by Brian Godawa
Simon saw it coming.
“So too, all seven of the brothers died, handing off the woman as their wife. Ultimately the woman died as well. So, in the resurrection, of the seven brothers, whose wife will she be? For they all had her as their wife.”
He ended with a sarcastic smile, assuring himself of catching Jesus in a trap.
But Jesus said, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, for there is no marriage in heaven.”
Now Simon had the joy of seeing the Sadducee accusers stumped.
Jesus added, “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God?”
He was turning the sarcasm back on his accusers. Delightful.
“‘I am the god of Abraham, and the god of Isaac, and the god of Jacob.’ He is not the god of the dead, but of the living.”
Jesus then walked straight through them.
They parted with stunned faces.
The disciples quickly followed after Jesus.
Mary turned her head and stuck her tongue out at the Sadducees and Pharisees as she passed.
Chapter 27
Gestas stepped out onto the proscenium arch of the large Roman theater. He looked up into the three tiers of audience seats called the cavea. Unlike the more gradual inclines of the Grecian theater built on the hills of his native Scythopolis, this one in the city of Jerusalem had to maximize its use of minimum space. So it towered three stories upward with steep seating.
The auditorium was empty at the moment. Gestas closed his eyes and imagined it filled to capacity with patrons. He could hear the music and chorus singing praises in the orchestra below him.
He was Hercules, and they worshipped him as he accomplished his twelve labors ending in the underworld of Hades. He re-enacted once again his victory over the three-headed hound of hell, Cerberus. He could hear in his mind the resounding applause of his many performances.
He missed the theater and its glory. Strangely though, he also remembered that it seemed that the more praise and worship he received, the more he needed just to feel significant, to feel loved. A poor reception of one of his performances brought on deep depression and anxiety, sometimes even suicidal thoughts. Now, that was all gone. He was no longer the center of attention, but rather a part of something bigger than himself, something that would outlast him. He was part of changing the world, relieving suffering, and bringing hope to his fellow Jews for deliverance. The armed robbery of the rich who oppressed the common folk was simply an inconvenient necessity in order to finance their moral cause. Sometimes, you had to do evil in order to achieve the greater good.
“Gestas, what are you doing?” a voice came from behind him.
He turned to see Demas opening the curtain. Behind his brother a dozen other men carried piles of costume clothing. They were stealing Roman soldier costumes for their plan, an adaptation of the one used to free him from the Roman prison.
“We have to get out of here now. If we get caught, our whole strategy will be undone.”
Because of the Passover feast, there would be no performances for another week in the holy city. The theft would not be discovered until after the uprising.
Gestas said, “Do you ever miss the arena? The glory?”
Demas’s face stilled with memory. “Not so much.”
Gestas looked surprised. Demas explained, “That’s where you and I differ. You did it to live. I did it to die.”
“But if you had died, it would have been glorious, would it have not?”
Demas thought a bit. “I suppose there is a certain—glory—in the thrill. It was in the face of death that I felt most fully alive. It has been pain that has made me appreciate life. But in the end, we are all dead.”
“And forgotten,” added Gestas.
“We may die with this gamble,” said Demas. “And if captured—”
“I know what the punishment for sedition is.” The fate of their comrades in the Galilean caves was still stark in their memory.
“It’s already too late,” said Demas. “We might as well try something bold, if not mad.”
“But what if we succeed? What if Messiah really does show up? What if Barabbas is—”
Demas put up his hand to stop him. “Don’t, Gestas. All our lives we have been abandoned. We have had to make our own way. No one will show up at the last minute. No one will save us, but ourselves.”
Gestas stared out into the barren theater, the setting sun causing deep shadows to move over the stone.
He grinned darkly. “Let us take our bows—for an encore performance.”
• • • • •
Simon sat with Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives, overlooking the Temple. It was the end of the day. The setting sun created a reddish-orange backdrop glow to the city.
They were about a hundred feet higher than the Temple walls and the crest of the hill was several thousand feet away. Jesus had recently finished his sermon on the destruction of the holy city and its temple. The meaning that Simon had been figuring out by implication, Jesus had finally said explicitly. For all of his teaching on love, mercy, and atonement in the Kingdom of God, this prophecy had deeply bothered all the disciples.
As they looked out upon the wonderful stones and noble buildings of the temple mount, Jesus had shocked them all. He had said that there would not be one stone of the Temple that would not be thrown down. Complete desolation. It would be the end of the world for them.
When asked when it would all happen, the sign of his coming as Messiah, and the end of the old age, Jesus had responded that all the things he was about to tell them would come upon their own generation—within the next forty years.
He said that the Pax Romana they currently lived under would be unsettled with many wars and rumors of wars. It was hard to believe for most of them, because the might and power of Rome seemed so invincible. But it did coincide with Daniel’s prophecy of the Messianic stone that would crush the last kingdom after Greece, the statue’s feet of iron and clay, the empire of Rome.
