Fishers of Men

by Gerald N. Lund

  “I think he is mad,” Shana said after a moment. “How could any normal person stand up and quote a scripture and think he was the fulfillment of it?”

  Simeon instantly saw the error in that answer. “If he is the Messiah, Shana, he would not be a normal person.”

  “Have you ever known anyone who was mad, Shana?” David asked.

  Her head reared back slightly. “Well, yes. We had old Abiathar the beggar here in the village for many years.”

  Yehuda nodded. “I think he had evil spirits. He was always hearing voices.”

  Simeon’s father looked squarely at Shana. “You were just a few feet away from Jesus,” he said. “Did he seem insane to you?”

  That caught her back a little, but Shana had a quick mind. “Not at first. He seemed nice. But—”

  David turned to his son. “Did you think he was mad?”

  Simeon was tempted to hedge or soften it somehow, but he knew his father too well to think he could get away with that. “I don’t know,” he started, but then he wanted to be honest with himself as well as his father. “No, I didn’t. I was watching his eyes. There was something very compelling about him. I didn’t see anything that would make me think he was deluded or possessed.”

  “So?” his father prodded. “Then you think he is an imposter?”

  Simeon could see the box now. “No, I’m not sure of that either. But the Messiah? I’m sorry, Father. It is just too incredible. Too unbelievable. He’s a nobody, Father. A carpenter from a village that’s barely known outside the Galilee.”

  “Do you have another explanation then? You know that many are saying he works wonderful miracles everywhere he goes.”

  That part wasn’t hard for Simeon to answer. “Rumor flies on wings swifter than a hundred eagles and grows larger with each retelling.”

  “True,” his father agreed. “So what is your explanation? If he is not the Messiah and he is neither mad nor a fraud, then what?”

  He tried to meet his father’s calm but arresting gaze, then finally shook his head. “I don’t know. I want to think some more about it.”

  “Yehuda?”

  Yehuda hesitated, then shrugged. “Not all madness reaches the face and not all evil can be found in the eyes.”

  David nodded, seemingly untroubled by the bluntness of Yehuda’s answer. Deborah knew she was next and tried to deflect the question. “I think that was Jesus’ mother sitting not far from Shana and me. Did she look familiar to you at all, David?”

  Simeon started. Yehuda and Shana had no idea what she meant, but he did. Memories of what his father had told him about what had happened in Bethlehem came flooding back. He had seen the mother of the Messiah at the door of the khan. He had seen her again at the stable that night.

  “No,” David said, and his voice was forlorn. “But it’s been thirty years, and the light was dim that night. I—”

  “What’s been thirty years?” Yehuda asked. “What night?”

  David shook his head. “It’s a long story.” He stopped, still looking at his wife, waiting for her to answer the question that he had not yet spoken.

  Deborah also knew that what had happened today was far too important to try to brush aside or sidestep. So she took a quick breath and said what she felt she had to say. “No, David, I don’t think Jesus is the Messiah.”

  He seemed more thoughtful than disappointed. “I guessed as much.”

  “I think what happened was unforgivable. I know Aaron was not directly responsible, but I am terribly disappointed that he had any part in it.”

  “I know. Thank you.” Then to her surprise, he reached out and took her hand.

  They started walking again, no one speaking for several moments. Then Shana couldn’t stand it any longer. “And what about you, David? Tell us what you think.”

  His head came around, and he looked a little surprised. “Oh,” he said soberly. “I don’t have any question in my mind. I believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the very man for whom I have waited for more than thirty years now.”

  Chapter Notes

  In the Jewish way of reckoning, the day began and ended at sundown. Thus, the Sabbath actually began on Friday evening and continued until Saturday when the sun set again. Incidentally, this is the basis for our practice of having Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve precede the actual day of celebration.

