by Jane Lebak
The Roman said, "Here we are," and Jesus looked up. And gasped. They'd stopped a stone's throw from a crucifixion.
The Roman lifted his gear from Jesus's shoulder, but Jesus had his eyes riveted to the pair of crosses, the men transfixed in agony and needing to trade pain for each breath. "God have mercy," he whispered.
"Maybe your god does," said the Roman, "but you’re looking at another one of my tools." He laughed out loud. "Just be glad you didn't have to carry that bit of my gear."
Jesus shivered. The sun lay on the cusp of the horizon, and two men had hours more until they died.
And that? Jesus prayed. That's a tool too? Men harming men?
Jesus didn't move as the Roman walked toward his comrades without so much as a word of thanks. May I do something for them? he prayed, but it wasn't time, urged the Spirit. Time for compassion, yes, but not time for power.
Jesus sat on the side of the road, his back aching and his legs trembling, and he finished the last of the food in his bag. Raphael wrapped around him, wings over Jesus's shoulders.
What can I build with that? The prayer flowed through Raphael, and he presented it toward God, adding his fervor but nothing else. No answer came back through him. Instead, he could feel the Spirit deep in communion with Jesus's heart, so Raphael just waited on the outside, waited and longed and wondered what the pair were saying to one another.
Jesus whispered, "Raphael, take me home," and he closed his eyes until Raphael prompted him to open them again, and they were in Nazareth.
Through the dark streets, Jesus made his way back to Mary, Raphael again guiding his steps. When he reached their house, Mary hugged him, kissed his cheeks, and tried not to look as drawn as she must feel. Uriel seemed drained.
She had Jesus sit and brought out food for him, then wine, and she sat across the table from him.
Jesus said, "Without Dad to provide for you, I need to stay."
Mary shook her head. "Sweetie, listen."
"I've prayed about this," Jesus said, "and I'm going to stay. Not forever, but for a while. I'll work and save up money, and I'll provide for you so you'll be safe. James and Joses and the rest of them, they'll help, but I'm your son and they're not, so I owe you that much. You’ve still got the gold they brought when I was born, and I want you to use that too. But when my hour comes, the Father will tell me, and I'll have to leave."
Mary wrapped her hand around his. "Where will you go? Do you know your mission?"
Jesus nodded. "I have my Father's tools now. We're going to build the City of God."
Eight
Year Thirty
Midnight. Michael sat atop the house in Nazareth, watching the stars and all too aware of the souls beneath him. Mary lay asleep. Jesus had awakened at midnight, praying.
Michael had Guarded the house, but outside the Guard on the roof he sat, sword in his hands, and he probed through the darkness for their enemies. All four Maskim watched. Satan was suppressing his location, but Michael assumed he was nearby.
Beneath him, Michael felt prayer. Intense prayer. The kind of prayer even Raphael couldn’t penetrate because it was God the Son communing with God the Father, and who could plumb that?
I can, replied the Spirit, and Michael grinned.
Point taken. Michael shook his head. But not us, and I want to make sure he’s undisturbed.
The Spirit swirled through Michael and left him a little giddy, but he settled back down to his job of protecting Mary and Jesus.
Inside the house, he felt Jesus arise, then a tingle as he passed through the Guard to stand in the night.
Michael flashed to Raphael’s side.
Jesus watched the stars. He stayed that way for an hour, still deep in communion with the Father and wordless, but Raphael interacting with his spirit.
Grief shot like an arrow through the Guard of the house, and Michael felt it shock Mary out of sleep.
Uriel flared to action inside, soothing and gentle. But the damage was done, and in a few minutes Mary emerged. “You’re still here,” she whispered, “I had a nightmare that you’d gone.”
Jesus turned to her, and he swallowed hard.
Michael glared into the dark. The Maskim could read signs as well as any other angel. They could make predictions. They’d taken a risk about what God was going to do next.
Jesus kissed Mary on the cheek.
She said, “Is it time?”
“It’s not my hour yet.”
