by Joan Wolf
I had another thought, which I didn’t share with Rebecca. Why would a learned man, who could read scripture and preach in the synagogue, want Simon Peter as a follower? It’s not that Peter wasn’t a good man. He was a very good man. But he was a man who thought with his heart, not his head. He was a simple fisherman, not a scholar.
“And you don’t know where he is?” I asked.
“No. I have five children and a sick mother at home, and he’s off following some golden-tongued stranger.” She stood up. “Well, if Peter thinks I’m going to sit at home with his supper, waiting for him to decide when he’s ready to join us, he’s mistaken. I’m going down to the shorefront now to see if I can find him. I was hoping you would come with me.”
Simon Peter would be furious if his wife showed up to drag him back home as if he was a runaway child.
“Do you think that’s wise? Perhaps it would be best to wait. He’ll come home eventually, Rebecca. You know he will.”
“I don’t care if it’s wise. I’m going. If you don’t want to come with me, I’ll go alone.”
I stood up. “Of course I’ll come with you.”
For the first time that day I saw her smile. “I knew you would,” she said.
I sighed, rolled down my sleeves, put on my veil, and led the way down to the shore.
The sun was high in the sky as we walked along the shingle beach that lined the lakeshore. The sun-bright water was dotted with fishing boats, and two or three men were casting their nets from the beach. They stared at us as we walked by. The lakeshore belonged to men; women had no place here. We ignored them and walked on.
We quickly came upon Peter’s boat. It was pulled up on shore with the sea fishing nets neatly stowed in the bow. Someone had emptied the fish from the shore nets and hung them on the side of the boat to dry.
This was truly an astonishing sight. Peter and Andrew treated their boat as if it were made of gold. It represented their livelihoods; it fed both their families. To see it sitting there, uncovered and neglected, was a shock.
As we stared at the abandoned boat, old Isaac shuffled up to join us. “That teacher man took them,” he said. “He took Zebedee’s two boys too.”
We looked at the old man, whose skin was a nest of leathery wrinkles from perpetual exposure to the elements. “He took James and John too?” Rebecca asked.
“Yep. Just like he took your man. They got right out of the boat and left their poor old father alone.”
“But where did they go?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Away.”
Something very strange was going on, but we weren’t going to solve it by standing here. The sun was blazing off the water, and I was sweating under my veil and tunic. I put my hand on Rebecca’s elbow. “Come along, Rebecca. Let’s go home. Simon Peter is sure to show up sometime, and you can give him a piece of your mind when he makes his appearance.”
She pinched her lips together. Then she nodded. “All right. I suppose that’s the only thing I can do.”
Before I went home, I paid a brief visit to Rebecca’s sick mother. Rebecca was worried about her and with cause. I had seen fevers like that carry off many elderly people.
I took Rebecca’s daughters home with me to give her more quiet time with her mother. Leah told me when we reached my courtyard that they wanted to go into my house to play. I knew what they really wanted was a treat from Elisabeth, so I took them into the kitchen, where Elisabeth obliged with slices of almond cake. Then we went into the front room and were playing a word game that had them both in giggles when Jeremiah escorted Rebecca’s oldest son into the room.
Abram was breathless from running. He looked like his mother, with curling black hair and bright brown eyes sparkling now with excitement. “Father has come home, and I’m to bring my sisters back. Mother wants you to come too, Mary.”
I didn’t want to find myself in the middle of what I feared might be a domestic squabble, so I smiled and said, “You don’t need me to bring the girls home, Abram. You’re perfectly able to do that by yourself.”
He shook his head vigorously. “No, they want you to come. Father has brought the teacher with him—the one who spoke in the synagogue—and he has cured Grandma of her fever!”
Chapter Twenty-Four
There was a gate in the fence between my property and Peter’s, and Abram led us through, directly into the courtyard where his family was gathered.
“Grandma!” Leah called, running to the woman who was sitting on a bench under the fig tree.
