A.D. 33

by Ted Dekker

The other half, so brightened with the light of Yeshua’s risen reality in me and in Talya, felt no more dread for Talya than Yeshua did.

  Had he not wept for Mary rather than Lazarus, his dear friend?

  The juxtaposition within me felt like two selves, each battling for supremacy. But in the wake of seeing as I had seen, the dread I’d felt since Yeshua’s crucifixion was gone. Only deep compassion remained.

  Love, Yeshua had said. This was the manifestation of heaven on earth—for me, as Yeshua, to show compassion to those hurting.

  Again the crowd’s roar, louder now.

  Saba pulled up sharply at the cliff’s edge and I knew he’d seen. Then I arrived, grabbing his arm so as not to plunge over the precipice.

  There, only a stone’s throw below us, Petra’s arena was filled to overflowing with countless souls gathered to avenge Phasa’s death. There, on the platform, Shaquilath and Aretas soaked in the adulation of their people.

  And there, at the center, a post, and chained to that post: Talya, all alone.

  Immediately, half my mind screamed its offense. My peace was shattered. To see my son so frail, thinner than he’d been before, trembling under the crushing roar of the crowd—how could this be?

  All was well with my soul, I knew this. I knew it but my mind was forgetting, even now, a mere three hours after Yeshua had shown me all was well.

  Tears sprang to my eyes unbidden. For a moment I felt like I was back in that grave of my dream, clawing for the surface.

  I wanted to throw myself from that cliff and fly to my son’s rescue. I wanted to tear apart any enemy that would lay a single hand on him. I wanted to kill them all—every single soul who had gathered for this savage feast.

  Love, my daughter. Love them as yourself. Love even your enemy.

  I blinked.

  I glanced at Saba. Saba, whose eyes were fired with rage. And then he was springing onto a small path that led down the cliff, and I knew that his mind was gone on that rage.

  “Saba!” Part of me wanted him to go, because I knew he was going to save my son. But these weren’t the words that came to my mouth. “No, you can’t take up the sword—”

  “To live by the sword is to die by the sword,” he snapped, spinning back. “This is only a law and I will accept its consequence!”

  “Yes! You will! You’ll be killed!”

  “But my son,” he said, shoving his finger at the arena, “will not!”

  And then he was gone, catapulting himself over a boulder and dropping out of sight, leaving me smothered by confusion and fear.

  The crowd quieted and I turned to see that Shaquilath had lifted her hand. I could hear her every word rising up from the arena.

  “There is only one way for all of man to live on the face of this earth. This is the way of the gods. For every threat against us, we must offer another threat. For every failure, another failure. For every eye taken, we will take an eye. For every hand, we sever a hand. For every life, we take a life.”

  I could not breathe.

  “Today,” she cried, “the way of the Bedu and of all living gods in the heavens will be honored.”

  No…No, I could not allow this. There was another way.

  And then I was tearing down the mountain to save my son.

  THE QUEEN’S words echoed through Talya’s ears as he searched the rows of people for his mother. She had to be here. Maviah, who’d saved him from death in the desert as an orphan, would save him now.

  He jerked his head around, frightened, searching. Guards were stationed around the entire top rim; people crowded the long stone benches that circled the arena.

  But he couldn’t find her.

  Still he looked. The queen was still talking, standing on that platform, but he could hardly hear her over the pounding of his heart.

  “Mother!” he cried, turning all the way around. His voice was lost to the sound of a cheer—the queen had said something. “Mother!”

  But she wasn’t there.

  She wasn’t anywhere. He looked back at the queen far across the arena.

  “It was Maviah, hailed as queen among outcasts, who once showed us her power in this very arena,” she cried, pacing. “Maviah, who offered up her own son in exchange for power in Dumah when the power of her god, Yeshua, failed her. Maviah, who tricked me, promising to raise my daughter from her illness, only to curse her with death. Maviah, who runs for her life in the desert, forsaking her only son in his darkest hour.”