Her voice shook. “But John. What John’s been doing out in the Jordan – it’s a sign, isn’t it?” When Jesus nodded, she ran the back of her wrist over her eyes. “You have to do what your Father asks. But…”
Jesus took her hand. Mary said, “Will I see you again?”
Jesus nodded. “You will. But tomorrow morning, I need to leave.”
#
Mary didn’t sleep. Michael felt Uriel guiding her prayers for the rest of the night. When the sun rose, so did she, and she prepared food and other necessities for Jesus. When it was time for Jesus to leave, she had wet eyes and Uriel looked drawn.
Raphael, on the other hand, had flames in his wings and a glow in his eyes, and Gabriel glittered with overflow energy he’d already drawn off the Seraph. In contrast to a silent Mary and Uriel or even a Jesus who prayed as he walked, Raphael chattered in a joyful stream of consciousness, zipping ahead on the road and then back to their group as Jesus headed to the Jordan River. Whatever their adventure was, it began here. Today.
And Michael stayed with them because ministries invited attacks, and the greater the ministry, the more Satan would want to undermine it.
This one’s going to be big, Michael prayed.
You know it, replied the Spirit.
Michael had witnessed supernovas that went off with less flare than a Seraph in full joy of living. Thirty years of quiet life, over. Thirty years of protecting against splinters and the common cold, swept aside. Finally Jesus would meet his true purpose. Building the City of God, Raphael said for the tenth time that morning. How will he do that? What will our role be?
Gabriel’s response was usually a mischievous, We haven’t figured it out in twelve years, so our odds of success this morning are on the slim side, but Raphael would just urge him again to guess. And all the time, Jesus kept walking and praying.
#
The Jordan.
The land grew greener the closer they drew to the river, and with the green came cool, and with the cool came a sense of relief, as if the Earth itself relaxed in a land without thirst. The river itself wasn’t much, but it giggled as it moved, and Michael let his spirit resonate with the water’s motion.
A voice carried over the water, someone Jesus could hear before he could see, although Michael could detect the man’s soul. At his cousin’s voice, Jesus smiled compulsively, and his pace picked up.
Fifteen to twenty people stood at the bank, one man in the river preaching. When Jesus neared him, the man stopped.
John shouted, “Behold! The lamb of God!”
Everyone turned. Jesus tensed, but then he walked toward the shore. The angels followed.
Satan appeared before Michael. “Is someone in charge here? I demand to speak to whoever’s in charge.”
Gabriel and Michael halted. Raphael’s sword appeared, but he followed Jesus.
Satan said, “I want my rights.”
Gabriel’s eyes unfocused, and he spoke in a voice between tenor and soprano. “What do you want of My servant?”
Satan looked disgusted. “Gabriel, tell your puppet master I want full rein to test that servant monkey of his. He’s gotten this far on your protection alone, but that’s not proof of his worth, only of his hired thugs.”
Michael’s eyes narrowed.
Still acting as God’s voice, Gabriel said, “You may test him.”
Satan said, “Without any interference from any angels.”
Gabriel replied, “There will be no interference from my servants, nor from yours.”
Gabriel’s eyes still hadn’t focused. “You may not touch his life.”
Satan said, “That’s not good enough.”
“This is not your hour,” came the reply. “He will meet you in a fair test. You have forty days beginning now.”
Gabriel’s eyes snapped to focus, and he blinked as he returned to himself.
“That’s sufficient for me.” Satan smirked at Michael and waved him off. “You can go now. You’re useless enough.”
Satan vanished. Michael muttered, “Why do you keep giving him that much freedom?”
God made no reply.
At the water’s edge, Raphael’s attention was riveted on Jesus, but Michael didn’t approach. God had made that much clear: no help. No interference.
“Raphael’s not going to like this,” Michael said.
Gabriel whispered, “I don’t like it either.”
At the river, Jesus and John were speaking. Michael said, “Why would Jesus get baptized? Shouldn’t he baptize John?”
Gabriel said, “To fulfill the law. Some things are necessary, and some are fitting. Just like his submitting to circumcision, it’s God entering a covenant with God. It’s unbreakable.”