I stood just inside the gate and stared at Hannah as Leah went to kiss her. She had been burning up with fever only an hour and a half ago; now she was sitting in the shade of the tree, her face rosy with health, a toothless smile on her face.
My eyes moved to the stranger who was sitting beside Peter. Jesus of Nazareth looked back at me.
He was an ordinary-looking man, slim, with medium brown hair and a close-cut beard. He was not handsome like Daniel, nor did he have the dominating presence of Marcus. But his eyes were a clear, amber brown, and they looked into mine as if he knew me.
Simon Peter said, “Master, this is our neighbor, Mary of Magdala.”
I immediately noted that Peter hadn’t used the Jewish word that means “Teacher.” He chose instead the Greek word for “Master.”
Jesus of Nazareth said, in the unmistakable accent of Galilee, “I am pleased to meet you, Mary of Magdala.”
There was something in those eyes that held me captive. I sought for something to say. “I’m sorry I missed your talk at the synagogue.”
“There will be others,” he replied.
He had a wonderful voice. People would listen to him just to hear that voice. But he was making me feel unsure of myself, a feeling I didn’t often experience and didn’t like. I said, “You speak as if you come from Galilee.”
“Yes. I am originally from Nazareth, but I spent most of my adult years with the Essenes.”
The Essenes! My back stiffened. I burned to ask if he knew Daniel.
Rebecca said, “Mary, the Master healed my mother!”
I broke eye contact with Jesus and went to kiss Hannah. “I’m so glad to see that you are better.”
“It was a miracle,” she said, casting adoring eyes at Jesus. “The Master came to my sickbed, took my hand, raised me up, and I was cured!”
Rebecca said, “I had to drag her out of the kitchen, she was so determined to get back to work.”
I remembered Hannah’s sunken, suffering face and didn’t know what to say.
Rebecca held out a hand. “Come and sit beside me.”
I crossed to sit on the bench next to her and rested my hand on Leah’s small round head as she sat on the ground before us.
Simon Peter said proudly, “The Master has been performing miracles like this in all the towns around the lake.”
I looked at Jesus. “Have you always had this power . . . Master?”
His eyes were calm. He sat quietly, with his hands in his lap, yet all of us in the courtyard, even the children, were completely focused on his slender figure.
He said softly, “I do miracles now because it is the time for them.”
Simon Peter, always a direct man, said, “Why is this the time, Master?”
Jesus looked from Peter to Andrew, who was sitting on Peter’s other side. “I have begun my father’s mission, and I work miracles so that you might believe in me and in what I have come to bring to you.”
The men gazed back at him, their faces filled with awe.
My father’s mission? What can the man be talking about?
“Just what is it you have come to bring us?” I asked in my most neutral voice.
Simon Peter scowled at me. “I’m sorry, Master. Mary isn’t like other women. She is her own mistress, which sometimes makes her forget her place.”
I glared at Peter. How dare he apologize for me?
Jesus said, “Do not chastise her, Peter. She wishes to learn.” He looked a
t me directly, as if I were the only person in the courtyard, and said, “I have come to bring you the Kingdom of God.”
Before I could begin to take in what he had said, a group of men surged into the courtyard from the house. I recognized Simon Peter’s fellow fishermen, James and John, and their father Zebedee; Ruth’s husband, Nathaniel; and a number of other men from the synagogue. They crowded around Jesus, eagerly asking questions.
Rebecca said in my ear, “Do you think all these men will expect to stay for supper?”
She sounded anxious, and with good reason. She didn’t have the means to feed so many people without notice. I whispered back, “Don’t worry. I’ll have supper for everyone at my house. Elisabeth always has plenty of food, and my house is bigger than yours.”
She gave me a relieved smile. “Thank you, Mary.”
“I’ll slip out now and alert Elisabeth.”
She nodded, and I made my way to the gate between our properties.
