by Brian Godawa
When he stopped, he lost his balance from dizziness.
The next batch of wolves made their way in.
Molech disappeared down the tunnel, behind the next line of wolves protecting him.
This was it. Uriel had Molech in his sights. He had all he needed.
He dropped his swords to the ground with a clang and reached behind him to pull out the weapon he had strapped to his back.
It was the hammer of Ba’al. The weapon the god had used successfully to escape their grasp at Tyre. He had left it behind in the tsunami wave. Uriel had brought it with him for this very purpose.
The wolves were piling in, preparing a new attack.
Uriel screamed with all his might.
He raised the hammer high and struck the ground at his feet. Not once, but twice. He needed this to be a thorough burial.
A violent earthquake rumbled outward from the epicenter and shook every creature to the ground in its wake.
The cavern collapsed upon Uriel and the wolves.
The tunnel where Molech was escaping caved in upon him and his wolven servants.
The complete complex of tunnels collapsed under the massive weight of the shifting earth.
This had been Uriel’s plan all along. If they could not catch the slippery worm to bind him in Tartarus, they would simply bury him under billions of tons of immovable rock, which was almost as secure as the prison of Sheol.
Molech would never see the sun again to engage in perversion with humanity. But the price that the archangel had to pay to achieve this prison was to sacrifice himself in order to do so.
He too would be imprisoned in the rock, until the final judgment. At that time, Yahweh would raise all from the earth unto the glories of heaven or the fires of Gehenna. One thing was for sure, Gehenna would no longer be a valley of Molech’s power, but a symbol of the valley of Yahweh’s judgment to come.
Uriel would spend the rest of his days entombed alive in that prison of rock, praying to Yahweh until the final day. He had made the ultimate sacrifice to help pave the way for Messiah’s own restoration of Israel and drawing in of the nations.
Chapter 24
Jesus and his followers were upon the ridge of Gehenna looking down at Jerusalem when the earthquake occurred. It seemed to be quite deep in the earth, but it rattled the area for miles around.
When the tremor stopped, Jesus brought the crowd over to look down upon the valley and the walls of the city. At about four miles in circumference, Jerusalem sheltered a populace of about eighty thousand. But during Passover like this, more than a million pilgrims came from all over the land to participate in the festival, so the surrounding environs hosted many camps of visitors. A hundred or so people had come from the city to hear Jesus, because of his reputation, including a group of Pharisees and scribes.
He spent some time telling them parables that enraged the religious leaders and confused the common folk. Tomorrow, they would enter the city.
Simon was visibly disturbed. He stayed sitting at the butte’s edge after everyone else returned to their camp. Mary Magdalene approached him.
“Simon, are you well?”
“No.”
“What is wrong?” She sat on the rock beside him, looking out onto the valley. It was quite barren and ugly. As if life could not grow there. They could see a destroyed altar to Molech below them, pushed over on its side, the fire long died out.
He said, “Do you remember the Scripture Jesus read in the last synagogue we had visited in Bethany?”
“Yes. The prophet Jeremiah.” It had only been a couple days earlier.
Simon quoted what he could remember, “‘Behold, days are coming, declares Yahweh, when this place shall no more be called Tophet, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. And in this place I will make void the plans of Judah and Jerusalem, and will cause their people to fall by the sword before their enemies.’”
She asked him, “That was about the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians when they took them into exile, right?”
Simon stared out into the void. “The prophet said their bodies would be food for the scavengers of heaven and earth. That the inhabitants of the city would turn to cannibalism. And then he said that Yahweh would make Jerusalem like a Tophet.”
She said, “It must have been a horrible time to be alive.”
He said, “Have you noticed that Jesus’s parables and stories are increasingly sounding very similar to that previous destruction of Jerusalem?”
“In what ways?”
“The parables he just taught on this very overlook of Gehenna carried the same message.” He concluded, “As if Jerusalem will be destroyed again.”
She said, “I have always assumed his words were about the judgment of the nations.”
He protested, “But he seems to be prophesying that our people will reject his kingship, rather than accept it. And they will be judged just like a pagan nation.”
“How could that be?” she asked. “He has always said that he has come to minister to Israel.”
“Yes. But remember the tenants in the parable? They kept rejecting the landlord’s plea to bring him the fruit of the vineyard. And when the landlord sent his son, they killed him too. They wanted to steal his inheritance.”
“So, the son in the story is Jesus, and the tenants are his people, Israel?” Her voice was thoughtful.
He nodded. “Do you remember what Jesus said the landlord would do to the tenants?”
She nodded. “He would put those miserable wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants.”
He said, “And then he told the Pharisees and chief priests and their followers to their faces that the Kingdom of God would be taken away from them and given to a people producing its fruits.”
“The only people other than the people of God are the Gentiles. But he said his ministry was to Israel.”
He shook his head, puzzling it out. “What if his ministry is to bring judgment upon Israel so that salvation would be open to all who believed him, including the Gentiles?”
She stared at him. Could it be true? Would they have the guts to ask Jesus about such a thing? What if they were wrong?
