Stretched out on the ground, Jesus gradually recovers and starts breathing normally again. Between the branches of the olive tree, as it sways gently in the wind, he can see the sky, the sun's rays filtering through gaps in the foliage and playing on his face, it must be about the sixth hour, the sun directly overhead shortens the shadows, and who would ever think that night will come to extinguish this dazzling light. Some people pass on the road, more follow behind, and when Jesus looks again at that group, he receives such a shock that his first impulse is to flee, but how can he, for coming toward him is his own mother accompanied by some of his brothers, the older sons, James, Joseph, and Judas, and Lisa too, but she is a girl and should be mentioned separately rather than listed according to age, which would place her between James and Joseph. They still have not seen him. Jesus goes into the road to meet them, once more carrying his lamb in his arms, but one suspects this is only to make sure his arms are full. First to notice him is James, who waves before turning to their mother in great excitement, and now Mary is looking, they start walking faster, and Jesus too feels obliged to hasten toward them, though he cannot run with the lamb in his arms. We are taking so long over this that the reader might get the impression we do not want them to meet, but this is not so, maternal, fraternal, and filial love should give them wings, yet there are reservations and certain constraints, we know how they separated, we do not know the effect of all those months apart without news of each other. If one keeps walking, one eventually arrives, and there they are, face-to-face, Jesus says, Your blessing, Mother, and his mother says, May the Lord bless you, my son. They embraced, then it was his brothers' turn, then Lisa's, followed by an awkward silence, all of them at a loss for words, Mary was not going to say to her son, Such a surprise, what on earth are you doing here, nor Jesus to his mother, I never expected to find you here, what brings you to the city, the lamb in his arms and the one they have brought speak for themselves, this is the Passover of the Lord, the difference being that one lamb is going to die and the other has been saved. We waited and waited to hear from you, Mary said at length, bursting into tears. Her eldest son stands before her, so tall, so grown-up, with the beginnings of a beard and the weather-beaten complexion of one who has spent his days in the open, exposed to the sun, wind, and dust of the desert. Don't cry, Mother, I have work. I'm a shepherd now. A shepherd. Yes, a shepherd. But I was hoping you'd follow your father and take up the trade he taught you. Well, as things turned out, I became a shepherd, and that's what I am. When are you coming home. I don't know, one day, I suppose. At least accompany your mother and brothers to the Temple. Mother, I'm not going to the Temple. Why not, you have your lamb there. This lamb isn't going to the Temple either. Is there something wrong with it. No, nothing, but he will die a natural death when his time comes. My son, I don't understand. You don't have to understand, if I save this lamb, it's so that someone may save me. Then why not come with your family. I was leaving. Where to, Back to the flock where I belong, Where did you leave it, At present it's in the valley of Aijalon, Where is this valley of Aijalon, On the other side, What other side, On the other side of Bethlehem. Mary stepped back and turned quite pale, how she has aged although barely thirty, Why do you mention Bethlehem, she asked. That's where I met the shepherd who is my master. Who is this man, and before Jesus had time to reply, she said to the others, You go on ahead and wait for me at the entrance. Then taking Jesus by the hand, she led him to the side of the road, Who is this man, she asked a second time. I don't know, Jesus answered. Doesn't he have a name. If he has, he's never told me, I call him Pastor and that's all. What does he look like, He's big, And where did you meet him, In the cave where I was born, Who took you there, A slave named Salome, who told me she helped deliver me, And this man, What about him, What did he say to you, Nothing you don't already know. Mary slumped to the ground, as if a heavy hand were pushing her, That man is a demon. How do you know, did he tell you so. No, the first time I saw him, he told me he was an angel and asked me not to say a word to anyone. When did you see him. The day your father learned I was pregnant, he appeared at our door disguised as a beggar and told me he was an angel. Did you ever see him again. On the road when your father and I traveled to Bethlehem for the census, then in the cave where you were born, and the night after you left home, he walked into the yard, I thought it was you, and peering through the gap in the door, I saw him uproot the plant in the yard, you remember that bush which grew at the very spot where the bowl of bright earth was buried. What bowl, what earth. You were never told, but the beggar gave it to me before he went away, when he returned the bowl after he had finished eating, there was luminous earth inside. For earth to shine, he must have been an angel. At first I believed so, but the devil too has magical powers. Jesus sat beside his mother and left the lamb to roam at will. Yes, I've learned that when they are both in agreement, it's