The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel

by Wangerin Jr. , Walter

  Now, it may be that on the afternoon of her going forth in headlong joy to greet the returning Jesus, one of her small toes hooked a root. Whatever the cause, gladness fled her face. Terror widened her green eyelids. The great woman shrieked, “Master!” and seemed bodily to lift from the earth. “Master! Catch me!”

  Jesus, directly in her orbit, uttered a single astonished bark: “Ha!”

  For years thereafter the disciples debated the elements of his next act, whether it was a miracle or the desperate strength of a man in peril of his life.

  He caught her.

  Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say, he broke her fall.

  In the very last instant, as belly-first the flying woman descended, Jesus whirled around, bent, took her wallowing plunge upon his back, staggered forward three steps, and fell on his face.

  The city of Sychar, its citizens, and all the followers of Jesus observed a long moment of silence. Clearly, the woman had bruised the master’s dignity. Had she also broken some of his bones? No one could tell. He was buried facedown beneath a hill of flesh.

  In the voice of a little girl, the woman spoke: “Master? Are you—”

  A small puff of dust appeared near the region of Jesus’ mouth. Then a snuffling sound. Then more dust blew out with a rapid force. Actually—the sound was more like choking. And the whole mass of human flesh had begun to heave and shake. Jesus was striving to turn, his face in a grimace, all his breath gone out of him. The woman initiated efforts to climb off, but then Jesus sucked in an enormous wind and opened his mouth and burst into laughter. He was laughing! He had been laughing already in the dust! His eyes were closed, his black lashes bright with tears, his mouth stretched wide by the ear of the woman, producing wonderful booms of laughter.

  And when he had turned all the way over, he threw his arms around his massive admirer and hugged her, and she blinked and began to giggle, and he cried, “Woman, don’t love me so much! You could crush me with all your loving!”

  He released a long fountain of laughter. All his disciples and all of Sychar joined him, roaring at the mountainous love before them.

  And so it was that the celebration had already begun, laughing and dancing and the eating of meat—though Jesus said that for him the better food was ever to do the will of his Father, to accomplish his work.

  Sir, the woman had said at their first encounter, I perceive that you are a prophet. Then she put to him the question that most divided Jews and Samaritans: Our ancestors worshiped on Mount Gerizim. But your people say that Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.

  Who had the right religion? People killed and people died because of this question. But now an itinerant teacher gave a gaudy woman its final answer:

  Woman, Jesus said, the hour is coming—indeed, it is already here—when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. God is spirit. Those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

  The woman had fallen silent then. All her cosmetics became ineffectual. Honesty opened her eyes and made them beautiful: a human soul begging life.

  I know that Messiah is coming, she said. When he comes, he will show us all things.

  And Jesus, steadfastly returning her gaze, said, I who speak to you am he.

  III

  ON THE FIRST SABBATH after his return to Capernaum, Jesus entered the synagogue and sat down to teach those who were willing to hear him. Mary Magdalene took her place among the women, but she often cast her eyes toward the cloak that Jesus was wearing, and the blue fringes on it. She had washed it the day before, using a new mixture: a gentler alkali and liquid dripped through the ashes of another kind of soapwort. The fabric of Jesus’ garment was delicate. It had begun to wear thin from too many harsh washings. She meant to preserve it—but not at the expense of true cleanliness.

  While her attention was turned into the big room, Mary noticed that a man was moving toward Jesus. At the same time, all the small groups of teachers and students fell silent. They, too, were watching. By the length of their fringes and the width of their phylacteries, Mary recognized many teachers as Pharisees, ferocious for the laws of Moses.

  Jesus, too, stopped teaching.

  He raised his golden eyes, welcoming the man who approached him.

  “I,” the man said, “was a stonemason, sir. I made a living with my hands.”

  The stonemason drew his right hand from under his robe. It was atrophied, as if boiled to the bone and dried a dead-grey. Jesus looked at the withered hand while everyone else looked straight at Jesus.

