Wings of Refuge

by Lynn Austin

  “There is something wrong with this lamb,” he said as he ran his swarthy hands over Little One’s head. “Look . . . See here? His eye is running.”

  “That’s because you poked it!” Leah cried out.

  Abba whirled to face her, horrified that she had spoken. Mama grabbed Leah’s arm and pulled her aside, shaking her. “Leah! You’ll disgrace us!” she said in a harsh whisper. “It’s shameful enough that you can’t hold your tongue in Degania, but that man is God’s holy priest!”

  “But he poked our lamb’s eye on purpose! I saw him—”

  “Hush! Or you will never be allowed to come here again!”

  Leah bit her lip as she turned back to watch the priest. His chin tilted arrogantly as he gestured to Little One.

  “I cannot ignore this animal’s rheumy eye. The lamb is defective.”

  Abba’s shoulders slumped. He looked small and insubstantial beside the fleshy priest. “But . . . it’s all we have, Your Honor,” he said.

  The priest’s eyes were half closed as if the proceedings bored him. “The animal might bring a few shekels in the Roman meat market, but it isn’t suitable for Passover. I could spare you the trouble of selling it and exchange it for a clean lamb, but you will have to pay the difference in price.”

  “How much difference?” Abba said hoarsely.

  “Your lamb and one shekel of silver in exchange for that animal over there.” He gestured to one of the lambs tethered behind him. “It’s the same size as yours.”

  Leah raged in silence at the injustice. The other lamb was much smaller than Little One, with scarcely any fat. The meager meat on its bones would barely feed her family and Cousin Samuel’s, much less provide second helpings. She longed to protest, but Mama gripped her arm so tightly it hurt.

  Abba removed his money pouch and slowly began piling silver pieces on the priest’s scales. Gideon turned his back as if unwilling to be a witness. As he came to stand beside Leah, she could tell by his tight lips and clenched fists that he was as angry as she was.

  “It’s not fair,” Leah whispered to him. “We’re being cheated.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “Can’t we do something? Isn’t there a judge—”

  “The priests are the judges.”

  The mound of silver Abba was forced to pile on the scale left his pouch nearly empty. The profits from the sale of his early grain crops were nearly gone, and he still had to pay the temple tax of a half-shekel apiece for Saul, Gideon, and himself. There would be nothing left to pay their Roman taxes by the time they got home.

  “Abba ought to keep all the barley we brought,” Leah whispered. “That crook doesn’t deserve our tithe.” It made her sick to think of the crow-faced priest sitting in his mansion on the hill, eating Abba’s grain while they went hungry.

  “Come,” Abba said when the deal was finished. “We’ll take this new lamb back to Samuel’s house.” Leah could tell he was disheartened.

  “If it’s all right with you,” Gideon said, “I would like to stay and look around for a while. I know the way back.”

  “May I stay, too?” Leah asked. “Please?”

  Abba nodded wearily. “Be sure to stay together, and don’t wander too far.”

  Leah and Gideon explored the huge Court of the Gentiles first, acres and acres of stone pavement surrounded by pillared porches. “I want to get closer,” Leah said, gazing at the gilded sanctuary near the center of the plaza. A thin plume of smoke rose heavenward from the holy altar.

  “You can only go as far as the Court of Women,” Gideon warned.

  “I know. Will you take me there?”

  “All right.”

  A thrill of excitement shivered through Leah as she approached God’s dwelling place on earth. But once inside, the view from the women’s court disappointed her. She had to peer over the other women’s heads and look through a row of narrow openings just to see into the Court of the Israelites where Gideon had gone, and that view was obstructed by the backs of all the men who were inside. It was just like the Torah lessons in the synagogue back home—she was excluded because she was a woman. As the sweet perfume of incense drifted into her courtyard, she wondered what it would be like to be able to approach God’s altar, to worship Him up close instead of from far away.

  “There wasn’t much to see,” Gideon told her when he emerged through the Nicanor Gate a few minutes later. “We’re much too late for the morning sacrifice and too early for the evening one.”

