Now Simon glanced at Andrew and seemed to consider whether he ought to say more than this.
He did.
“There’s another reason why I believe it,” he said in a sober tone. He stared down at the road before him.
“I have seen that darkness, too. I know that terror. The priests and me—we’ve experienced the same thing.
“Andrew, do you remember that Jesus said I would deny him?”
Andrew remembered. He whispered, “Yes.”
“He was right. I denied him three times in order to save my life. And while I was denying him the third time, he suddenly came out and looked at me, looked straight at me! Such a painful, painful expression! Oh, Andrew, I thought I had lost him. I was in darkness then, and that was the darkness of God! I expected to die. No, I wanted to die. The priests were killed by the tear in the Temple. I was killed by my sin.”
The disciples had just begun to climb the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, but Andrew was unaware of the landscape. He was feeling such pity for his brother that the tears began to stand in his eyes.
Simon saw it. “No! Wait!” he exclaimed. “Everything is all right! Andrew, don’t you know what Jesus was doing on the shore the morning we caught so many fish? He was forgiving me.”
Simon punched Andrew on the shoulder. “Smile, brother! I understand the curtain now. It ripped and God broke out. I mean, nothing divides us from him anymore. I mean, that’s what Jesus has done. That’s what forgiveness is.” Simon began to strike his breast: “The mercy of God—right here, right now!”
Suddenly Thomas cried, “Look!” He clapped his hands and pointed and shouted, “There he is!”
The disciples raised their arms and their voices and started to race uphill.
Andrew’s heart leaped within him. Jesus was standing on a stony rise at the highest elevation of the Mount of Olives, waiting.
But then Andrew went more slowly than the rest. The wind was pulling at the Lord’s white robe. He was like a marble column under the blue firmament. And this is why Andrew did not run to be near him: he feared what was to come. So splendid in sunlight was the Lord’s appearance that Andrew was disquieted. A royal Lord Jesus! He might have been holding a scepter in his right hand, or a sword, or seven burning stars.
Thomas, too, was impressed by the grandeur of Jesus’ person. “Lord,” he cried as he approached the top of the mountain, “will you now restore the kingdom to Israel?”
Jesus said, “It isn’t your place to know the times or seasons which the Father chooses.” His voice had a brazen quality, like a trumpet.
The disciples ranged themselves below him. None climbed to his level. Andrew stood behind them all.
Jesus said, “You are my witnesses now. Preach repentance. In my name preach the forgiveness of sins. Open the scriptures to people. Show them that the Christ had to suffer and die and on the third day be raised from the dead.”
Andrew began to cry. The Lord’s words were a valediction, rhythmic, heavy, and divine. All the disciples were quiet. No one moved. Motion might destroy the moment. A small cloud came sailing over Jerusalem from the west.
Jesus said, “You are my witnesses. Go into the city and wait there until you are clothed with power from on high. But when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, preach! Preach first in Jerusalem, then through all Judea and Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth.”
While he was saying these things, Jesus was lifted up from the ground. He rose higher and higher, his black hair streaming in a distant wind, until the small cloud passed beneath him and he was taken from the sight of the disciples.
Andrew watched the cloud. When it continued eastward, there was only the blue sky, yet Andrew and all the disciples gazed into that as if something more should happen.
As softly as feathers, two men in white robes appeared beside them.
“Ah, men of Galilee,” they said—and the world rushed in on Andrew again, loud and raucous and harsh and fiercely lit.
All the disciples moved. Holiness broke. The sky was shut like a lid.
But the two men said, “Why are you looking up into heaven? Don’t you know that this Jesus, who was taken up from you, will come again in the same way you saw him go?”
Andrew, the last to climb the mount, was the first to leave. He didn’t wait for the others. He went alone down the western slope of the Mount of Olives into the Kidron valley and into the city. As far as he knew, all the disciples separated, each taking his own way into Jerusalem.
But he was empty, body and soul. There wasn’t a single word within him that he might speak it to another, or a thought that he might think it. His heart had been drained. His face was stunned and blank. He had stopped crying when he stopped seeing Jesus.
VI
SOME DAYS LATER—certainly more than a week later—Andrew was sitting in the upper room of the house of the Essene on Mount Zion. He assumed he was alone. He had no idea how long he’d been in this place or why he had chosen it, but he began now to be aware of the times because of the general commotion outside.
The city was filled with pilgrims again. It was the Feast of Weeks, when people brought their firstfruits to the Lord, the source of rain and growth and goodness. In Greek the day was called the Pentecost—the fiftieth day after Passover. During these seven weeks since the Passover, all the barley had been harvested and after that all the wheat.