  The references to some of the rules surrounding the Sabbath day and what was defined as work comes from the Talmud (see Blackman, pp. 15, 38, 92). For a complete explanation of the “Sabbath day’s journey,” which is mentioned in Acts 1:12, see Fallows, 3:1501–2. The specific figure of two thousand cubits comes from Joshua 3:4.

  Thanks to the rabbinical writings that have been preserved to our day, we know quite a bit about synagogue worship at the time of Christ. Though some of the precise details had to be added here, the description of the services in this chapter accurately reflects a typical Sabbath day synagogue service at that time (see Edersheim, Sketches, pp. 267–74).

  Luke is the only one of the Gospel writers who records the rejection of Christ at the synagogue in his hometown, but he does so with the details given here (see Luke 4:16–30). The Messianic passage the Savior read from Isaiah is found in chapter 61, verses 1–2.

  Chapter 15

  When Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

  —Matthew 7:28–29

  I

  10 May, a.d. 30

  Deborah was kneading dough on the large wooden table in the kitchen. Esther was kneeling on the bench beside her grandmother. She was covered to the elbows in flour and had smudges of dough around the corners of her mouth from a series of what she thought were undetected snitches. Against her olive skin, the light brown flour looked white.

  When David came in from the hallway, Deborah looked up in surprise. “So soon?” she said, wiping at her cheek with the back of her hand. “I thought you were going to spend all afternoon at the storage barns.”

  “Shalom, Pampa.”

  “Shalom, my little angel all in white.”

  “I not dressed in white,” she answered, looking puzzled.

  He laughed and walked over and kissed her on the top of her head. Then he looked at his wife. “I just saw Peter.”

  For a moment she looked blank; then she remembered. Deborah was still not used to Simon’s additional name, even though David, Andrew, James, and John all called him Peter or Simon Peter almost exclusively now. “Oh?”

  “Jesus is here again. Peter thinks he is going to spend some time teaching the people.”

  “Oh.” This time it wasn’t a question, and this time it was harder to keep her voice nonchalant. Since being so violently rejected at Nazareth two weeks before, Jesus had come down to Capernaum and the surrounding towns. So far David had been able to get away only on one or two days to listen to him, for which she was grateful. She returned to her kneading, not watching him anymore.

  “Will you go with me?” he asked.

  “I go Pampa,” Esther said gravely.

  “I would love to have you, Esther, but this is for big people.”

  “I big. Mama says.”

  He bent down and kissed her again, this time on the cheek, picking up a smudge of flour on his beard. “I know you are, but you would have to sit real still on Pampa’s lap for a long time. You couldn’t get down and run around or play with your friends.”

  Her face fell.

  “How about if Pampa comes over later and you and I go for a walk down to the beach?”

  She squirmed excitedly in his arms. “Yes! Can Boaz come too, Pampa?”

  “If it’s all right with Mama. We’ll ask her.”

  She wiggled out of his grip and jumped to the floor. “I ask Mama.” With that she shot out the door.

  He shook his head and turned back to Deborah. “That one is completely unique, isn’t she.”

  Deborah’s face soft
ened into a warm smile. “She’s a little goat, that’s what.”

  “Why?”

  “Yesterday Rachel and I went over to see Tamar. Her baby should be coming anytime now, and we took her some things.”

  “And?”

  “How many times have we had Esther over at Tamar’s? She’s Rachel’s closest friend and neighbor. It’s hardly like she’s a stranger. But do you think Esther would respond to her? It was like she didn’t even know her.” She laughed. “We were there for over an hour, and Tamar tried everything to get even a tiny smile out of her. Esther would just look right through her. It was as though Tamar wasn’t even in the room.”

  “That’s my little sphinx,” he agreed. “Unless you happen to be one of the few she accepts as family, you might as well be transparent.”

  “It worries me in a way.” Deborah’s forehead had creased a little.

  “No,” David scoffed. “That’s just Esther.”