  As they skirted the edge of Solomon’s porch, Leah’s attention was drawn to a crowd that had gathered around a speaker. He wasn’t a scribe, or a teacher of the law, or even one of the Pharisees’ rabbis, but an ordinary working man like Abba with a lean, muscular body and sun-browned skin. With his smiling bearded face, pointed nose, and small round ears, he reminded Leah of the little brown-furred coneys that lived on the hillsides back home among the rocks. He spoke in the clear, plain dialect of her district of Galilee. But what drew Leah to a halt was the fact that women as well as men sat listening at his feet.

  “Gideon, wait.” She pulled her brother to a stop beside her. “Can’t we listen, too?” He shrugged, then leaned against one of the pillars with his arms folded to hear what the man had to say.

  “The Prophet Jeremiah foresaw this day,” the preacher said, gesturing broadly with his work-callused hands. “Jeremiah wrote, ‘Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!’ The prophet was talking about the leaders and priests whose job it is to shepherd His people Israel. He said the wicked shepherds would be punished but that God Himself would gather the remnant of His flock. God spoke the same message through the Prophet Eze-kiel, saying, ‘I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down . . . I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.’”

  Leah glanced at Gideon to see if he was also thinking of the corrupt priest who had just cheated their father. Her brother was standing up straight, listening with rapt attention.

  “Isn’t it enough,” the preacher continued, “for these wicked shepherds to feed on the good pasture? Must they also trample the rest of the pasture with their feet? Isn’t it enough for them to drink clear water? Must they also muddy the rest with their feet? Must God’s flock feed on what they have trampled and drink what they have muddied? God says, ‘I will save my flock, and they will no longer be plundered . . . I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them and be their shepherd. I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them.’ Yeshua the Messiah said, ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.’ And so Yeshua gave His life as our Passover sacrifice to remove the barriers that stand between us and God.”

  Who was this Yeshua? Leah wondered. She would gladly follow a leader who was as gentle and caring as her brother Saul was with Abba’s sheep. Especially if that shepherd would break down all the walls that the priests and Pharisees had built and allow her to draw near to God.

  She nervously glanced around, still unsure if she was even supposed to be listening, and saw that a woman had moved to stand close beside her. “I see that you’re interested,” the woman said softly. “Oh no, it’s all right,” she quickly added when she saw that Leah was about to flee. “You may stay. Yeshua the Messiah has many women disciples. God’s Spirit was poured out on men and women alike, just as the prophet Joel said it would be. Divisions between rich and poor, slave and free, male and female don’t exist in His kingdom.”

  Leah remembered the words of Matthew’s Torah lesson that she had learned outside the synagogue window. “‘They will all know me, from the least . . . to the greatest,’” she recited aloud.

  “Yes, that’s right. Yeshua came—”

  “It’s time to go,” Gideon said. He gripped Leah’s arm and pulled her away.

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bsp; “Gideon, wait! I want to hear—”

  “Abba would forbid it.” He propelled her across the courtyard toward the stairs.

  “But they were talking about the Messiah.”

  “I know. Everyone wants the Messiah to come because our lives are so unbearable. People are willing to believe anything. But if he really came, then why are we still under Roman rule? Why are we still hungry? The real Messiah will fight the Roman armies. He’ll feed us with manna when he comes, and we won’t be hungry anymore.”

  Leah wondered what it would be like to have a full stomach all the time, like on a feast day or after a wedding celebration. At home, Abba and her brothers always ate first because they needed more food for their hard labor. Leah felt hungry most of the time, even after eating.

  As they neared the stairs that led from the Temple Mount, Leah suddenly heard a familiar sound. It was a lamb bleating with a distinctive hoarse stutter she recognized immediately. She turned and saw a well-dressed man walking toward her with Little One under his arm.

  “Little One!” she cried. He bleated loudly in response to her voice and tried to wriggle free. “Gideon, that’s Little One, that’s our lamb!” Leah ran to him. Little One’s stubby tail spun in happy circles when he saw her. The man had a difficult time restraining him.

