The End of the Magi

by Patrick W. Carr

  Roshan gripped his hand, pulling him away. Walagash was gone, though Myrad hadn’t seen him leave. “Come away, Myrad. Come away.”

  Some part of his mind acknowledged her even as he gaped, uncomprehending as the crowd cheered while the soldier tested the swing of his whip. For a moment, he dared to hope it was just a dream, that such insanity couldn’t happen, but the first strike dispelled his foolish notions of justice or mercy. Blood erupted from the stripes appearing on Yeshua’s back while the crowd cheered His agony.

  Myrad couldn’t seem to make his lungs work. Spots swam in his vision like a mockery of Yeshua’s drops of blood. With the next strike, a strip of flesh tore away from the muscle beneath. He couldn’t look away. Hands grabbed his face, turning it against the locked muscles of his neck. He found himself gazing into his wife’s eyes.

  “Come away,” she repeated more forcefully.

  Myrad finally nodded. He and Roshan turned and left the Praetorium to the cries of cheers and of agony.

  He didn’t start weeping until they were back at the inn, in their room, the door closed. Memories of Gershom, of death he hadn’t let himself remember for decades, rushed at him from some hidden recess of his mind and mixed with visions of Yeshua with His face bleeding, the whip descending for another blow. Roshan held him, but his grief wouldn’t run its course, refused to be washed away because there simply weren’t enough tears. Long after his eyes dried, he lay in her arms, dry sobs wracking his body.

  It was still light when Yehudah returned to the inn, his gaze haunted. The magi assembled in the main room, food sitting before them untouched, though some drank liberally from wineskins, not in sips but in desperate gulps.

  “It’s finished,” Yehudah said. Oddly, his voice once again held the inflection of a man quoting another man. “The Messiah-King is dead.”

  “What happened?” someone asked.

  They sat in shocked silence as Yehudah, his voice hollow and small, recounted the moments leading inexorably to Yeshua’s death.

  Harel, his eyes red from grief, looked around the room at men who couldn’t seem to pull their gazes from the floor. “As Daniel spoke, so it’s done. The Messiah-King has been cut off, executed by these barbarians with their swords and spears, the ones wearing the plumes or tassels.” He went to take a drink, but his cup was empty. He slammed the cup to the table. “This land is cursed, has cursed itself by killing its Messiah and King. We should leave in the morning. To remain here will only lead to more death.”

  No one answered.

  “A few days?” Ronen whispered. “That’s all? Did Daniel know God’s Messiah would be with us for such a short time?”

  But Ronen’s question could no more move the magi to speak than Harel’s demand. Yet it stirred something within Myrad and brought forth questions from out of his ignorance. He craved answers that were denied him from his first conversations with Gershom over thirty years ago.

  “How much?” he asked, his voice croaking in protest. He took a drink of wine as heads turned toward him without understanding. He tried again. “How much of what happened today was written in the prophecies of the Haftarah?”

  “Much,” Yehudah said at last. “Especially from the prophet Isaiah.” Without meeting Myrad’s gaze, he began to quote, “‘He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, no beauty that we should desire him. . . .’”

  Myrad listened to the recitation. At first, he marked the point in his mind where it followed the events of the day, but after the first couple of minutes, he stopped, the exercise pointless. The account matched exactly, an account written hundreds of years before its occurrence. How?

  By the time Yehudah stopped, a fire burned in Myrad’s chest, small but growing.

  “Not just the Haftarah, but the psalms of David as well,” Ronen said. “‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” he began, though at first Myrad didn’t realize he was quoting.

  They continued late into the evening, each of them sharing some passage or snippet from memory while the fire in Myrad’s chest grew. When at last their recollections faded, he stood. “You could have told me,” he accused his fellow magi. “You should have. What kind of God kills His own Messiah?”

  Myrad left the room then, carrying with him a grief he could neither shed nor understand.

  CHAPTER 39

  “Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.”

