The Sword of Ruth: The Story of Jesus' Little Sister

by V. M. Franck

Ruth

  Mother Mary and Maria didn't know. Yeshua said to keep it that way. Seeing their despair, Ruth longed to tell them. She hoped it would work. It had to.

  Out on the back porch of the Bethany house next to a large water barrel Ruth and Melanie prepared the mixture, soaked it into a cloth, wrapped it in several layers and tucked it in Ruth's medicine bag. She secured it inside her robe.

  "Not a word," Ruth said.

  The teenager replied, "Don't worry."

  They joined those assembled in front of the house.

  "We best hurry," Simon said. "I heard the soldiers say, as they took Yeshua away, that the crucifixion was planned in advance. They've been waiting for an excuse."

  Mother Mary wept, as did Maria and the other women. Ruth and her young companion stared stone-faced at Simon.

  "Do you think it wise for you to go?" Ruth said to him as they headed along the road to the edge of the estate. "You were there when they took him. They could arrest you, too."

  "A group of us will be in the background," he said, "to see if there's anything we can do. There are usually a number of well-armed guards. James and the others went on ahead. One of them is to meet me at a designated spot near Golgotha."

  The group proceeded through the gate and along the road, some mute, some talking quietly. Ruth strode ahead, glad her children were safe with Elizabeth. If anything happened to her, they would have care. Her mother and Maria, their faces hidden by shawls, huddled together, talking. Melanie followed with Thaddeus.

  Simon hurried to keep up with Ruth.

  "Ruth, cover your face, for crying out loud. They could recognize you, too." Simon donned a head covering.

  "You're right," she said, attaching the shawl so only her eyes showed.

  "Have you ever seen a crucifixion? I mean, actually seen it happening?" Simon worried for her, for all the women. They seemed so unworldly. He longed to protect them.

  "It's hard to avoid, especially lately," she said, breathing hard as they followed the rutted road. "The first time was when I went with Father to Jerusalem. I must have been nine or ten. I remember this one man. He was beat up and bleeding from everywhere. I was horrified. Father tried to keep me from seeing, but there was no way I could avoid it. They were crucifying a bunch of them that day, one they called Yacob, the Christ. He had a following. They were grieving loudly. Men were already hung along the road on either side of him. They all looked dead, except this one guy. His eyes, I'll never forget his eyes, the agony in them."

  "Do you think...." He stopped himself. He must not set her to imagining. It was her brother, after all, and her father. There had been her husband and her in-laws. He didn't know how she tolerated losing so many. It was hard enough losing Sara.

  "Lately, I try not to," she said.

  Rain from the previous day still puddled the road, puddles they sometimes could not avoid. Some places were wet, others nearly dry. As they hurried toward Jerusalem, she fretted about what they would find, how they would be treated, if they would be arrested and killed.

  Simon spoke again as they neared the capital. "They usually take prisoners to Antonia, the fortress attached to the temple."

  "Simon, be honest," Ruth said. "Do you think they really will crucify him?"

  "Yes," he said, reluctantly. He was a man of honesty above all else.

  "Have you ever heard his discourse on war?" Ruth asked. "He's so against it, in all forms. He says there's never a reason for killing."

  "Oh, yes, in it's many variations. He's the best. I want to believe in him, you know, that he is the one. He won't let me. He says it's foolishness. But what else could he be? He says I'm the rock on which it's all built. I've never understood what he means by that."

  "He told me you're solid, trustworthy," she said, "like a rock."

  "Me? I don't think so."

  "He says you may waver in the moment, but in the long run you have the integrity to follow through. He says you learn from your mistakes and try to do better each time. That's why he loves you so."

  "He said that?" Simon said, barring raw emotions from his voice. He had to save the man. "I still think he's the one. I do. I can't help it."

  "I can see why you'd think that. But my guess is that he's just an advanced soul, a guy who so believes in the potential of others that he's willing to die for them. Father was that way, too, and your father and John," she said, her voice trembling, "and even Mother. There's no higher way. It's always felt like a privilege to be around Yeshua, all of them really. And now this. Now this. How can they do it? How can the government kill innocent people?"

  "Innocence is irrelevant to those bent on power," Simon said. "The thing is, Yeshua's just trying to get people to be true to who they are inside."

  "Apparently the powers that be see that as a threat," she said.

  He nodded. "They want sheep, and most often that's what they get."

  "Yeshua told me once that the good shepherd doesn't want mindless sheep. He teaches them to become their own shepherds."

  They passed through the streets of the city to the fortress and came upon a chanting crowd, following a twisting road toward the summit, the Place of the Skull.

  "Kill him. Kill him, " the people chanted.

  Ruth cringed. The energy of the crowd set her to shaking.

  "Can you see anything?" she asked.

  She was taller than most women. Simon was head and shoulders taller yet.