  This couldn’t be true.

  The queen pointed at Talya from across the arena.

  “It is therefore Maviah’s son who will die today, according to her own will, at the hand of her vowed enemy.”

  She pointed to the doors on Talya’s right.

  “I give you, Kahil bin Saman, prince of the Thamud and ruler of Dumah!”

  The heavy wooden doors opened and Kahil rode in, seated tall on a white stallion. He was dressed in black like the last time Talya had seen him. He dipped his head to the queen, then turned his horse toward the post.

  No one spoke. They were all looking at him, eager.

  Talya began to panic. His mother wasn’t coming. Kahil was going to kill him.

  He was shaking now, watching the horse plod toward him. All he could see was that horse and the man seated on it, watching him, sneering. The world started to go black.

  “Talya!”

  He heard his name far away and he thought, My mother’s calling to me.

  “Talya!”

  This time he heard his name like a scream from high on his left. This time Kahil also turned his head.

  Talya slowly turned to look. She was there, standing at the arena’s top rim, reaching out for him, blocked by the people in front of her. Everywhere people were pointing in her direction, calling out. Two guards were rushing toward her, then grabbing her arms.

  His heart jumped. She’d come!

  “Mother!”

  He ran toward her, forgetting that he was chained until he was jerked back and fell to his seat. “Mother, save me!”

  “Talya!” She was crying. “My son!”

  “Silence!” the queen cried.

  But the crowd’s commotion only swelled.

  Talya scrambled to his feet and was about to call out again when Shaquilath lifted her hand and spoke in a clear voice.

  “The woman has come to watch her son die. Allow her the decency we would allow any mother.” She lowered her arm. “And then Kahil will take her as spoils before he crushes her bones in the desert.”

  He heard Maviah cry, “My son, listen to your mother—” One of the guards slapped his mother’s face, silencing her.

  Kahil chuckled softly.

  “Do you think the queen of scavengers can save you, little boy?”

  He couldn’t think straight. The world seemed to crush him. His mother was going to be killed because of him.

  He jerked his head toward her. “Run away! Run, Mother!”

  Laughter batted at his ears. And his mother didn’t run. She couldn’t. There were three guards around her now, holding her.

  She wasn’t struggling. She was only looking at him with tears running down her face, trying to help him be brave. And so he had to be brave for her. His bones were shaking and he could hardly breathe, but he had to be brave.

  Kahil faced the crowd and spoke so that all could hear him.

  “There came into the desert near Dumah a man called Judah, who desired to destroy me. The queen of the scavengers,” he cried, pointing up at Maviah, “called him her lion even as she calls this boy, Talya, her lamb. He told me this when I hung him from his neck until he was dead.”

  Someone laughed and more joined him.

  “So then he was no lion, was he?”

  “He was not,” many cried. “No lion! What lion can defeat the Bedu?”

  Kahil silenced them with a raised hand.

  “But I have brought him back to life.” He reached for a waterskin tied to his saddle and nudged the
stallion up to Talya. Now he was close. Talya could smell the horse’s sweat, see its frightened eyes.

  He didn’t move because he had to be brave and was also too frightened.

  Kahil pulled the leather string that sealed the bag. “I have brought that lion back to life to feed on the lamb!” Using both hands, he heaved the contents of the skin at Talya.

  He might have ducked, but it came too fast, splashing onto his face and chest, soaking his white tunic.

  But it wasn’t water, Talya realized. It was blood.

  Kahil flipped a key in the air and Talya watched it land in the dust near his feet. Why? He couldn’t think…What was happening?

  “I give you…” Kahil turned his horse and walked it away, arm extended to a small side door twenty paces away. “Maviah’s lion of Judah!”

  The hatch slid open and a lion stalked into the arena, growling, eyes shifting between the receding horse and Talya.

  And then only Talya.

  Gasps filled the arena.