  Matthew 27:65

  Myrad awoke the next morning to a city as dead as the Messiah they’d crucified. No men called to one another as they passed in the streets, and no women exchanged greetings as they opened shutters to let in the light. Even the sun appeared wan and exhausted, with the demarcation between light and shadow indistinct. Myrad moved through the inn, his steps wandering without a destination.

  He came to the stable where he saw Harel with two of the newer magi whose names slipped from him. They were bridling horses. Their movements were quick, nervous. Harel glanced up, saw him over the back of his horse, and looked away without acknowledgment.

  Oddly, the need to speak, to put words to the moment overwhelmed Myrad and he limped his way to them. “Is Ronen going with you?” The two men, despite their disagreements, had been practically inseparable during the journey to Jerusalem.

  Harel shook his head but didn’t speak.

  “Why not?”

  The magus glared at him. “He’s waiting for a sign.” His hands stopped, and a bit of his defiance leeched from him, his shoulders dropping. “I cannot bear any more. Do you understand?”

  But Myrad’s attention was still fixed on Harel’s previous statement. “What sign?”

  Harel ran his hands down the forelegs of his horse and checked its hooves. “Yeshua predicted His resurrection and His judgment.” He sighed. “I cannot take any more.”

  Myrad understood. Harel wanted nothing more than to leave Judea. He’d had enough of prophecies and Rome and people screaming for death. He looked up to see Ronen standing near the back of the inn. The two men couldn’t have missed seeing each other, but nothing passed between them—no waves, no farewells, and no attempts at persuasion either way. Harel and the two magi with him rode away.

  “Yehudah has been to the upper city,” Ronen said to Myrad on his way back to the inn. When Myrad paused, he went on. “Pilate ordered a guard placed at the tomb. Sixteen men, all Romans.”

  “Why is that important?”

  “They think the Messiah’s disciples will try to steal the body to make it look like He’s come back from the dead.”

  Impossible hope flared in his chest and he groaned, envying Harel the courage of his departure. “Do the prophets speak of His resurrection?”

  “Perhaps,” Ronen said. “Harel and I could not agree. Come, you should see the tomb. It’s not a long walk from here.”

  Myrad pointed to his foot. “I would accompany you, but any walk is long for me.”

  “We’ll take the horses then. It’s just outside the Damascus Gate.”

  Trapped by his own protest, he followed Ronen to the stable where they blanketed and bridled their horses. A measure of unexpected peace stole over him as they rode, and he leaned forward to give Areion a pat on the shoulder. The horse nickered and tossed his head. “I know,” Myrad said. “I promise we’ll have plenty of time to run once we leave for Parthia.”

  The route they took through the city too closely followed the path Yeshua took to His crucifixion. Passing through the gate, they came to the side of a hill of solid rock, where almost a score of Roman soldiers stood post. Each man guarded a patch of earth hardly bigger than a single pace wide on each side. “They don’t do anything by half measures, these Romans,” Myrad commented.

  “No,” Ronen said. When Myrad moved to dismount to get a closer look, the magus stopped him. “Don’t. If you step too close, a firm warning is the least you might expect.” He reined his horse to the right, and Myrad followed, and they observed the tomb from a more oblique
view. From here, he could see the thickness of the stone covering the mouth of the tomb. It had been rolled down a channel until it stopped at a short abutment, completely covering the opening.

  “The tomb’s not his,” Ronen said. “It belonged to one of the Sanhedrin, those who so skillfully plotted Yeshua’s death.”

  The stone blocking the tomb captured Myrad’s attention. He gestured to it and asked, “How much does that thing weigh?”

  “As much as ten men, perhaps twenty,” Ronen said.

  One of the soldiers, dissatisfied with the length of their inspection, waved them away. They reined their horses and retraced their steps to the inn. Myrad spent a few moments with Areion, brushing his coat to keep his hands busy while his mind raced. “Why show me the tomb?”

  “Because you were thinking of leaving.”