  "Up there," Simon said, pointing. "I see him up there. Someone else is carrying the patibulum."

  "Maybe it's not Yeshua they're going to crucify," Ruth said, hoping somehow it was true.

  "It's him, all right. I can see him clearly. He's been beaten. He's bleeding."

  She clenched her jaw. Tears threatened. She could not afford them.

  They reached the top of the hill; the panorama spread out around them. The stench of rotting flesh saturated the nostrils. Further along, down over the side, mangled bodies still nailed to crosses were being picked apart by birds.

  Soldiers stripped Yeshua of his clothes. One kicked him in the groin. He moaned and buckled. Another soldier knocked him backward. The man carrying the patibulum, the crossbeam, laid it on the rocky soil. A soldier on each side of Yeshua lay him out flat and stretched his arms over the beam. A third soldier took a sturdy nail, positioned the tip in the center of Yeshua's wrist and whacked the nail with a mallet, again and again.

  Yeshua groaned, grimacing with each blow.

  When the wrist was secure the soldier pounded a nail through the other one. Four soldiers hoisted the patibulum until it fit snugly over the stipes, the vertical pole that was a permanent part of the landscape. Yeshua dangled from it. Agony contorted his face. Two soldiers lifted his feet onto the wooden foot rest, the suppedaneum, and held Yeshua's feet in place while another drove a nail into each foot. Blood oozed from each wound.

  Horrified, Ruth watched them mutilate her brother. It was her brother they were doing this to, her brother, the one who had told her stories, the one who sang songs to help her sleep, the one who had taught her about rainbows and frogs.

  Two drunken guards ridiculed Yeshua.

  "Your mother is a whore who wanders the streets, laying down with anyone who will have her. Your father is a donkey's ass," one of them said. He laughed and took a swig of brew.

  "You are an insult to manhood. You have nothing to show for it," the other one said.

  "Enough," said the centurion. He approached her brother and spoke.

  Ruth tried to hear him, but could not.

  Yeshua gave the centurion what could have been a smile. Blood in dried and fresh rivulets coated most of his face.

  Strangers spit on him. Some called him an infidel, a heathen and a blasphemer. A few spoke softly to him.

  "Father, please forgive them. They really don't know what's at stake," Yeshua managed. "The work you started will go on.
"

  Ruth hung back. Her mother and sister-in-law cried silent tears. Others had apparently come to witness the crucifixion of two other men already attached to the crosses. Birds of prey, circled overhead, eyeing the newest offerings.

  By early afternoon Yeshua appeared to slip in and out of awareness. He asked for water and was given it. An apologetic-looking soldier with tears in his eyes whispered something to Yeshua. Yeshua mumbled. The soldier stabbed him in the side.

  It was time. Ruth knew it. Yeshua had told her she would know.

  Terrified, she slipped her bag from under her cloak, pulled out the cloth, grateful it was still soggy. Her heart thundered in her ears. She stepped away from the others toward her brother. Straight-faced, determined, she grabbed a stick at Yeshua's feet. She tied the soggy cloth around the end, making sure it would not come loose, and lifted it to his face. Arching back so she could see, her shawl fell away.

  Standing directly below him, she whispered in Hebrew, "It's set."

  She held the cloth to his nose and mouth for some time. After a while he slumped unconscious. The centurion watched her.

  Worried he had heard what she said and understood what she meant, she gave the man a silent plea. In his eyes she saw what appeared to be compassion and something else, something she could not identify. Hesitating, she stared at the other two men, stepped up to them and one at a time held the cloth to their noses. In moments they, too, lost consciousness.

  A family friend, Nicodemus, and Maria's Uncle Joseph of Arimathea watched from the edge of the group. Uncle Joseph nodded to Ruth. Backing away, her whole body shaking, she rejoined her mother.

  Dear God, she prayed, please.

  "Is he dead?" Mother Mary whispered.

  She could not lie to her mother. Instead, she held her hand. Energized by Ruth's touch, Mother Mary stared at her son and then her daughter.

  The soldier standing closest to Yeshua said, "This one is dead."

  Maria let out a wail, as did the other women, all except for Ruth, her mother and Melanie. Some shredded their clothes and tore at their hair as was custom. Minutes, hours stretched on into dusk until only a few mourners remained. Uncle Joseph and Nicodemus spoke quietly to the centurion. With the help of Simon and brother James, they removed the nails from Yeshua's feet. Simon broke the crossbeam loose. He, Uncle Joseph, James and Nicodemus lowered Yeshua to the ground. They pulled the spikes from his wrist and loaded him into a wagon. After a quiet exchange between Uncle Joseph, Nicodemus, Simon and James, the wagon driver headed down the hill. Nicodemus and Uncle Joseph followed on foot, along with Ruth, Maria and Mother Mary. Maria was weeping. Simon and James headed away from them.