  Something was going on in the synagogue, something Mary could not understand. Her face grew hot. She hated this leering, watchful, critical silence. What were all these people waiting for? Why did they seem so angry?

  The man said, “Jesus, I beg you to heal me so that I don’t have to beg in shame anymore.”

  Suddenly Jesus rose to his full height and said, “Come here. Don’t be afraid. Come and stand here in the midst of everyone.”

  The man made apologetic murmurs to people as he went toward Jesus. He bowed his head, self-conscious. But he obeyed. He came.

  Jesus put his hand on the man’s shoulder, then glared bright golden all around the room and said, “I know exactly what you are thinking: that it is not lawful to heal on the Sabbath. You’re waiting to see if I will break the law. Scribes, Pharisees, students of Moses, let me put it to you another way. Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good—or to do harm? To save a life, or to kill?”

  No one answered him.

  Jesus clapped his hands once, hard. The synagogue jumped. Mary’s heart failed inside of her. “Tell me, then,” Jesus shouted. “If your sheep falls into a pit on the Sabbath, which of you will not grab it and pull it out?”

  Still, no one answered him.

  “And wouldn’t you say,” he cried, his eyes flashing: “Wouldn’t you, even in terms of the law, say that a human is more valuable than a sheep? So! Then it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath!”

  Jesus’ face changed. The corners of his mouth turned down in sorrow, and he shook his head slowly, slowly. “Such a hardening of the heart,” he said. “My Father works on the Sabbath, and I am working on the Sabbath. Truly, truly, the Son does nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he is doing. Even greater works than these will he show him, that you all may marvel.”

  Then Jesus gripped more tightly the shoulder of the man beside him. “Stonemason,” he said, “stretch out your hand.”

  The man raised his right hand and reached it out as far as he could. It opened. It unfolded like a rose and was whole.

  Jesus did not sit down again. He strode out of the synagogue.

  But Mary held very still. She was filled with fear. For her master seemed intent upon danger, as if he wanted to make cruel people angry.

  The Pharisees: she could hear their whispering even now. She closed her eyes and covered her face, but it didn’t matter. She heard their wrathful accusations: Worse than breaking Sabbath laws, now the man is making himself equal to God!

  And they said, Not by the Lord does he heal. Jesus of Nazareth belongs to Beelzebul. By the prince of demons he casts out demons!

  And again, they said: How shall we destroy him?

  YET, ON THAT SAME AFTERNOON Jesus uttered a word so holy and so consoling that Mary’s fears were drowned in a private flood of gratitude.

  Many of the disciples were gathered at the house of Simon’s mother-in-law. Certain scribes and Pharisees had come demanding to see some sign to prove the authority of his words.

  Jesus was saying, “It is an evil and adulterous generation that seeks a sign. No sign shall be given it except the sign of Jonah.” At that moment, Andrew came into the room and signaled for Jesus’ attention.

  Jesus noticed and nodded, but continued speaking. “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale,” he said, “so will the Son of man be t
hree days and three nights in the heart of the earth—”

  Now he looked in Andrew’s direction and said, “Yes?”

  Andrew tried to move through the crowd, but Jesus said, “Say what you have to say from there.”

  Andrew looked distressed, but he spoke anyway.

  “Your mother is outside,” he said, “asking you to come out and speak with her. Your brothers are there, too.”

  Jesus didn’t move. Slowly he turned his gaze to everyone who surrounded him, person by person.

  As if asking Andrew a question, he said, “Who is my mother?”

  This caused Andrew to swallow and frown.

  Again Jesus said, “Where are my brothers?”

  Andrew shrugged.

  Mary, suddenly, was ramrod straight and perfectly alert. And then it seemed to her that Jesus turned his soft, wheat-colored eyes directly toward her.

  “Here,” he said, “is my mother and my brothers and my family. Here. For the one who desires to do the will of my Father is my sister. And my brother. And my mother.”