It was Sunday. That’s the noise that Andrew heard. The tromping of tens of thousands of people toward the Temple. Today two loaves of bread would be offered to God by the priest on behalf of the people. The loaves had been made from the flour of the new wheat crop and baked with leaven. Devout Jews had arrived from every nation under heaven, because this was a feast of solemn joy. A feast! Before the day was done, everyone would eat, the impoverished and the strangers and the Levites.
Andrew knew the feast. Andrew knew the times. Andrew had been righteous since his youth, keeping all the rites and all the ceremonies of Moses. Such obedience had endeared him to John the Baptizer.
Perhaps this was the day when he would begin to neglect righteousness.
Andrew was very, very tired.
But then he heard a soughing sound, a low moan just outside.
“What’s that?” he whispered to himself.
To his surprise, somebody answered, “The wind.” Philip was with him in the room. “The wind in the lattice,” he said.
But the sound didn’t cease. Nor did it vary its blowing with gusts. It grew steadily stronger, first whistling like breath in a flute, then raising a continual howl.
Andrew’s body began to tingle. His fingers twitched at his chin.
Several people stood up and moved to the window. Why, there were six and seven disciples here!
“It sounds like a gale,” Matthew said, “but not a leaf is trembling! Not a pilgrim’s hair is out of place.”
“And people are looking here,” Thomas said, peering into the street. “They’re looking in this direction, as if we were the wind!”
Suddenly Simon Peter burst into the room, daylight exploding behind him. “Do you feel it?” he shouted. “It’s coming! It’s coming!”
Immediately he ran out again.
Mary Magdalene came in.
Andrew jumped to his feet, itching to do something. “What’s he talking about?” he asked.
Simon Peter was bellowing down to the street below, “Up here! We’re up here!”
James said, “Who’s he calling to?”
John was at the window, his face brightening with delight. “The crowds, I think,” he said. “They’ve turned back from the Temple. They’re starting to come up here.”
Mary Salome, John’s mother, came in, blinking with confusion. John saw her and ran to her and embraced her. “Mother,” he said, “Simon is right. It’s coming right now.”
Then Peter was back in the room and people were pouring in behind him, and Andrew saw on his brother’s head something like a tongue of fire, and
Simon was talking, talking with energy, but talking in a language Andrew had never heard before.
The roar of the wind was not a sound anymore. It was a storm within his own soul now. Andrew was filled to bursting. So he opened his mouth and began to speak as enthusiastically as Simon, but in a different language altogether. Ten people turned toward him with understanding.
All the disciples had tongues of flame resting upon them. And all were speaking in various languages. And foreigners understood them. And this was the Holy Spirit! Yes, this was power from on high, the promise of Jesus, and that’s what Simon had been bellowing about.
Andrew was a trumpet. His whole being sang with the breathing of God. Oh, he was a healthy man! Oh, he had such wisdom to impart. And he lost nothing in the pouring forth. He only gained. He would never be drained again.
People standing on the steps outside said, “They’re drunk! They didn’t save their wine for the feast! They drank it at dawn.”
“No!” Simon Peter rushed to the door of the room and boomed, “No, we are not drunk!”
This disciple had come into his strength. His speaking silenced the room and the crowds outside and the city over several streets.
“You are witnessing what Joel prophesied long ago,” Peter said. “God is pouring out his Spirit. As Joel said, In the last days your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and I, says the Lord, will show wonders in heaven and on earth: blood and fire and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood—but those who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Peter turned left and right, embracing everyone with his voice, those in the room and those all down the streets.
“Listen to me,” he called. “You crucified Jesus of Nazareth. He did mighty works and wonders. He did everything in righteousness, yet you killed him by the hands of outlaws. But this was the plan of God! And God raised him from the dead again. We are witnesses of this fact.
“Not only has he been raised here on earth, but he has also been lifted up to the right hand of God in power and authority. What you see and hear today—this is the work of Jesus!
“Oh, let the whole house of Israel know that God has given Jesus to us as our Lord and our Christ!
“Repent! People, repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins—and you, too, will receive the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you. It is for your children. It is for everyone!”
Andrew held his peace as long as Peter was preaching. So did the rest of the disciples. But now the Spirit that had blown through him blew over the crowds of people, and those who had understood Andrew’s language before, now came near and took hold of his robe.
Please, they said in their foreign tongue. Baptize us.
Andrew lost shyness that day. And the anxiety that had made the world seem so dangerous and uncertain—that, too, passed away. He never was a loud man after that. And he would always rather answer than ask. But the words came easily to his lips. And the proper gesture waited ever within his reach. And over and over again he said what the Lord had taught him to say:
“Damsel,” Andrew said, tilting the child into the water, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
And this was good and true and right and holy, because before he left the Lord had said: Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
Epilogue
THIS, THEN, IS the story that was told through the years and the centuries and the millennia to come.
The disciples preached it in Jerusalem, adding more and more people to their company until the number of those baptized swelled into the thousands.
