“Incredible,” David breathed. “I wish I had been there.”
Leah didn’t know what to say. She felt like she was staggering from a blow. “What kind of man is this Jesus?” she whispered.
Peter jerked around. “That is exactly what Andrew said. ‘What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the waves obey him?’”
Chapter Notes
The passage that David quotes to Leah about Israel being God’s chosen people is from Deuteronomy 7:6–8.
The stilling of the “storm of wind” is told by three of the four Gospel writers (see Matthew 8:23–27; Mark 4:35–41; Luke 8:22–25). On one of the author’s trips to Israel, he and his wife were crossing the Sea of Galilee in one of the tourist boats that run between Capernaum and Tiberias. It was late afternoon, and the wind had come up with surprising swiftness, raising four- and five-foot waves on the lake. As we finished reading the story of the stilling of the storm together, the boat’s captain told us that just two weeks before a “storm of wind” came up so suddenly in the night that two experienced fishermen had drowned when their boat swamped before they could return to shore.
Chapter 17
[He] . . . healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.
—Matthew 8:16–17
I
18 May, a.d. 30
“Simeon! Ephraim!” Leah burst into the small room at the back of the storehouse where her two brothers had a table filled with books and scrolls of parchment.
“There you are,” Simeon said. “We were beginning to wonder what had happened to you and Father.” He looked past her. “Where is he?”
“At Simon Peter’s house.”
“Is there trouble?” Ephraim asked, sensing that she was very agitated.
“No, no. He wants you to come. We’re going to spend the day with Jesus, listening to him teach.”
“What?” Simeon exploded. He thumped the table once with the tip of his index finger. “What about all of this?”
“Papa says to leave it. It can wait until tomorrow.”
Ephraim looked at Simeon, obvious dismay on his face. “But Papa is the one who said we absolutely had to get the books done today.”
“I know, but something happened. Peter told us this most wonderful thing. Papa says the books can wait. He wants you both to come.”
Simeon blew out a long breath of frustration. “It’s a good thing Mother isn’t here to hear that.”
“Oh, I wish she were,” Leah exclaimed. “I have so much to tell her. We were at Simon Peter’s house. Jesus was there. Oh, Simeon, he’s not what you think. He’s wonderful. So gentle and kind. So wise.”
Simeon turned away, his lips tight. “So much for getting this done today,” he grumbled.
Leah went around and leaned on the table, putting her face close to Simeon’s. “Please, Simeon. This can wait. When you hear what happened, you’ll want to hear him.”
“I’ve heard him already.” He jerked his head. “Ephraim can go if he wants.”
“Simeon, please!”
“I’m not going, Leah.” He turned back to the table and grabbed a quill pen. “I can’t believe that Father is going to go chasing after him again and leave all of this for us.”
Stung, Leah stepped back. “I have never once heard Papa complain when you go chasing off with your Zealot friends, so why are you so angry?”
That hit Simeon in a vulnerable place, for he had more than once felt guilty leaving his father and Ephraim with all the work while he went off with Yehuda and the rest of his band. “You’re right,” he said grudgingly. “Papa can do what he likes. But I’m not going. I am not interested.”
Exasperated, she turned to her oldest brother. He hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. “I’m leaving for Jezreel soon to begin assessing the wheat crop. We’ve got to finish this today.”
Leah understood. Ephraim half wanted to come. If Simeon had agreed . . . “Papa said to leave it,” she tried once more. When neither responded, she whirled away. “All right then.”
As she started for the door, Simeon turned around again. “So what is this wonderful thing Peter told you?”
“You said you weren’t interested,” she shot back. “Remember?” And with that she was gone.
The room was quiet for a time; then Simeon looked at his older brother. “Mother would not be happy if she knew this.”
Ephraim looked glum. “I’ve never seen Papa like this. It worries me a little.”
“More than a little,” Simeon agreed.
II
It seemed as though every single person in Capernaum and half the towns round about had come to see Jesus of Nazareth. Leah couldn’t believe it. She and her father held hands tightly, trying to stay close enough to hear the Master, but it was a challenge. Capernaum had a population of about two thousand people, and there were that many more in the towns nearby—Bethsaida, Chorazin, Tabgha, Magdala—so she knew that it only seemed like everyone was here. There were probably no more than three or four hundred people following along, but in the narrow streets of the city, it became a real crush trying to stay close.
Jesus moved along slowly, aware of the attention he was drawing but paying it little mind. He hadn’t stopped to do any formal teaching as yet. There really hadn’t been much chance. People were constantly pressing in on him, asking him questions or simply wanting to shake his hand. Now as they reached the small open square in front of the synagogue, Jesus stopped, and the crowds flowed in around him, leaving him at the center. Leah and her father pushed in to where they were just two or three people removed from him.
The crowd quieted as they saw a well-dressed man wearing a richly embroidered cloak around his shoulders come up to Jesus. It was one of the scribes, a colleague of Amram the Pharisee. Leah didn’t know his name, but she had seen him walking with the other Pharisees in town. “Master,” he cried.
Leah thought he used the term of honor with a trace of sarcasm but realized that might just be her own feelings against the Pharisees. “I would follow you whithersoever you go,” he said. “Tell me where you live so I can come and visit you.”
