The Expected One

by Kathleen McGowan

  “You are the most priceless jewel in my kingdom, Salome,” her stepfather announced. “Come, dance for us. It will be a great thrill for these guests to see your grace.”

  Salome approached Herod’s throne, from which he ruled over the banquet. She was a picture of pretty petulance. “I don’t know if I can dance, Stepfather. My heart is so heavy with what I have endured while I traveled that I do not believe I have the spirit to dance.”

  Herodias, perched on a cushion beside her husband, straightened. “What happened that has had such an effect on you, child?”

  Salome told them a tearful story, about the horrible man who was called the Baptizer and how his words haunted her and seemed to follow wherever she went.

  “Who is this man, this Baptizer?” A visiting Roman nobleman asked the question.

  Herod made a dismissive gesture. “Nobody. One of several fashionable messiahs this year. He is a troublemaker, but not an important one.”

  At this Salome burst into tears and threw herself at her mother’s feet. She cried about the terrible names that this man the Baptizer called Herodias. She was frightened because this prophet called for Herod to be displaced and predicted the palace would fall with all of them in it. He incited hatred of the Herods among the people, so much so that Salome could no longer travel safely with the Nazarenes unless she was well disguised.

  “He sounds more like an insurgent than a prophet,” the Roman noble observed. “It’s best to deal with his kind quickly.”

  Herod was in no mood for politics but could not allow himself to appear weak before a Roman envoy. He called for his guards and issued the order.

  “Arrest this man, this Baptizer, and bring him here. I would see if he has the courage to say such things to me in person.”

  The assembled guests applauded this decision and followed the Roman nobleman’s lead by raising glasses to their host. Salome wiped the tears from her eyes and smiled sweetly at Herod Antipas.

  “Which dance would you like to see tonight, Stepfather?”

  John the Baptizer was a troubling prisoner. Herod Antipas had not anticipated the strength of John’s following, which had grown to extraordinary proportions. Petitioners flooded the palace each day, demanding the release of their prophet. They appealed to Herod as a Jew, begging his sympathy as one of their own. Because the winter palace was in the vicinity of Qumran, the Essene community sent envoys daily to ask for the freedom of this righteous prisoner. This was not a simple, regional prophet to be chastised and silenced with ease. John the Baptizer was a phenomenon.

  Herod took it upon himself to interview John, and sent for the ascetic preacher to be brought before him. He questioned John personally, expecting self-righteous answers and the wild ravings that often came from these wilderness preachers and self-styled messiahs. This was a type of sport for Herod, and he was particularly looking forward to baiting the man who had so troubled his wife and stepdaughter. After he had had the chance to toy with the prisoner for a time, he would decide what final sentence to pass.

  The interview did not go as the tetrarch planned. While this man John was oddly dressed and had an uncivilized appearance, there was nothing of the raving wild man in his words. Herod found him disturbingly intelligent, perhaps even wise. John spoke severely of sinners and of the need for repentance, and did not hesitate to look in Herod’s eyes when he warned that someone with the tetrarch’s sins would be denied the kingdom of God. But there was still time for redemption, if Herod would put aside his adulteress wife and repent for his many transgressions.

  By the end of the interview Herod was deeply troubled by John’s incarceration. He wished to release John, but could not do so without appearing weak and ineffective before Rome. Hadn’t a Roman envoy been present during the orders for John’s arrest? To release the man now would make Herod appear inconsistent and perhaps even incompetent to deal with Jewish insurgents. No, he didn’t dare release the Baptizer, at least not yet. Instead, he lessened the strictness of his incarceration and allowed John to have visitors from among his followers and the local Essenes.

  When she heard of this policy, Mary of Magdala sent a messenger to the palace, asking if her husband would like to see her or have word of the child she carried. John ignored the message completely. The only words that Mary heard from John during his incarceration were ones of condemnation. She heard through his closest followers that John continued to question the paternity of her child and referred to her in the most derogatory terms. He blamed his young wife for his arrest, and the more fanatic of his followers had even sent threats to her family. Finally, Mary convinced her brother and Martha to take her back to Galilee, as far away from the Baptizer and his followers as possible. She did not understand how one night of innocent disobedience had translated into a tarnished reputation as a harlot, but that was the reality she now faced. Mary preferred to face it in the sanctuary of her home at the foot of Mount Arbel, closer to the Nazarenes and their sympathizers.

  John continued his ministry from prison, where his legend and his influence grew in the southern region. But the ministry of his cousin, the charismatic Nazarene, blossomed with increased vigor in the area north of Jordan and into Galilee. John’s followers brought word to him in prison of Easa’s great works and of the miraculous healings that were attributed to him. But they also told of the Nazarene’s continued leniency toward Gentiles and the unclean. He had even stopped an adulterous woman from being justly stoned! Clearly, John’s cousin had lost all grasp of the law. It was time for John to take a stand.

  At John’s instruction, the followers of the Baptizer set out to attend a large gathering of Nazarenes. When Easa stood before the gathered multitude to begin his preaching, two of the ascetic ambassadors came forward. The first spoke, addressing Easa and then the rest of the crowd.

