened and heard my arguments. And because God had chosen me for the very reasons that I was educated and erudite, a Roman citizen, a Pharisee and Greek, my old nature reared its ugly head as it was so often wont to do. I began to see myself as important to the potential spiritual development and maturation of these people. The Hellenists had possibilities. God needed me to win them to His cause!

  How good it was to feel necessary. The very danger He predicted for me I found invigorating. I was traveling easily in and out of Jerusalem, speaking boldly, arguing vociferously, preaching Christ, following my calling, and—while I didn’t feel particularly persecuted, as I expected I might and was certainly willing to be—I could only praise God that He had prepared me the for the task to which He had called me.

  After the fourteenth night of my visit, Barnabas had been particularly encouraging and, I felt, rightly so. The leaders of the Hellenists had been so taken with the stimulating nature of the deliberations that evening that they suggested a more ambitious venue for the next meeting. If Barnabas and I could come deeper into the Hellenist sector, they would arrange to host the affair at the largest indoor arena available—allowing them to invite all the interested parties in the area. What an opportunity for the gospel! What an opportunity for me.

  Even Mary and John Mark agreed and prayed fervently for us late the next afternoon before we left. On our way to the temple to pray, we met Peter and James outside a private home where they were to have a meeting of their own, and they seemed more subdued about our prospects than I had hoped. But still they prayed for us and said they looked forward to a full report.

  About an hour before our meeting—to which Barnabas had given detailed directions—he steered his horse and cart up the narrow street to the little temple where it had become my practice to pray before our nightly debates.

  As Barnabas began to rei
n in the horse, the cart lurched with the steed’s every step, and we both leaned out to see what was causing it. The animal was heavily favoring his right foreleg. “There’s a livery not three blocks away,” Barnabas said. “Help me unhitch him and I’ll walk him up there while you go in and pray.”

  “You’re sure you don’t mind?” I said.

  “Not at all. He’s probably just picked up a stone. I can see to it, and we want you fully prepared.”

  Even helping him with pulling the reins off the horse and leaving the straps in the cart allowed me to start organizing my thoughts. The Hellenists would field their best minds against me to argue the doctrines of Christ, but I believed I had the advantage, not just of truth, but because Jesus Himself had taught me.

  With the wagon angled into a curb and Barnabas slowly walking the gimpy horse up the street, I made my way into the small temple and set my bag on the bench, settling into an attitude of prayer. How I loved these times alone with God.

  As I prayed I began framing my argument into my testimony concerning Jesus, believing I should be straightforward about the man I once was. I would say that in my former life I was just as they were. Even though they had craftily not let on that they knew who I was, I would make plain that it had been my job to go into every synagogue and either imprison or beat those who believed on Jesus. I would reveal that when the blood of the martyr Stephen was shed, I stood by consenting to his death, even guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.

  Yes, this would be a dramatic announcement by someone who had once been dead in his trespasses and sins, now redeemed through the blood of Christ shed on the cross. Had there been any doubt about my identity, this would end it.

  But for once, when God spoke to me, it was not a silent impression upon my soul and heart. Rather, this night it was as if I had fallen into a trance and saw Him standing before me, saying, “Make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly, for they will not receive your testimony concerning Me.”

  It dawned on me that none of my message would have been a surprise to them. I said, Lord, they all know what I did in the synagogues and with Stephen.

  And He said, “Depart now, for I am sending you far from here to the Gentiles.”

  If I had learned nothing else as a bondservant of Christ, besides the maddening intrusion of my old nature at the worst possible times, I knew that when He spoke, I was to respond. He had said to “make haste.” He had said, “Get out quickly.” He had said, “Depart now.”

  And so I did.

  I grabbed my bag, marched directly out, and traded it for the pile of leather straps in the seat of the cart. I shook them into a semblance of order, draped them over my arm, lifted the wagon tongue, and swung the carriage out into the street, wheeling it toward the livery. Barnabas was already coming the other way with his healthy horse.

  Without a word, as if the Lord had spoken to him too, he worked with me to reattach the animal. “Take me to Peter and James,” I said, and we set off at a gallop.

  Our brothers were waiting outside as we pulled up, and yet another man emerged from the house, shook my hand without introducing himself, and said, “God bless you, Paul. Are you ready to go?”

  I nodded blankly as he climbed into the seat between Barnabas and me, and Peter and James each put a foot inside the back wheels and hung onto the roof as Barnabas started off again. The horse labored with the weight of five men.

  The man between us pulled from deep in a pocket of his mantle a leather pouch with a drawstring, teased it open, and began counting out coins. “Do you have a place to carry these, Paul?” he called out over the din of the rattling carriage.

  I opened my bag.

  “This will pay your fare to Antipatris, one night’s lodging there, a ride to Caesarea, a few nights’ lodging there in case there’s not a ship to Tarsus for a few days. Then—”

  “Tarsus? That’s my hometown!”

  “We know. Your fare is here, too, plus enough to cover a few days of uncertainty. Then you will have to depend on the believers there, or family, or find work. Any questions?”

  Any questions?