As the silence deepened, Jesus looked at him steadily. Then he said, “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have their nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
“That’s true,” her father whispered in her ear. “Since they rejected him at Nazareth, he has been staying in a temporary shelter on Peter’s roof.”
That answer clearly was not what the scribe had expected, and he backed away, saying nothing more. A woman cried out, but Leah couldn’t hear what she said. Jesus turned to face her, and they could not catch his answer either.
Then suddenly a cry went up. “Leper! Leper!”
It was like someone had poured out liquid fire on the multitude. On the far side of the square, directly opposite from Leah and David, the crowd began to melt away, falling back in panic as they tried to make a path. And then Leah heard it too. The dull clanking of a bell sounded through the shouts of the crowd. In the Mosaic Law, people diagnosed by the priests as having leprosy were required to rend their clothes, put a covering over their head, and warn others of their approach by crying “Unclean! Unclean!” Because it was so easy for a voice to be lost in a crowd, it had become a common practice for lepers to also carry a brass bell and ring it loudly wherever they went.
With the crowd falling back, Leah now saw the man. He was covered in a long dark robe, white with dust and torn in several places. Whether these were from his rending it in keeping with the Law, or simply through wear, she could not tell. Leah suppressed a little shudder of horror. Even from where she was she could see the dark sores that marred the man’s face. When he lifted his hand to clank the bell again she saw that it was twisted and misshapen, with patches of black. The crowd responded with angry hisses, muttered imprecations. What was he doing? A leper knew bet
ter than to enter a crowded square. “Send for the magistrate,” someone blurted. “Get him out of here.”
But then Leah no longer heard the crowd around her. The man was moving straight for Jesus, only ten or so paces away now, and Jesus hadn’t moved. All around him everyone shrank back, revulsion twisting their faces. Jesus stood perfectly still, watching the man calmly as he came closer. Then the crowd saw what was happening, and the noise was cut off as if it had been smothered with a blanket. Every eye stared at the scene before them.
The leper shuffled forward until he was no more than five or six feet away, far too close to be in compliance with the Law. He pulled back the hood and revealed the ghastliness of his face for all to see. Leah sucked in her breath sharply, stunned by the awfulness of the man’s infirmity.
“Lord,” he said, obviously frightened by what he was doing and by the hostility of the people on every side of him. “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” It was a plea that tore at Leah’s heart.
For several seconds there was not a sound. Leah could see Jesus’ face, which was only partially in profile to her now. He was watching the man steadily, not at all shocked by what he was or by what he had just said. Then his head nodded slowly. “I will,” he said. “Be thou clean.”
What followed next would stay etched in Leah’s mind for the rest of her life. It was as though each tiny movement took two or three seconds to be accomplished. Jesus stepped forward as the man dropped to his knees. And then the unbelievable happened. Jesus stretched out his hands and laid them on the man’s forehead. For an instant Leah thought she was going to retch. She closed her eyes and looked away as she heard a gasp of utter horror rip through the crowd.
She couldn’t bear to look, and yet she couldn’t bear not to. She opened her eyes again. Jesus stood there, his eyes half closed, his arms stiff, his hands still covering the terrible rawness of those open sores. And then his eyes opened slowly, and he dropped his hands to his side. Leah leaned forward, trying to see the leper’s face, to see if he was as shocked as she was that he had been touched. But the moment Jesus’ hands moved away, the man’s own hands flew up, and he buried his face in them. A great sob—whether of pain or joy, Leah could not tell—tore from deep within him. Then his shoulders began to shake.
Suddenly Leah felt her knees go weak. Blindly she clutched at her father’s arm. “Look at his hands, Father!”
David grabbed her hand, already seeing what she was seeing. Where before there had been swollen, twisted knuckles and fingers, blackened with the decaying flesh, now there were only straight, healthy fingers, knuckles perfectly normal.
A great “Oh!” swept through the crowd as the leper slowly lowered his hands, holding them out in front of him to stare at them. What he saw was astonishing to him. What everyone else saw was far more than that. His face was pink and unmarred, the flesh as whole as the day he had been born. Slowly his head raised, and he looked up at the Master. Tears sprang unbidden to his eyes and trickled down his cheeks. Now it was his hands that reached out. He grasped the hands of Jesus and clung to them as though he were going to fall off a precipice.
Jesus smiled at him. “Don’t feel as though you must go and tell everyone about this,” he said quietly. “Tell no man. Go and show yourself to the priest as Moses commanded. Offer a gift of thanksgiving to God. That will be testimony enough.”
“Yes, Master!” It came out as an exclamation of joy. Then the man let go of Jesus’ hands and threw his arms around his legs. He dropped his head and kissed the top of Jesus’ sandals. “Praise be to God,” he cried through his tears. “Thank you, Lord.”
III
About midday Jesus stopped at the home of Andrew and went inside, probably to take a meal. But the crowds would not leave them alone. Some went in with them, while the rest pressed in around the open door, trying to hear every word he might speak. Seeing there was no way to get inside, David and Leah moved away a short distance, found a shady spot beneath a pomegranate tree, and sat down to wait for them to come out again.
