The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel

by Wangerin Jr. , Walter

Then suddenly the Sabbath decorum was shattered. A wailing arose in a corner of the room.

  “Aieee! Get away from me!”

  It was a ghastly howling, altogether unrestrained. Then a man emerged from darkness clutching his robe at the throat, his eyes rolling in horror. His hair was greasy and wild. “What, what, what,” he wailed, stumbling toward Jesus: “What do you have to do with us?”

  The pious people backed away from the man, troubled and embarrassed. “Oh, Shobal,” they said. “Oh, Shobal.” They knew him. They pitied him. He had lurked for years in the backstreets of Capernaum, mumbling and fretting in cryptic language. And they feared him. More properly, they feared the demon within him. For Shobal was a meek man of limited sense; but his demon was cold, deadly, and unclean.

  Now Shobal, stumbling forward, his mouth slurred open, the flat of his left hand raised against the new rabbi, howled, “Jeeeeesus of Nazareth, have you come to destroy us? I know you! I know you! Aieee—I know who you are, You Holy One of God!”

  Jesus had not arisen from his seat. With half-lidded eyes he regarded the coming apparition, a man eaten by the demon within, and he shook his head. “They call you Shobal?” he murmured. “Yes, they call you ‘basket.’ What you carry in you—it is not of you.”

  Then Jesus cracked the air with a cry as with a hammer: “Silence!” The entire synagogue echoed the command. No one moved. In a quieter voice Jesus said, “Come out of the man.”

  Shobal fell like timber. His limbs shuddered, drumming the floor. The wailing that came from his mouth grew louder and louder until it seemed to break loose from the man and fly out of the beautiful building and into the earth.

  Now there was in the room a silence nearly palpable, like white wool settling upon every living soul. Jesus reached down to Shobal and stroked his wild hair smooth again; then he helped the exhausted man to his feet and together they went out into the sunlight.

  “What is this?” the people said. “A new teaching? An amazing authority! Why, he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”

  They ran out of the synagogue and followed Jesus.

  By evening the whole city was gathering around him, bringing friends who were sick with diseases, relatives who were possessed by demons. And Jesus healed them. He touched them. With his fingertips he brushed their foreheads, their faces, their lips, and their feet. With his golden gaze he peered into their eyes. And ever in his private voice he whispered, “Here, here, here is the mercy of God. Here. Here.”

  III

  VERY EARLY THE FOLLOWING MORNING, even before the sunrise, Jesus slipped from his sleeping quarters and left to find a lonely place outside the city, a secluded place for praying.

  But Shobal had been dozing right outside his door.

  And Shobal, now given to ripping fits of wonderful laughter, jumped up and ran after him, south along the lake shore, roaring his delight.

  Shobal’s liberty was Jesus’ capture. Soon a crowd of citizens was pouring from Capernaum after the weak-minded Shobal and his miraculous friend.

  Jesus turned and observed this human river for a moment, then made a decision. He cut left and walked down to the Sea of Galilee where two rowboats had been dragged ashore. Beside each was a pair of fishermen, washing their nets. Four men. One of these was Andrew.

  “Andrew,” Jesus called.

  “Master! Good morning!”

  “Do you see the people coming?”

  “Yes. Oh, my—yes!”

  “Would you and your brother row me out a little way and anchor there? I want to teach. But I need a proper distance and a pulpit.”

  Andrew grinned. “Of course,” he said. “Simon?”

  Simon said nothing, but put his shoulder to the boat and drove it into the water.

  Jesus and Andrew boarded.

  “Grab your nets!” Jesus said. And just as the crowd was running down the slopes to the sea, Simon heaved the boat completely into the water, leaped aboard and took an oar.

  In the early morning over still waters a man’s voice can travel ashore as easily as an eagle glides.

  Jesus sat down in the back of the boat, facing the people. Simon did not drop anchor. He placed himself behind Jesus and kept both oars in the water. By his own adjustments he held the stern and the preacher perfectly landward.

  Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

  The sun had just arisen like a solid flame at the far side of the sea. The bodies of the listening citizens, therefore, were suddenly in a clear and fierce relief, though the boat, the mast, and the teacher inside were all to them in silhouette.

