Fishers of Men

by Gerald N. Lund

  After breakfast, Simeon, David, and Ephraim helped Benjamin see to the needs of the sheep. It didn’t take long. The flocks had been greatly diminished after providing the Paschal lambs for Passover. When they were done, the couples once again found places to be by themselves, trying to cope with the awfulness of the change that had descended upon them.

  When, just after midday, a loud pounding sounded on the gate to the small courtyard, it immediately sent tremors of fear through the household. Had the Romans finally decided to act against the followers of Jesus? Had Mordechai convinced the Sanhedrin to arrest Simeon and Miriam for being Jesus’ disciples?

  Telling the women to stay out of sight inside the house, Benjamin, David, and their sons went to the gate, hands on their swords. Benjamin opened the peep hole, then with a cry of relief threw open the gate. There, to their astonishment, stood Aaron and Hava.

  “Shalom,” Aaron said solemnly. “Good Sabbath.”

  Simeon was staring in disbelief. “Uncle Aaron?”

  “Very perceptive,” Aaron said dryly.

  “But . . .” Simeon’s mind was racing. He had thought his uncle and aunt were in Jericho. Today was the Sabbath. A Sabbath day’s journey was only two thousand paces, or about a mile. Jericho was sixteen or seventeen miles from Bethlehem. Even if Aaron had come only from Jerusalem, that was still six miles away. “What are you doing here?” Simeon asked incredulously.

  Aaron guessed at what had triggered that question. “I thought you might be a little shocked. Actually, Hava and I have indeed come up from Jericho. We left about midnight.”

  Deborah had been watching from the window, and the rest of the family came pouring out. As the women greeted Hava, Simeon pressed the issue with his uncle.

  “On the Sabbath?” Simeon exclaimed. “You came from Jericho on the Sabbath?”

  Aaron grinned, but it was grim, with no humor in it. “I know, I know. That says a lot about the state I’m in, doesn’t it.” Then without waiting for Simeon’s response, he turned to David. “I need to talk to Jesus as quickly as possible, David. Do you know where he is staying?”

  Aaron fell back a step at the look that came over his brother-in-law’s face. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “You haven’t heard?” Benjamin whispered.

  “Heard what?”

  David’s head came up slowly. “Jesus is dead, Aaron.”

  II

  While David quietly recounted the terrible events of the previous two days, Aaron sat motionless, staring at the ceiling, his mouth working silently but his eyes showing no expression. Hava sat beside Deborah, weeping silently as David’s words battered at her consciousness. She was not alone. To hear the terrible details again in David’s low, dispassionate voice had set all of the women to tears again.

  When David finished, Aaron was quiet for a long time. His fingers plucked at unseen threads on his robe. Finally he looked up. “I had to talk to him, David,” he said. “I had to ask him why he so savagely condemned the Pharisees. I know we’re not perfect, but our desire has always been to serve God. Why—”

  Everyone in the family gaped at him. It was like he hadn’t heard anything David had said. Surprisingly, it was Ephraim who reacted first. He leaped to his feet. “Uncle Aaron!”

  Aaron turned slowly to look at his nephew.

  “Jesus is dead! What does it matter now what he said about the Pharisees? He’s dead, Aaron. Dead!”

  Rachel reached out, took her husband’s hand, and pulled him back down again, then put an arm around his shoulder as his body began to tremble.

  Aaron slowly nodded. “I have so many questions, Ephraim. I just wanted to ask him—” Then, suddenly, his head came up. “How can he be dead?”

  Simeon felt his own anger flare. What was the matter with this man? “Because they nailed him to a cross, Uncle Aaron. Then to make sure, they thrust a spear into his chest.”

  “Don’t, Simeon!” Miriam cried.

  He turned. Miriam and Livia were sitting together on a low wooden bench. Livia’s face had drained of color.

  Simeon was instantly contrite. Ironically, it was Livia, who hadn’t even been with them in Jerusalem, who had taken the news of Jesus’ death the hardest. She had collapsed in a near faint and had withdrawn into a silent shell ever since. “I’m sorry,” Simeon murmured, moving over swiftly to comfort her as well.

  Aaron looked at David, his eyes wide and disbelieving. “I know he’s dead. But why? He was supposed to be the Messiah, David. The Deliverer. That’s what you said. That’s what I came to believe. He can’t be dead.”

  David sighed, and the pain in him was like a knot twisted tight. “I know,” he said. “We thought the same thing. Right up to the very last we thought he would save himself.”

  “But—” Aaron’s eyes turned to Deborah. “How can he deliver Israel if he can’t even deliver himself?”

  “He said it was necessary for him to die so he could save us all,” she whispered, not understanding any more than her brother.

  Aaron’s head dropped into his hands, and he began to shake it back and forth, as if trying to make a petulant, insistent child go away from him. Then he looked up at his wife, his eyes dark with anguish. “I should have listened to you, Hava. Why am I such a fool? We could have been here in time to talk to him.”