John raised a cup and poured river water over Jesus’s head.
As the water cascaded over him, the sky opened. Both angels looked into the Heavens, and Michael gasped as he felt the Spirit descend on Jesus, suffusing him until they saw his whole soul alight with grace. Gabriel stared into the blaze, but Michael looked at the entire scene, witnessed the river not just as water in motion but as grace flooding the world, or rather as the Spirit Himself. Jesus looked into the light, and Gabriel murmured, “He’s like a dove,” but what Michael saw instead was a river of love engulfing the world.
“You are my beloved Son,” he heard the Father saying, “and I am so very pleased with you.”
Gabriel dropped to his knees. Michael bowed his head and crossed his arms over his chest.
On the shore, the people were asking themselves if that was thunder. Jesus kissed John on the cheek, then left the water, and he walked back up the path, away from the river.
Raphael flashed to Gabriel. “Why can’t I get near him? What happened?”
Michael said, “Satan demanded the right to test him. We can’t interfere.”
Raphael turned to Gabriel, hurt mixing with outrage. “And you let him do that?”
Gabriel looked surprised. “I didn’t let him do anything. He negotiated directly with God.”
“You should have asked for mercy. You should have been demanding God let us match whatever tactics Satan was using.” Raphael’s eyes glinted. “Well? What are we allowed to do?”
Michael was about to say they could do nothing, but Gabriel said, “God didn’t give Satan free rein. He’s got forty days, but he’s not allowed to harm Jesus’s body. Moreover, although Satan said we’re not allowed to interfere,” and here Gabriel smirked just a little, “he forgot to stipulate that God couldn’t either. I suspect Jesus has far better than us right now.”
#
Forty days. Michael deputized Saraquael to take over his regular tasks and camped out with Raphael in the wilderness. Gabriel never left Raphael’s side either, but Michael thought Gabriel seemed worn from the constant steadying he exerted through their bond.
“I can feel him praying,” Raphael said. “He doesn’t detect us, but I still can’t tell if it’s because he can’t or because he’s so deep in prayer. The Spirit is completely suffusing him.”
Gabriel said, “Satan can’t break through that.”
All the same, Michael patrolled, keeping tabs on Satan’s movements and noting the subtle changes he made. It had been like this when Satan approached Gabriel all those years ago: a time of intense observation, then subtle pushes with changes to the environment, inconveniences that actually served as pre-tests. Through all this, though, Jesus fasted and prayed and kept his eyes riveted on the Father, and Satan must have been ruing the one demand he’d failed to make.
It was night. In a hollow at the base of a hill, Jesus slept wrapped in his cloak. Raphael had gotten close, but Michael could tell he had no authority right now. Raphael did what he could, making the ground a little softer, keeping the animals and insects at a distance.
As he worked, Raphael whispered, “It’s the worst feeling in the world, having someone to protect and not being able to protect him.”
Beside Michael, Gabriel shivered.
Raphael halted as if shot with an arrow. For a moment, Michael felt blindsided from two directions – extreme self-consciousness that emerged from both the Seraph and Cherub. “What?” he exclaimed, but both became guarded and neither said a thing.
“Oh,” Michael said. “This is like when you couldn’t help Gabriel.”
Gabriel said, “It’s nothing at all like that.” He looked up at the moon. “I’m going to patrol and make sure none of the Maskim are hiding out.” And he took flight.
Raphael swallowed hard.
Now Michael was the one who felt self-conscious, and he said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset him.”
“It’s not as if he wasn’t thinking it anyhow.” Raphael huffed. “And Satan called you useless? I wonder what he’d have said about me.”
“You’re doing what God wants,” Michael said. “That’s never useless.”
Raphael looked dark. Gabriel returned. “We’re right at the end,” he said. “Whatever happens has to happen now.”
Raphael shook his head. “While he’s physically weak and emotionally exhausted and sorting through everything he’s learned. His defenses are worn to nothing, and I still can’t help.”
Gabriel hugged him. Raphael said, “Don’t try to reassure me. You’re concerned too.”