  The brothers Simon and Andrew, on the other hand, saw Jesus’ back in a burning light—and though his hair was raven-black, they could see under sunlight a deep red hue. The rabbi’s black hair burned scarlet in its depths.

  Jesus said, “To what shall we compare the kingdom of heaven? What parable shall we use for it? The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed. When sown in the ground it is the smallest of seeds. But when it grows it puts forth branches so long and large that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade—and then of all shrubs it is the greatest!”

  Suddenly Jesus turned and whispered to Simon, “Think about this: your meek little brother is my first little seed.”

  Simon opened his mouth, but Jesus had already turned back toward the beach.

  “Listen!” he cried. “Here’s a different story altogether! Once upon a time a sower went out to sow his fields. He cast the seed abroad with great sweeps of his hand. Some of it fell on the hard path, and the birds came and ate that seed before nightfall. Some fell on rocky ground and thin soil. Soon young seedlings appeared, but when the sun grew hot they withered and died because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns. The tough thorns grew up with the tender plants, choking them and overpowering them so that they bore no fruit.

  “But much of the seed fell on good soil where it flourished and brought forth an abundant harvest, yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold!”

  At the top of his lungs, Jesus cried: “Those who have ears to hear, let them hear!” Then he stood up and turned away from land and from the people with a finality.

  He looked at Andrew sitting in the bow of the boat. “Good morning, fisherman,” he said. He broke into a dazzling smile. “Andrew, I’ve worked up an appetite. Do we have some fish for breakfast?”

  Andrew shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry, we have no fish at all.”

  “Well, look here,” said Jesus, still smiling. “Here are your nets still in the boat. Put out to deep water and let them down for a catch. I can wait to eat.”

  “Master!” Simon boomed. The thick beard hid his mouth; but his voice roared like a lion in a cave. “What’s the point?” he said. “We’ve been toiling all night long with nothing to show for it.”

  “All night?” said Jesus with a seeming sympathy.

  “Yes.”

  “And you caught nothing?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “And this is your profession? This is how you make a living? This is the thing you’re best at? Ah, poor fellow!” Jesus beamed at Simon, his eyes flashing, his whole face filled with delight. “Do it anyway. Do it because I ask you to.”

  Simon glowered at Jesus, then said, “At your word I will let down the nets,” meaning: it’s your responsibility.

  So they rowed past the shallows, brought their oars in, allowed the boat to drift on its own, unfolded their nets on the floor, then both brothers cast nets from either side at the same time.

  The instant the nets hit water, the lake around them began to boil with activity. All at once they were floating in a shoal of fish so dense that the nets bulged and tugged and grew too heavy to haul inside.

  “John!” Simon bellowed. He stood erect and roared inland: “John, James, get out here!”

  The other boat that had been resting ashore was suddenly afloat and coming with great sweeps of its long oars.
r />   “The nets are tearing!” Simon cried.

  When the second boat arrived, all four men worked the two nets, pulling and pouring living fish out on the floorboards until their ankles were hidden in slippery bodies, until the boats themselves were sinking nearly to the gunwales.

  Then while three men labored with cheer, the fourth man, Simon, grew visibly agitated. Again and again he shot a nervous glance at Jesus, who sat in the stern. Finally, Simon turned from the nets and waded through fish to the back of the boat where he fell down at Jesus’ knees and said, “O Lord, I am a sinful man! More sinful than I ever knew. Depart from me!”

  At his confession the fishing ceased. Andrew and John and James stood up and looked at the sight: massive Simon sunk among the wet fish, bowing down to Jesus. They, too, let go of their nets. Immediately the lake relaxed, the water grew calm, the morning returned to a smiling silence—and Jesus’ next words, though spoken softly, were perfectly clear and ever thereafter remembered.

  “Simon, don’t be afraid,” he said. Then he looked from man to man in both boats. “Follow me,” he said, “and I will make you fishers of the human soul.”