There were many false prophets, false messiahs, and much persecution to come for the true remnant of believers. They had already seen some of them. The lawlessness of the sons of Belial would increase. But the good news of the kingdom would be proclaimed throughout the entire Roman empire, the whole world to them, before the end would come.
Simon had explained to Mary that the “end of the age” was the end of the old covenant embodied in the sacrifices of the holy Temple. When Yahweh made a covenant with Moses, it was like the creation of the cosmos of the heavens and the earth.
You divided the sea by your might;
you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.
You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
You split open springs and brooks;
you dried up ever-flowing streams.
Yours is the day, yours also the night;
you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.
You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth.
A Maskil of Asaph
When that covenant was ended, it would be the end of the cosmos, and a new heavens and earth would commence. A new covenant that the prophet Jeremiah had promised and the prophet Haggai warned with poetic flourish.
For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts.
They were living in the last days of the old covenant. Messiah would bring the Day of the Lord and change everything forever.
Jesus had warned them of the great tribulation to come, when the “abomination of desolation”—the Roman armies with their eagle standards—would surround the holy city
and trample the Temple underfoot.
Mary asked Simon, “When will they come?”
Simon replied, “So far, the Romans have been able to crush the various uprisings of individual bandit leaders like Judas of Galilee, Athronges, Simon of Herod. But if the others still alive and on the loose could be unified behind a central figure, that kind of revolt would bring—.”
“Armageddon,” she whispered.
He nodded. “The sun darkening, stars falling from the dome of the sky, and the shaking of the powers of heaven is the Scriptural language for the removal of earthly rulers and their heavenly powers over them. The dispossession of the land and the disinheritance of the gods by the New Covenant of Messiah.”
She had already been familiar with the poetry of gods coming on clouds in Canaanite scripture. Ba’al was described as the great Cloud Rider, the most high god, bringing judgment. So when Jesus had used the same language of himself coming on the clouds, he was claiming to bring Yahweh’s hand of judgment upon Israel, who had rejected him. He would use the armies of Rome as an axe in his hand. Isaiah had said the same of the Assyrians. Mary said, “So the sign of the Son of Man’s judgment on the tribes of the Promised Land is the destruction of the temple.”
He added, “Which ends the Old Covenant and its shadows of atonement, and replaces it with the New Covenant.”
She scrunched her face in confusion. “You have told me that Daniel says the Messiah will put an end to sacrifice and offering. But how?”
“I do not know, Mary. He won’t tell us.”
“It must be a secret to us so that it will be a secret to his enemies as well.”
Simon nodded in agreement.
Mary remembered that Jesus had told them all that the Son of Man would suffer and be rejected by this generation. That he would be killed and on the third day raised. She wondered if the disciples were missing it in their understanding of Messiah. They had assumed all along that Messiah would be an earthly conqueror. What other kind of deliverer could there be for such oppression under Rome? They could not conceive of suffering as a means of victory. That was why Peter had rebuked Jesus for saying so at Caesarea Philippi. But she remembered Jesus had then called him “Accuser” to his face. And she remembered Simon telling her of the words of John the Baptizer at Jesus’s baptism, “Behold, the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”
What if Yahweh’s anointed servant would suffer rather than attack? What if Messiah himself would replace the sacrifice with his own suffering? A human sacrifice of Yahweh’s own son? She shuddered at the heresy. She would speak of it to no one.
Chapter 28
The feast of Passover officially began in the afternoon of the fourteenth day of the month of Nissan, the beginning of spring. The disciples James and John carried their Paschal lamb in the long lines of worshippers. They were led in large groups from the outer Court of Gentiles through the Gate Beautiful into the inner Court of Women in the Temple. Each of them had lambs that would substitute for companies of ten to twenty people each.
Then, a group of thirty were allowed through the Nicanor Gate into the Court of Priests. The massive gates closed behind them. In their turn, James held the lamb while John cut its throat with a knife. A trio of priests drew a threefold blast from their silver trumpets with every slaying of a lamb.
Other priests then caught the blood in golden and silver bowls, which were passed up to the priest at the large stone altar. He jerked each bowl at the base of the altar in one splash.
Behind them, a chorus of priests led in a solemn hymn of praise to Yahweh, with the presenters singing in response.
The Levites sang, “Hallelujah!”
The people responded, Hallelujah!”
“When Israel went out of Egypt!”
“When Israel went out of Egypt!”
“The house of Jacob from a people of strange language.”
“Save now, I beseech thee, Yahweh.”
“Blessed is he that comes in the name of Yahweh!”
The sacrificial lambs were hung up while other priests flayed them, cut out the entrails, and separated the fat. They placed the fat in a dish, salted it and threw it on the fire of the altar for burnt offering.
When the sacrifice was complete, James and John took the lamb back with them for the Passover feast with Jesus and the disciples.
As they left, the next section of worshippers were let in with their lambs. The process began all over again, until the entire nation had participated.