He said, “Jesus is the stone that Israel’s leaders and her people, the builders, rejected. But that stone will be the cornerstone of God’s new temple and holy city. And he will crush all those he falls upon.”
“Those who reject him?”
“Yes. Days of Vengeance for those who would not recognize the day of Yahweh’s visitation.”
“But the Jewish nation will reject her own Messiah?”
He dared not say. It would be a heresy to suggest such things. But it was perfectly consistent with the prophets. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Malachai, they had all spoken of Israel’s repeated spiritual adultery with the gods of Canaan, and their abominations. Could the Day of the Lord spoken of in Joel be a Day of the Lord against Israel? Was their march to Jerusalem a march to destruction?
• • • • •
Longinus looked down upon the Jerusalem temple area from the fortress Antonia, connected to the northwest corner wall of the temple mount. The Antonia was about five hundred feet square with four corner towers. It housed a Roman garrison that watched over the temple activities. The Jews despised the Romans for this invasion of their religious privacy, but they had no choice in the matter. Tiberius Caesar wanted oversight of all their activities, especially the ones they considered more important than Caesar.
Within the week, the Jews would be celebrating their Passover sacrifice, a symbol of their exodus out of slavery in Egypt. Longinus knew they equated Rome with Egypt and Babylon and every other force that had ruled over them or occupied their land. So, in a way, even this festival and its cultic rituals were an expression of contempt for Rome. Tensions were high, tempers flared, and rioting mobs were a constant threat in this volatile environment. And this year brought with it the added insurrectionists and the
ir contagious madness of Messiah expectation. The Roman forces were on high alert.
The entire temple complex was over a thousand feet long and just under a thousand feet wide. The largest area, the outer court, or Court of the Gentiles, was open to all, both Jew and Gentile alike. It had marble flooring and was lined all around by porticos. Here animals were sold for sacrifices, like a marketplace, and worshippers could congregate or wait in line for their sacrifices. Upon closer approach to the Temple itself, in the center of the temple area, a screen with an engraved sign warned Gentiles not to proceed upon pain of death. Like every temple in the world, the closer one got to the inner sanctum or Holy of Holies in the temple, the more sacred the space became, and the fewer who were allowed to go further.
The Temple itself had several courts of increasing holiness as well. Though Longinus could see inside these walls from his highest tower perch, no Roman could ever set foot in them. First, there was the Court of Women shaped much like a cross. It amused Longinus to find such a reflection of their instrument of death in the Jews’ structure of supposed life. This was about two hundred feet square, and evidently, women could go no further than this court, though all worshippers brought their animal sacrifices here. On Passover, one lamb would be chosen without blemish, to substitute for a group of twenty or so Jews, usually an extended family.
They would then bring the lamb into the next smallest court, the Court of Priests. This was where the animals were cut and bled and burned on the large horned altar of unhewn stones that stood before the Temple, while a chorus of priests played their instruments and sang hymns of praise to the deity. A bronze laver stood nearby for what appeared to be cleansings. The Temple façade stood a hundred and fifty feet high behind the altar, with its golden roof visible from anywhere on the entire temple mount.
Inside was the holy place, a huge candelabra, some incense stands, and then the curtained Holy of Holies where the Ark of Covenant housed their god Yahweh. Or at least that is all Longinus had been told by his rabbi informant. One day, he would like to gut the entire edifice and burn it to the ground, just to show these Jews that Caesar was a superior god. If anyone might actually do such a thing, it would be Pilate, who had already incensed the Jews with his past offensive behaviors. He liked to provoke them.
Of course, Longinus had his own religion of the Imperial Cult and Mithras, but these people seemed to have an elaborate system of myth that was quite impressive to him. He had learned much about it from his informant. The intolerant exclusivity of their deity and his dogma seemed to create an inability to tolerate each other. It resulted in a multitude of factions squabbling over who were the “true remnant” of followers of the Law. Such diversity made it more difficult to keep tabs on them, because their leadership was so decentralized even within the Sanhedrin.
He had received intelligence from his spies about one of those factions approaching the Shushan Gate on the east end of the Temple, where it led out to the Kidron Valley below. Longinus made his way over to Solomon’s portico that stood atop the eastern walls, to look down upon the arriving company. Pilate had appointed his century as part of a cohort of five hundred troops ordered to station themselves discreetly behind the pillars surrounding the Court of Gentiles. If this Nazarene attempted to start any kind of trouble, he would be apprehended and brought immediately to detention in the Antonia through the underground tunnel connecting the Roman fortress to the temple area.
Longinus met his rabbi informant and looked down the wall to see the Nazarene arrive with his company of a few hundred followers, gawkers, and miracle seekers. The sight of it made him laugh. The Nazarene approached the city and temple as a king might for a triumphal entry into a subdued city.
The rabbi whispered to him, “This is the gate through which the red heifer is brought for sacrifice outside the camp as a special sin offering. It is also the exit for the journey of the scapegoat for Azazel.”
“Scapegoat?” asked Longinus.
“Yes. On our most holy Day of Atonement, one goat is sacrificed for the people and another has the sins of Israel placed upon it, to be led into the wilderness to be consumed into chaos. It carries away our sins.”