  It was dark when they reached the tomb. Two young men moved a heavy stone from the door. Uncle Joseph and Nicodemus lifted Yeshua from the wagon, carted him inside and lay him on one of the shelves. Ruth carried the lamp and placed it on a high shelf. The young men stood watch.

  "It is not over," Uncle Joseph said, taking Mother Mary's hands. "I think you know that."

  Mother Mary nodded. Maria jerked her attention from the body of her beloved and stared at Uncle Joseph. She had known him since she was young. There was hope in his words. Ruth uncovered her medicine bag and set it on the burial shelf beside her brother. Nicodemus lugged in containers of water and clean cloths.

  "It's time for you to do the work you do so well, dear Mary," Uncle Joseph said.

  "He's not dead?" Maria said, amazed, disbelieving, hopeful.

  "No," Ruth said. "I gave him a potion to simulate death. He brought the recipe back from the East."

  "We need to clean his wounds," Mother Mary said, regaining her calm. "Maria start washing and rubbing him all over. It'll help bring back the circulation. Ruth, I want you to help me clean the wounds. I'll concentrate on his side. You start with his feet."

  "Mother, I...."

  "It was best you didn't tell me," Mother Mary said.

  Her husband, the father of all her children, was dead. But there was a chance for her eldest son. She blocked out all else and meditated as she worked. Her whole life had been a meditation in some way or another.

  Tears streaking her face, Maria gently washed and massaged the man she loved.

  "Do you know how long it will take him to come out of it?" Maria asked. "Dear God, let him live. Please let him live."

  "It depends on how much of the potion he absorbed," Ruth said.

  "Hours, days? Did he give you any idea?" Maria asked.

  "He didn't know," Ruth said.

  "Why didn't he tell me about the plan? Why didn't he trust me?" Maria said, sounding hurt.

  "It had to look real," Mother Mary said. "Those who realized who we were would be watching you and me the most."

  The three worked through the night. Finally the wounds were cleaned, sterilized with rum and bound. They dressed him, settled him as comfortably as possible on the shelf and covered him with a blanket. In the early hours of morning Mary and Maria slept. Dreading what was to come, Ruth could not sleep. Yeshua had told her the plan, where they might go, how they might get there.

  After dawn, leaning against a support post next to her brother, she slipped into sleep. She was wakened by a finger touching hers. Yeshua was watching her. Her mother and Maria were still sleeping on a nearby shelf.

  "Thank you," he whispered. His eyes were tired, his face feverish.

  She was about to let the others know he was awake.

  "No," he whispered.

  Tears came to her then, quiet sobbing tears. The responsibility of being one who knew had been great.

  Grimacing, he tried to sit up, hoping to slip an arm around her. Pain fired through his shoulders, his wrists. Everything hurt. Ruth found water and helped him drink, then rum to dull the ache.

  "You need to continue what we started," he said.

  "I will."

  "I love you, Sis. God be with you in the years, the lifetimes ahead."

  "I will miss you, so much."

  "I will miss you, too." His eyes closed, and he slept.

  Midmorning everyone roused. Uncle Joseph had a driver bring the carriage to the doorway. The young man followed his boss inside the tomb. Mother Mary and Ruth covered Yeshua in a large cloak, draping it over his face.

  "I have all the herbs and things Mary said you will need in the carriage," Uncle Joseph said. "But I'm thinking, maybe the two of you should stay with me until he heals completely."

  Maria said, "I don't want to take the chance that someone will find out."

  "Yeshua?" Uncle Joseph said.

  "Maria's right," Yeshua said, his voice weak. The pain in his wrists, feet and shoulders was nearly intolerable.

  "Okay, then," Uncle Joseph said. "I'll handle your business affairs until I can find a buyer. You do want to sell?"

  "Yes," Maria said. "We have to cut ties to this area. Thanks so much, Uncle Joseph. My father always said you could be trusted. He loved you, as do I."

  "We always thought we should have been brothers," Uncle Joseph said, giving the young woman a hug. "We'd best be on our way before anyone notices. Mary, Ruth, I have a man out front who will take you home."

  "Thank you," Mother Mary said.

  They all exchanged intense goodbyes.

  "We're set then," Uncle Joseph said, "let's get going."

  His driver, a robust young man, carried Yeshua to the carriage and placed him inside. Joseph and Maria climbed in, and they rode away.

  "Master Joseph said we should not tarry," the man said. He was a middle-aged man with a pleasant smile. He urged the women into the second carriage and headed away from the gravesite.

  "Do you think we will ever see them again?" Ruth said, as they bumped over the stony road. Her heart ached the great ache for all they had lost.

  "Probably not," her mother said. "Remember this, Ruth, if you disremember everything else. Nothing, nothing must stop us. Not even d
eath. Death is but a transitory state, a time to regroup before we start again."

  Chapter 31