It had now been some time since Herod’s return from Jerusalem and his meeting with the Roman procurator. Three days earlier a sizeable portion of his army had returned from the river Jordan with John the Baptiser in chains and irons. Since then Herodias would not come out from her chamber, angered that Herod would not execute the man immediately. But Herod was obstinate. He would not be bullied and browbeaten and intimidated by a woman, and summoned up a stubborn will over which even Herodias was powerless. No, he was not about to do anything on a whim, at least not until he could discern what was more to his advantage: to have this upstart put to death, once and for all or to keep the man alive until he agreed to baptise him and cure him of the bondage of the wings of death. Even now, they hovered over him as he walked the halls of the fortress to his prisons. He could hear them flapping, suspended by the wind that rasped a song of lament over the edges of the mountains. He looked up and saw only the forlorn sky streaked with clouds, and he hurried his step.
The dungeons were meagrely lit and cavernous, and as he neared John’s cell, he saw him only as a shadow. A shadow restrained by shackles. A harmless shadow, he assured himself.
He had a guard light a torch and place it on a bracket nearby and ordered him to unlock and open the rusted iron gates that barred the cell. The cell was illumined and the way in unobstructed but he hesitated before the damp threshold. In this pause, occasioned by fear or excitement or both, he fell to observing the man.
He did not seem like a magician, he was sleeping in his filth like a dog, and yet, he was more than that, yes, more than that. The light played around him in a peculiar way, and Herod of a sudden sensed something unseen in it, but what? Not the shadow of a curse that made a man seem small, but rather, something uplifting that made him larger than he was!
There was certainly more to the man than met the eye, and this certainty frightened Herod and he was close to turning his heels when the Baptist groaned and changed position. The light, having fallen away from him, made all things seem different. No! Herod told himself with some relief, just a man after all – a trick of the torch. And yet the man was a prophet, he knew that much, at the very least.
He entered the cell.
The Baptiser raised his head, his beard and hair were matted and his skin was broken. In his eyes there was a flash of recognition.
‘Husband of the devil! Why come you here?’ his words flew out of his mouth like lashes from a whip and caused Herod to make a little backward jump to get away from them, and he nearly slipped on the oily grime at his feet. His more immediate impulse was to call for the guard, but his practical nature stepped in to prevent his anger from getting the better of his needs.
‘Well, well, well…I see that there is fire left in you yet!’ he said, pulling himself together.
There was no answer.
‘I trust your stay has been unpleasant and damp, though I should think not as unpleasant and as damp as what you are used to!’
A moment of awkwardness passed. The stupid man had missed his sarcasm. ‘Have you nothing to say to your judge and jailer?’
The man’s eyes did not falter but were steady upon Herod. ‘You are not my judge! You have no power over me, for only God is my judge. And as to my jailer, while my body touches the floor of this cell, my spirit soars to heights you shall never know!’
Herod felt a ripple, a little thrill of darkness swoop over his head and he ducked from habit. When he straightened himself again his voice was rattled. ‘John bar Zacharias, I demand that you cleanse my soul so that I too, might see the Kingdom of God! I shall have my guards bring a little Jordan water that you can pour over my head, and we can get it over with.’
To the man on the floor, his need seemed of no moment. ‘To loosen the soul a man must near drown, Herod. Besides, I cannot loosen what is bound to the earth like a snake. The Kingdom is too high; it cannot be reached by one so low as you. Leave me in my misery. You are set apart for wickedness, and to wickedness you shall bend to play your part.’
Herod did not allow this to vex him. He crossed his arms and dug his heels in. ‘And you profess to know my part?’
The Baptiser’s eyes were lustrous with righteous venom. ‘To kill me…that is your part!’ he shouted.
Herod stood stock-still, having come by a sudden perception. This man was no prophet! Otherwise he would have known that he feared the curse of madness too much to kill him…but wait! Killing him had indeed featured in his plan! No, no! He was now more certain than ever! He may not manage to bend him to his will by means of his torturers, but he would break his spirit by passing on the contagion of his madness – by giving this pompous upstart, something to ponder while he sat rotting in his stinking cell!
‘If I were to kill you, what should become of your followers? To whom shall they turn? To that simple man from Nazareth called Jesus?’
The caged ferocity was so immediate that Herod clutched himself for safety,
‘You Impudent! He is a light brighter than mine! He has come to flood the darkness of the land. My followers shall go to Him and they shall leave you in your pit, for He is the Messiah!’
Ah! There it was! The sound of doubt sang in his ears. He had managed, finally, to throw a stone into the workings of that self-righteous mind! He sharpened his tongue. ‘How do you know that this man you speak of is the Messiah? How do you know it for certain?’
‘My angel has seen it!’
Herod laughed, marvellously pleased. ‘Your angel? If your angel is so great as to recognise the Messiah, why does he not help you now? Why does he not remove your chains, and free you from this hell-hole and take you to your heaven?’
The man’s eyes flared. ‘Because, you spawn of iniquity, it is not my time!’
‘Perhaps you cannot die yet, because you have not found the true Messiah!’
The man squinted and opened his mouth, but nothing came.
