Judas

by Frederick Ramsay

  While we still grappled with the significance of our new understanding about him, he declared we must share in this ministry. He caught us by surprise. We thought of ourselves only as followers. The idea that we had to do something beyond that had never occurred to us.

  ***

  Thomas and I paired off and wandered about the countryside for nearly a week with little success. We were an unlikely pair—two doubters. We would have been better off yoked to one of the simple fishermen who did not struggle as I did with what we were about. We could preach the lessons, mind you. In fact, Thomas was quite good at it. He remembered the words and parables almost verbatim and even added some of his own from time to time. My teaching lacked fire and depth and clarity. Passable, but uninspired.

  Thomas walked behind me, ranting on about the burden Jesus had laid on us and how he should have taught us how to do this or that, and on and on. I listened with half an ear. I knew from experience that no good comes from railing at the wind. Better to walk with your back to it.

  The sun baked the land and dust covered our legs. As we traveled a back road toward a village I did not know existed, I saw a young girl of ten or eleven years, sitting off to one side. She reminded me of Dinah when I last saw her. However, where Dinah was fair, this girl was dark, and where Dinah was plump, she was thin. She looked like she had not eaten for weeks. I drew closer and I saw one other similarity. She had Dinah’s vacant stare. Startled by the look, I drew up so sharply that Thomas, in full stride and absorbed in his running commentary on the unfairness of our situation, almost knocked me down.

  “Thomas, stop. We must do for this child.” I exclaimed, excited.

  “Do? Do what for this child?”

  “We must heal her…restore her to her senses.”

  “What? How?”

  “I have no idea, but he said we have the power. We just say the words and call it down.”

  “What words? See, this is exactly what I was just talking about.”

  Thomas remained reluctant to put his faith on the line, but the sight of that girl, and the memories she evoked, drove me into uncharted territory. She stared unseeing and apparently unaware of our presence. I put my hand on her shoulder and she began to tremble. I knew the sequence. I had experienced it dozens of times. Dinah would start shaking and then the screaming would begin. I took a deep breath and muttered, “Do not be afraid, it will be all right.”

  Her eyes darted back and forth and locked on to mine. She calmed. Now what? I looked at Thomas but he only shrugged.

  “God is with you…young woman…He wishes you to be made whole. In the name of Jesus, be restored.” I said this with as much conviction as I could muster. Not much of a speech. Jesus would have said something wonderful, or nothing at all.

  We waited. Had I done something wrong? Why didn’t he give us the right words? Then the girl smiled and kissed my hand. Her eyes were clear. I had done it, well not I, exactly, but it worked. I looked at Thomas. He beamed and shuffled his feet in a little victory dance.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Mary and I formed a conspiracy. The others wondered about us, but our relationship never progressed beyond the innocent keeping of secrets. I regretted it, but at the same time, rejoiced in the acquisition of something I had never truly had before—a friend.

  I could not keep the writing from her.

  “Can you trust those men?” she asked.

  “It is not a matter of trust,” I said. “They may or may not be what they seem, but if they aren’t, why ask for the truth? That is all I write. What can they possibly do if they are only in possession of the truth?”

  She looked doubtful. It was her nature. Women are far less trusting than men in matters of the world. In matters of faith, the reverse is true. Women are naturally spiritual and men must be drubbed into belief.

  “Cui bono?” I asked, in about the only Latin I knew, “Who benefits? They gain nothing from associating with us. Incur risks, in fact. Besides, they could get everything I write from dozens of sources. The Master’s reputation is common knowledge. I only provide an eyewitness and, I suppose, an authentic source.”

  “But,” she said, and I knew I was about to receive a woman’s logic. “If that is so, why are they asking you to write at all? It seems very strange to me they would go to all that trouble…”

  Women, I thought, worry about the wrong things. She should be thinking about the benefit to us, not having dark doubts about a few Pharisees who could help, and certainly not hurt us.

  “Cui bono?” I repeated. “We do.”

  I don’t think she believed me, she but conceded that when it came to knowing how the world worked, I was the acknowledged expert.

  ***

  Once, when we neared Bethsaida, Jesus stopped and turned to the masses following us. There would be no relief until he spoke to them. We were in an area where the ground rose up from the sea. Throngs of people—men, women, and children—covered the hillsides. The wind blew in from the sea so his words carried back to the farthest listeners. He taught them about the kingdom. He told them of the blessings and the warnings. He preached as I never heard him preach before and they listened, eyes bright, mouths open as if to swallow his words.

  The sun was low on the horizon when he finished. We waited, expecting the crowds to disperse, but they lingered, reluctant, it seemed, to miss anything that might yet come. Philip clutched at the rough fabric of his cloak and asked, “What are we to do with these people?”

  “Send them away. It is late and we must move on,” John said, alternately squinting at the setting sun and frowning at the milling throng.

  Jesus said, “Feed them. It is time.”

  Philip looked this way and that as if unsure what to do next. I could count and estimate numbers better than anyone else, and yet even I could not guess how many were camped on that hillside. Thousands? It could easily be five thousand, more if the women and children were counted. Philip hurried over to me.