  “Why would you care?” Dismissal laced his question. He kept his back turned. “You, Yehudah, and the rest kept me in ignorance, told me nothing about all of this. Hakam I can understand. He can barely stand to be in the same room with me. The only way he’d dislike me more is if I were Roman.”

  “Hakam is dead,” Ronen said.

  He lifted his gaze to Ronen’s face, but there was no jesting there, just the same hollowed-out expression they’d all worn since yesterday. “How?”

  “Something broke in him after Yeshua cleared the Temple of the moneylenders but did nothing about the Romans. He took a sword and attacked a full squad.” Ronen shook his head. “He couldn’t reconcile the reality with his vision.”

  “I wish Dov and Eliar were here,” Myrad said softly. He missed the two old men, different as they were. Each, in his own way, had known nothing of subterfuge.

  He left Ronen to return to the inn where he and the remaining magi nursed their hopes like a man guarding the first spark of a fire. He couldn’t say for certain why he stayed. Perhaps it was because the others did, or possibly it was because Gershom still held his heart and loyalty. Or it might have been because the days of Daniel’s calendar were complete, and he didn’t know what to do next.

  The news spread through the Old City faster than fire through brush. The tomb is empty! When it reached the inn, the magi assembled to pray and talk, and it was one of Yehuda’s cataphracts who argued most fervently. Myrad could hardly conceal his surprise. Yehudah’s soldiers guarded their words with as much diligence as merchants did their gold.

  “It’s true.” The assertion from Dariush, his voice resonant, drew every eye to where he stood at the back of the room. “I spoke to a few of the soldiers.”

  Yehudah’s eyes grew wide. “You spoke to Roman soldiers?”

  Dariush’s nod was shared by the other cataphracts. “Away from the battlefield, soldiers share a common viewpoint that binds us together, even though we might find ourselves fighting each other tomorrow. I asked one of them about the guard at the Hebrew’s tomb. He scoffed at the idea the watch fell asleep, ridiculed it as nonsense. Of course, his honesty might have had something to do with the wine I bought him.”

  “Why is it nonsense?” one of the magi asked.

  “Sixteen men watched over the tomb,” Dariush said. “By the order of Pilate himself. Do you know what happens to a guard who falls asleep on duty?” He paused before continuing. “Death, along with the rest of the guard who allowed him to fall asleep. That’s why they won’t eat or drink during their watch. Yet all of the guards posted at the tomb live, separated and assigned to other duties.”

  The minuscule spark of hope Myrad had guarded for three days suddenly came to life. Dariush’s simple denunciation of the rumor Yeshua’s disciples had taken His body were axe blows to the root of his doubts.

  “What is to be done?” Yehudah asked.

  “That’s the right question, but the wrong audience,” Ronen said. “We should find these disciples of Yeshua and ask them.”

  One of the magi from Ctesiphon wrinkled his nose. “The fishermen? What could they tell us? They abandoned Him.”

  “Is there an alternative?” Ronen asked. “If Yeshua has indeed risen, would He go to Pilate? Or Herod?”

  “His mother, Mary,” Myrad said. “She and the other women stayed with Him until the very end.”

  The magi nodded.

  It took a while for them to find Mary, though in the end they found her and the eleven disciples as well. They were huddled together on the upper floor of a small house at the edge of the city.

  When they knocked on the door, it was one of the eleven who opened it. Seeing Yehudah with his guards, the man panicked and moved to shut the door again when a woman standing to the side placed a hand on his arm, halting him. She stepped into the circle of torchlight. Despite the passage of thirty years, Myrad instantly recognized her. Grief and joy had become so alloyed within the lines of Mary’s face that they could no longer be distinguished, yet her eyes shone as if lit from within. “It’s all right, Simon. They’re old friends.”

  The man called Simon nodded and swung the door wide, allowing them into the crowded room.

  Mary turned and addressed the disciples in the room, and the joy emanating from their faces was incomprehensible to Myrad. “I’ve told you of the men who traveled to Bethlehem from the east after Yeshua’s birth and of the gifts they brought, which allowed Joseph and me to escape into Egypt. These are those men.”