  “But she’s so shy and reserved—far more than other children, David. Around strangers she won’t even look at them.” Then her face softened. “If they try to get too close she sticks that finger out, shakes it at them, and barks out, ‘Don’t!’ as though she were a queen warning off an invading army.”

  He laughed aloud, knowing exactly what she meant. Even he got that treatment if he began to tease her too much. “Queen Esther,” he chuckled. “Ephraim and Rachel were inspired when they named her. But there’s nothing to worry about with that one, Granmama. She’s a happy child, and her mind is quicker than a darting swallow.”

  “I suppose,” she sighed. Her eyes filled with warmth. “She is the joy of my life, that is for sure.”

  “And mine,” he said. She went back to work with the dough. David watched her for a moment and then said, “So what about going and hearing Jesus today?”

  There was a momentary pause in the rhythm of her hands before she nodded. “If you ask me to go with you, David, then I will go.”

  “It’s not just for me, Deborah. I’d like you to hear him and see what you think too.”

  “I heard him in Nazareth,” she reminded him.

  “No,” he said. “He didn’t really teach there.”

  He moved behind her and put his arms around her. “Suppose Nazareth hadn’t happened. Suppose someone came to town and said, ‘We have found the Messiah.’ Wouldn’t you at least go out and see him, listen to what he had to say?”

  “Perhaps,” she admitted. She sighed, torn between her loyalty to this man she loved and the deep conviction that he was going to be hurt by all of this.

  David stepped back away from her. “Before you decide about that, there’s something else I need to tell you.”

  She was struck by the sudden gravity of his tone. “What is it, David?”

  “Sextus Rubrius is back in Capernaum.”

  She stiffened, and her eyes flew open.

  “Now that Passover is over, he’s been given his old post at the Roman garrison again.”

  “Does Simeon know?”

  “I don’t think so. I just saw him this morning.”

  “David, you know what Simeon will say if he sees you consorting with any Roman soldier, but with this particular centurion—”

  “I know,” he murmured. “I know. I have been very careful since that day. I have never spoken to him. Sextus understands. He would go out of his way to—”

  “I know you think he is a good man, David,” she cut in sharply, “but he nearly killed our son.”

  “Deborah, he was only—”

  “No!” she cried. “Don’t talk to me about duty. You weren’t there. He reacted out of instinct. He gave no thought to killing a man.” She took a quick breath. “Just promise me that you will not continue your friendship with this Roman. For Simeon’s sake. Promise me!”

  “I promise. It is already over.”

  She began kneading the dough again, her hands twisting and punching at it like it was suddenly alive and threatening her. He watched her, knowing that he had to be the one to tell her but glad now that it was done with. It was time to change the subject. “Peter told me something I want to share with you,” he said after a minute.

  She didn’t slow at all. “What?”

  “Did you know that Anna’s mother has been very ill?”

  She nodded, her hands hesitating. “Yes. I talked to Anna yesterday morning at the market. She was trying to find something she could give to her mother to break the fever. She was very worried.” Then a look of concern filled Deborah’s face. “Has her condition changed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, no, David. What? I’d better go and see Anna.”

  “She’s better.”

  “But she was extremely ill,” she said. “Now she’s better?”

  “Yes.”

  “But—”

  “Peter told me that when they came home at sundown last night, they found his mother-in-law in her bed, barely able to move.” He stopped, waiting for Deborah to look at him again. When she did so, he went on slowly. “Peter said they were starting to worry about whether she would make it; she was that gravely ill.”

  “And now she’s getting better? That’s wonderful.”

  “Not getting better, Deborah. She is better.”

  Finally Deborah realized that David was saying something more than just reporting on the condition of Anna’s mother. “What happened?”

  “When Jesus saw her lying there, he went to her bedside and reached out and touched her hand.”

  Deborah was very still. “Yes?”

  “Peter said the instant Jesus touched her, the fever broke. Anna’s mother immediately got out of bed and helped Anna prepare supper for them. Immediately, Deborah!”