  “We come from the cell of John the Baptizer. He begs that we deliver this message unto you all. He says to you, Yeshua the Nazarene, that he questions you. That where he once believed you were the messiah sent by God, he cannot believe that your acceptance of the unclean is within the law. Therefore he asks of you, are you the one who was awaited? Or should these good people wait for another?”

  The crowd grew restless at these words. John’s baptism of Easa had been the defining moment for some of the newer Nazarene disciples. The magical day on the banks of the Jordan, when John had announced his cousin as the chosen one and when God had showed his favor in the form of a dove, had transformed many into followers of The Way. Now John the Baptizer was in essence withdrawing his support by publicly questioning his cousin.

  Yeshua the Nazarene was unmoved by the question and unaffected by the insult. He silenced the crowd and said to them, “There is no greater prophet on this earth than John the Baptizer.”

  To the men who had challenged him, he added, “Please give all kind regards to my cousin. Go, and tell him what things you see and hear with us today.”

  And there would be much to tell. The Nazarene leader went out among the crowd then and ministered to the ill. On that day he was said to have given eyesight to many who had been blind. He cured the infirmities of the elderly; he drove evil spirits and ill humors from the afflicted. And through it all he preached the word of The Way and taught the people about the light of God. He told a story, a parable about a woman who was forgiven for her sins because she had a heart filled with faith and love. This was his final message of the day.

  “Sins are forgiven of those who are filled with love. But if the most righteous man has little love in his heart, he will know little forgiveness.”

  It was a day that would define the ministry of Yeshua the Nazarene as the healing Way of love and forgiveness, a path of salvation available to all people who chose to walk in that light.

  Herod Antipas had a problem. The Roman envoy who had witnessed the arrest warrant for John the Baptizer months earlier had returned. When the Roman asked the tetrarch’s officials why there were so many Jews surrounding the palace, he
was told that the imprisoned prophet continued to attract followers. The envoy was astounded that Herod had not seen fit to take a position on the insurgent Baptizer.

  At dinner later in the evening, the nobleman from Rome spoke with Herod sternly about the issue.

  “You cannot be seen to be spineless where these rabble-rousers are concerned. You are here because Caesar trusts you to represent Rome and because he feels that you have an advantage with the people as a fellow Jew. But it would be a terrible mistake to appear too soft on them. This man insults Rome daily from the very prison where he is held, and you allow it.”

  The tetrarch defended his position. “This desert land is overrun by Essene sects and others who call this man a prophet. To execute him would incite rioting.”

  “You, a Roman citizen and a king, allow yourself to be held hostage by these desert dwellers?” The question was filled with rebuke.

  Herod knew when he was cornered. This envoy was returning to Rome the following day, and he could not risk the man reporting any perceived weakness to Caesar. He had plenty of enemies who would like to see the fall of the Herods once and for all; that could not happen. Antipas was not born into the blood of such kings for nothing. Hadn’t his grandfather executed his own sons when he perceived a threat to his throne? Herods knew how to fight for what was rightfully theirs.

  Herod Antipas clapped twice to call his servants, and ordered the centurions brought forward.

  “Carry out sentence on the prisoner, John the Baptizer, immediately. He is to be executed swiftly with a sword.”

  The Roman envoy nodded his vigorous approval as Herod Antipas moved to take his place in history for the first time — but not for the last.

  Before his execution, John asked for just one thing — that a message be sent to his wife in Galilee. He was allowed to receive one follower to act as a courier. To him, John gave his final words of instruction and repentance before the centurion’s sword fell swiftly. The head was severed from the body with the first blow, and John the Baptizer, prophet of the Jordan, was sent to the kingdom of God.

  Herod had John’s head mounted on a pike and displayed high at the front gate of the palace to show the Roman envoy how swiftly and severely he would deal with treason. It stayed there until it had been picked clean by scavenging birds, but disappeared mysteriously one night. The rest of John’s body was given to the Essene followers for burial.

  It was to a heavily pregnant Mary of Magdala that word was brought of John’s execution. The messenger delivered John’s last words to her in person.

  “Repent, woman. Do penance each day for the sins that have brought us to this place. Do it in memory of me and for the sake of the child you carry. If there is any hope for the child to be accepted into the kingdom of God, you must repent and have the child baptized at birth.”

  Whether or not John died believing that Mary carried his child, she would never know. That he bothered to send a message as his last request gave her some indication that he may have believed that the child was his. Mary took his words to her heart and prayed every day for the rest of her long life for John’s forgiveness. He had been unkind to her, but she did not hold ill will toward him. Easa and the Great Mary taught that forgiveness was divine, and she embraced that principle with all sincerity.

  John had been an enigma for her from the very beginning. He was a rough man who had never asked for what was pressed upon him, never intended to take a wife. She did her best to behave in a way that John would determine was obedient, but nothing about her ever pleased him. Sadly, Mary was wed to the only man in Israel who wouldn’t have given anything to have her. She was beautiful, virtuous, and wealthy in her own right, and she carried the royal blood of their people. None of those qualities was of interest to John the Baptizer.