“Satan’s…subtle.” Gabriel spoke slower. “He’s manipulative. But Jesus is smart.”
Raphael said, “Would smart alone defeat him?”
Gabriel swallowed hard. “No.”
Michael said, “Jesus has grace.”
Gabriel said in a low voice, “Yeah. He won’t engage the way I did.”
Raphael looked up, confused. “What way you did?”
Gabriel folded his arms. “It doesn’t matter. What does matter is today — Satan’s got the same clock we do, and he’s watching it.”
When Jesus awoke, he spent the first hour in prayer, then as had become his routine, he alternated walking with prayer and sometimes both. At mid-morning, he reached a dead tree.
Jesus studied the fallen branches. Raphael got a sudden smile as Jesus bent to pick up one of the larger pieces. He took out his knife and began carving.
Gabriel crouched close and studied the little motions of his hands as wood shavings peeled away. Michael by contrast swept his attention over the horizon. Protection meant watching the surroundings, not focusing on the person. He couldn’t forget that.
As the wood in Jesus’s hands began to transform, the haze in the air smelled of wood smoke and wheat. Why wheat? But the more Michael paid attention, the more he felt a miasma of oppression that meant one thing.
“Alert,” Michael whispered.
Gabriel’s wings spread. Although he couldn’t help, Raphael moved closer to Jesus.
Abruptly Jesus raised his head, and the rocks all around looked like bread.
It would be easy, so easy to speak to them. To say, “Bread,” and have the stones themselves give God what He wanted. Hadn’t God made manna in the desert? Wasn’t this the desert? What better than to have the Earth itself celebrate its God with Messianic plenty? Bread for all. No more hunger.
Jesus gripped the wood tighter.
Bread, bread for the world. Bread that would feed everyone and give them life, bread straight from the hand of God.
Michael’s hand went for his sword. Raphael looked at Gabriel. “Do something!”
Gabriel said, “We don’t have permission.”
Raphael de
epened his voice. “Find something we do have permission to do.”
“For the past forty days, you don’t think I’ve tried?”
The feeling persisted, the amazing goodness of feeding people. Jesus was hungry, but his was a self-imposed hunger. He could end it at any time by going home, by finding a town and buying bread. But what of the people who couldn’t? People starving in lands where nothing grew, places of drought and places wracked by war. Did they deserve their hunger? Did their suffering and death honor God? Did they go into the Pit praising God for emptiness and malnutrition?
Do something.
Do something.
Why would God become a man only to do nothing? To have water poured on his head and pray in a lesser form than he could have just by staying in Heaven with the Godhead?
Wasn’t it selfish to do that? Remember Mary’s grief after Joseph died while Jesus did nothing. Multiply that a million fold. Think of women just like Mary grieving for their starving husbands, their starving babies.
Gabriel sat beneath the tree, arms wrapped around his knees, wings tucked up. His eyes never left Jesus’s face. Raphael grew angrier, but Gabriel wasn’t drawing off the fire.
If Jesus didn’t intervene, all that suffering was his fault. His. No one else’s because no one else’s word could turn stone into bread.
Jesus murmured, “Man doesn’t live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
The push resumed, but Jesus returned to woodworking, and minute later, the heaviness lifted.
Gabriel looked at Raphael. “Satan’s in fine form.”
Raphael had gone ashen.
Satan stepped into the sunlight, one moment not present at all and the next moment a living shadow formed from the tree’s shade, and the moment after that a flaxen-haired, white-winged angel in linen and gold. He folded his arms and regarded Jesus, who Michael realized was able to see him too.
Satan said, “Explain yourself to me.”
Jesus said nothing. Satan picked up one of the dead sticks and flipped it in his hand. “You’re here, out in the middle of nowhere. You’re of the House of David but you were born in a barn and grew up surrounded by sawdust and road dust. You could be working wonders and living legends, but instead you’ve hidden yourself in privacy for three decades while my men got bored just surveilling you. I can’t imagine how bored you’ve made yourself, and yet here you are, carving spirals into dead wood.