  Hava got to her feet and went to Aaron, but it was to the others that she spoke. “When we got your message inviting us to have Passover with you,” she explained, “I wanted to come. Though my brother and his wife and Grandma Huldah were planning to have us celebrate the feast with them in Jericho, I felt like Aaron needed to be here. He’s been so torn since hearing Jesus that last time. I thought that if he could see Jesus again he could resolve this bitterness he was feeling.”

  “But no,” Aaron cried out, “not me. I was too stubborn to come back. Who was Jesus to condemn everything for which I have given my life? I would show him! So I went away to let him know of my deep disapproval.”

  Hava, her face gentle and full of love, knelt beside him, but he went on, the passion in him making his voice rise. “But I couldn’t get the other things out of my mind—his teachings, the power and majesty of his bearing, Grandma Huldah, completely whole. Mud smeared over the eyes of a man born blind, and he comes back seeing.” He stopped, and his voice went soft with reverential awe. “Watching as a man wrapped in his burial clothes came out of that tomb.”

  “And that’s how you know he was the Messiah! It’s not just what he did—marvelous and miraculous as his deeds were—but it was who he was. How he made us feel when we listened to him. How he made us want to be better.” David was quiet for a moment, then went on. “Maybe we don’t understand what’s happened yet, but that doesn’t change what Jesus was: the Son of God. That’s what you need to hold on to, Aaron. That’s what you need to believe.”

  Aaron didn’t even look at him. He just closed his eyes and again shook his head.

  From the time he had come into his teen years, Simeon had found his uncle’s narrowness, his intransigence, his sense of mental and spiritual superiority over the rest of the family more than he could bear. But he could see that now Aaron was struggling, grieving in his own way. “When Jesus died,” Simeon said softly, “the heavens wept, Aaron. We have never seen such a terrible storm. And the earth shook so violently that we could not stand. It groaned as if it were a living thing.” He paused. “The Son of God died, Aaron, and all of nature cried out in agony. The very heavens and earth wept at his passing.”

  Aaron’s head came up, his eyes wide. “That was when he died? We felt the earthquake. We couldn’t believe the storm.”

  To everyone’s surprise, Livia spoke up. She removed Miriam’s arm from around her shoulder. Her voice was husky and strained, but she was under control again. “Aaron?”

  He turned to her.

  “I understand what you are going through.”

  “You could not,” he snapped back. “No one understands the turmoil inside me right no
w.”

  Her voice dropped to a hush. “I was here, Aaron. While the Roman scourge was flaying the skin from the Master’s back, I was here, sitting beneath the shade of the pomegranate tree, drinking a cup of cold water from the well. And while he was being nailed to the cross and suffering pain beyond my comprehension, I went inside the house, lay down, and took a nap.” Her eyes bored into him. “Don’t tell me I don’t understand your pain.”

  “Livia, you don’t have to—” Miriam protested, but Livia ignored her.

  “I told the others that it was because I was tired, that I didn’t think I could face more violence. But do you want to really know why I stayed behind? Because I had a bitterness of my own. I don’t care what Jesus said to you about the Pharisees. What I wanted to know was this: If Jesus was really all powerful, and full of love, as I had been taught to believe, then why didn’t he save my Yehuda?” Tears started to trickle down her cheeks. “When we took my husband to the Mount of Olives and laid him in the grave, why didn’t Jesus come and call him forth, as he did Lazarus?”

  No one made a sound. Miriam stared at her friend in deep sympathy. Even Aaron’s eyes softened as he watched her.

  “I didn’t fully realize it then, but I do now. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see Jesus anymore. I was afraid I might suddenly scream out at him, ‘If you are the Messiah, why did you let the Romans kill Yehuda?’”

  “And why did he let them kill him?” Aaron murmured. But he wasn’t trying to disagree with her. She did understand. She was probably the only one, but she understood what was tearing him apart inside.

  “Those are terrible, terrible words, Aaron. If he is . . . If he was . . . I see that now, but it is too late. Too late for me to go back and be there for Jesus. Too late for you to ask him your questions.” She buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders began to shake. “I told him I believed in him, and then all I could do was ask why. If he truly was the Son of God, why? why? why?”

  Miriam took her in her arms and tried to steady her, weeping as freely as Livia. Leah moved over beside them and took Livia’s hand.

  David sighed deeply. This had been a long day, a day filled with despair and darkness, with weeping and self-recrimination. Aaron and Livia weren’t the only ones torturing themselves over the events of the past days. He and Simeon and Ephraim should have stayed with Peter and the Twelve instead of returning to Bethlehem. Perhaps they could have stopped the soldiers from arresting Jesus. Miriam was convinced that if she had gone to her father and begged for mercy, perhaps the outcome of the trial might have been different. Deborah was torturing herself for not doing more to help Jesus’ mother in her devastation. Leah had almost gone up to Jesus the day before Passover to tell him how much she loved and admired him for what he had done for her. But she hadn’t, and now she never could.