When the heat of the day began to wane, Peter brought the men over to my house, where the table was laid and the food already cooked. Rebecca had come earlier to assist Elisabeth, who had not been able to get her usual girls on such short notice.
The men sat down, with Jesus at the head of the table and Simon Peter in the seat of honor at his right. We left Elisabeth to work in the kitchen, and Rebecca and I served the meal.
For the next two hours the two of us ran back and forth between the dining room and the kitchen, changing dishes and filling cups. Part of me wished that I could be sitting with the men, listening to Jesus, but the other part thought it would be wisest to keep my distance from someone I perceived as possibly dangerous. I didn’t need another charismatic man in my life.
Night had fallen, and Jeremiah was lighting the lamps when we heard the noise of many people outside. This was unusual. There were only two houses on this little road, and it was always very quiet.
Jeremiah went to the door, and when he opened it, we could clearly hear loud voices calling for the Master. Heal me! they were crying. Heal my son!—Heal my daughter!—Heal my mother, my father, my aunt, my uncle!
Jeremiah came back into the dining room and said, “I think every sick person in Capernaum is gathered outside our door, my lady.”
Jesus stood up. “I will go out to them.”
Peter jumped up as well. “Not alone, you won’t! We will all come with you, Master.”
“Go to the door and tell them the Master is coming,” I said to Jeremiah. I didn’t want an unruly crowd of frantic people storming into my home.
Rebecca and I followed behind the men as they filed into the small front garden, which was being thoroughly trampled by the noisy crowd. Jesus pitched his voice to be heard by all: “There is no need to push. My father’s mercy is for all. Wait, and I will come to you.”
He waded into the crowd, moving among them, laying his hands on the sick and speaking quietly. Cries of incredulous joy and heartfelt thanksgiving followed wherever he went.
I turned and went back into the house. Rebecca followed.
“Who is this ‘father’ Jesus speaks of?” I asked her as we went into the atrium to wait until the crowd had dispersed. “Nazareth is a village of artisans. People in Sepphoris used to employ them all the time. There are no priests or holy men in Nazareth.”
“I don’t know what he means,” Rebecca said. “But he has amazing power, Mary. He was healing people out there. And he certainly healed my mother.”
I couldn’t deny that. But men with power were dangerous, and often, the greater the power, the greater the danger. I learned that in Sepphoris. Powerful men would stop at nothing to get what they wanted.
Keep yourself safe, Mary. Stay away from that man.
The following morning Simon Peter came to see me. Jesus had spent the night at his house, but Peter told me the Master had risen early and gone out alone into the countryside. Peter and Andrew and the sons of Zebedee followed him, begging him to return to Capernaum. He said that he would return but that he needed time alone to be with his father.
There it was again. His father. There was something peculiar about the way he spoke of his father.
Peter found me in my garden, working on the roses. It would be a few years before they would look like the roses I had grown in Sepphoris, and I tended to them with painstaking care.
I stood there silently with the garden scissors in my hand, waiting for Peter to get to the reason for his visit.
He said, “The Master is determined to travel to all the towns he hasn’t yet reached in Galilee. He wants me and Andrew and James and John to go with him, Mary. He’s chosen us to be his followers.”
I put my scissors down to study Simon Peter’s face, trying to see something in it I might have missed. But I saw nothing more than the man I knew. A following that included Peter and other common men like him hardly seemed an auspicious way to start a ministry.
I said, “Do you want to go with him?”
“We all want to go. Very much. Jesus of Nazareth isn’t like anyone we’ve ever seen before, Mary. He has come to us as an emissary from the Lord. I’m sure of it.” Peter’s brown eyes were glowing. His whole face was glowing. He said, “I think he might be the Messiah.”
My head snapped back. “Are you serious?”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
And I had never heard him sound so serious. “Andrew wants to go as well?”
“Andrew, James, and John, we all want to go.”
