The Prisoner in the Third Cell

by Gene Edwards

  “I tell you, every problem, every pain, every sorrow in Judea finds its origin in Herod. There is no justice on this earth, no mercy . . . no pity. It is all his fault. All of it.

  “John, can you hear me? Mark my word, you will rot here like the rest of us. Out there in your desert, you said one thing that is true. There is no end to the wickedness of the human heart. And Herod is the worst of all. I would be a happy, prosperous man today if it were not for that cold-blooded Herod, and the others . . . the others . . . those wicked men who conspired against me with him to take everything I had.”

  “Parnach, control your tongue,” shouted one of the guards.

  There was a pause. The prisoner in the first cell grew quiet. Unfortunately, though, his shouts had awakened the prisoner in the cell next to him.

  Chapter 11

  A thin, bony man moved up to the door of his cell and looked wildly into the eyes of the captain of the guards.

  “John? Here? Are you telling me John is here in the prison of Machaerus? Are you telling me, Protheus, that he has been thrown into cell three, of all places?”

  “Yes, Hannel, Herod has arrested John and had him brought here.”

  “Has God no pity? Has God no feelings?” asked Hannel in a cold, thin voice.

  “Does devotion mean nothing to Him? I once trusted in God, just as John does. Are you really here, John? Do you remember me? I lived a devout and holy life before God. You remember, don’t you, John? Well, look at what it has brought me. And you, see what devotion to God has brought you? Is this to be the end for men who have loved God and obeyed Him? What kind of a God is it that will allow such things as we now suffer? God, You have thrown one of Your very own servants into a slimy hole!”

  Hannel thrust one arm through the bars of his cell, clenched his fist, raised his face, and spat curses at God. He then ended his ravings with one last pronouncement. “Never again will I serve a God who treats men this way. When I needed Him, where was He? John, where is your God when you need Him the most?”

  Not a single sound rose from the third cell. Whatever John might be thinking, he was keeping his own counsel. Protheus, on the other hand, could not help but wonder: “The prisoner in the first cell blames everything on men. The prisoner in the second cell blames everything on God. I wonder whom the prisoner in the third cell will blame. Man? God?

  “Or perhaps his cousin?”

  Chapter 12

  The scene is a village in Galilee called Nain. It is early evening. The streets of the town are packed with people waiting to bring their sick to Jesus.

  Some of the infirm are blind, some crippled; one is deaf; another, frothing at the mouth, is held in restraint by his family. An anxious mother holds her small, fevered baby in her arms. Another mother cradles a crippled child in her lap. All manner of people are there, wracked by every disease known to man. All have one thing in common. They are seeking Jesus, hoping to receive healing or liberation at his hands.

  The focal point of this crowd is a house located on one of the smaller streets of the village. In every direction the streets leading to this house are jammed with people. Walk through the courtyard and you will see that it, too, is filled.

  There is pathos and anxiety everywhere. Perhaps the thing that makes the waiting ones most anxious is to hear a cry of joy coming from within the house and then, a moment later, watch someone depart, praising God for healing.

  At this moment, three roughly dressed, leather-skinned men appear at the courtyard gate. One of the disciples of Jesus recognizes these men. He rushes into the house. Just as he is about to tell his master the news of the arrival of these men, a cripple rises on his feet, raises his hands to heaven, and cries out to God in praise for being cured.

  “Lord, the disciples of John are here.”

  Jesus looked up. For one brief moment there was anxiety in his eyes.

  “Please. Dismiss the people outside. Bring John’s disciples here. Immediately.”

  With that, the Lord seated himself on the floor and waited pensively for the appearance of John’s disciples.

  In a moment, the three men solemnly took their place in front of Jesus. There was a long pause. Then Nadab broke the silence.

  “We have come from John. He is in prison. Herod had him arrested for . . .”

  “Yes, I know,” replied the Lord.

  “A few days ago we were allowed to visit our teacher. He is chained inside a filthy pit. There are rumors that it will not be long before Herod has him killed.”

  There was a pause. Nadab waited to see if Jesus had some response to this word.

  “John sent us to you, to ask you a question. It was the only request he made of us. We have traveled far to find you, yet it is but for the answer to one question that we come.”

  Again Nadab paused. Again no one spoke.

  “Teacher, the question that John would ask of you is this.” Nadab paused again, his face flushed. “John’s question is, ‘Are you the Messiah, or should we look for another?’”

  A long, stunned silence followed. Pain was felt in the heart of every man in the room. You could read it in the faces of John’s three disciples, it was evident upon the faces of the twelve, but it was most evident upon the face of the Lord himself.

  Jesus sighed deeply. For one brief moment, he dropped his head in what seemed to be a gesture of anguish. Looking up again, he addressed the question.

  “Nadab, return to John. Tell him, for me, these things.

  “First, tell John that the blind see, the lame walk, and the deaf hear.

  “Then tell my cousin that the gospel is proclaimed—not only proclaimed but received with gladness—and that men and women are being set free.”

