Land of Silence

by Tessa Afshar

  The next time I saw Jesus, he was stepping off a boat. We were by the shore of the Sea of Galilee, a Sabbath-day’s walk from Capernaum. The crowds were thick that day, for his boat had been spotted an hour before, and we had gathered expectantly for his arrival. I stood on the edges of the throng, watching as he and his disciples disembarked from the simple fishing boat. No sooner had he stepped on land than the crowds descended on him, pressing in for one touch, a small blessing, a word. The noise was deafening. I watched to see if he seemed annoyed by the demanding hordes, but he was smiling, unperturbed by the constant jostling for his attention.

  In the midst of that chaos, he reached down and tousled a child’s bright red hair and said a few words that made the child shriek with laughter. Jesus grinned back. Even from where I stood I could see the expression on the master’s plain face; it softened with tenderness and a keen, otherworldly warmth that I had never encountered before. Within me, something hard and closed off began to melt.

  Who can understand the ways of faith? For more than a week I had followed this man and seen him perform miracles, heard him teach, witnessed him show compassion to the poor. And yet it was in this incongruous moment, when he gave his attention and affection to a little boy in torn sandals and a dirty robe that I came to believe. He is the Messiah! I thought. He is our promised redeemer!

  Many have asked me what gave me the courage to do what I did that day. It was not courage, I say. It was desperation.

  Simply, I became more desperate than afraid. And in my desperation, I learned to hope. I never stopped being afraid. It was just that hope overshadowed my fear. Looking upon this man’s ordinary visage, I caught a glimpse of extraordinary love. It was such love that made hope grow—a hope like none I had ever experienced before. I wasn’t wishing or dreaming or merely longing for the impossible. I stood on a bedrock of certainty. This hope would not disappoint. And the hope became a single, encompassing thought:

  If only I touch his garment, I will be well. Once it entered my head, I could not shake the thought. I could not push it away. Here was my healing; this man himself was the Balm of Gilead. He was the end of my tears, the rest from my burdens. He was Life.

  If only I touch his garment. I took a step forward. If only. I took another step toward him. If . . . Another step. Now I was in the midst of the crowd, being jostled with everyone else. People touched me and I had no way of avoiding them.

  Before I could reach Jesus, a man arrived. His elegant robes and gold rings shouted wealth. The crowds made room for him, obviously recognizing him and giving him a place of honor. The man walked to the master unimpeded and fell at his feet. A gasp went up from the crowd. This was not a scene we saw every day. Rich men in general tended to avoid kneeling before other men. Jesus was poor—the son of a carpenter. By the world’s standards, he stood far beneath such a prosperous man. Kneeling, the rich man acknowledged that by God’s standards, Jesus surpassed him. Surpassed us all.

  “Teacher, I am Jairus, the leader of the synagogue in Capernaum,” he said.

  My eyes snapped wide. Jairus, Ethan’s relative? Wildly, I looked about, and a few steps behind the synagogue leader, I spotted Ethan. He stood rigid, his arms crossed about his chest. His face had a grayish cast. The only other time I had ever seen Ethan look so grim was the day he had witnessed Calvus kiss me.

  Jairus spoke again, and I returned my attention to him, hoping he would explain the devastation so clearly etched on Ethan’s face. “Please, Teacher. Come to my house, for my only daughter is dying. She is barely twelve. Come and save her, I beg you.”

  This must be Rachel’s friend Lilit, whom Ethan had mentioned in his letter! Dying? No wonder Ethan was desolate. What horrors pursued us in this world! Compared to hers, my troubles seemed paltry.

  Jairus’s face, white and grimy with sweat and the dirt of the road, was lifted toward Jesus. He had no remedy save for the master. I knew only too well how human medical knowledge often failed with egregious regularity. Wealth could not expand our limitations. We were constrained by our ignorance, bound by our incurable sorrows. Helpless and utterly broken, this aching father sought a miracle.