James and John left the Temple and made their way to the Shushan Gate to return to the Mount of Olives. They passed by a large, staged platform with several royal seats, guarded by a company of twenty Roman soldiers and heralded by three Levitical priests. Any minute, the tetrarchs Antipas and Philip, accompanied by the high priest Caiaphas and the Roman prefect Pilate, would arrive to take their seats in oversight of the early day’s activities. It was official business. It bored them all, but it had to be done for a show of participation. Pilate would be there to oversee the sacrifice made on behalf of Caesar.
But the leaders were late.
A group of ten priests approached the dais.
The three priests already at the platform were Barabbas, Demas and Gestas in stolen disguise. The twenty Roman soldiers, their Zealots in Roman costume, with other Zealots hidden in the crowd.
Barabbas leaned in to Demas and muttered below his breath, “The Herods and Pilate should have been here an hour ago.”
Demas whispered back, eyes focused on the arriving priests, “They are going to recognize us as imposters. We’ll be discovered.”
Barabbas muttered to his soldiers, “Follow my lead.”
The priests were almost upon them.
Demas looked around. The hustle and bustle of the crowd paid no attention to them. Could they get away if they had to?
The priests stopped before Barabbas, Demas and Gestas and began to give their matter of fact report. The lead, an obvious neophyte, said, “Have you not received the order? Pilate and the Herods are not coming.”
“We are new to the ranks, brother,” said Barabbas.
The neophyte looked at them curiously. “I am new. I do not remember you in the classes.” His eyes narrowed, then widened as his suspicion increased.
Barabbas turned to the Soldiers around the display. “We’ve been betrayed. Kill these priests!”
The faux soldiers responded immediately. They were in tune with their leader.
The priests could not believe what they heard. They froze like ten frightened lambs.
It made the slaughter that much quicker and easier.
The blades of the soldiers sliced, hacked and severed the priests into a gruesome bloodbath, like lambs on an altar.
Passersby screamed in shock.
It drew attention to the platform.
Barabbas jumped up and yelled to the crowd with all his lungs, “THE ROMANS HAVE KILLED OUR PRIESTS!”
Twenty other men of Barabbas’ gang rushed out of the crowd and pretended to kill the soldiers. They thrust their swords safely by the sides of their disguised comrades. They faked slashes to bring about false vengeance on the Romans. They had given the crowds something to react to.
Barabbas continued, “SONS OF ABRAHAM, WE HAVE BEEN ATTACKED BY THE ROMAN FORCES OF CAESAR IN OUR MOST HOLY PLACE! WE MUST RISE UP AND FIGHT BACK! TO ARMS! TO ARMS!”
The crowds edged away from the scene of bloodshed. They could not see that it was all an act, a false flag intended to incite a riot.
And riot was beginning to stir.
“FIND ALL ROMANS AND SLAUGHTER THEM IN THE NAME OF YAHWEH!”
The Zealots raised their swords and shouted a war cry in support. All the crowd could see was a bloodbath and their trusted Jewish priests calling upon them to fight.
Shouts in the crowd agitated more. “NO KING BUT GOD! NO KING BUT GOD!”
Shouts of agreement could be heard. Anger grew. They were becoming a mob.
Pent u
p fury and hatred for their oppressors began to spill out of the souls of the masses. Demas began to think that maybe they could get this plan going after all.
Suddenly, a thousand Roman soldiers stepped out in military unison from all around the temple porticos of pillars. They were in fighting formation, surrounding the masses with shield and lance, ready to put down the riot.
The gates to the underground tunnel connecting the Antonia burst open and a cavalry of fifty men on horseback, led by Pontius Pilate, entered the outer Court of Gentiles.
Antipas, Caiaphas and Longinus were with him. The high priest blew a shofar trumpet, normally used as a call to worship. The rage and unity of the crowd began to dissolve.
A hundred legionaries surrounded Barabbas, the Zealots and the “dead” faux soldiers. Some of the pseudo-corpses stood up in fear.
Barabbas and the two brothers stood in shock on the dais. They had been betrayed. But by who?
Pilate gestured up above them on the roof of the portico.
Barabbas saw a contingent of archers, with arrows nocked and aimed at them. They wouldn’t stand a chance. He nodded to the other Zealots. They dropped their weapons.
The mob that had only moments before begun to build into murderous rage, were now tamed and open-mouthed with curiosity.
Antipas turned and yelled to the crowd, “ I AM HEROD ANTIPAS, KING OF GALILEE AND PEREA! THERE IS NO REVOLT! RETURN TO YOUR ACTIVITIES!”
Pilate rolled his eyes, thinking, Grandstanding twat, using the title of king again instead of tetrarch.
Barabbas gritted his teeth in anger. Outplayed with my own game.
A group of soldiers grabbed the three counterfeit priests and brought them up to Pilate on his horse. Their coverings were torn from their heads. Their hands shackled behind their backs.
Pilate looked back at Longinus, who nodded.
Pilate made a hand gesture to the soldiers surrounding the fifty Zealot captives. They backed up.
Demas could see what was going to happen.