A New Eden

by Quent Cordair

  The commotion drew more priests and religious leaders of varied ranks and stripes. The anger in the temple grew as they argued over the proper response to Jesus’ blasphemy. Some wanted him rebuked. Others wanted him killed on the spot and thrown over the temple wall to be eaten by the dogs. The disciples managed to draw Jesus back into their group and out of view. When the priests finally agreed that the proper course was to take Jesus into custody and bring him to trial – they couldn’t find him. He was gone, and his disciples with him, much to Obadiah’s relief.

  At this, the scrim was lowered. The music and house lights came up to applause.

  * * *

  During intermission Paige remained in her seat and studied the program. The director and scenic director both had significant theater experience outside of Flock circles. The actor playing Jesus, with an impressive resume of Broadway and off-Broadway roles, was a member of the stage actors’ union. Paige wondered if he was even Flock, considering the nature of some of the roles he’d played. Being a Flock member, however, was only the most basic requirement for playing the role of Obadiah Skairn. Paige had just begun reading about the stringent qualifications and prerequisites when the house lights flashed off and on, and the chimes called the audience back to their seats for the second act.

  The play resumed with Jesus resting in the house of Lazarus, a man whom Jesus had recently raised from the dead, as the audience was reminded by an aside between John and Peter. Obadiah and his angel were still observing on the fringe. Jesus was reclined on a pile of large cushions, his followers gathered round. Mary Magdalene, a woman who, according to John and Peter, was looked down upon in the community for her questionable reputation, was anointing Jesus’ feet with perfume. The orchestra’s violins and cellos played as she dried his feet with her long hair. She sang hauntingly of her devotion, of her desire to be anything and everything that her dear Jesus might want her to be. She sang of her despair at her lowliness, of her sin and of her unworthiness, of her love for him. At the song’s conclusion, one of the disciples, Judas Iscariot, complained to Jesus that the expensive perfume she had used was worth a year’s wage, that it could have been sold to help feed the poor. A second disciple suggested to a third that Judas’ complaining was only because Judas was the keeper of the group’s communal money purse, from which Judas was prone to borrow for his own purposes – and the purse was nearly empty. Jesus answered:

  Leave her alone. It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me. Her sins are forgiven.

  At the rebuke, Judas slipped away. During the transition to the next scene, he slunk furtively back to the temple, where he offered to deliver Jesus up to the priests – for a price. He asked for a hundred pieces of gold. He was offered a mere thirty pieces of silver, to be paid upon his making good on his end of the bargain. He settled for that. How would he identify Jesus for the guards? By a kiss on the cheek.

  Obadiah was so angered at this treachery that he started towards Judas with a raised hand, but the angel held him back.

  In the next scene, the disciples and several dozen of Jesus’ followers listened to Jesus teach and preach on the Mount of Olives, just outside of the city walls, prophesying about the coming destruction of the temple and about the trials and tribulations that all would face before he would return to earth to establish the Kingdom of Heaven. The priests and religious authorities had come to listen as well. Without so much as acknowledging their presence, he insulted and condemned them. The priests were incensed – but they feared arresting him there, concerned that the crowd would turn on them. Obadiah, with his angel behind him, sat on a rock to the side, watching, hanging on Jesus’ every word. At one point, to Obadiah’s shock, Jesus turned and addressed him directly:

  Tend to my flock, my faithful servant. Bear witness to all that you have seen here and you will be rewarded in my father’s house. Purify thyself and become the Lamb among lambs. Follow me even unto the high place between heaven and earth, to provide a reminder to my people of my sacrifice, and you shall be taken up with me to return on the day of judgment.

  Obadiah fell to his knees, lowering his face to the ground in submission and worship. Still, none but Jesus and the angel were aware of his presence.

  On the group’s return to the city, one of the disciples excitedly pointed out that the fig tree Jesus had cursed had completely wilted. The few leaves that hadn’t fallen off were brown and shriveled. Jesus said:

  Verily I say unto you, if you have faith, and doubt not, you shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if you shall say unto this mountain, “Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea,” and it shall be done.

  They exited the stage, the lights dimmed, and the set flats were turned and brought together in the shape of a room. The lights brightened on a nearly perfect replication of the room in Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” complete with the floral-patterned tapestries on the walls and rear windows opening to a verdant landscape. Servants brought in a long table, which they covered with white cloth and began setting for Passover dinner.

  Obadiah and his angel watched as the disciples filed in, arguing amongst themselves as usual, but newly humbled: Jesus had insisted on washing the feet of each and all before dinner. They took their places at the table. Jesus, the last to enter, assumed the place left open for him in the center. Da Vinci’s painting had been brought to life, down to the silver plates and the bold colors of the disciples’ tunics and cloaks, with the exception of Jesus being dressed in white.

  The angel took a pitcher from a side table and, passing it to Obadiah, motioned him towards the table. Obadiah protested, but at the angel’s insistence, he relented and began filling the cups with wine, going unnoticed again by all but Jesus, who reached out and touched his arm in recognition and thanks.