  Livia had said it for them all. What if were terrible words, and they were doing nothing but causing pain for the family. It was time to stop.

  It was time to focus less on the pain and the grief and try to remember the powerful and positive things Jesus had brought to them. As the scriptures said, it was time to rely on the arm of the Lord. David stirred as the words flashed in his mind. Unconsciously he spoke them aloud, “To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?”

  Deborah looked at him. “What did you say?”

  David started. He looked around at his family. He loved them all so much, and he hurt not only for himself but for them as well. He wanted to find a way to help them begin to heal. A warm feeling started in his heart and spread through his whole body. “As we’ve been talking, I’ve remembered something I’d like to share with you all. Maybe it will help.”

  He looked at Aaron. “It’s from the prophet Isaiah. And I think it means more to me now than ever before.”

  David stood and moved to the center of the room. His voice naturally fell into the rhythm of words long repeated but only now fully understood.

  “Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” he began. “For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

  “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

  “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

  “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

  “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

  “Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

  David’s words fell away into silence. Tears streamed down everyone’s faces.

  “Come,” David reached for Deborah’s hand. “There is still much we can do to help our friends.” He pulled his wife close. “And to help Jesus.”

  Several nodded, but Aaron and Hava looked puzzled, so he went on quickly. “There is a man named Joseph; he is originally from Arimathea. He—”

  “Joseph?” Aaron exclaimed. “But I know him. He is a member of the Great Council.”

  “Yes, it is the same man. He went to the governor and asked permission to see to the burial of Jesus’ body. He arrived at Golgotha with the written order from Pilate just before Jesus died. It was nearly sundown by then. We had to act in great haste before the Sabbath began—we knew the Sanhedrin would use any excuse to arrest more of us, including the argument that we were violating the Sabbath by burying Jesus then. Joseph has a garden that, gratefully, is just a short distance from Golgotha. A few months ago, he had his workman start carving a large tomb that could serve as his family’s burial place. He told us to bring Jesus there. Joseph provided fine linen, and Nicodemus brought myrrh and aloes to help anoint the body.”

  “I wonder what the council will do if they find out,” Aaron said, not trying to hide his bitterness.

  “I think they think it’s over now,” Miriam said. “My father and Azariah and the others didn’t even let Joseph, Nicodemus, and the other moderates know about the trial until it was done. They finished their work without them and now sit back in satisfaction.”

  “Anyway,” David came back in, “because of the rush, we didn’t have time to finish preparing the body properly.”

  Deborah suppressed a shudder. She had been one of the women asked to accompany the body into the tomb and begin preparing it for burial. She would always remember the coldness of the flesh, wiping the dried blood from the gaping wounds, trying not to touch the lacerated back, even though Jesus was then beyond any pain. She and Mary Magdalene and Anna, Peter’s wife, had taken the precious ointment brought by Nicodemus and did the preliminary anointing of the body. Then, as the men carefully lifted the body off the stone slab enoug
h to pass the roll of linen beneath it, the women had wound the cloth around and around until Jesus was completely encased in white. It was then that it had hit her with full force that Jesus truly was dead, that no miracle was going to happen. He was gone. When Deborah had left the tomb, David almost had to carry her until they were out of the garden.

  She took a breath and, speaking mostly to Aaron and Hava, explained what David meant. “We need more spices and perfumes, more ointments. And we need to place Jesus in the receptacle that has been carved inside the tomb. We had to leave his body lying on top of the slab until we could return.”

  Aaron was greatly sobered. “I understand. And I agree totally.”

  David spoke again. “We promised Peter and the others that we would go to Jerusalem by sundown this evening. As soon as the shops reopen after Shabbat, we’re going to buy what we need, then go to the tomb and finish what we started.”

  He turned to Livia, and his voice softened. “If you are feeling up to it, Livia, we’d all like for you to come with us.”

  She did not hesitate. “Of course I’ll come,” she said firmly.

  David looked at Aaron. “You and Hava have had a long journey. And it still is the Sabbath. We can’t wait until the Sabbath is over and then leave. You can stay here and rest if you would prefer, and—”

  “I’m coming with you,” Hava said quietly.

  Aaron jerked around. “No, Hava. It’s too late now. And there could be danger.”

  Hava then did something that shocked Aaron so deeply that he was completely silenced. Hava had spent her life almost worshiping her husband, serving him in glad adoration, accepting his counsel without question, letting him take the lead in their marriage in every way. But this was a decision she would not bend on. “You do as you wish, Aaron, but I am going with the family.”

  She watched him for a moment, seeing the astonishment in his eyes. “I, too, have seen Grandma Huldah’s straightened back,” she said softly. “I, too, have talked with Lazarus, who once was dead. And I, too, have felt my heart stirred within me when I’ve listened to Jesus teach.” She took a deep breath. “I cannot speak for you, my husband, but I can speak for myself. There is no if in my mind. Jesus was the Messiah! And I am going with the family to see to it he is given a proper burial.”