almost impossible to tell the difference between an angel of the Lord and an angel of Satan, he told her. Stay with us, don't go back to that man, do this for your mother's sake. No, I promised to return, and I will keep my word. People make promises to the devil only in order to deceive him. This man, who I'm certain is no man but an angel or demon, has been haunting me since the day I was born, and I want to know why. Jesus, my son, come to the Temple with your mother and brothers, by taking this lamb to the altar you'll fulfill your obligation and the lamb its destiny, and there you can ask the Lord to deliver you from the powers of Satan and all evil thoughts. This lamb will die only when his time comes. But this is its day for dying. Mother, the lambs you gave birth to must die, but you should not make them die before their time. Lambs are not people, and even less so when those people are sons. When the Lord ordered Abraham to kill his son Isaac, no distinction was made then. My son, I'm a simple woman, I have no answer to give you, but I beseech you, give up these evil thoughts. Mother, thoughts are but passing shadows, neither good nor bad in themselves, actions alone count. Praised be the Lord who blessed this poor, ignorant woman with such a wise son, yet I cannot believe this is the wisdom of God. One can learn also from the devil. And I fear you are in his power. If his power saved this lamb, then something has been gained in the world today. Mary made no attempt to reply. They saw James approaching from the city gate. Mary got to her feet, I find my son only to lose him again, she said, to which Jesus replied, If you haven't already lost him, you will not lose him now. He put his hand into his pack and took out the money he had been given as alms, This is all I have. You've worked all those months for so little. I work to earn my keep. You must be very fond of that master of yours to be satisfied with so little. The Lord is my shepherd. Don't offend God, living with a demon. Who knows, Mother, who knows, he could be an angel serving another God who reigns in another heaven. The Lord said, I am the Lord and you will worship no other god. Amen, responded Jesus. He gathered the lamb into his arms and said, I see James approaching, farewell, Mother, and Mary said, One would think you had more affection for that lamb than for your own family. Right now I do, said Jesus. Choking with grief and anger, Mary turned away and ran to meet her other son. She did not look back.
Outside the city walls, Jesus took a different route across the fields before beginning the long descent into the valley of Aijalon. He stopped at a village and bought food with the money his mother had refused, some bread and figs, milk for himself and the lamb, sheep's milk, and if there was any difference, it wasn't noticeable, it's possible, at least in this case, that one mother is as good as another. Anyone surprised that Jesus spends money on a lamb that by rights should now be dead will be told that the boy once owned two lambs, one was sacrificed and lives on in the glory of the Lord, while this other lamb was rejected because it had a torn ear, Take a look, But there's nothing wrong with its ear, they might say, to which Jesus would reply, Well, then, I'll tear it myself, and lifting the lamb to his back, he went on his way. He caught sight of the flock as the evening light began to wane and the sky became overcast with dark, low clouds. The
tension in the air spoke of thunderstorms, and indeed lightning rent the sky just as Jesus saw the flock. But there was no rain, it was one of those dry thunderstorms, all the more frightening because they make you feel so vulnerable, without the shield of rain and wind, as it were, to protect you in the naked battle between a thundering heaven that tears itself apart and an earth that trembles and cowers beneath the blows. A hundred paces from Jesus, another blinding flash split an olive tree, which immediately caught fire and blazed like a torch. A loud burst of thunder shuddered across the sky as if ripping it open from end to end, and the impact knocked Jesus to the ground and left him senseless. Two more bolts struck, here, there, like two decisive words, then little by little the peals of thunder grew remote and finally became a gentle murmur, an intimate dialogue between heaven and earth. The lamb, having survived the storm unharmed and no longer afraid, came up to Jesus and put its mouth to his lips, there was no sniffing, one touch was all that was needed. Jesus opened his eyes, saw the lamb, then the livid sky like a black hand blocking whatever light remained. The olive tree still burned. His bones ached when he tried to move, but at least he was in one piece, if that can be said of a body so fragile that it takes only a clap of thunder to knock it to the ground. He sat up with some effort and reassured himself, more by touch than by sight, that he was neither burned nor paralyzed, none of his bones were broken, and apart from a loud buzzing in his head as insistent as the drone of a trumpet, he was all right. He drew the lamb to him and said, Don't be afraid, He only wanted to show you that you would have been dead by now if that was His will, and to show me that it was not I who saved your life but He. One last rumble of thunder slowly tore the air like a sigh, while below, the white patch of the flock seemed a beckoning oasis.