  As Jesus and his disciples dined, he announced that one of them would betray him that night. This sent the disciples into a tumult. They were aghast. All protested, in the strongest terms, and began regarding each other with suspicion. Obadiah purposefully spilled some wine in the lap of Judas, who sprang up, flustered, declaring that surely it would not be he who would betray his Lord – to which Jesus responded that, in his denial, Judas had as much as admitted his guilt.

  Jesus led the disciples through the eating of the bread as Jesus’ body and the drinking of the wine as his blood. When the others were not looking, Judas slipped away.

  The lights dimmed. The next scene was in the Garden of Gethsemane, a tableau of black-silhouetted trees against a cobalt-blue sky. Jesus gathered the disciples around him and foretold that they would abandon him before the night was over, that they would deny even knowing him. Peter swore that he himself would never do so, no matter the circumstances. Jesus answered that Peter would deny knowing him not once but three times before the cock crowed at dawn.

  Asking them to stand watch, Jesus moved away through the shadows to find a place in the garden where he could be alone. In a hazy, purple spotlight, upstage right, he began to pray aloud, in word and song –

  This was his moment of weakness. He implored his father above to take the coming cup of suffering away from him, if it were possible. But of course it was possible, as anything was possible for the omnipotent. He questioned why his own father, who surely loved his only son more than any of his other creations, would send him to earth to be tortured and killed – why he would do so if it were possible that the desired end could be accomplished through any means God chose. And of course it was possible. Could his omnipotent father not offer some other means by which men might be spared the punishment due them for the sinful state into which they had been born? Why was it necessary for the perfect to be sacrificed for the imperfect, the sinless for the sinful, the most beloved for the sake of the loved but less loved? Was there no escape for the innocent lamb marked for the slaughter? Was there no justice? No mercy? He agonized and pleaded. He wa
ited for his father’s voice.

  But no answer came.

  The audience suffered along with him. Many quietly wept. Others prayed with him and for him. Paige hadn’t considered this aspect of Jesus’ position. She found herself aghast at the thought of a parent willingly offering up a beloved child, and an only child no less, to be tortured and murdered – for anyone else’s sake. Moreover, creating a child solely for the purpose – it was unthinkable. And it was something worse, far worse, but something she couldn’t quite bring herself to think or believe.

  Jesus returned to his disciples only to find them, each and every one, asleep. He prayed anew, and again in song, begging his father to spare him, agonizing over what he knew was to come. What was to come was beyond all logic, beyond all reason, yet he knew that his task was not to know, not to understand, only to have faith, only to obey. His reasoning mind, too, was to be sacrificed along with his body. There would be no salvation for the only sinless man ever created. There would be only the most brutal torture, the most unbearable pain, and eventually, death. He could make no sense of it. There was no sense of it to be made. Exhausted, resigned, and utterly alone, in the end he submitted. In the end, he broke.

  “Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.”

  Judas arrived on the scene. He approached Jesus. When Jesus saw him, Judas stopped, hesitating. Then gathering his resolve, he came forward and stood close, close enough to touch the man he was about to betray. Neither of them needed to say a word. Both knew what was about to happen. When Judas could look Jesus in the eyes no more, he looked down. Then he leaned in and kissed Jesus on the cheek. The kiss lingered, before he backed away.

  No one in the auditorium was breathing.

  At the cue, a band of armed men rushed out of the shadows. The disciples woke at the noise. Confusion and alarm reigned as the soldiers rushed in and seized Jesus. Obadiah attempted again to intervene, and again was restrained by his angel. Peter attempted to defend his master, grabbing one of the soldiers’ swords and succeeding in chopping off the man’s ear – Jesus stopped him before he could do more harm: it was God’s will, he explained, that he be taken away. He reminded Peter that, as the son of God, he could call down legions of angels from heaven to defend himself, if he so chose. He picked up the soldier’s ear and replaced it on the side of the man’s head. The ear stayed. Jesus had performed yet another selfless miracle, in his hour of despair no less, and for a man who was there to do him harm. The soldiers proclaimed the act to be the work of the devil or of dark magic. The disciples, in fear of being arrested themselves, scattered to the winds, as Jesus had prophesied they would. Not one of them stayed by his side. The soldiers led the man they mockingly called the King of the Jews away, kicking him, hitting him, spitting on him.

  Left on the stage, alone, Judas was miserable. He sank to his knees and tore at his cloak and hair, asking himself and the heavens what he had done.

  When the scene changed, the disciple John had run to find Mary, the mother of Jesus, to warn her that her son had been arrested and taken away, most likely to the temple court of the Sanhedrin council.

  Skye Emberly, as Mary, was as startlingly beautiful with touches of gray in her hair and lines at the corners of her eyes. Her response to what she was told by John came in song.

  She sang of a mother’s cares, of her worry for her beloved boy, of her foreboding and fear that, this time, it wouldn’t end well. She didn’t want to believe that the arrest had happened. She asked John if there mightn’t be some mistake.

  John took her in his arms and confirmed that it was true, that he had seen it with his own eyes – but that she shouldn’t worry. He was sure that everything would be fine, that Jesus would soon be released. And no matter what might happen, he himself would be there for her.