  Lilit had lived on this earth for only twelve years. With a sharp little twist in my heart, it dawned on me that she had lived the same number of years that I had been ill. A dozen years of life. A dozen years of agony. And Jesus stood between our twelve-year histories like a divine hinge that could bear the weight of our unlikely hopes.

  Another shaft of pain twisted sharply within me when it occurred to me how deep Jairus’s affections ran. This father’s love for his daughter screamed in silent anguish as he knelt prostrate, unashamed to implore the master. Like an indictment, his love pierced my heart, for I knew I had not been loved like that by my father. Not after Joseph died. Perhaps not ever. I stood here, alone, with no one to implore for me, no one to weep for me. I stood abandoned, unprotected, while this father begged.

  Jesus lifted Jairus up with a hand under his arm and nodded, turning to leave with the synagogue leader. That’s when I knew. I was about to lose my chance at healing. The fragile hope for a new future slipped away before my very eyes. He could not have known it, but in heeding Jairus’s entreaty, Jesus was destroying mine. Moments before, I had grown convinced that if I could only touch the hem of the master’s cloak, I would be healed. The possibility of a new life had taken hold of me.

  And now, that possibility walked away with purposeful steps. I could not bear it! I could not lose my one chance. Of course I would not touch his skin. I would not impose on him my filthy condition. He need never know, I thought. I pushed away at the bodies that blocked my path. In my desperation to get to him, I cared little about the Law, or the opinion of others.

  I crept behind him and crouched on the ground. The crowds still hemmed about him, making a good covering for my bold theft. I reached my impure fingers and grasped the fraying, dust-covered edge of his cloak. It still held a bit of damp from the sea. I gasped. The noise of the crowd covered my exclamation; their bodies shielded my crime.

  I felt a strange tingling in my fingers where I touched the fabric that covered him. Feverish heat rushed through me. Even when I had been about to fall into the wall of fire that consumed my father’s study, I had not felt such flames. The words of the prophet Malachi echoed vaguely in my mind: “the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings.” It was as if the sun itself had risen over my body, pervading my veins, oozing heat into my blood.

  I still weep when I think of that astonishing moment. I still shiver with the impossibility of it. For in the very instant that I touched him, the blood stopped flowing from my body. It stopped completely. I knew that I would never suffer from this infernal disease again. I knew it as certainly as I knew my own name.

  I got to my feet, unsteady, half dazed. I knew I had to leave his presence before I was discovered. I had stolen from him. I had taken without his permission. Intending to lose myself in the crowd, I stumbled away.

  Jesus stopped dead. The whole procession to Jairus’s house stopped with him. “Who touched me?” he asked.

  I trembled where I stood, not daring to take another step. Joy and horror mingled through me, making me weak. I was healed. But I was also caught!

  One of his close followers, a burly fisherman named Simon whom they often addressed as Peter, said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you. What do you mean who touched you? Who isn’t touching you?”

  I took a breath. Here was relief. Here my salvation. Listen to Peter, I wanted to shout. Heed your friend.

  He did not.

  “Someone deliberately touched me,” he insisted. “I felt healing power go out of me.” He looked about, intent on discovering the thief who had stolen from him. I began to tremble so violently that I could barely stand. I could not hide from the Messiah, I realized. If I did not come forward, he would know it was me soon enough. Forcing myself to move, I fell at his feet.

  “It was
I, master.” I could barely breathe. “Forgive me. I was too unworthy to come to you and seek your help.”

  He remained silent. Through the veil of my tears, I could not make out his expression. I could not see if he was furious or merciful. I wiped at my eyes and took a gasping breath. I would have to tell him the truth.

  “For twelve years I have been suffering from a bleeding flux. Twelve years unclean.” I pressed the flat of my hands against my face and forced myself to continue. “Shunned and alone. No physician could heal me. They took my money, but they had no cure. Then I started following you, and I knew you could help me. I thought, if I could only touch your cloak, I would be healed.”