  Talya understood what was happening. The lion would smell the blood. This is how Bedu often lured them during a hunt, with a lamb soaked in blood.

  The lion was going to kill him.

  Talya could not move.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I STOOD as though in death, caught between worlds, because to succumb to either felt like suicide to me. I knew what was happening. I knew it as Yeshua had surely known a kind of death in Gethsemane.

  To embrace the rage boiling through my blood would surely leave me in a hell of my own making. Like those who’d driven fangs deep into Yeshua’s flesh as the crowd looked on, the vipers in this arena were guilty of terrible savagery. I could not forgive them, for they knew what they did.

  To surrender to the whisper deep within me, the one that spoke of peace in the midst of this brutality, felt like its own kind of death. A death of the mind.

  So I stood still, trembling from head to foot as Kahil dumped the blood on Talya’s body.

  Sickened to my bones as he mocked Judah and my innocent lamb.

  Horrified as the lion came out, growling. It wasn’t enough for Kahil to kill Talya. He would subject innocence to torturous mockery.

  Hatred, grievance, fear, terror, judgment, rage. These were all the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.

  Who are you, Maviah?

  I watched, ravaged by anguish, as Talya flung himself at the key that Kahil had dropped. Wept in silence as he frantically freed himself from the ring around his thin wrist while the lion approached, circling, preying, eyes fixed on my son.

  Who is Talya?

  I dared tear my eyes away from him for a moment to search for Saba, desperate to see him there even now, rushing in to save my son.

  A movement near the post recaptured my attention. Talya was staggering toward the pole, then spinning behind it. The lion started forward in a crouch, and I knew…

  The sound of thin, ragged whimpering reached my ears. It came from Talya, trembling behind that post, seeing the lion coming faster now, knowing that in only moments it would rip into him.

  Who are you, Maviah?

  In that moment, I didn’t care who I was. How could any mother with a sane mind care? I would gladly spend my life in hell to save him.

  Who is Talya?

  From the corner of my eye, I saw the large wooden door across the arena swing wide, and I jerked my head to see Saba standing in the threshold, chest heaving. He was stripped of his tunic and his dark muscles glistened in the hot sun. There was a bloodied sword in his hand.

  He’d come! He sprinted for Talya now, leaning into each stride like a god come to earth, and for a moment my heart dared to soar. Behind him, guards poured through those same doors, fanning out. Scattered cries of alarm from the crowd swelled to a cheer. They thought this was part of the sick play to satisfy their bloodlust.

  Who is Saba?

  Shaquilath had stood and rushed to the edge of the platform. Aretas pushed himself to his feet. Kahil’s stallion sidestepped, disturbed by the intrusion. Kahil, slouched in his saddle, froze at the sight of my warrior.

  I knew, far back in my mind, that Saba could kill the lion; that he could kill a dozen warriors and more; that he could reach Kahil and cleanly separate his head from his shoulders. But I also knew that he could not stand against the thousands at Aretas’s command, who even now rushed to seal off the arena.

  Yet none of this seemed to matter. We would all die. They would kill our bodies.

  I blinked, and in that blink, I let go of something deep in me that was desperately clinging to all the old truths that had enslaved me for so long.

  Who are you?

  This time I heard the voice aloud as if spoken from deep within me and from the sky at once, rumbling like thunder as it had near Jerusalem. And with the voice, the world seemed to stall. Motion slowed. Sound fell away.

  A peace beyond my understanding settled over me.

  The gathered masses were still cheering. I could see that, but Saba…

  Saba had pulled up in the middle of the stadium, panting hard, sword in his hand by his side, staring at Talya and the lion only twenty paces from him.

  He’d heard it too.

  “Saba!” The cry sounded distant.

  It was Talya, crying out for Saba, trembling behind the post. My son hadn’t heard.

  “Saba!”

  Who are you? Now the voice whispered through my mind like a warm, gentle breeze.

