Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

I couldn’t open my eyes. I saw the flames against the night sky. I saw people ru

“Yes, Rabbi,” I whispered.

I looked at the man who walked back and forth before the assembly talking of the rebels—Simon, who burnt the palace of Jericho, had been chased by Gratus, the general of Herod who went over to the Romans. His rule was finished. But there were so many others…

“They’re in those caves to the north!” He gestured. “They’ll never be wiped out.”

People whispered, nodded.

“They’re families, tribes of bandits. And now comes the word that Caesar has divided us amongst the children of Herod, and these princes, if that is what they are, are on the high seas bound for our ports.”

I saw the nighttime sea under the moon. I felt my dream.

The messenger stopped as if he had a lot more to say, but couldn’t say it.

“We await the ruler who is now put over us,” he said.

A man spoke up from the back of the assembly.

“The priests of the Temple will rule!” he said.

And another: “The priests know the Law and we live by the Law. Why do we not have priests from the House of Zadok as the Law says we should have? I tell you, you purge the Temple of its impurities and the priests will rule again.” Men stood up. Men shouted at each other. No one could be heard.

Rabbi Jacimus was on his feet.

Only when the old Rabbi Berekhaiah stood up did the men quiet down.

“Our embassy put its petitions before Caesar,” said Rabbi Berekhaiah. “Caesar has made his decision and we will soon know the full words of it. Until then we wait.” His eyes moved over the assembly. He turned this way and that as he looked into the faces of the men and the women gathered there.

“Who knows the lineage of the priest in the Temple at this hour?” he asked. “Who knows if there is even a High Priest?”

There was much nodding and approval of that. The men were taking their seats again.

The messenger went on to answer questions from the men.

But there was soon disputing and shouting all over again.

I got up and slipped out of the synagogue.

In the warm air I didn’t shiver anymore. I went through the village and out and up the hill.

Women were tending the vegetable gardens. The farmers worked with their helpers in the fields.

The sky was big, and the clouds were moving as if they were ships at sea.

Wildflowers bloomed in the grass, some tall, and others small. And the trees were full of green olives.

I lay down on the grass, and felt of the wildflowers with my open hand. And I looked up through the branches of the olive tree. I wanted it that way—the sky in bits and pieces. I was happy. I could hear far away the pigeons and the doves of the village. I thought I could even hear the bees in their hives. I could hear something that was like the grass growing, but it wasn’t that, I knew. It was all the sounds coming together, and being soft—so unlike the sounds of a city.

I thought of Alexandria. I thought of the great open Temple to Augustus Caesar by the port with all its gardens and its libraries. I had seen it many times as we passed it on our way to take supplies from the warehouses on the docks.

Yes, all that. And our procession, we, the Jews of Alexandria, the largest part of the population, celebrating the day the Scripture had been put into Greek. We had given the pagans something to look at, had we not? Or so the men said as we chanted the Psalms.

I saw the sea.

I did think of those things …but I loved this place. I knew love of it, love of the thick forests going up the slopes with the cypress and the sycamore, and the myrtle trees as Joseph taught me the names of them.

I prayed in my heart. “Father in Heaven, I thank you for this.”

It wouldn’t last, being alone here.

It was Cleopas who came to get me.

“Don’t be unhappy,” he said.

“I’m very happy,” I said as I climbed to my feet. “I am not unhappy at all. I am not unhappy with anything.”

“Oh, I see,” he said in his usual tone. “I thought the talk in the synagogue had made you cry.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “This is a happy place, this,” I said, looking back to where I’d been. “I come here and I think and my thoughts turn to prayers.”

He liked this.

We walked down the slope together.

“Good,” he said. “You mustn’t worry about all those struggles, those defeats. The Romans will get every last one of those rebels in Judea. That fool, Simon, is just one of them. They’ll catch Athronges, the shepherd King, and they’ll catch his brothers. They’ll hunt down these thieves in Galilee too. They’re up there in the caves, at the Fountains of the Jordan. They’ll come out when they want something, and you’ll hear them roaring through the village. Oh, not here, no, nothing much ever happens in Nazareth except—. Whoever is King here or in Judea, Archelaus or Antipas, Caesar is the judge to whom we can appeal. I’ll tell you one thing about Caesar. He doesn’t want trouble out here. And these Herods will rule as long as there’s no trouble. We always have Caesar.”

I stopped. I looked up at him.

“You want it this way, that we always have Caesar?”

“Why not?” he asked. “Who else is to keep the peace?”

I felt the fear so sharp that it hurt my belly. I didn’t answer. “Will we never have another King for David’s throne?” I asked.

He looked at me for a long time before he answered.

“I want peace,” he said. “I want to build, and plaster and paint, and feed my little ones, and be with my kindred. That’s what I want. And that’s all the Romans want. You know they’re not bad people, the Romans. They worship their gods. Their women are proper. They have their ways as we have ours. Here, you’d think that every pagan was a lawless fiend who burnt his children to Moloch and committed abominations every afternoon in his own house.”

I laughed.

“But this is Galilee,” he said. “Once one lives in a city like Alexandria, once one has been to Rome, you know these are illusions. Do you know what that word means?”

“Yes,” I said. “Fancies. Dreams.”

“Ah,” he said. “You are the one who understands me.”

I laughed and nodded.

“I’m your prophet,” he said.

“Will you be my prophet?” I said.

“What? What is it you want me to do?”

“Tell me the answers. Why did they stop me at the door of the synagogue. Why didn’t Joseph want to say that it was in—.”

“No,” he said. He shook his head. He put his hands up to his head. He looked down. “I can’t do it because Joseph doesn’t want me to do it.”

“Joseph has forbidden me to ask questions of him, even to ask questions.”

“You know why?” he asked.

“He doesn’t want to know,” I said. I shrugged. “What else could it be?”

He knelt down and took me by the shoulders. He looked into my eyes.

“He doesn’t understand things himself,” he said. “And when a man doesn’t understand, he can’t explain.”

“Joseph? Not understand?”

“Yes, that’s what I said. I said it for your ears only.”

“You understand?” I asked.

“I try,” he said. He raised his eyebrows and he smiled. “You know me. You know that I try. But Joseph’s way is to wait, wait on the Lord himself. Joseph doesn’t have to understand, because Joseph trusts in the Lord completely. There’s something I can tell you and that you must remember. An angel has spoken to your mother. And angels have come to Joseph. But no angel has ever come to me.”

“And not to me, but…” I broke off. I wasn’t going to say it—about Eleazer in Egypt, and about the rain stopping, and least of all about Cleopas himself in the Jordan River, and my hand on his back. Or about that night on the banks of the Jordan when I’d thought there were others there, all around me in the darkness.

He was lost in his thoughts. He stood up and looked out over the fields at the mountains rising to the east and the west.