  The Lord paused, took a deep, labored breath. Then slowly, purposefully, he continued. “Lastly, Nadab, tell John . . . tell John . . .”

  The Lord’s voice choked for a moment. Pain was in his words. “Tell my brother John:

  “And blessed is he who is not offended with me.”

  There was another pause. Jesus stood, embraced the three men, and then turned to his disciples. “The hour is very late. It is time we departed here. We must go on to the next village. Please dismiss those waiting outside.”

  John’s three disciples stood, stunned. After a long moment of obvious confusion, they turned and made their departure. The courtyard they crossed was now empty, as were the streets they passed through.

  Tomorrow will hold for Jesus yet another village. For the disciples of John, tomorrow will hold the enigma of this day.

  But what will tomorrow hold for those who were sent home that evening? They all departed without being healed. And John? What will be his response to the strange words of his cousin?

  Chapter 13

  The three disciples of John squatted down on the slimy floor of the dungeon that had become John’s home.

  “Teacher, we have seen your cousin.”

  “Did you ask my question?”

  “We did.”

  “And his answer?”

  “Teacher, the answer is very strange. We do not understand it.”

  John sighed. It was as though he knew this would be Nadab’s response.

  “His reply?”

  “Teacher, he said to tell you that the blind and the dumb and the crippled receive sight and hearing and healing. Then he said to tell you that the good news is proclaimed, and received with joy.”

  John turned those words over in his mind very slowly. After several minutes, his brow wrinkled. The prisoner leaned forward and asked, “Is that all?”

  “No, teacher, he said one other thing, and then he dismissed the crowd and bade us farewell. What he said was, ‘Tell John, “And blessed is he who is not offended with me.”’”

  There was a long silence as three men studied the face of John, hoping to glimpse his reaction to these words. But, as always, there was none.

  Finally John queried: “Where was my cousin?”

  “In a village in Galilee,
called Nain,” responded Nadab. “There were sick people everywhere; streets, lanes, and alleys were all filled with people wanting to be healed. The place was overrun with suffering souls.”

  “Were they being healed?”

  “Yes, teacher, many were being healed.”

  With those words, John’s interest quickened, his frame straightened. “Did you say, many?” responded John.

  “Yes, teacher, many.”

  “Many?” asked John again.

  Nadab was puzzled. “Yes, teacher,” he answered again, “Many were being healed.”

  “Many,” repeated John quietly as to himself. Then he leaned forward again. “Many, Nadab? Many, but not all?”

  For a brief instant Nadab was at a loss as to what John was saying. Then his own eyes lit up, revealing the shock of what John was observing. “Yes, teacher, you are right. There were many who were being healed, but not all.”

  “. . . not . . . all.”

  John stared vacantly into space. Had he at last found the answer to the questions which had troubled him so deeply about Jesus? Or had he simply added more questions to his dilemma?

  At that very moment, there was someone else who was struggling with this same dilemma.

  Chapter 14

  “Leave me,” said Jesus to his companions.

  With those words, Jesus wandered off to a sequestered place to be alone. Never before in all his thirty-one years, nor in all his preexistence in eternity, had he ever longed so intensely to answer the cry and the question of someone struggling to understand the mysterious ways of his God.

  If ever there was a time for him to give a clear answer, if ever there was a person to whom he should speak clearly, surely the time was now and the person, John. If any man ever lived who had a right to have an explanation given to him, that man was his own flesh and blood, his only cousin.

  “John, your pain is great. I feel it. Tonight you so desperately need to understand me, to fathom my ways, to peer into the riddle of my sovereignty. Your heart is breaking. But, John, you are not the first to have this need. You are but one in a long train of humankind stretching across all the centuries of man who have called out to me with questions and doubts. You are but one voice among so many who wonder and who agonize over my ways.”

  With those words spoken, a scene of an event that had taken place long ago began to emerge before the eyes of the Lord.

  Jesus shuddered. Before him was Egypt. The Lord of time stepped into the streets of the city of Pharaoh. “I have been here before. I have walked down these streets, listening to the quiet cries, the murmurings, the prayers of my own people . . . held here in slavery.”

  The Lord paused and looked about. He could clearly hear every prayer being prayed. They seemed to be lifted up to him in harmony with their rustling chains.

  “You who are descendants of a man named Jacob, you have cried out to me so long, suffered so long, and wept so long. You have lifted your faces to heaven for years without number. But the heavens are stone. It appears your God has gone deaf. You have been born in slavery. You have grown up, cried out for freedom, and then died, without your prayers being answered. Your children came along to take your place, were fettered with the same worn chains of their fathers. They, too, cried out for deliverance, and they, too, died with their chains still forged to their wrists.”

  The Lord walked on.

  “Your children’s children have grown old. They have come to me with their prayers myriads of times, calling out, ‘God deliver us from the Pharaoh, deliver us from this slave master who does not know our father, Joseph. Oh, our God, lead us back to our homeland.’

  “But I did not answer, not so much as one word. And so it continued for you and your offspring . . . for twelve generations.