  So passionately was Simon Paulson playing his part, gazing fervently into Mary’s eyes as he held her by her shoulders to console her, Paige found herself beginning to question the nature of the disciple’s feelings for the mother of Jesus. But then the music continued and Mary was pleading in song for her son’s fate to be otherwise. She begged God to protect Jesus, she begged for her son’s life – Jesus had so much more good to do in the world, so much more to give – and while the rest of the world surely needed him, surely she, his mother, more than anyone, needed him too. She would give anything . . . anything. . . .

  Please take me, O Lord, please take me instead,

  If he dies I’ll live on, but my heart will be dead;

  While he breathes I can breathe, but my last breath I’ll give,

  If You take me, O Lord, and let my son live. . . .

  When her plea couldn’t have been more heartbreaking, Skye looked out into the audience and found Sophia Hale, sitting in her usual place, without her son beside her. Through the words of the song and the silences between the words, Mary reached out, mother to mother, and for a passing moment, while surrounded by ten thousand others, it was as if a private channel opened between them. They were alone together, enveloped in a sanctuary of communion and empathy, wrapped in a balm of shared understanding. When the song climbed to its sublime summit, the high note Skye reached and held carried a mother’s love and hope, as though on a tremulous silver wire, to the hearts of every soul listening and watching, present and afar.

  Paige swallowed the lump in her throat. She dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. As the music fell away, Mary, exhausted and distraught, fell into John’s arms. He supported her, keeping her on her feet. As he guided her away, his arm about her waist, Paige saw that his hand was trembling.

  The house lights came up to silence.

  Paige didn’t know how Skye had done what she had done, how she had penetrated every internal wall that Paige had ever built, but Paige knew in that moment, with full clarity and certainty, that if she ever had a child she would never want to lose him.

  Everyone in the audience was either sobbing quietly or trying to refrain from doing so. Finally, a single pair of hands began a slow clap. The clap was joined by others until as much applause as would come was released. But the audience’s hopes and hearts were still with Mary. The story was not finished. The applause faded.

  It was almost as if the rest of the play hadn’t happened. The real story had occurred there in the last scene, in the last song. Surely the script hadn’t been written with the intent, but in the few minutes that Skye had been on stage, her performance and presence had been so powerful and effective that every action and song and line of dialogue preceding, as impressive as it all had been, seemed inconsequential and flat in comparison, the stuff of grade-school dramas.

  Over the intercom came a reminder to wear appropriate Procession apparel the next morning, that the doors would open at eight, with the play resuming at nine o’clock sharp.

  The audience stood and began filing quietly out, still awash in the experience. Mothers hugged and kept their children close. Husbands hugged their wives. Men embraced and patted each other on the back consolingly. There was tactile reassuring and comforting everywhere Paige looked, even between people she thought were probably complete strangers. She herself felt suddenly alone and lonely, until an older, grandmotherly woman turned and opened her arms. Paige accepted the embrace, returning it fully and warmly. She felt better. With thanks in her tear-filled eyes, she kissed the woman’s cheek. The woman smiled in turn, understanding.

  Walking back to the apartment, Paige waited until she had separated from the crowd to retrieve her phone from her purse. Her heart leapt. There was a text from Ian. But the message was merely a courtesy, letting her know that her sculpture was being shipped tomorrow and was scheduled to arrive at her address in New York sometime the next week. There was nothing more – no hint of anything personal.

  But Ian was engaged, after all. He had probably just finished a lovely, romantic dinner with – with whoever the woman was. Paige didn’t want to think of her. She erased a half-formed image from her mind, only to find, in its place, the image
of a woman of questionable reputation anointing a man’s feet with oil, wiping them dry with her hair, gazing up at the man she loved with complete adoration.

  Twelve

  “Brother Simon . . . Brother Simon . . . wake up . . .”

  But Simon didn’t want to wake up. In his dream he was still the disciple John, and Skye was still Mary. They were walking alone along a dusty road, fleeing Jerusalem, ducking into the trees whenever soldiers passed. Night had fallen and Mary was tired and cold. He had made her a fire. She was huddled against him, having fallen asleep in his arms. She trusted him. The light of the fire played over her ivory cheeks and delicate eyelids. Her lips were so close. . . .

  “Brother Simon, wake up! It’s Procession Day! Simon, we can’t be late.”

  Someone was shaking his shoulder. Skye was gone. He was searching for her in the empty woods, calling out her name.

  “Brother Simon, please, today of all days! Wake up!”

  Simon’s eyes blinked open. He squinted up into the caramel-colored face hovering over him. His roommate’s accent was hardly less thick than the day he arrived from the Philippines last summer.

  “What time is it, Honesto?” he moaned.

  “Ten after six, Simon! Morning Prayer is in twenty minutes!”

  Simon suppressed a groan. “Honesto, did you sleep at all last night? You don’t look well.”

  “I couldn’t sleep. I’m too excited. I’ve been reading through The Joy of Surrender again. My heart will be filled with our good shepherd’s words as we follow the cross to the Hill today.”