  “How much money do we have?”

  “What do you need money for?”

  “To buy food. He wants to feed all these people and we must buy food.”

  “Where, exactly, do you plan to make such a purchase?”

  We were at least an hour’s journey from the closest place where food in sufficient quantities could be purchased. Philip looked around helplessly and threw up his hands.

  He and Andrew scoured the area and found a few fish and some loaves of bread, which they presented to Jesus, half expecting him to rebuke them for their foolishness. But he did not. Instead, he held one of the loaves above his head and the crowd quieted. He said a blessing and broke the bread. There was an audible stirring in the crowd. Jesus repeated the blessing with the remaining loaves and fish. The crowd buzzed with excitement. Some cheered. He placed some of the fish and bread into each of twelve baskets and directed us to pass them around. Every person in turn dipped into the basket and took a small morsel and passed it along. People began to sing. A few danced on the hillside.

  Later, as the crowd drifted away, Jesus asked Peter and James to gather up whatever had been left behind. We stared at him in wonder. How many crumbs could possibly be left over from two or three fish and some loaves? They returned from the hillside with all twelve baskets filled. I stood and gaped at them. Jesus walked past me and as he did so, he clapped me on the back, grinning as broadly as I had ever seen him.

  “Where…how?” I stammered.

  “Stones, Judas, don’t you remember? They are from your stones.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Jesus began speaking of his death, not an idea we either grasped or accepted. We had barely begun our journey and were not willing to hear about its premature end. The countryside and this disorganized accretion of farmers and fishermen were barely aroused in sufficient numbers to expect any of them to band together and face the might of Rome. It was too soon to speak of endings.

  Acrid smoke from a guttering campfire added an extra irrit
ant to these conversations. Peter protested vociferously. Occasionally, Jesus would snap at him. “You don’t know what you ask of me, Peter. You do not understand.”

  “But Master, you cannot be put to the test.” Peter preferred to put it that way. “Death” did not fit comfortably in his mouth.

  “Peter, either I do the will of the Father or all will be lost.”

  “For the sake of all of us, for your mother and the many who have come to rely on you, do not say these things.”

  “If you acted any more like Satan, I would have to cast you out.” Jesus said, his voice uncharacteristically curt. “Get behind me.”

  We sat in embarrassed silence. We all believed as Peter did and were upset he had to take the brunt of Jesus’ anger.

  “Master,” I said, hoping to shift the talk along a different path, “how do we answer the critics who grumble about the women.”

  Jesus’ head snapped around and his eyes glittered. “Women? What do they say about women?”

  “Well…”

  I caught sight of Mary out of the corner of my eye, saw her anger. I had stepped on a wasp’s nest but I couldn’t turn back.

  “Some question the time you devote to women. They think women should stay at home, fetch water, and not traipse around with us.” Peter nodded his head. Now that the conversation had shifted away from him and into the area he, too, worried about, he seemed much relieved.

  “Do they?” Jesus asked, his face darkening.

  “Yes, they do. These are good men but raised a certain way. It is hard for them to see how women can be an important part of the kingdom. They call you ‘the Women’s Rabbi.’ Many left us because of this.”

  There are moments in life when you know you have overstepped, drawn in where you did not want to go. This was one of those times. At that moment, I felt supremely stupid.

  “Well, they should return to their studies,” Jesus said between clenched jaws. “They should remember Ruth, and Rachel, and Jael, and Deborah. They should meditate on Rebecca and Sarah, especially Sarah. They should think about their own mothers and ask themselves where they would be if their mothers had never been born. Some day they will hear that heaven lies at the feet of mothers. For as it is necessary for each individual to have been born of a woman, so the covenanted people of God had to be born, as a nation and as individuals. Each must have a mother. Without one, without our women, none of us would be here today. The land would belong to the tribes of Canaan. Tell them that.”

  ***

  Once, outside a town, I cannot recall which or where it was now. In the Galilee, certainly, the subject of law came up. You understand that is a topic which fascinates Jews beyond reason, it seems. Jesus said, “You remember the man at the lakeside asking me, ‘Who do you think you are, God?’” Some of us remembered—I did.

  “God gave the Law to Moses and he gave it to us. We are people of the Law. Scribes, lawyers, and rabbis study it day and night, and write about it. You know it from the Torah . You were raised in it, correct?”

  Everyone mumbled and nodded except me. I did not have advantage of a lifetime of study in the holy books and scrolls. Only John knew the books well, I think.

  “In this,” Jesus continued, “we are unlike any other race or nation. Our law comes only from God. Rome has many laws, is famous for them. But those laws are the work of men, and however grand or just they may be, they are still only the work of men. Therefore, they can be changed as circumstances dictate. Our Law does not change. It is not subject to time or place. It does not vary from king to king because it is the immutable Word.

  “We live it day in and day out. Thus, it defines the core of our existence, the path we follow, our Way.