  “I left you in slavery for almost four hundred years. Never once in all that time were your prayers answered. You cried out to me, but I did not respond. No clear word, no insight into my ways, no explanation of my purposes, no reasons were given why I did not answer your cries. Your hearts were broken before me.

  “But my heart was broken with yours.

  “After four hundred years, there were still men and women who were believing in me! After four hundred years of not hearing from me, still you believed!”

  At that moment came a piercing cry. It was the voice of a mother.

  “Oh, God, if You are there, will You not answer? Tomorrow this beautiful child will be taken from my arms, forever. He will be shackled, enslaved, and forever doomed to make bricks beside the river Nile. I will die never to see my child again. He will grow old and die in the chains they forge upon his wrists tomorrow. Will You not hear my cry?”

  The eyes of the Lord filled with tears.

  “Oh, Israel, you are confronted with one simple fact.

  “Oh woman, you, like all those before you . . . you, like my cousin John, rotting in a pit . . . have come face to face with one stark truth.

  “Your God has not lived up to your expectations.”

  Chapter 15

  The scene changed. Once more the place was Egypt, but it was many years into the future. On this occasion, the Lord of time stepped into an unfolding drama that was a scene, not of slavery, but of death.

  Women were frantically running down the streets, with Egyptian solders in pursuit. Every newborn Hebrew male child would be slain that day. That is, all but one. The one lone survivor would grow up to save Israel from Egypt. But these panic-stricken mothers did not know this. They would live out their entire lives without even one of them ever knowing that eighty years hence God would avenge the death of their children and set Israel free.

  “They do not know,” he sighed. “They will know, but not here on this earth. All they will ever know in this lifetime is that I did not come to them in their hour of greatest need. Today they, like all others, have met a God they do not understand.

  “So it has been in all the past, so it will be throughout all ages to come.”

  The scene changed again. The Lord of space and time was back in Galilee again, alone. Once more he spoke.

  “If I ever cared for those who lived in slavery in Egypt; if I ever cared for Job on his ash heap, or Jeremiah in his miry pit; if I ever cared for my people when the armies of Nebuchadnezzar surrounded Jerusalem and carried them off to slavery; if I ever longed to give answer and explanation; if there were one day above all others that I would speak, today would be that day.

  “This day I have flesh and blood. I have a human mother who loved Elizabeth and who loves Elizabeth’s son. She does not wish to see him die, and like all others, she wants so much to understand. Today I have brothers; I have sisters. I am an earthen man, with blood coursing through my veins, with human emotions, with family responsibilities. John and I are the elder sons of our two families. It is with human eyes I watch this unholy deed of Herod. Nor is that all. Everywhere I look I see my people caught up in circumstances not of their own making.

  “If ever there has been a moment I have longed to answer the questions of any man or woman, it is now. And it is to you, John, I want to give an explanation of my ways.

  “John, I watched you walk into that desert as a twelve-year-old child. I saw your days turn to weeks and your weeks turn into years, as you fasted, as you ate the scraps of the desert, as you clothed yourself with the desert’s waste. I have watched your soft skin turn to leather. I have seen you age inordinately. Your faithfulness to me is without parallel. Not since Eve bore her first man-child has there ever been one like unto you.

  “I gave you a task greater than the one I gave to Moses. You are a prophet greater than any who has ever come before.

  “But, most of all, you are my kin. You are my own flesh and blood.

  “If ever, ever I have wanted to give answer to a man’s questions, to explain my sovereign ways, it is today. Yet I have been to you, as to all others, a Lord not fully understood, a God who rarely makes clear exactly what He is doing in the life of one of His childre
n.

  “Angels shall plea

  to set thee free,

  Death shall weep

  when he comes for thee,

  Yet ne’er shall an answer come

  from me.”

  Chapter 16

  As day dawned in the village of Nain, the multitude that had gathered there the night before received an unbearable shock. Jesus had departed the village the night before, soon after he dismissed the crowd for the evening. He was gone, and no one knew where.

  That morning a mother, who had come all the way from Damascus carrying her crippled child, would begin the long trek back home, still carrying a beloved child with a never-to-be-healed twisted foot. Throughout all the rest of her long life this mother would wonder why the Lord had not waited just a few more moments before dismissing the crowd, for she was next in line.

  “And blessed are you

  if you are not offended with me.”

  That same morning, an old man was guided back to his home by a friend, there to ever wonder, until the day he died, what sight might have been like if only he had been able to reach the master healer just a few minutes earlier. But his destiny would forever be a life of darkness . . . and wondering.

  “And blessed is he

  who is not offended with me.”

  A mother will return home with her young daughter who will forever remain disfigured because of a childhood accident. Throughout that despondent day and on into the following weeks and years, that mother will look down into the face of her child and often hear her ask why she was not healed that day in Galilee. “After all, Mother, so many others were.”

  The mother will give first one answer and then another; those answers will satisfy neither mother nor daughter. Both will forever wonder why the Lord left them that evening, not caring enough for them to remain just a little longer. The mother will die and go to her grave; her daughter will grow up to womanhood carrying her disfigurement throughout her life.