Struggling to overcome his weakness, Jesus descended the slope. The lamb, kept on its cord simply as a precaution, trotted at his side like a little dog. Behind them, the olive tree continued to burn, and the light it cast in the twilight allowed Jesus to see the tall figure of Pastor rise before him like a ghost, wrapped in a mantle that seemed endless and holding a crook that looked as though it might touch the clouds were he to raise it. Pastor said, I was expecting that thunderstorm. I'm the one who should have expected it, replied Jesus. Where did you get the lamb. I didn't have enough money to buy one for Passover, so I stood by the roadside and begged, then an old man came and gave me this lamb. Why didn't you offer it in sacrifice. I couldn't, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Pastor smiled, Now I begin to understand, He waited for you, let you come to the flock safely, in order to show His might before my eyes. Jesus did not reply, he had more or less said the same thing to the lamb, but having just arrived, he had no desire to get into a discussion about God's motives and acts. So what will you do with your lamb. Nothing, I brought it here so that it could join the flock. The white lambs all look alike, tomorrow you won't even recognize it among the others. My lamb knows me. The day will come when it forgets you, besides the lamb will soon grow tired of always having to come and look for you, better to brand it or cut off a piece of its ear. Poor little beast. What's the difference, after all they branded you when they cut your foreskin so that people would know to whom you belong. It's not the same thing. It shouldn't be, but it is. As they were speaking, Pastor gathered up wood and was now busily trying to light a fire with a flint. Jesus told him, It would be easier to go and fetch a branch from the burning olive tree, whereupon Pastor replied, One should always leave heavenly fire to burn out by itself. The trunk of the olive tree was now one great ember glowing in the darkness, the wind made sparks fly from it and sent incandescent strips of bark and burning twigs into the air, where they soon went out. The sky remained heavy and strangely oppressive. Pastor and Jesus ate together as usual, which led Pastor to remark ironically, This year you're not partaking of the paschal lamb. Jesus listened and said nothing, but deep inside he felt uneasy, from now on he would face the awkward contradiction between eating lambs and refusing to kill them. So what's to be done, asked Pastor, is the lamb to be branded or not. I couldn't do it, said Jesus. Give it to me, then, and I'll do it. With a firm, quick flick of the knife Pastor removed the tip of one of its ears, then holding it up, he asked, What shall I do with this, bury it or throw it away. Without thinking, Jesus replied, Let me have it, and dropped it into the fire. That's exactly how they disposed of your foreskin, said Pastor. Blood dripped from the lamb's ear in a slow trickle that would soon stop. The smoke from the flames gave off the intoxicating smell of charred young flesh. And so at the end of a long day, in which much time had been wasted on childish and presumptuous gestures of defiance, the Lord finally received His due, perhaps because of those intimidating blasts of thunder and lightning, which surely made enough of an impression to persuade these stubborn shepherds to show obedience. The earth quickly swallowed the last drop of the lamb's blood, for it would have been a great shame to lose the most precious drop of all from this much-disputed sacrifice.
Transformed by time into an ordinary sheep, distinguishable from the others only by the missing tip of one ear, this same animal came to lose itself three years later in the wild country bordering the desert south of Jericho. In so large a flock, one sheep more or less may not seem to make much difference, but we must not forget that this flock is like no other, even its shepherds have little in common with shepherds we have heard about or seen, so we should not be surprised if Pastor, looking from a hilltop, noticed that an animal was missing without having to count them. He called Jesus and told him, Your sheep is missing from the flock, go and look for it, and since Jesus himself did not ask Pastor, How do you know the sheep is mine, we will also refrain from asking Jesus. What matters now is to see where Jesus, who is unfamiliar with this region where few have ventured, will go on the broad horizon. Since they came from the fertile land of Jericho, where they had decided not to stay, preferring to wander at their leisure rather than be trapped among people, a person or sheep intent on getting lost was much more likely to choose a place where the effort of searching for food would not interfere with his precious solitude. By this logic, it was clear that Jesus' sheep had deliberately lagged behind the others and even now was probably grazing on the fertile banks of the Jordan, within sight of Jericho for greater safety. Logic, however, is not everything in this life. Often what you expect, as the most feasible outcome of a sequence of events or else foreseeable for some other reason, comes about in the most unlikely way. If this is so, then our Jesus should seek his lost sheep not in those rich pastures back there but in the scorched and arid desert before him. No one need argue that a sheep would not stray off to die of hunger and thirst, first because no one knows what goes on inside a sheep's head, and secondly because you must keep in mind what we just said about the uncertain nature of the foreseeable. And so we find Jesus already making his way into the desert. Pastor showed no surprise at his decision, he said nothing, only gave a slow and solemn nod of the head, which, oddly, looked also like a gesture of farewell.