  “As it is from God and unvarying, it also defines truth. Again, we are unique in this. The Greeks have given us philosophers. There are cynics, stoics, the disciples of Zeno, and many others. They search for truth through philosophy and intellectual exercise. Their truth, like Roman law, may shift over time, a moral precept may decline in their culture. They seek universal truth but live in a world where truth is transitory. For us, the Torah is Truth; we need look no further.

  “And, therefore, it is our Life. We live within the Law, we believe it to be true, we obey it, and we accept that it is, for us, all we need to know to structure our lives. It is our Way; it is our Truth; it is our Life, you see. It and it alone, is our pathway to God.”

  He paused. It was a long speech. Not so long as some, but for the fifteen or twenty of us there, it seemed long. I could barely make out the faces of the others, but from what I could see, they were puzzled. John cleared his throat, uncertain if he should speak. Jesus nodded to him.

  “The man hearing you describe the terms of the inheritance believed you were pronouncing Law, or at least adding to it. Is that why he said what he said?”

  Jesus nodded again. John furrowed his brow in deep concentration.

  “So then, if this man understood you correctly, Master, as you acted as Lawgiver, you may be thought of as the Way, and the Truth, and the Life and, therefore, the pathway to God.”

  Jesus smiled on his favorite pupil and nodded.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Thomas had grown out his beard, and by then he bore a striking resemblance to Jesus, so much so, we took to calling him Didymus, the twin. Jesus was, of course, taller and broader than Thomas, but their proportions were such that unless the two stood next to each other, strangers could easily confuse them.

  “My twin,” Jesus would say and clap Thomas on the back. Thomas would spread his arms wide and look heavenward like Jesus at prayer. We did not know if we should laugh with or be embarrassed for Thomas, but Jesus laughed and we relaxed and joined him.

  ***

  “You have been doing some writing, Judas?” The question startled me. I thought Jesus was away in the hills praying, as he always did in the morning. I felt a pang of guilt for having gone behind his back and a little foolish for thinking I could.

  “Yes, Master.” What else could I say? I had nothing to hide. I had taken on this task to help our cause, to strengthen our position, not to compromise him.

  “Why?”

  I could not read his expression. I decided to tell him the whole story. If I had done something wrong, then I could make up for it somehow. If not, then he should know about this potential source of support.

  “These are men, Master, with position and influence who can help us. But they cannot be seen with you except in large gatherings. You remember how Nicodemas came to you under cover of night. They wish to support us, to support you, and they asked only that I write what I remembered of your teaching, nothing more. They wish to be sure of you.”

  When I spoke these words, doubt crept into my heart. Said that way, I think I must have sensed their shallowness. But I had committed to that course and unless he called me off, I would stay with it.

  “And you think they may help us?”

  I shrugged. “Can it hurt? Master, the people are behind us. Every day, the crowds grow larger and the willingness to make a stand more obvious. These men can hasten that day.”

  “Judas, I have told you again and again, my kingdom is not of this world. Why do you persist on believing otherwise, you, of all people? You have seen the face of our oppressors. You have felt their wrath and you have measured their power. Do you truly believe our people will push them into the sea?”

  “I do not know any other way to think about it. All I can conceive is marching against them. I don’t have your vision. I only see what I know. Something will happen soon. I do not know how I know this, but I do. And I know it will concern you. I can only assume these men will be a part of that, somehow.”

  I do not know if the urgency of my voice or something else moved him, but he turned toward the hills and closed his eyes for a moment. The air seemed filled with the oily aroma from the olives hanging heavy on a nearby tree.

  “Someday you will see as I do.” He paused, letting his words
hang in the air. He plucked an olive and crushed it, rubbing its oil into his hands.

  “Then you feel it, too? Something in the air, something is about to happen?”

  “Yes, something important, perhaps even terrible.” I said, and in that brief moment, sensed my words, like the olive tree, bore more fruit than I imagined.

  “It is the way the air tingles before a great storm or when the earth moves and brings down the mountains. It’s like that, isn’t it?” he said.

  “I had not thought about it quite that way, but yes…something like that.”

  He shook his head like a man who has been clubbed, trying to clear it, to regain his balance, to collect his thoughts. He put his fingertips to his temples and squeezed his eyes shut. It was a gesture I had seen many times. He looked for a moment like a man afflicted with the headaches that flash fire. He would hold his head like that for a short time or even an hour and then it would be over. At first it frightened me and the others, but after a while, we grew used to it.

  “Is something wrong, Rabbi?”

  In a moment whatever possessed him passed and he turned his gaze back on me. He looked at me and with the saddest expression ever I remember seeing. I felt as if I had been stripped naked and every thought, every deed, every wrong I had ever done was laid out for him to see. He shook his head again and breathed a sigh.

  “It is enough, Judas. God is directing both of us now. We must be in Jerusalem for Passover. You will make the arrangements as usual and…” He paused and stared at me with sad eyes for a long moment. “And you will know what you must do.”

  What would I know? He left me then, I suppose, to continue his prayers. I never knew what he did when he left our company. None of us did.