Childish, thought Longinus.
The entrance up to the gate was covered with arches that led toward the Mount of Olives. Hundreds of Jews lined the paved way waving palm branches and even laying down their cloaks as an expression of submission to the Nazarene.
The rabbi said, “This is interesting.”
“What?” said Longinus.
“This was the very same ritual that the citizens of Jerusalem performed upon the arrival of King David when he conquered Jerusalem a thousand years ago. Listen to their shouting.”
Longinus could hear them crying out, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of Yahweh! Hosanna in the highest!”
Longinus looked at the rabbi for confirmation.
He nodded. Messianic.
The centurion whistled to the commander of the cohort. The Nazarene was approaching. The soldiers stood ready in the shadows of the pillars.
It was a joke. The Jew had no armed accompaniment, not even bodyguards. And instead of riding a horse in any kind of warrior gear, he was riding a pathetic donkey, and pulling a colt behind him.
A donkey? If Longinus didn’t know better, he’d say this was a mockery of the Imperial triumphal entry—an inversion of power into weakness. What fool would engage in such theatrical self-deprecation? It was more like the satirical entry of a jester than the arrival of Messiah.
Unless, of course, it was just another Jewish tactic of subversion. Longinus suspected that there was some kind of tie to Barabbas the Zealot. Maybe Barabbas led the army that would rise up from its hiding amongst the people.
Longinus had to be ready.
Demas and Gestas wore their disguises of commoners down in the crowds receiving Jesus. Barabbas watched from the portico below the roof where Longinus observed. To the hiding Zealot warriors, this was a disheartening sight. It seemed the opposite of a triumphant arrival.
Demas thought, Was it a diversionary tactic?
Since the Nazarene knew the Romans would be more than prepared to receive an insurrectionist with force of arms, Demas figured Jesus still kept any of his secret forces hidden for the right moment.
Gestas hoped that Jesus really had an army of heavenly hosts ready to burst the veil of heaven and earth.
As Jesus left the temple mount on his way back to Bethany a couple miles away, another spy watched him from the Mount of Olives: the prince of Rome, Belial, the Accuser. The deities of Canaan had all failed and been imprisoned in the underworld by the angels of Yahweh. Jesus had dispossessed them from their inheritance. Belial had counseled the other Watcher gods to return to their inherited territories, because if they were to all show up in Jerusalem to battle, then so would the minions of Yahweh’s heavenly host. No, this had to be a properly executed assassination. All through history, the Seed of the Serpent had sought to extinguish the Seed of Eve that led to the Seed of Abraham, Messiah. Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Rahab, David. But they had failed over and over again.
If I want something done right, thought a disgusted Belial, I simply have to do it myself.
As god of this world, Belial was too legally protected to be captured and imprisoned like the others. But ever since the temptation in the desert, he kept his distance, putting forth the other gods, playing the game board with caution.
The stakes had risen. He was being slowly strangled by a spiritual binding that increased its grip on him like a boa constrictor, as the spirits of the Nephilim were cast out of the land. He was losing his grip on the nations. He knew his time had arrived. He must now lead the fight.
Chapter 25
The next day, Demas and Gestas followed Jesus and his group as he returned to the Temple. They didn’t want to be noticed by Simon or any of the followers who had gotten to know them up at Caesarea Philippi, so they wore their hoods up an
d kept their distance. They were spies for Barabbas.
The Sanhedrin had assigned a group of scribes and Pharisees to follow Jesus, in order to keep an eye on his activities and teaching, especially in the temple precinct. Jesus, followed by his disciples, critics, and spies, walked up the broad stairs of the main southern Huldah Gates that led up into the outer court. They passed through the ceilinged Royal Stoa on the way into the court. The columned area was packed with sellers and moneychangers that overflowed into the outer court.
Jesus stepped out onto the marble terrace. All around them, the sounds of marketplace buying and selling filled the morning air. Animals squawked and grunted, baa-ed and bellowed. Worshippers would purchase their animals for sacrifice here and bring them up to the Temple. Because of the distance from which many Jews had traveled, they would have to exchange their currency in order to pay the Temple tax with the standard Tyrian shekel. It was a hive of business, religious business.
Simon and Mary followed behind Jesus and his closest disciples. They saw Jesus stop and look around the cacophony of noises and the bustling of activities. He moved over to a pen of sheep and oxen. He pulled some ropes together to make a handmade whip. He opened the pen and used the whip to drive the animals out of their confinement. They squealed and poured out into the temple area, creating havoc. Jesus snapped his whip to drive them toward the Huldah Gates from which they entered.
The owner of the sheep began yelling at him and cursing him. Jesus pushed him aside and walked up to those selling pigeons for the poor to sacrifice. He crashed open the cages and a flurry of birds escaped into the air. Some women screamed.
Some of the men approached to stop him, but Jesus snapped his homemade whip at them to keep them at bay. Then he snapped at those trying to enter the temple area with vessels in their hands.
The disciples all stood frozen in their tracks, not knowing what to do. They had never seen him act like this before. They didn’t know how to respond.