‘Did you ask him, this man you say is the Messiah, if he is the one? Has he said so himself? Perhaps you were clouded in your judgement? If he is not the awaited one, you have lived a counterfeit life! All your efforts have come to nothing! What will the world tell of it, I wonder? Will they say you missed your boat! That you mistook a simple man, called Jesus, for the Messiah and died in a dungeon like a rat?’
He waited to hear the sound of the crack in his mettle.
‘Well, you will never know I suppose. But if you baptise me, in return I can send a message to your followers with a question from you to this man. That way you can die in peace – or not, as the case may be!’
‘I ask nothing of you!’ the Baptist said. ‘You only wish to know the answer yourself so that in your jealousy you can persecute him as you are persecuting me! But mark well, husband of the devil, he shall be even more loved than I am among the people! Even after you and I are food for worms, shall he be known throughout the world! Go to him, ask him for forgiveness. Throw your sorry soul at his feet. Only he can rid you of what is in you!’
Herod was caught short. ‘What is in me? What do you mean?’
‘It is perfectly visible – the Devil’s wings and Satan’s breath!’
Herod’s composure collapsed. This revelation now made his mockery fade away to nothing and he looked up, hoping to see those wings over his head, but he did not see them. Oh dear! There were two creatures not one? Had he swallowed the Devil, so that it was now living in his guts, flapping about in his heart and creeping through his veins? Could he feel it feasting on his bones? Could he smell the odour of Satan’s decaying breath coming from his mouth? Yes…perhaps he could!
He ran from the cell then, leaving the baptiser behind in his stinking misery. He hurried to his wife’s chambers, seeking the comfort of her ministrations, but he found her obstinately antipathetic to his needs.
Alone and forlorn, with the night’s howling sounds and his terrors for company, he called for a messenger and dispatched him to John’s disciples in Judea with a question for Jesus, from John the Baptist:
Have I understood correctly? Are you the One long awaited, or are we to wait for another?
And he himself, waited for the answer.
38
SERMON
In the meantime, James bar Zebedee followed his master to their home, Galilee, with a glad heart. For the world had changed to his eye, it was no longer a place of woe and sadness, but a place of joy! The Sabbath was no longer a day of wrath and deathly silence, but a day of life and merriment, a wedding day! He wondered what his old father would say to it when he saw how his son was no longer shadowed by sadness, but was full of hope for each new day!
Their journey was long, but who measured the time? Days and weeks and months and leagues passed in a moment, and then again, a moment could seem to last the span of a life, it could seem like the crossing of an ocean. One day, his master walked with no apparent aim, finding everything fascinating and lingering long in small insignificant places others might overlook. Another day he would go about with a feverish purpose as if he were looking for something that eluded him. In between he taught them as they journeyed or sat at meat under the great blue expanse strewn with cloud, or beneath the cold black dome crowded with stars.
One such evening when the sun was westering, his master chose twelve men from among the seventy followers. James, happy to be among them followed him to a mountain, where he said he would teach them how to pray.
‘Open your hearts, for I will tell you something…’ he said, as night closed about them. ‘Once I travelled through these lands and came nearby to Caesarea Philippi where, not far from the township, in a Temple, I heard a voice. The voice came from the Bath-Kol, the thunder of heaven, and I was taken up by it, and it spoke a prayer of lament into my soul for the downfall of man. Now I will give you a reversal of this prayer. A prayer of the hopeful soul, that rises up from the fall towards its spirit home.’
He began it, ‘Our Father…who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…’
And oh! What majestic choruses did James hear coming from his words! All of creation seemed at that moment consumed by light! Yes, praised be God! Reversed was the original darkness of sin and the fall into degradation, and begun was the ascent towards heavenly newborn life!
The moment passed and Jesus, now sitting among them beneath the cedars, said, ‘This prayer tells that what lives in me is the kingdom, the power and the glory of heaven, come down to the earth. I have come to bring the heavenly bread, the heavenly teachings that can feed you. Whoever is fed by these teachings in life will not suffer death, for death in the body is only the beginning of life in the spirit, suffering in one life becomes the seed of joy in the next.’
James puzzled over it and said to him, ‘Can you tell us, master, what the kingdom of Heaven is like?’
Jesus sat back against the tree and it seemed that even the calm breeze was paused for his answer. ‘To others I speak in parables, but I have chosen you and brought you here because I wish to speak plain with you. The kingdom is a light, a light that shines into the darkness of your souls,’ he said to them.
There was quiet.
‘How is it like a light?’ James did not understand.
‘When a seed falls on prepared ground it creates new life. When you prepare your souls, when the light of heaven enters you, it can make your heart into an eye, which can see more than the world, it can see the spirit that lives behind the world.’
Judas, the red beard, huffed from his position, ‘On earth we have the sun we see with our eyes and now you say we need an eye in the heart?’
‘It was the light of the sun had to create your eyes before you could see the world, Judas. And similarly in your heart an eye must be created from the light of faith before you can see the world of spirit.’
‘Where is this world?’ James asked.
‘It is here, behind these trees, and behind the clouds and the meadows, my brothers,’ Jesus told them.