  I dropped my hands to look at him. “And I was, master! The instant my hand touched the hem of your garment, the flux left my body.”

  Brown eyes the color of good earth gazed down on me. There was no vestige of condemnation or disgust in those extraordinary eyes. They brimmed over with compassion. Grace flowed from him. He knelt down until our faces were level. I began to weep so hard, my whole body shook.

  “Daughter,” he called me. For the first time since Joseph died, someone called me daughter. The word left his mouth and entered my soul like a shower of indescribable love. How do you explain a miracle? Words cannot capture a move of heaven. He had already healed my body. But by that one declaration, he healed my heart. He claimed me as his own.

  We must have been about the same age. It did not seem to matter. He meant that claim. By making it, the hole in my heart began to fill. It filled with love! It filled with hope, with belonging, with protection. I was no longer orphaned. Rejected. Whatever my father felt for me after Joseph’s death no longer held any power over me.

  I don’t know if he could read my thoughts. He smiled as if he knew the full content of my heart. As if my soul were a parchment he could read, and he liked what he found written there. “Your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

  At once I knew why he had stopped the urgent procession to Jairus’s house. It wasn’t to remonstrate with me. It wasn’t to create a new spectacle for the crowds or make a point. He had delayed in order to complete my healing. I had knelt down broken, sick, shattered. I rose up healed and fully graced by peace.

  The Messiah had touched me. I would never be the same again. Across the crowds I sensed someone staring at me. I had been the focus of attention the whole time Jesus had been speaking to me. But the weight of this gaze, I could not shake. It was Ethan, golden eyes wide with shock. I laughed. If anything could have improved upon this moment, it was to have him there, witnessing the miracle of my healing and sharing in the glory of God.

  My attention strayed to a man with gray hair who ran amidst the crowd with a shout. His wrinkled cheeks were wet with tears. “Master Jairus, I’ve just come from the house. Your daughter is dead,” he said. “Don’t bother the teacher anymore.”

  Ethan covered his face with his hands. Jairus groaned and collapsed on the ground. Jesus lifted him up gently. “Don’t be afraid. Have faith.”

  The crowd made to follow him again, but Jesus would not allow them. “This time, only Peter, James, and John.” Ethan followed them to the house, looking grim. I would have reassured him if he were nearer. Jairus and Ethan had no way of knowing this. But I understood better than most: that little girl was about to receive the surprise of her life.

  I returned home a free woman in every possible way. My body, my soul, my spirit had received the wholeness I had longed for these many years. I understood Joanna’s certainty about the health of her baby now. I had five more days before I could be declared officially clean according to the Law. But I had no doubt that my healing was complete.

  That night, another surprise awaited me. As I came to the Lord in prayer, overflowing with so much praise I must have said nothing but hallelujah for a whole hour, it dawned on me that I had forgiven my father. There was no more bitterness or anger left in my heart toward him. More astonishing, for the first time in sixteen years the weight of guilt and self-loathing I had felt since the death of Joseph lifted away from my heart. I had spent half my life carrying condemnation like a prisoner’s iron shackles. In the span of a few moments, the Messiah had cleansed me. What I could not have earned with all my efforts and rule-keeping, he gave to me for free. He had set another captive free.

  Ethan, I knew, would come to me as soon as he could. I was restless for his arrival. Restless to hear about Lilit and to tell him my own story. He came sooner even than I expected, a mere day after I arrived home. Rachel was not with him, wanting to remain with her friend Lilit for a few more days.

  “I promise you two shall meet soon,” Ethan said as he sat on the couch and drank from the cup Keziah had served him. “I did not stop to rest, but came straight here as soon as I could.” With a deep sigh, he placed the empty cup on the table.

  “Tell me about Lilit.”

  “Elianna, if I had not seen it with my own eyes, I should never have believed it.”

  I laughed. “I know exactly what you mean. What happened when the master came?”