  The marriage had been a kind of sentence for each of them. The blessing for both was that they were separated most of the time, coming together only when the Pharisees pressured John to create an heir. In the end, the marriage was more abhorrent to John than it was to Mary. Now they were released from it, but Mary would have given anything to change the manner in which she was given her freedom.

  Just as Mary had been blamed for John’s imprisonment, so was she accused in the execution by his most loyal followers. The only woman more reviled in the land at that moment was Salome. The Herodian princess was accused of terrible acts, including incest with her stepfather. Lurid tales spread of Salome’s loose sexuality and how she had used it to demand the head of John the Baptizer on a silver platter. None of these things was true. Salome had used a childish ploy to secure John’s imprisonment, but she confessed tearfully to Mary later that she had never anticipated his execution. She merely wanted to stop John for a time, to diminish his growing power among the people so he could not harm Easa or Mary. Salome was ultimately too young and inexperienced in the ways of politics and religion to foresee that John’s arrest would lead to his greater popularity among the common people. Worse, she did not anticipate Herod’s unfortunate dilemma or its singular solution.

  An anonymous messenger from John’s camp brought a final and unexpected relic of repentance to his young widow some weeks later. Without a word, the ascetic handed her a woven reed basket and left the house quickly. There was no message attached, and the courier would not meet her eyes as he delivered the package. Curious, Mary lifted the lid to reveal the contents.

  Resting on a silk cushion within the container was the sun-bleached skull of John the Baptizer.

  Mary went into labor prematurely. It was a blessing in disguise as her tiny frame would not have been able to deliver this baby at full term. Even coming before his time as he did, the child was a strapping infant. He arrived in the world bellowing with great indignity. At a single day old he was the physical image of John. And anyone who heard the insistence in the infant’s wail would have recognized him as the legitimate child of the Baptizer.

  Mary of Magdala sent word to the Great Mary and to Easa that her child had been delivered safely, along with her thanks for their welcome prayers.

  She named the child John-Joseph, after his father.

  After John’s execution, tremendous pressure was put upon Easa to take a position among the followers. He went into the desert place and met with the Essenes and John’s disciples, preaching the kingdom of God in his own way. Some among the Essenes accepted Easa as their new messiah and followed him because he was of the line of David. Yet many others were opposed to his Nazarene reforms because John had spoken harshly of these things at the end of his life. For the majority of the desert dwellers, John was the one and only Teacher of Righteousness, and anyone who tried to take his position was an imposter.

  The deep division between those who would follow John and those who would be faithful to Easa was fashioned in these early days. The Nazarene spirit emerged as one of love and forgiveness, and was accessible to anyone who chose to embrace it. The Johannite philosophy was a very different one, based on harsh judgments and strict rules of law. Where women were welcomed and honored by Easa and the Nazarenes, they were reviled by the followers of John. John had always held women in low esteem, and his depiction of Mary and Salome as the whores of Babylon incarnate cemented the idea of women as lowly.

  Inaccurate and unfair portraits emerged of Mary as a repentant sinner and Salome as a decadent harlot. The followers of John the Baptizer fanned these flames of injustice, igniting a conflagration that would burn through several thousand years.

  Easa the Nazarene, prince of the house of David, intended to change the public perception of the maligned and newly widowed princess. He, more than any other, knew that this good and virtuous woman had suffered terrible injustice. She was no less a daughter of Benjamin now than before. Her blood was still royal, her heart was still pure, and he still loved her.

  Lazarus was taken aback when the Son of the Lion appeared at his door, completely alone and without his followers.

  “I have come to see Mary and the chil
d,” he said simply.

  Stammering, Lazarus called to Martha and invited Easa in. Martha entered the room and made no attempt to disguise either her surprise or her joy. She had long been a Nazarene sympathizer, despite her more conservative family background. She had always loved and revered Easa.

  “I’ll bring Mary and the baby,” Martha said, and scurried out of the room.

  When they were left alone, Lazarus attempted to speak again. “Yeshua, I have many things to apologize for…”

  Easa held up his hand. “Peace, Lazarus. I have never known you to do anything that you did not believe in your heart was right and just. You are true to yourself and true to your Lord. As such, you have no need to apologize to me or to anyone.”

  Lazarus was tremendously relieved. He had long held the sadness of breaking the betrothal between Easa and his sister, as well as the guilt of denying the Nazarenes lodging on the night in Bethany that had turned out to be such a calamity for Mary. But he had no time to say so, as little John-Joseph announced his arrival in the room with a hearty cry.

  Easa turned to smile at Mary and her infant child. He reached out his arms for the baby, who was red-faced from his vocalizations. “He is as beautiful as his mother and as opinionated as his father,” Easa laughed, taking the child. At the first touch of Easa’s hand, John-Joseph ceased his crying. The infant grew quiet, looking at this new figure with great interest. Little John cooed happily when Easa bounced him gently in his arms.

  “He likes you,” Mary said, suddenly shy in the presence of this man who had grown into a legend among the people.

  Easa looked at Mary seriously. “I hope so.” He looked at Lazarus. “Lazarus, dear brother, I would speak privately to Mary about a very serious matter. She is a widow and it is appropriate to speak with her directly.”