  This was happening too fast. I didn’t even know this man, and God had clearly used him to save me from the Hellenists. And I was going—home. To my family for the first time in nearly four years.

  Had there been no change in my circumstances since the last time I’d seen Father and Mother, my sister Shoshanna, and her husband and their four little ones, they would be angry with me just for the lack of contact. But if they knew one speck of what had become of me, I expected they had wholly disowned me.

  “May I know your name, sir?”

  “It’s not important. I am one of the brethren here. Any questions about Tarsus?”

  “What am I to do there?”

  “That is a question for Peter.”

  I craned my neck and looked out at the fisherman, dangling off the back of the rig, the hem of his tunic in his hand to keep it from getting caught in the wheel. “We’ll talk when we stop!” he called out.

  That came twenty minutes later when Barnabas had driven us far outside Jerusalem to the start of the descent that led to the port city. Everyone clambered out or off and we stood at the side of the trade route. Peter took charge and told us to watch for some transport that could get me to Antipatris, the city on the border between Samaria and Judea. Most providential to me, it was also the site of a Roman military operation. But then Caesarea was the headquarters of Roman rule and home to the Roman Tenth Legion.

  There had to be a way I could find information about Taryn from one of those two places.

  Peter said, “We are going to bless you and pray for you and wish you Godspeed. Then I have some news for you. Finally, after I have found you a ride and have negotiated a price, the rest of us will return to Jerusalem and commend you to the remainder of the brethren, in the event our paths cross again someday.”

  “News?”

  “All things in order,” he said.

  He and James and Barnabas and the unnamed brother encircled and laid hands on me and Peter raised his face toward heaven. “Father, bless our friend and your servant with safety, with health, with courage, and with his every need in Christ Jesus. Give him Your words to say to people You want to hear them, and may his path be straight and smooth. Amen.”

  The others added their amens, and I said, “Thank you all. Now I need to know what I am to do in Tarsus.”

  Peter said, “Paul, when the Lord sent you to Jerusalem, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to meet with you. I didn’t know if I could trust you or expose my friends to the dangers you posed. When you proved yourself worthy, you put yourself under my authority. I did not ask for that, but I accepted it as from the Lord. But now that you are leaving, you are also leaving my authority. We believe God would have us send you away with the provisions we have offered, but beyond that, you are again under His direction.”

  “But you laughed at me, ridiculed me when I suggested I go alone. And now you’re sending me by myself—”

  “Hear me, Paul. I’m not sending you anywhere. I do not feel I am shirking my responsibility when I say this is God’s doing. He called you. He taught you. He trained you. He told you to come here for fifteen days, and you did. All I am doing is turning you back over to Him. What are you to do in Tarsus? Whatever He tells you to do.”

  I hung my head and nodded. I confess I wanted it to be easier, or at least clearer. But I could not argue with Peter’s logic. And the Lord had been sufficient up to now. I knew He would lead me. “You said you had news.”

  “Yes, Paul. Nicodemus has been murdered.”

  Barnabas steadied me as my knees nearly gave out. “How? Where? By whom?”

  “Between the Temple and his home. It was made to appear to be a band of robbers. He was a wealthy man, as you know, but it was also known he never carried great amounts of cash. Frankly, we have feared this for a long time. The council has hated him since some learned he’d had a clandestine mee
ting with Jesus without Sanhedrin approval.”

  “Everywhere I go I bring such things about,” I whispered.

  “If showing yourself at the Temple Mount instigated this,” James said, “I share as much of the blame as you. I urged you to go.”

  “Neither of you is the cause,” Peter said. “It was inevitable. Nicodemus was a courageous man to have returned to the Sanhedrin after the crucifixion.”

  “You were next, Paul,” Barnabas said.

  “Why do we pose such a threat?”

  It was a question without an answer.

  From the horizon above us a slow-moving cart shambled into view. Peter flagged down the driver, who proved to be transporting military messages and equipment to both locations I needed to reach. He negotiated a price for which he would take me to the Plain of Sharon, where Antipatris lay, and also on to Caesarea the next day. Moments later, after a tearful farewell, I climbed next to the driver and found myself surprisingly weary. Grief has a way of causing that.

  “We won’t pull in till around dawn,” the man said, “but I’m grateful for the company because night is not the safest time to travel. But I’m not a talker, in case you’re wondering.”

  “Are you a listener?”

  “Not a willing one.”

  “But you’ve been paid, so for almost forty miles you don’t have much choice, do you?”

  “No, I don’t suppose I do.”

  “Let me tell you about a carpenter from Nazareth who was crucified and came back from the dead.”

  “Back from the dead? This supposed to be a true story?

  “Actually it is.”

  “You know this man?”

  “Yes, I do. I talked to Him today.”

  “And you believe he was really dead and now he’s alive?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Well, I’m not saying I’ll believe it, but I’ll listen.”

  I set my bag behind me. “I was working for the vice chief justice of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem a few years ago when we began hearing about a man, a carpenter from Nazareth, who was becoming popular among the people. It wasn’t just because of what He was saying, although it was interesting and often paradoxical—we’d dealt with that kind of thing before—but this one was performing signs and wonders, even miracles.”