Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

Pushing through the crowd came our men, with a new cart and it was full of fresh wood, and sacks of nails, Joseph told me, and even roof tiles.

In fact, the men were in a dispute over the roof tiles, with Cleopas saying they were a fine idea, and cheap enough, and Joseph saying the mud and branch roof was good enough, and Alphaeus agreeing with Joseph and saying we had far too much of a house to tile all of it. “And besides, with all this building going on, there won’t be any roof tiles to be had in a day’s time.”

Men came up to them, offering them work.

“You’re carpenters? I’ll pay you double what you get from anyone else. Tell me. Now. I’ll put you to work this minute.”

Joseph bowed and said no. “We’ve just come from Alexandria,” he said. “We do only skilled work—.”

“But I have skilled work!” said a large well-dressed man. “I have a whole house to finish for my master. Everything was burned—I’ve nothing left but the foundations.”

“We have so much to do in our own village,” Joseph said, as we tried to go our way. The men surrounded us, on to us now, wanting to buy the wood in the cart and use us as a team. Joseph promised we’d come back as soon as we could. The name of the rich steward was Ja

We laughed at that, and we did move on and back to the peace of the countryside.

But that was how we became known—as the Egyptians.

I looked back at the city from the road, where I could see all the busy people under the late sun. And my uncle Cleopas saw me looking. He said,

“You ever look at an anthill?”

“Yes.”

“Ever step in one?”

“No, but I saw another boy step in one.”

“What did the ants do? They all ran around all over the place, but they didn’t leave the hill, and they rebuilt it. That’s the way it is with war, little or great. People just go on. They get right up and they go on because they have to have water and bread and a roof, and they start again no matter what happens. And one day you can be grabbed by the soldiers and sold as a slave, and the next day they won’t even see you pass by. Because it’s over. Somebody said it was over.”

“Why must you be the sage for my son?” Joseph asked.

We were walking at a slow pace behind the cart. The donkey was steady.

Cleopas laughed. “If I hadn’t been snared by a woman,” he said, “I would have been a prophet.”

The whole family laughed at him. I even laughed before I could stop myself. And my aunt, his wife, said, “His talk is better than his singing. And if there’s a psalm with an ant in it, he will sing it.”

My uncle started to sing, and my aunt groaned, but soon we were singing with him. There was no psalm with an ant in it that we knew.

When Cleopas had run out of singing, he said, “I should have been a prophet.”

Even Joseph laughed at that.

His wife said, “Start now, tell us whether it’s going to rain before we get home.”

Cleopas took me by the shoulder.

“You’re the only one who ever listens to me,” he said, looking into my eyes. “Let me tell you: no one ever listens to a prophet in his own land!”

“I didn’t listen to you in Egypt,” said his wife.

After we had all laughed at that, even Cleopas, my mother said gently,

“I listen to you, brother. I always have.”

“You do, sister, that’s true,” Cleopas said. “And you don’t mind when I teach your son a thing or two, do you, because he has no grandfather living, and in my youth I was almost a scribe?”

“Were you almost a scribe?” I said. “I never heard this before.”

Joseph waved his finger at me for my attention and grandly shook his head: No.

“And what would you know about it, brother?” asked Cleopas but his voice was friendly. “When we took Mary up to Jerusalem to commit her to the house where the veils were woven, I studied in the Temple for months. I studied with the Pharisees, I studied with the greatest of them. I sat at his feet.” He tapped me on the shoulder to make sure of my attention. “There are many teachers in the Temple colo

“And some of their students not so good either,” said Alphaeus in a low voice that everyone could hear.

“Oh, what I might have been if I hadn’t gone off to Egypt,” said Cleopas.

“But why did you go?” I asked.

He looked at me. There was silence. We walked on in silence.

Then he smiled kindly. “I went because my kindred went—you, and my sister, and her husband and his brothers and my kin.”

No answer to my question—no real answer. But I knew, and had known for some while, that it would be easier to learn things from my uncle Cleopas than from anyone else.

A low thunder rolled overhead.

We hurried, but a light rain caught us and we had to go off the road and into a grove of trees. The earth was thick with rotted leaves.

“All right, prophet,” said my aunt Mary, “make the rain stop so we can go on home.”

When we laughed, Joseph corrected us. “But you know a holy man can make the rain come and go,” he said. “Mark my words. From Galilee, the holy one, Honi, the Circle Drawer, in my great-grandfather’s time. He could make the rain come and he could make the rain go.”

“And tell the children what became of him,” said my aunt Salome. “You leave off at the best part.”

“What did happen to him?” James asked.

“The Jews stoned him in the Temple,” said Cleopas with a shrug. “They didn’t like the prayer he said!” He laughed. Then he laughed more as if he thought this even fu

But I couldn’t see to laugh at it.

The rain was coming down harder now, and passing through the branches and we were getting wet.

A tiny thought came to me, so small I imagined it in my mind like a thought no bigger than my little finger. I want this rain to stop. Foolish of me to think such things. I thought of all the things that had happened …the sparrows, Eleazer—. I looked up.

The rain had stopped.

I was so amazed I stared up at the clouds, unable to do anything, even take a breath.

Everyone was very happy and we made our way out on the road and headed home.

I didn’t say a word to anyone, but I was troubled, deeply troubled. And I knew I would never tell anyone what I had just done.

Nazareth was pretty to me when we came back. I loved the little street and the houses of white plaster and the vines that grew on our lattices even in the chill of spring. It seemed the fig tree had put out more leaves even in these few days.

And there was Old Sarah waiting for us. Little James was reading to Old Justus. And the little ones were playing in the courtyard and ru

All the sadness and grief of Sepphoris was far off now.

So was the rain.

Chapter 17

That night it was decided that I would stay and work with Joseph on the house, and Alphaeus and his sons, Levi and Silas, and also Cleopas, and perhaps Simon would go into Sepphoris, and there get up a team of laborers from the marketplace. The money was good. The weather was good.

It was further decided that no matter who worked where, we boys would go up to the synagogue where the school was taught, and we’d study with the three Rabbis. Only when they released us would we join the men, probably about mid-morning.

I didn’t want to go up to the school. And when I realized that, once again, all the men of the family were walking up the hill with us, I felt afraid.

But then Cleopas had Little Symeon by the hand. And Uncle Alphaeus had Little Joses, and Uncle Simon had Silas and Levi. Maybe it was the way.

When we reached the school, there were three men whom I had seen in the synagogue, and we stood before the very oldest of the men who beckoned for us to come inside. This man hadn’t spoken or taught on the Sabbath.