  When they had brought their boats to land again, the men began to follow Jesus. Simon son of Jonah, James and John the sons of Zebedee—as Andrew had before them, they left their occupations, their boats, their possessions, their houses, and their families, and they made their homes with Jesus.

  By the following morning, Simon had shaved his beard. He showed up with pure white cheeks under the sunburnt thunder of his forehead.

  When he saw the change, Jesus burst out laughing.

  The blunt, roundheaded man stuck out his bottom lip and frowned.

  But that only caused Jesus to laugh the louder.

  “O tender soul!” he cried. “You have a mouth for pouting after all!” He reached and pinched Simon’s white cheek.

  That pinch destroyed the big man’s concentration, and he astonished himself by laughing along, barrel-chested and booming. So did Andrew, filled with gladness in glad company. So did James and John.

  “Simon bar-Jonah, as smooth as a boy! Why did you shave your face?”

  Simon grew serious again. “To be like you,” he said. “To be like my master.”

  IV

  THAT AFTERNOON JESUS AND ANDREW and the sons of Zebedee went home with Simon. He had insisted. He was full of a rage to humble himself and serve them all—foot-washings and cool drinks and food and rest. But when they arrived at the house, they found that Simon’s mother-in-law had gone to bed with chills and a violent fever.

  Simon’s desire to serve evaporated. Instead, Jesus performed a service of his own.

  He entered the woman’s room and knelt by the pallet where she lay shivering. He gazed into her moist face, curled back the grey hairs stuck to her brow, then took her by the hand. Lightly he raised her to a sitting position. She opened her eyes and focused her vision upon him. She blinked and swallowed.

  Slowly Jesus rose to standing. Gently he took the woman’s weight upon himself and raised her also to her feet. By the time the bedclothes had fallen away from her, the fever, too, was gone. She swallowed again and licked her lips and drew a huge breath of air as if she were inhaling some wonderful scent—and then it was she, flushed pink and grinning and strong again, who served the five men in her house.

  All through the meal Simon relished the miracle his master had performed. He kept asking his mother-in-law how it felt to be healed, then blowing out great woofs of air, completely bedazzled.

  Andrew withdrew into silence. With one or two others he might possibly join a conversation. But five was too many. Five left no gaps for a shy man’s word. He was content to listen.

  Therefore, when supper was done and everyone else was enjoying their talk, Andrew alone heard a hoarse voice whispering at the window, “Sir?” Softly, patiently: “Sir?”

  Andrew got up and went outside. It was already night, but in moonlight he could make out a figure in the alley between two houses. Someone was lurking in shadow, timidly whining at the window, “Sir? Sir—”

  Andrew said, “What’s the matter here?”

  The supplicant whirled around and crouched by the wall. Yet he held his ground. He didn’t bolt when Andrew began to approach him. Instead, he crept one tiny step forward and croaked, “Are you—?”

  The motion brought the man into a patch of moonlight, and suddenly Andrew saw the sheen of stone-white skin, the unreal porcelain glaze of leprosy: it shined down the hairless scalp and the neck of the solitary man.

  A leper! Andrew froze. Lepers defiled people. The law forbade them human contact. This was itself a flagrant violation, to enter the city at all.

  Then the man fell down on his face and whispered, “Master.”

  “No!” cried Andrew. “No, not me!” In horror he stumbled backward, tripped, and started to fall; but he was caught from behind by two firm hands.

  “Master,” the man croaked, “if you will you can make me clean.”

  Andrew was released, and Jesus stepped forward, peering at the leper in moonlight.

  “I will,” he said. He put both his hands on the silvery scalp as if in blessing, and he said, “Be clean.” The leprous flesh seemed to turn into a powder. Jesus stroked the man’s head and neck, brushing away the white dust of the disease. New skin appeared and the man was made soft and fresh, clean

  . “Now, go your way,” Jesus said. “Show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded. But do not breathe a word of this to anyone. Tell no one what I’ve done for you!”

  Andrew was surprised at how sternly Jesus spoke to the man. He sounded almost angry. But by the following morning Andrew decided that Jesus knew what the leper was going to do.

  Clearly, the man had not obeyed his healer, for the news had spread everywhere in Capernaum. Greater and greater multitudes besieged Jesus this day and the next, this week and the next.