  “What are you doing?” he shouted angrily. “This is my lamb. I just purchased it for Passover.”

  “For Passover!” she cried. “Did the priests tell you this lamb was acceptable for the sacrifice?”

  “Of course it’s acceptable! Now get out of my way, girl.”

  “The priests cheated us!” Gideon shouted as he hurried to Leah’s side. “We brought this lamb from our village in Galilee and the priests told us it was unclean.”

  “You must be mistaken.” The man tried to edge around Gideon but he blocked his path.

  “I’m not mistaken! My sister raised him, she knows him, and the lamb recognizes her!” Little One’s cries grew louder as he struggled to free himself and go to Leah. “The priests stole our lamb,” Gideon insisted, “and they stole Abba’s money! You have to bring him back and tell the authorities what those lying, cheating priests did!” Gideon began wrestling with the man, trying to pull Little One from his arms.

  “Hey, stop! Let go! This is my lamb! Thief!”

  Suddenly two Roman soldiers appeared out of nowhere. Their beardless faces looked naked and ugly, their heads grotesquely small in their close-fitting helmets.

  “Gideon, look out!” Leah cried. She backed away in terror.

  “Get your filthy hands off me!” Gideon cried. “I’m telling you we were cheated! This lamb was stolen from us—!” All the air suddenly rushed out of him with a loud grunt as one of the soldiers punched him in the gut. Gideon doubled over, gasping in pain, but the second soldier cruelly yanked Gideon’s arms behind his back, forcing him upright. The man holding Little One thanked the soldiers and quickly disappeared down the stairs.

  “No . . . stop! My brother isn’t a thief!” Leah cried as the soldiers began dragging Gideon across the courtyard toward the Antonia Fortress. They ignored her, as if she wasn’t even there.

  Leah didn’t know what to do. Too terrified to follow them, she stood alone, dazed. It had all happened so fast. Please, God, let this just be a terrible dream! But it wasn’t a dream. They were arresting Gideon.

  She was aware of people staring at her, skirting around her in a wide arc as she stood alone, weeping, but no one stopped to help. She was at the point of despair when she felt a comforting arm encircle her shoulder and heard a soft voice asking, “What’s wrong, dear one? Can I help you somehow?”

  Leah was surprised to see the woman who had spoken to her on Solomon’s porch. Her face was so kind, so concerned, that Leah threw herself into the woman’s arms.

  “The Roman soldiers just took my brother away and it was all my fault! I don’t know what to do!” The woman held Leah and allowed her to cry, gently rubbing her back.

  When Leah’s tears were spent, the stranger said, “What’s your name, dear one?”

  “I’m Leah, daughter of Jesse from Degania in Galilee.”

  “Is the rest of your family here in Jerusalem with you, Leah?”

  “Yes, but Gideon knows the way back to where we’re staying. I don’t remember!”

  “Tell me everything you do remember, and I’ll try to help.” Her voice calmed Leah, and she was able to explain to the woman about Cousin Samuel’s house in the laborers’ district outside the city walls. “I know where that is,” the woman said. “It’s a large neighborhood, but someone is bound to know Samuel the Galilean if we ask enough people.”

  She led Leah down the stairs and through the crowded streets to a gate that led out of the city. Leah recognized it as the one she had come through earlier with her family. At the thought of facing her father, she began to cry again. “It’s my fault . . . it’s all my fault!”

  “Why is it your fault, Leah?” She told the woman what had happened, and when she finished, the woman said, “The Holy One will deal with the wicked priests in His time. But what happened to your brother wasn’t your fault. The Scriptures say, ‘Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.’”

  Leah knew it was true. “Gideon has always had a fiery temper,” she said.

  As soon as they entered Cousin Samuel’s neighborhood, Leah saw her little brother playing in the lane with Samuel’s sons. “Matthew!” she cried as she ran toward him. “Where’s Abba? Tell him to come quickly!” In the panic and confusion that followed, Leah forgot all about the woman who had helped her. When she finally remembered and turned to thank her, the woman had vanished.