  Oh, sheets of glory fell on Mary now! Radiance and gratitude, and who was queen? She was conscious of none but her master and herself—and she was queen! So high past fears! Lifted higher than loneliness, she had been elevated into the family of Jesus!

  Truly, Mary from Magdala had a family, and she would be home wherever the Lord was present, forever.

  IV

  SO HEAVY WERE THE CROWDS all Sabbath after Jesus healed the stonemason’s hand, so insistent were the arguments and accusations of scribes and Pharisees, that by nightfall he was exhausted. He drew his closest disciples apart and said, “Let’s get to the boats.” Mary saw that his shoulders sagged forward, making a cave of his chest. “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.”

  Under cover of the night, then, some twenty disciples took separate routes down to the shore.

  Altogether, three rowboats pushed out into the Sea of Galilee. Mary watched which one Jesus entered and managed to climb into the same boat, though she was forced to crouch amidships on the floor.

  Jesus, she saw, also went down to the floor in the stern. He lay on a small cushion and fell asleep.

  So did she. She curled up. She listened to the rhythmic knocking of the rowlocks and the light flapping of the sail above her—then she dozed, and all the darkness of the night came close around her, like a coverlet.

  Suddenly someone stepped on her.

  No apology. A great foot crushed her shoulder, and she woke to feel the boat dropping. It hit bottom, rolled, and a screaming wind blew spume like dry salt into the boat. It tore through the sail. Lightning flashed. The man who’d stepped on her shoulder was trying to drag that sail in, but failing. Thunder cracked beside them. Men at the oars were throwing their bodies backward in tremendous efforts to control the boat. Its bow pointed upward. It stood on its stern. Then the stern was slammed by a great wave, kicked high in the air, and the boat plunged down to the pits of the deep. Water broke over all, and Mary was under it. She could drown in the boat. The seas were mountainous. She grabbed the gunwale in both hands to breathe and was nearly pitched overboard.

  Lightning lit the low cloud.

  Men were hoarse with bellowing.

  Bailing was useless.

  Now the sail shredded altogether. It clawed the air like fingers.

  A booming voice yelled, “Teacher! Teacher! Don’t you care?” It was Simon! Simon was the one who could not get the sail down. Now, hugging the mast, he had swung round to the stern and was shouting with panic and anger, “Don’t you care if we perish here?”

  Under stuttering flashes of lightning, Mary saw Jesus sit up in the back of the boat. He held the sides in both hands and rode the crests of two waves, one after the other. Then in spite of the wild pitching, he stood up on the back thwart and spread his arms and cried out louder than the winds, louder than the crashing seas: “Peace!” His body seemed small below the lightning and the violent night. Nevertheless, his voice was the thunder itself: “Peace!” he commanded. “Be still!”

  And the boat sighed and settled into smooth water. The sleeves of the torn sail dropped straight down on Simon’s shoulders. No one spoke. A universal calm covered everything, so that it was the disciples’ ears roaring, unaccustomed to quietude. Little waves slapped the hull.

  Simon, gaping and blowing sprays of water, whispered, “Who is this? What kind of man is this?”

  Jesus said, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?”

  But Mary wasn’t afraid. Mary’s heart was firm and brave, and even the seas were home to her, because Jesus was there.

  THE EASTERN SHORES of the Sea of Galilee were inhabited by a pagan people called the Gerasenes, though the disciples saw none when they beached their boats there the following morning. They had made landfall in lonely territory, some distance from any city.

  In fact, they happened to come ashore near limestone cliffs whose faces were broken and forbidding. All up and down the stone was scored by narrow pathways and riddled with countless tombs.

  While the small band of Jews sat below the cliffs to eat their breakfast, a piteous wailing descended to them, a sweet, thin agony like a beautiful flute filled with sorrow.

  Mary searched the honeycombed walls above her, but saw nothing. She couldn’t place the source of the wordless misery. But she felt very sad, mortally sad, just hearing it. The bread became dry in her throat and she could not swallow it.