Andrew was a surprise. Peter could be volatile, but Andrew was steady, a man who could be relied on to rein in Peter’s more farfetched enthusiasms. And Zebedee’s two sons were another surprise. Zebedee owned a number of boats, and his sons looked to inherit a thriving business. James and John were well aware of their worth and didn’t seem the kind of men who would turn their backs on their inheritance to follow an unproven teacher, or prophet, or whatever Jesus of Nazareth was.
“How long would you be gone?” I asked.
Peter looked anxious. “That’s just it . . . I’m not sure. The Master wants to preach in all the towns. We could be away for a month, maybe more.”
I was beginning to understand why he had come to me. “And your wife? Your children?”
Peter’s face had flushed scarlet. He mumbled, “We were hoping that perhaps you could take care of them until we returned.”
He was looking down at his sandals, unable to meet my eyes. It impressed me that this proud man could feel so strongly about Jesus of Nazareth that he would humble himself to ask for money.
I couldn’t let him humiliate himself any further. “Of course I’ll take care of your families, Simon Peter. Consider it my gift to your Master.”
Tears glistened in his eyes. He took my hand and pressed it. “Thank you, Mary. You are a good woman, and the Lord will bless you for your many kindnesses.”
“I certainly hope so,” I replied with a smile.
My attempt to defuse his emotion worked, and he smiled back. “I’ll speak to Rebecca now.”
“Tell her I’ll be by to see her later this afternoon.”
“I will.”
I watched as he strode across my garden, an ordinary fisherman transformed by a preacher from Nazareth.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Galilee has its own system of spreading news from town to town, so Capernaum received regular reports about Jesus of Nazareth and the miracles he was performing around the province.
This information was delivered in various ways—by people who had seen the miracles themselves, by a family member of someone who had seen the miracles, and by our rabbi, who received news from other synagogue leaders about the amazing things that were happening.
Jesus cast out demons. He cured a man with a withered hand. He cured a man who was paralyzed. He cured a leper.
This last was the most unsettling miracle of all. Jews believed that leprosy was God’s punishment on those who had sinned gravely. If this was true,
it must follow that only God can cure a leper, because the sin must be forgiven before the body can be healed. And only God can forgive sin. Consequently there was great division in town about this supposed “cure.” The Pharisees didn’t believe it, and even the rabbi was uncertain.
Then one day a stranger came to our synagogue and told us the most astounding story. It was brutally hot on that particular Sabbath, and I was crammed between Rebecca and Ruth on the synagogue benches. The service had almost finished when the rabbi invited the stranger to step forward and address us.
When the tall, thin man took his place before us, my only thought was I hope he doesn’t talk too long. I was anxious to get home to my garden and the cool breeze off the lake. The restlessness that ran around the congregation told me I wasn’t the only one eager to escape from the broiling synagogue.
Then the speaker introduced himself as Joshua bar Isaac, “the brother of the leper whom Jesus of Nazareth cured.”
Suddenly every eye was glued to the man in front of us. He looked around at all our faces and said, “I am here to testify to the truth of this miracle.”
Ezra bar Matthias stood and objected, but the rabbi told the Pharisee to let the man speak.
Joshua said, “My brother was a leper for many years. Everyone in our village knew him. Every day he stood with his begging bowl on the road that led in and out of town. I saw with my own eyes the progression of his illness. I saw how the white patches of dead skin grew to cover his face. I saw the tip of his nose begin to crumble. I left him food and spoke to him every day, and it broke my heart that I couldn’t approach him, that I couldn’t take his hand or give him the kiss of peace.
“On this particular day, my brother was at his usual post, and I was standing as close as I dared, telling him some news about our sister, when we both saw the teacher approaching with his following. As I watched in horror, my brother ran past me onto the road and threw himself at the teacher’s feet.
“Everyone began to back away, shouting at my brother to get away from them, saying they would kill him if he dared to touch the teacher.”