  All the color drained from Abba’s face as Leah explained through her tears how Gideon had been arrested. “Stay in the house,” he ordered. “Saul and I will go back to the fortress and find him.”

  Leah tried to pray while she waited, but she didn’t know what to say to God. Didn’t she need to bring a sacrifice or an offering before she had the right to ask anything of Him? She heard her mother sobbing in the next room.

  The sun was setting by the time Abba and Saul finally returned, supporting Gideon between them. “The Romans beat him with rods,” Saul said, “his punishment for assault and attempted theft.” Gideon moaned as they laid him on his stomach on the floor of Samuel’s dingy storage room.

  “Get some water and tend his wounds,” Abba said gruffly.

  “I’m sorry,” Leah wept as she knelt beside him. “Oh, Gideon, I’m so sorry. . . .”

  CHAPTER 9

  TEL DEGANIA EXCAVATION—1999

  Abby pulled her Bible and book of devotions from her backpack and settled down in a patch of shade with them to take her morning break. It was secluded and peaceful on this side of the dig site, with birds singing in the grove of fruit trees below the tel and the glittering blue waters of the lake barely visible in the distance. She opened her Bible and read the day’s passage from Psalm 66: For you, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver . . . You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.

  The devotional explained how God sometimes uses difficult circumstances to accomplish His purposes and draw people closer to Him. It was the same thing Hannah’s husband had said—that what others intended for harm, God could use for good. Abby still wondered what good could come from adultery and divorce. And she wondered, as she had every day, what she should do when she returned home.

  Should she take the legalistic approach like the Pharisees, divorcing Mark for breaking his marriage vows, then withdrawing from her enemies and starting over someplace else? Someplace where she wouldn’t have to hear the shocked whispers behind her back or endure the pitying looks?

  Or, like the Sadducees, should she compromise with her enemies, amicably dividing up the household goods with Mark, and find another man to take Mark’s place? Right now the thought of allowing herself to trus
t another man was too overwhelming for Abby to contemplate. She hadn’t been one of the popular girls in high school, with dozens of boyfriends and dates. Studious and shy in college, she discovered she had much in common with quiet Mark MacLeod when they met while working at Turkey Run State Park one summer. Surrounded by the forest they both loved so much, falling in love had been as effortless as falling in step with each other on the wooded paths.

  The Zealots had chosen to fight, and although Abby didn’t want Mark back and wasn’t interested in fighting with Lind-sey Cook over him, she wondered if she should continue to fight with Mark, dragging out the divorce, suing him for the house and every cent he owned. But what good would money do her—or a house in which every floorboard creaked with memories?

  Then there was Jesus’ solution. Hannah still hadn’t discussed what that was yet.

  As Abby was about to close her Bible she noticed a strange series of markings on the page, as if certain letters and groups of letters had been underlined. She had noticed similar marks a few days ago in another place and had thought they were misprints. She tilted the page to the light to see if these were also typos, but the ink was dark blue, not black. When she flipped to the next page she could see the indentations a pen had made when it had been pressed down. How odd. This Bible was brand-new, a present from Emily. Had her daughter made the marks? If so, what did they mean? She hadn’t underlined verses or even whole words—just random letters. Abby decided to ask Emily about them the next time she sent an email message.

  Abby thought about Emily’s last email letter as she walked back to the dig site to resume work. Daddy came to church with me on Sunday, Emily had written. I introduced him to my pastor, and they’re going to meet for coffee tomorrow night to talk. . . .

  Mark was going to sit down for coffee and talk? He never talked. He didn’t have time. Throughout their last year of marriage, he’d simply swept into the house to change his clothes or to sleep or to check his mail. The rest of the time he was always busy working fifty or sixty hours a week—at least he’d said he was working. Abby felt her anger building again, churning her stomach like a stormy sea. How could God bring something good out of this?