  Deborah just stared at him, not sure she had heard right.

  “Yes. The moment he touched her she was healed.”

  She sat down slowly, the bread dough forgotten. If that was true . . .

  “That’s why I want you to hear him, Deborah. Jesus is no ordinary man. There is a power in him that is unmistakable.”

  “David, I—” She stopped and leaned back, half closing her eyes. “I know how you feel about this man. I know how badly you want to believe he is the one you’ve been waiting for, but I think you are going to be terribly disappointed. I cannot believe he is the Messiah.”

  “That’s not all, Deborah.”

  It was as though her words had flown right past him. “What’s not all?” she asked wearily.

  “As they were coming back to Peter’s house today, two blind men suddenly appeared in the crowd.”

  Deborah’s head came up, her eyes widening.

  “They called out to Jesus. ‘Have mercy on us,’ they begged.”

  He stopped as she made as if to speak, but when she didn’t he went on. “Jesus stopped and let them come up to him. Then he asked them if they believed he was able to help them. Both of them said yes, they did.”

  He took a breath, filled with wonder again even in the telling of it. “Then Jesus said, ‘Be it unto you according to your faith.’”

  “No!” Deborah breathed, knowing what was coming but not able to believe he was going to actually say it.

  “Then he touched their eyes with his fingers,” David said softly.

  Realizing she was holding her breath, Deborah released it slowly. Her mind wouldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe it. “And?” she whispered.

  He sat down beside her and took her hands, oblivious to the flour and the dough on them. “They were both healed. Both of them.” His voice caught momentarily. “They were blind, Deborah,” he whispered. “And now they see.”

  “David, I—” She was mentally reeling. “Are you sure? Did Simon see this for himself?”

  “He said he was no more than three feet away when it happened.”

  “Is he sure they were blind?” Even as she said it, she felt a little stab of shame. Simon was not a man without faults, but Deborah knew that Simon’s word could be trusted. He neither lied n
or exaggerated. His word was as solid as Mount Arbel.

  David didn’t answer that. He understood that this was her way of trying to take in what he had just told her. “He opens the eyes of the blind, Deborah. This doesn’t prove he is the Messiah. I know that. We have had men and women of faith with the power to heal before. But—” He hesitated for only a moment, and now there was pleading in his voice. “But if he heals the sick and opens the eyes of the blind,” he said, “isn’t that reason enough to at least listen to him?”

  She stood again, still gazing deeply at him. Finally her head bowed slightly. “I would like to go and hear this man with you, David.”

  He had to contain himself from shouting out. “Good.”

  “If what you have told me is true, I want Simeon and Ephraim and Rachel to hear as well. Find Leah. See if she will watch Esther and Boaz so we can all go together.”

  “Yes.” He was on his feet eager now. “I will.”

  “It will take me about another quarter of an hour to prepare the bread; then I can leave it to rise. Go and find them. Let’s go hear this Jesus of Nazareth for ourselves.”

  He turned and started for the door, then stopped. “Thank you, Deborah.”

  She looked up, her eyes troubled. “I still have many questions and even more doubts, David. He may be a man of faith, but . . . don’t get your hopes too high.”

  “They’re not.”

  “You know that I can’t be anything but honest with you.”

  He smiled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  She smiled back, but it wasn’t with much humor. “Sometimes I wonder,” she murmured.

  II

  It was a beautiful spring day in early May. At six hundred feet below sea level, the air around the Sea of Kinnereth was getting oppressive in the daytime now, but Jesus had chosen the site for his teaching well. The people had gathered on the side of a prominent hill between Capernaum and Tabgha. As happened each day, as the afternoon temperature began to climb, the hot air would begin to rise. The cooler air on the highlands would then begin to flow downward, creating a pleasant breeze. By sundown it would be stiff enough to whip up whitecaps on the water’s surface. For now, the breeze was just enough to make the afternoon sun on their backs feel good.