  Nor did the wailing cease. If the other disciples heard it, they gave no sign. Mary rose up and walked south along the cliffs. Sometimes the wailing tightened a pitch; sometimes it lowered into moaning; but it continued without pause, as if the graves themselves could breathe and sing.

  Farther south where there was grass on the slopes, Mary noticed a herd of pigs coming over a low ridge, a large herd, and she saw swineherds following them. She ran toward the swineherds, calling, “Sir! Sir, someone’s crying on the cliffs back there.”

  One swineherd high on the hillside crossed his hands over his staff and stared at her.

  “He’s hurt!” Mary called. “I think he’s hurt. I’ve cried like that, but only when I was terribly hurt. Can you hear him? Do you know him?”

  “Leave him alone,” the swineherd said, returning to his pigs.

  “What?” cried Mary. “Do nothing?”

  The swineherd ignored her.

  “You know him, don’t you?” Mary shouted.

  Abruptly the swineherd lifted his staff and pointed it at her. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “My name is Mary. From Magdala.”

  “A Galilean.”

  “Yes.”

  “A Jew.”

  “Yes.”

  “You people! You and your pompous laws, despising us for eating pork, then meddling in our lives. Go home. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Go on home.”

  Jeeeeee! Jeeee—High and horrible, the wailing tore the morning air above the tombs. Such a mortal bereavement!—it pierced Mary to the heart. “How can you ignore that?” she yelled.

  “Idiot,” the swineherd sneered. He slapped pigs with the side of his staff. “The man likes graves. He’s bedeviled. Knocks his skull with stones, slashes his flesh. We tie him with fetters, he snaps them. We tie him with chains, he breaks them—”

  “Is that what you do to those possessed?” Mary was near tears. “Tie them with iron?”

  “Go on! Get out of here, you self-righteous, trifling Jew!” the swineherd yelled. Then he released a hoarse laugh. “There!” he yelled, pointing. “There’s your demoniac, the object of your affections!”

  Mary looked and saw a man completely naked, leaping from rock to rock on the cliff face, screaming, Jeeeee! Jeeeee—and throwing stones down at the disciples on the beach below.

  “Jeeeeesus!” he was shrieking. “What d’you have to do with me, Jesus? Jesus! Jesus, Son of the Most High God!”

  Suddenly the madman vanished—then just as suddenly he appeared far
ther down. “Jeeeesus, did you come to torture me before the time?” Now he put his head down and started to run top speed down the stones toward Jesus, screaming, “Don’t hurt me! Don’t hurt me! Don’t hurt me!”

  Mary, too, was racing back as fast as she could.

  Jesus was walking forward, separating himself from the disciples.

  The man dropped to flat land, howled, and kicked sand in a manic dash at Jesus.

  Jesus called, “What is your name?” At once it looked as if the naked man took a blow to the throat. His legs flew out in front of him and he fell hard on his back.

  But he rolled over and, crouching on his hands and knees, answered Jesus. In a multitudinous growl he said, “My name is legion; for we are many!”

  “Ah, legion!” Jesus was striding forward. “Warrior devils! Soldier devils! Five thousand craven devils—you know my name!” he cried. “I command you, come out of that man!”

  “Wait!” In a beautiful, flutelike sorrow, a choir of voices wailed from the mouth of the naked man, “Jeeesus, we beg you, don’t send us into the abyss! Send us into the swine on the hillside.”

  Mary, creeping close behind her master, heard him mutter, “Go.”

  Immediately the naked man slumped to the ground.

  But suddenly the pigs on the green slope splayed their short legs and they raised an abominable squealing. They began to stampede downhill. The swineherds jumped about, cursing and swearing, but they could do nothing to control their herds. Two thousand swine like a living mudslide were tumbling downhill. They ran squealing over the beach and into the lake, where they thrashed the water and gargled and spluttered and died—until the entire lake was covered with the floating, rolling barrels of pig corpses.