Andrew looked at Simon-Peter. ‘What did he say?’
Simon-Peter sighed and scratched at his beard in irritation. ‘The master said that the spirit is everywhere among us, but if we want to see it we have to make our own suns inside our hearts, so that it can illuminate it!’
Andrew frowned. ‘Make our own sun? Right here, as we sit, you say? Right here, we are among heaven?’ He shook his head. ‘I do not know…’
‘Heaven is before you, Andrew!’ the master affirmed, ‘It is only that you can’t see it until the spirit light fashions the eye of your soul.’
‘What must we do to prepare our souls, master?’ asked little John.
He looked at John. ‘Think good thoughts, feel for others, and do good deeds. That is how you prepare your souls. Such men can make themselves new again. This is what I mean, when I say, you must be born again.’ He looked at them, ‘If you foster calmness and balance, all comfort and well-being on earth shall be your reward. When I am gone, you must teach others to do the same.’
‘But if we were to tell people such things they would laugh at us! A man hungers and thirsts, and these must be satisfied,’ said Thomas, a cross-eyed merchant who had joined them at Capernaum.
‘Thomas, you must say to them, if you purify your souls, you will hunger and thirst only for what is good. Then, this goodness in you shall feel compassion for all men who hunger and thirst, even those who hate you, and revile you.’
‘These are just words!’ Judas dismissed. ‘What you ask for is impossible! How can we feel compassion and mercy in our souls for an enemy that crucifies us and kills our children, our women and our old men? Sinners must burn in hell if God is just.’
‘Judas, my friend, God is just but I have come to tell you about love. A soul full of hate has only hate for a harvest. Those men that you love in this life, though they do not merit your love, will love you in the next life. If you feel compassion and mercy for a man now, you will find it returned to you later…this is preparing the soil of the soul for a harvest of love.’
Simon-Peter said, ‘I have seen what lives and plays in the water and the air and the light, I have seen it! Is this then, the spirit world of which you speak, master?’
‘Yes, Peter, but blessed are those that do not see it and yet still believe in it. But when faith becomes vision it will be as though you had stepped out of your body, as if it were nothing more than a garment. The soul will then shine out like a light over the world of spirit, that is what I mean when I say, you must become naked before God…you see, to you I speak plain.’
Cross-eyed Thomas said, with a dismal sigh, ‘If we become seers master, then we are done for! Prophets are not only hated by powerful men who fear their judgements and admonitions but the ordinary people also hate them for they don’t always agree with their opinions! Prophets even hate other prophets who do not foretell the same things! Nobody likes them. They are either stoned or run through with a blade, or else they are torn apart by the crowds, or thrown over the edges of cliffs! And afterwards, no man raises statues to them or truly honours them. All in all, master, they do not fare well!’
‘One would think a merchant would be used to being hated!’ said Matthew, the tax collector, ‘Specially a cross-eyed one!’
Thomas took in a breath of indignation, ‘Look who’s throwing stones! A tax collector no less…a man who is hated even by his own mother!’
The master sighed and quieted them with a hand, ‘There is no doubting it. You will be persecuted and killed if you have the light in you, as I shall be persecuted and killed. This is because the blind don’t understand light, you see? But when you are persecuted for the sake of your goodness by blind men, rejoice and be glad, for great shall be your reward in lives to come!’
Judas’ eyes were like two sparks in the night. ‘Well…you say these things to us, and you expect us to believe you, and yet we still do not know who you really are, the carpenter from Nazareth or the Son of God…which is it?’
‘Forgive me, Judas, my brother,’ Jesus said to him, ‘but if you had the l
ight in you, you would see me, and know me.’
Judas fell quiet. After that James and the others, feeling badly for the way Judas had spoken settled down to sleep.
The night encroached and James lay beneath the cedars thinking that he was so full of love for his master that he would die for his sake. And in that moment between sleep and wakefulness he looked up to the stars and heard a tender voice in his ear say that one day he would die a martyr’s death in a far off land in a place called ‘The Field of Stars’. But he would not be forgotten. Centuries later a great French King called Charlemagne would follow those same stars to that field. He would call that route, The Way of St James, and he would be the first pilgrim to his grave, not realising that the grave of James was really his own grave. In time a great temple would be erected to house his grave and every year thousands of pilgrims would follow the stars for miles, just to see it.
James drifted off to sleep, thinking these things with a smile on his face. And he was still smiling for these rewards when he woke up, though he remembered nothing of the voice, or of its portents.
Chapter 39
NIGHT SUN
The night the French took the Eastern Barbican the fortress was thrown into a panic. There were perfects coming through the gates holding their belongings, followed by archers and knights who locked the gates behind them. The rest of the fortress came out into the starless night to see what all the fuss was about and found themselves gathering up what weapons were spare to help the knights on the ramparts.
The Barbican had been stormed by surprise. The French had come not by way of the well-defended path that separated the narrow ledge from the fortress, but by way of our trail cut out of the eastern rock face. The Basque shepherds had discovered our secret path and this meant two things – the French were only a few paces from our walls and we were cut off from the outside world. Soon we would have to make a decision, starve or surrender.
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