The desert in this region is not one of those vast tracks of sand with which we are all familiar, here it is more a great sea of parched, rugged dunes straddling one another and creating an inextricable labyrinth of valleys. A few plants barely survive at the foot of these slopes, plants consisting of only thorns and thistles, which a goat might be able to chew but will tear the sensitive mouth of a sheep at the slightest contact. This desert is far more intimidating than one formed by smooth sands and constantly shifting dunes, here every hill announces the threat lurking on the next hill, and when we arrive there in fear and trembling, at once we feel the same threat at our back. In this desert our cries will raise no echo, all we will hear in reply are the hills themselves calling out, or the voice of the mysterious force hidden there. Jesus, carrying nothing but his crook and pack, entered the desert. He had not gone far, had barely crossed the threshold of this world, when he became aware that his father's old sandals were coming apart under his feet. They had been often patche
d, but Jesus' mending skills could no longer save what had walked so many roads and pressed so much sweat into the dust. As if obeying a commandment, the last of the fibers disintegrated, the patches came undone, the laces broke in several places, and soon Jesus was practically barefoot. The boy Jesus, as we have grown used to calling him, although being Jewish and eighteen years of age, he is more adult than adolescent, suddenly remembered the sandals he had been carrying all this time in his pack, and he foolishly thought they might still fit. Pastor was right when he warned him, when feet grow, they will not shrink again, and Jesus could scarcely believe that once he could slip his feet into these tiny sandals. He confronted the desert in his bare feet, like Adam expelled from Eden, and like Adam he hesitated before taking his first painful step across the tortured earth that beckoned him. But then, without asking himself why he did it, perhaps in memory of Adam, he dropped his pack and crook, and lifting his tunic by the hem pulled it over his head to stand as naked as Adam himself. Pastor cannot see him here, no inquisitive lamb has followed him, only birds venturing beyond this frontier can catch a glimpse of him from the sky, as can the insects from the ground, the ants, the occasional centipede, a scorpion that in panic lifts its tail with its poisonous sting. These tiny creatures cannot remember ever having seen a naked man before and have no idea what he is trying to prove. If they were to ask Jesus, Why did you take off your clothes, perhaps he would tell them, One must walk into the desert naked, a reply beyond the understanding of insects of the genus Hemiptera, Myriapoda, or Arachnida. We ask ourselves, Naked, with all those thorns to graze bare skin and catch in pubic hair, naked, with all those sharp thistles and that rough sand, naked under that scorching sun which can make a man dizzy and blind, naked, to find that lost sheep we branded with our own mark. The desert opens to receive Jesus, then closes behind him, as if cutting off any path of retreat. Silence echoes in his ears like the noise from one of those dead, empty shells which, washed ashore, absorb the vast sound of the waves until some passerby brings it slowly to his ear, listens, and says, The sea. Jesus's feet are bleeding, the sun pushes aside the clouds and stabs him, thorns prick his legs like clawing nails, thistles scratch him. Sheep, where are you, he calls, and the hills pass on his words, Where are you, where are you. This would be a perfect echo, but the prolonged, faraway sound of the shell imposes itself, murmuring God, Go-o-od, Go-o-od. Then, as if the hills were suddenly swept away, Jesus emerged from the maze of valleys into a flat and sandy arena, his sheep right in the center. He ran to it as fast as he could on his blistered feet, but a voice restrained him, Wait.
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ Page 21