  Looking unkempt in their homespun attire, the men made no reply, but backed up to make room for their guests. A few of them looked on with wary eyes.

  Yehudah stepped forward. “We heard that the tomb is empty, and by the testimony of one of our own, we became convinced the Romans—”

  One of the disciples, younger than the rest with short, curly hair, held up a hand to stop him. “Your Greek surpasses ours. Do you speak Aramaic?”

  Yehudah nodded and switched languages with the ease of a man who’d spoken both for decades. “Is the tomb indeed empty?”

  The men looked at Simon, the one who’d answered the door. “Yes. Three of us saw our Lord just after He arose.” He gestured to a small group of women there with them. “If you had been here an hour ago, you would have seen Him yourselves. He appeared to us in this very room, though the door was barred and the windows shuttered.”

  “What did He tell you?” Yehudah asked.

  “To wait here in Jerusalem until we were given power from on high.”

  They spent hours in the upper room, listening to the disciples closest to Yeshua tell of His life, what He’d taught them, whom He’d healed, speaking Aramaic in simple phrases any of them could follow. Matthew, once a tax collector, shared more of the account while speaking in Greek.

  At one point, Roshan went to Mary’s side and the two women embraced. They spoke together in whispered tones for an hour or so, and then Roshan returned to Myrad’s side, her hand slipping into his. Once the disciples finished their chronology of Yeshua’s time with them, they asked the magi for the tale of His birth and for passages from the prophets, nodding whenever the meaning became apparent.

  Red and orange streaked the sky to the east when the magi departed the upper room to head back to their inn. Myrad fell into bed next to Roshan, his head heavy with stories and the need for sleep. The shutter over the narrow window allowed scarcely any light into the room as he closed his eyes to rest, but not before he noticed much of the burden of his grief had lifted.

  Later, when he rose and left the room in search of food, the sun was past its zenith and shadows in the street were growing in length. Most of the magi reclined by the low tables, eating and drinking, their movements slow and deliberate as if mirroring their thoughts.

  Yehudah and Ronen spoke quietly, but their conversation carried a tone of disagreement. When they saw Myrad, they waved him over.

  “Help me persuade Ronen to remain,” Yehudah said. “He believes our work here is done.”

  “Isn’t it?” Myrad asked. “Daniel’s prophecy is fulfilled, and from what I understand, so is Isaiah’s. What more is there for the magi to do?”<
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  “My point exactly,” Ronen said.

  “And mine,” Yehudah added.

  Myrad shook his head. “You can’t both have the same point.”

  The two men looked at each other, then back at him. “Why not?” they said in unison.

  He held out his hands. “Because you disagree.”

  “We differ in the interpretation, not the point,” Yehudah said. “Ronen believes there is nothing more for us to do. This is the end of the magi. Our task was accomplished the day Yeshua rode into Jerusalem.” Ronen nodded at this. “While I believe this may be the end of the magi, I think there’s still some task yet remaining.”

  “What task is that?” Myrad asked.

  But when Yehudah spoke, he offered no assurance of his position, but struggled to answer, the creases in his forehead deepening. “Because an action should have consequences, and I can’t see how having us present for His entry accomplishes anything. We kept the calendar for centuries, and on the day the Messiah was to appear, He appeared. So?”

  Ronen lifted his hands, his face the picture of exasperation. “So? That’s the point. God’s promises are sure, whether they come sooner or later. It’s not for us to provide the meaning and interpretation of God’s plan. That’s for God to do.”

  Yehudah sighed. “I can only say that something in my heart tells me to stay. To wait and see what happens.”

  “And how long will you wait?” Ronen asked. “A week? A year? Perhaps you will find yourself here, old and infirm, waiting for events that may take another five hundred years to occur.”

  “I don’t know,” Yehudah said. “But there is nothing for me to go back to except lands and cattle and trade. Those things seem unimportant now.”