At the same time the council and the leaders in Jerusalem strove to silence them. They were as threatened by the disciples as they had been by Jesus because the assembly growing around them was large and well-knit and committed to this Jesus as to one alive and mighty. It was an assembly distinct from the Synagogue—an Ecclesia, a Church. Peter and James and John formed the core leadership in Jerusalem. Therefore, the priests and the Temple guard imprisoned them and commanded them not to preach. When the disciples disobeyed, stirring the people up further, the high priest arrested them again and beat them and charged them upon their lives to keep silence. But always upon their release they continued to tell the story anyway.
After twelve years of increasing conflict, King Herod Agrippa took bloody measures against this growing Church. He ordered the execution of James the son of Zebedee. James, the first disciple to die for telling this story, was beheaded.
Nevertheless, the story still was told.
Simon Peter traveled out into Judea and up the coast of the Great Sea. With some hesitation he preached to Gentiles as well as to Jews—especially in Caesarea, the seat of the Roman governor and an active seaport. When a Roman centurion named Cornelius heard the story, he received the Holy Spirit no less than the disciples had on Pentecost. Peter marveled: “Even the Gentiles who believe in Jesus are forgiven their sins!” And he baptized the household of Cornelius in the name of Jesus Christ.
From there the story spread north along the seacoast.
Among those who persecuted the followers of Jesus was a Pharisee born in Tarsus at the northeastern sweep of the sea, a Jew of wild intelligence and passionate legalism. He hated those who scorned the laws of God. He saw the Church as subversive and dangerous. But then the story that he strove to abolish rose up and overwhelmed him, becoming his only reality. The man’s name was Saul.
While riding to Damascus with an order from the high priest to arrest believers there, Saul was blinded by a flash of heavenly light and a voice of accusation: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?
He was thrown to the ground by the light.
“Who are you, Lord?” he cried.
The voice said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.
For the rest of his life he never doubted that the Lord Jesus had made his last resurrection appearance to him, to Saul, “as to one born out of due time.” So the story was true. The man repented of his persecutions. Three days later he was baptized. To indicate the radical change within himself, he changed his name to Paul, and after a period of preparation and prayer, he, too, began to tell the story—in Greek, to the Greeks.
It was twenty-five years after the crucifixion of Jesus when Paul began to travel through the Roman Empire. He preached in Cyprus and in the lower cities of Asia Minor. He preached in the northern cities, too, then crossed over into Macedonia and traveled south into Greece: Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth.
Paul maintained a written correspondence with the churches he established in these places, repeating the story again and again. To the church in Corinth he wrote:
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures—
For twelve years Paul told the story with passion and intelligence. He could transfix multitudes by his words. Therefore he became as threatful to the authorities as had any disciple. Once while he was at the Temple in Jerusalem, certain people cried out, “This is the man who is teaching people everywhere against the law and against this place! He has defiled the Temple!” The accusations aroused a mob that dragged Paul from the Temple into the street and began to beat him to death. A riot began.
The Roman Tribune sent centurions and soldiers to enforce peace. They arrested Paul. They bound him in two chains and carried him to prison while the violent mob followed, screaming: “Away with him! Kill him! He has no right to live!”
While Paul was in prison it was discovered that his opponents were plotting to murder him; so the Tribune in Jerusalem transferred him to Caesarea, where he was to be tried under the Roman governor.
Paul had an advantage over the other disciples: his parents had ac
quired Roman citizenship. He was born a Roman. When his imprisonment in Caesarea lasted more than two years without a final ruling on his case, he exercised his right as a Roman and appealed directly to Caesar for justice.
This required his appearance in Rome. Therefore the prisoner was taken by ship through storms and treacherous seas to the capital of the empire.
Paul lived there under house arrest another two years.
From his confinement in Rome he wrote a letter to the church in Philippi, saying:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, Rejoice! Let everyone know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
There the Bible falls silent.
But the Church has continued. And the story has been told for two thousand years.
It is said that Paul was executed outside the walls of Rome along the road to Ostia.
It is said that Simon Peter also traveled to Rome, where he became the first bishop, chief guardian of the Church, and that his life was brought to a violent end, that his hands were stretched out on a cross at the foot of Vatican Hill.
It is said that Andrew, Simon’s brother and Jesus’ first disciple, told the story of his Lord in Scythia and in Greece, and that he was crucified on an X-shaped cross.
It is said that John the son of Zebedee and Salome was the only disciple not to suffer martyrdom. Even today people declare that John was with Mary the mother of Jesus when finally she lay down and died.
And this is sure: that every continent on earth has heard the story to various effects. Countless are the languages in which it still is told. Innumerable the hearts that have been shaped by it.
Walter Wangerin Jr.
October 24, 1995
Reading Group Guide
Books by Walter Wangerin Jr.
The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel
The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel Page 79