  So swiftly and so far abroad flew the reports about Jesus, that people began to gather from all the cities of that region. They came from Beth-saida on the north shore of the lake, from Chorazin, a city built on the basalt hills, from Magdala, a center of fishing and shipbuilding, a city of wealth and a loose reputation.

  People traveled from everywhere in the ancient territories of Zebulun and Naphtali, the western and northern portions of Galilee.

  ONE DAY WHEN JESUS was preaching in the house of Simon’s mother-in-law, the multitude was so dense that Andrew had to flee the place. People filled every room. They crowded the doorway as well as the streets around the house, and those at the edges of the congregation stood on tiptoe, straining to hear what Jesus was saying.

  Andrew intended to keep his distance until the evening, when people would have to go home. But then he noticed four men coming down the street, carrying a light bed frame among them.

  On the frame lay a young man whose spine was doubled back upon itself. It thrust his chest up, bared his throat, and bent his neck back at a hard angle, so that even lying down the poor fellow was forced to stare back the way that he had come.

  The four men turned a corner and then stopped, stunned by the great sea of people before them.

  “Oh, no!” they said. “We’ll never get through.”

  The young man on the bed frame made a yowling sound. Evidently it was a question.

  “No,” said his friends. “We have to go home.”

  The yowling grew guttural and passionate. The crooked man barked and jibbered and seemed close to choking. His friends pleaded with him. “Gimel,” they said, “he’s surrounded by a thousand people. No one can break through that wall.”

  Now Gimel started to cry with his mouth wide open. So hopeless were his inarticulate sobs, that Andrew was moved to step forward and to speak.

  “You came to see Jesus?” he asked.

  The four men shrugged and shook their heads. “Little Gimel has been paralyzed for three years,” they said. “If this Jesus of Nazareth cannot help
him, maybe he’s meant to be paralyzed for the rest of his life.”

  “Ahhh!” Gimel wept. “Ahhh-ha. Ahhh-ha.”

  Andrew felt the tears rising in his own eyes. So he acted.

  “Do you see that mattock there?” he said. “Bring it and follow me.”

  He led the four men and their friend down a secluded alley. They came to the house at its back, where there was a staircase up to the roof. Andrew heard the animal murmuring of many people within. He also heard Jesus’ voice above all else. He climbed the stairs to the top, then called, “Come up, and bring little Gimel with you.”

  Carefully the four men ascended to the clay roof.

  Andrew pointed to a near section of the roof and said, “Crack it. This area is over the room where Jesus is preaching. Break through right here.”

  “Through the roof?” one man asked.

  Andrew smiled. “You need some sort of door to Jesus, don’t you? I’m giving you one.”

  With strength, then, that man lifted the mattock and dealt the roof a wonderful blow.

  Andrew heard chunks of ceiling fall inside. Then there was a perfect silence. He felt giddy to be so rash. Even Jesus had stopped talking.

  While one man swung the mattock the others plucked up pieces of sunbaked clay. Next they tore out the branches that had held the clay—and so they opened a long hole in the roof.

  Faces gaped up from the interior darkness. People had pressed backward, making a space directly below the roof gap.

  Gimel’s friends tore his bedding into strips which they tied to the corners of his frame. Together, now, they leaned toward the hole and lowered the thin, bent body of their friend into the room, setting him down right in front of Jesus of Nazareth.

  They dropped the cloth strips and lay on their stomachs to watch what might happen. Andrew, too, lay down beside them.

  Jesus looked up, directly at Andrew, then turned his attention to the paralyzed lad at his feet.

  “Take heart, my son,” he said. “Your sins are forgiven you.”

  Blasphemy! Andrew heard an immediate hissing in the house. The word hissed was a horrible accusation: “Blasphemy.” He looked and saw several well-known scribes murmuring among themselves. These men studied and taught the laws of Moses in reverential detail: recondite in knowing, fierce in the preservation of the law, they could not keep still before a profanation. So they were murmuring loudly enough for others to hear, “Who does he think he is? No one can forgive sins except God alone!”