  They have all seen me…They fear death no more…

  And I knew that those who had seen him and more would willingly give their lives in arenas just like this, because they no longer feared death any more than I did in that moment. Fear was gone.

  But my son was in fear…My son, who knew Yeshua and was the son of my Father as much as I was his daughter.

  We were safe. Nothing but our own grievance could truly harm us now. Because it was impossible to hold any grievance and know your true self, already at peace.

  There in the desert, the Father and Yeshua and his Spirit flooded me with light.

  But Talya…

  Compassion for him washed over my heart, replacing all the fear I had for his life. I no longer needed him to complete me, because I understood now that I was already complete. I needed nothing from him, not even his love. I only wanted to give all that I had to him, to pour myself out for him, to lay down my own body for him, not because I was desperate for him as my son, but because my surrender would give us both living water.

  For the first time since I had called him my son, I loved Talya as Yeshua loved him.

  I knew all of this because Yeshua had breathed on me. Saba stood still, arrested by the same breath, I thought. The sword fell from his hand and he dropped to one knee, seemingly oblivious to the guards who rushed toward him, and to Talya, who called out for him.

  I saw it all unfold in a great silence save one note that now flowed through my mind, pure and high—the note every fiber of my being knew. The world before me was moving slowly as if in a dream, but the crystalline note filling my awareness was no dream.

  Talya knew this love. He who had first heard that song of Eden would hear it again. He would remember who he was and find peace in his storm.

  I closed my eyes and I opened my mouth and allowed my throat to give voice to that song. I sent it out into the arena for my son and for Saba and for all who had ears to hear.

  THE MOMENT SABA stopped and fell to one knee, the lion growled and slowly swung its head back to Talya. The people were screaming now, crying out for the boy’s death, urging the lion to attack.

  “Saba!” Talya grabbed the post, keeping it between him and the lion, but he knew the post wouldn’t save him. His body began to shake again. “Saba!”

  But the crowd was too loud and the lion was moving toward him again and Talya knew no one was going to save him.

  It was then that he heard the note. Just one, cutting through the roar of the crowd, piercing his mind. But he k
new that note! Only this time, it sounded like his mother. It was her voice!

  Talya jerked his head up and saw her again, there at the top. Her eyes were closed and she was reaching one hand toward him, singing. To him.

  Immediately everything was quiet except for that one note. The arena was still there all around him, so he knew he wasn’t dreaming, but everything was moving slowly and strangely now.

  In that one note he could hear her speaking to him gently in his childhood language, which she didn’t know. But she knew it now and he could hear every word as if they were the only words in the world.

  “Listen to me, Talya. You are safe. You don’t need to be afraid any longer. You already believe. You’ve already seen what so few have seen. You too were chosen before the world began.”

  It was his mother’s voice, but also the voice from the dream! This was Yeshua too? Tears sprang to his eyes as her words touched his mind.

  “I want you to let go of everything you see here and find that place deep inside of you that’s already at peace, even though you don’t feel peaceful right now. But you are already at peace in the Father’s realm. Can you do that?”

  He held on to each word, believing, but still gripped by fear.

  “Let me show you what you saw and believed. Can you do that for me, Talya?”

  “Yes,” he sobbed.

  “I know you’re afraid, but I want you to close your eyes and see who you really are. How beautiful you are. How precious you are. I’ll be right here, holding your hand.”

  “Close my eyes?”

  “Yes, sweetheart. Just close your eyes and trust my voice. Then you will see.”

  Now desperate to see, Talya closed his eyes just like his mother told him to. And the moment he did, white light filled the world.

  And then he was in the familiar dream once again. He saw all of it all at once as if no time passed.

  He saw the garden and felt the same love he’d felt before.

  He saw the woman and the serpent and felt the fear. But this time he saw more.

  He saw Yeshua crushing the serpent’s head under his heel.

  Then Yeshua breathed into him like the Father had breathed into the first man and his mind lit up with a thousand stars.