David waited until Leah was settled, then smiled softly. “Well, what do you think now of this Jesus of Nazareth?”
A storm stilled with a word. A leper cleansed with a single touch. Leah’s mind could barely take it all in. Finally, she realized that she hadn’t spoken aloud. She smiled at him fully now, her heart feeling as if it was going to burst with joy. “Andrew said it best. ‘What manner of man is this?’ How can he not be the Messiah, Father? I know now why you believe as you do.”
The joy that shot through him at her words almost took his breath away. “Then you believe he is the promised Christ?”
“Yes!” She laughed then, surprised at both her lack of hesitation and her enthusiastic response. “I do, Papa. It’s not just the miracles. It’s—” She shook her head, frustrated that she couldn’t think of the right word. “There is so much power in him. Just being around him you can feel that. I’ve never met anyone like him before.”
“Nor have I.” He was deeply pleased. At last here was someone in the family who was feeling what he was feeling, seeing what he was seeing. Suddenly he wanted to share with her his experience in Bethlehem. Speaking slowly at first he went through the whole account again, just as he had done with Simeon.
To his surprise, when he finished, Leah was crying. “What a wonderful story, Papa. Why didn’t you ever tell me that before?”
“I used to tell everyone. But then—” His eyes dropped. “I—I don’t talk about it much anymore.”
“Have you asked Jesus if he was born in Bethlehem?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know if that would be appropriate. Perhaps when the time is right.”
“What did Simeon say when you told him?”
“He was impressed. Moved.”
“But not convinced,” she said sadly.
“Well, I don’t think he doubts what I told him. He just doesn’t think there is any connection to Jesus.”
“Why won’t he even come and see, Papa?”
His head dropped slightly and pain pulled around the corners of his mouth. “Sometimes things happen in our lives of such terrible consequence that it is like lightning striking a great tree. Even though it goes on living, deep inside it is scarred and burned. What happened to your mother when she was just your age was so dreadful, so unbelievably horrible, that it has left one corner of her filled with memories that she can never erase from her mind. That she is the warm and wonderful mother and grandmother—and wife—that she is, is astonishing under the circumstances. It shows just how strong she really is inside.”
“I know. I hurt for Mama when I think of what she went through, but why is Simeon so bitter? I mean, I know about that day in the courtyard. It was terrible. I still have nightmares about it. But I’m not filled with hate like he is.”
David was surprised at this maturity in his daughter. These were questions he had wrestled with many times. He had no idea that she had them as well. “Well,” he began, looking for the right way to express it, “as you know there is a special bond between Simeon and your mother. It is like their spirits are closer, more in harmony with one another than is normal, even between a mother and child.”
Leah nodded. “You and I have that too, don’t we, Papa.”
He smiled and touched her hand. “Yes, we do. Because of that special closeness, Simeon’s pain and anger is really an extension of your mother’s pain and anger.”
She was nodding slowly, starting to understand. “He told me once what was the most terrible part of that whole experience last fall.”
David’s eyes widened a little. “He did? What?”
“He was still conscious when the soldiers tied mother and me up and dragged us out. He tried to get up and stop them, but he was too weak. He couldn’t move. He just had to watch us be taken away. He thought he would never see us again.”
David was nodding slowly. “He never told me that.” That explained much. “And so even though I was able to
free you, that didn’t change the other. The wound Sextus gave him was not the greatest damage that was done.”
“Sextus?” she asked in surprise.
David looked at her, sorry that he had slipped. “Yes. Sextus Rubrius. That is the name of the centurion who struck him down that day.”
“You know him?”
He sighed. “We had business dealings before all of this happened. We had become friends. He is a good man, Leah. A decent and honorable man. Did you know he gave money to build the synagogue here?”
This was a day for stunning revelations, she decided. “Does Simeon know that?”
He shook his head quickly. “No. My association with him is done now. There’s no need.” He turned and looked toward the crowd gathered around Andrew’s house and decided to change the subject. “Leah?”
“Yes, Papa?”
David’s eyes grew thoughtful. “When your mother returns from Beth Neelah, will you tell her about today? And Simeon too?”
“Of course, Papa. I want to tell everyone. It’s like I’m on fire inside me, Papa. I’ve never been so happy. I can hardly wait to talk to Shana too.”
He laughed in pure happiness. “Oh, Leah, I am so pleased you were here today. This is wonderful. If I try to talk to them . . . ” He shrugged. “Well, you’ve seen what happens. But coming from you. Yes, that’s the answer.”
“I’m not sure Simeon will listen.”
“He will listen. He is angry right now, but your brother is fair-minded, and he has a good sense of what is truth and what is not.” He stopped, his eye drawn by a movement near the house.
Leah turned to look too. Four men came forward slowly, staggering under the load of a litter they carried. A fifth man lay upon the bed. The litter was really not much more than a straw mattress laid on some fish netting stretched between two long poles. Ropes were attached to each of the four corners of this makeshift stretcher; the four carriers had placed the ropes over their shoulders to help them carry the weight. They were moving around the perimeter of the crowd, trying to find a way through to the door.
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