  “There was a lot of wailing and mourning at the house, as you can imagine. ‘Stop wailing. She is not dead but asleep,’ Jesus said. Do you know, some people were so bold as to laugh at him?”

  “Did you?” I teased.

  “I did not laugh. Not after watching what happened to you. But I did not really believe he could do anything. A sick child is one thing. But a dead one?” Ethan shook his head. “Jesus ignored the laughter and with a calm command sent us all out of the house and would not allow anyone to go to the child except for his companions, Peter, John, and James, as well as Jairus and his wife.

  “Later, Jairus told me what happened inside the chamber where Lilit’s body lay. Jesus went to her and held her cold little hand in his. ‘Little girl, rise up,’ he said. Jairus and his wife were torn between hope and dread. They hardly knew whether they had welcomed a holy man into their home or a madman.

  “That was until Lilit stood up. She walked around when they asked her if she was able to move. She felt no pain. No fever, no weakness in her joints. All her symptoms had vanished. That child was as rosy-cheeked and hearty as the first day I met her.”

  “What did you all do when she walked out?”

  “Well, no one was laughing, I can assure you. We were amazed, overwhelmed by this power that surpassed anything we had ever seen. There was a time when I thought Caesar was the most powerful man the world over. I know better now. One day no one will remember the name of Tiberius. No one will give a thought to Caesar. But the name of Jesus shall have great renown as long as men live on this earth.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  You make known to me the path of life;

  in your presence there is fullness of joy;

  at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

  PSALM 16:11

  “I HAVE A QUESTION TO ASK. But first, I want you to forget the word no.”

  I stared at Ethan, baffled. He had remained with me only a few hours last week before returning to Rachel. Today he had shown up with Rachel in tow, as promised. At nine, she had outgrown the wildness of her childhood, but not the spirit or charm.

  “You are every bit as beautiful as I imagined you would be,” I had said to her when they arrived, admiring the strange golden eyes, so much like her father’s.

  “You too, Mistress Elianna.”

  “I’m an old woman, practically,” I had said with a smile.

  “For an old woman, though, you are still pretty.”

  Ethan had covered his mouth with a hand and shrugged his shoulders at me. “Well, thank you, Rachel,” I said and invited her to sit next to me. I had been declared clean by the priest several days earlier. Every bit of unclean clothing, cushions, and bedding that I owned, I had burned in a bonfire in our little garden that same hour.

  Wearing a robe made of the pink and silver fabric Viriato had given me as a gift, I sat on the old couch, relishing the comfort of it. Small ameni
ties still felt like a luxury to me. For the length of two whole hours, Rachel and I chatted. I asked her about her favorite activity—purchasing dyes with her father—and her favorite color—blue like the Sea of Galilee. She asked me regarding my illness, about which Ethan had spoken to her, and was surprisingly adult in her compassionate response. She had had a glimpse of Jesus when he came to Jairus’s home to attend Lilit and spoke about him in an appealing mingling of curiosity and longing.

  It was Ethan who had finally stopped our conversation. “Rachel, why don’t you go with Keziah and pick up some wine and meat for our supper? Help Keziah get a fair price, now.” He turned to me. “Rachel is very adroit at bargaining. The shopkeepers run when they see her come.”

  Now that we were alone, Ethan and I sat across from one another, and after an awkward silence he began by telling me to forget the word no.

  I suspected that he planned to speak about helping me with finances again, and I felt the old prideful rebellion rise up in my chest. “No,” I said.

  He started to laugh. “I am a doomed man.” His long-fingered hands reached for the back of his neck, rubbing in the unconscious way he had when he felt nervous. The last traces of laughter vanished from his face. He leaned forward.

  “I have waited for you longer than our forefather Jacob waited for his Rachel. Before another impediment comes between us, I want you to marry me. If you count our long betrothal the first time around, we have more than fulfilled that requirement. Say yes and come with me to Jerusalem and we shall live as husband and wife. I still love you, Elianna.”