The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel

by Wangerin Jr. , Walter

  An empty hillside. The swineherds, too, had fled.

  But Mary Magdalene had already gone to Simon’s boat and cut down the hanging rags of his sail. She found a skin of clean water and gathered up her own robe, then returned to the man who had been wailing. He lay unconscious on the ground.

  Carefully, by slow strokes, Mary washed him. She washed his thin hair. She used the narrower strips of sail to bind his new wounds, all the while murmuring, “I know, I know, I know what you’ve suffered, I know it very well.” With her fingertips she probed lightly the muscles of his arms, unable to find the strength that might have snapped chains and fetters: his poor, lean neck was gristle and tendon, and she could hide her whole hand in the hollow of his collarbone.

  Finally, Mary wrapped him in her robe. Jesus had made the madman clean within. She had rendered him clean without. She felt glad for the shared ministration.

  The disciples, too, seemed to approve her new independence. Andrew whispered, “Thank you.”

  Then, over the low ridge in the south, people began to appear, natives, Gerasenes moving on the balls of their feet, suspicious, ready to bolt in an instant.

  They gaped at the sea-full of drowned pigs. “See?” said the swineherds in front of all. “Do you believe us now?”

  The Gerasenes crept down the slope, then stopped in a tight knot on the beach, amazed: the man that had been filled with demons was sitting at the feet of Jesus, clean and clothed and sane.

  “Get away!” the swineherds called from their distance. “Jew, depart from here. Go on, go home. Leave us alone, now.”

  Slowly Jesus arose, preparing to oblige them.

  But to the man whom he had freed of demons he said, “Stay here among this people. They need your word and your living example, sir. Return to your own house and declare how much God has done for you.”

  THE SKY WAS BRIGHT BLUE when Jesus and his disciples returned across the lake. The heavens had been scrubbed clean by the storm that had nearly swamped them the night before.

  Again, Jesus took his place in the stern of Simon’s boat. He sat on the back thwart facing the prow, his bare feet planted wide on the deck before him, elbows on his knees, his face buried in his hands. The hair hung down like a veil, a tangled black mass covering head and arms and legs to the shin.

  Mary sat on the floor near his feet, straining to hear her rabbi’s breathing. She wanted to hear a regular exhalation. She hoped that he was sleeping in his dark seclusion.

  Without moving, Jesus said, “You are a healer, Magdalene. You know the hurts, and so you are a healer. Shalom.”

  Mary glanced at the occlusive black curtain, her heart racing on account of his word.

  She said, “Lord, do you know that my fingers are always cold? Even when I feel warm, they’re chalk white and cold, and I worry that I leave traces of coldness on everyone I touch. You can’t wash the cold away.”

  Jesus, his head slung down between his shoulders, didn’t answer.

  Then Mary heard a sigh so deep that the man’s whole body shuddered. She assumed that he had fallen asleep, and she was glad.

  PEOPLE SAW THE three boats coming. By the time they touched land, people had already begun to gather along the Capernaum shore.

  Jesus bound his hair back in a headband and bent to help Simon and Andrew drag their boat up on shore. They stowed the oars and other equipment. Simon had just cut down the last shreds of sail from the yard of his stout mast; the disciples had just begun to wash the boat’s interior when a small, red-faced man threw himself through the crowd and fell at Jesus’ heels.

  “Master!” he panted.

  “Jairus!” said Jesus. “What’s the matter?” He knew the man. He had often seen Jairus arrange worship in the Capernaum synagogue.

  “Master, my child is dying!”

  “Your daughter?”

  “Every breath is weaker than the one before! She’s dying right now! Please, come and lay your hands on her. Please!”

  Jesus said, “Take me to her.”

  Jairus jumped up and pleaded with people to move—then he and Jesus, the disciples and most of the multitude began to flow through the streets toward high ground near the synagogue.

  “Hurry, hurry,” Jairus whined, pumping his short arms. “Get out of our way! Hurry!”

  Suddenly Jesus stopped. Unaware, Jairus continued to plow forward, but Jesus was looking at the crowds directly behind him.

  “Who touched me?” he asked.

  Simon released a harsh laugh. “Touched you?” he cried. “Touched you! This is a mob. Who didn’t touch you?”

  Jesus ignored the ridicule and shouted: “Who touched my tunic just now? I felt the power go out of me—”

  Jairus noticed that the crowd had come to a complete halt. He was struggling helplessly against a human wall. Then he saw that the master was no longer with him, that the multitude was watching Jesus in another exchange altogether.

  People had withdrawn from Jesus, making a circle of space before him. A thin, frightened woman was crouching down in that space, a wasted body covered with the sores of ill nourishment.

  “Jesus!” Jairus called. “There’s no time! My daughter has no time left!”

  But Jesus’ back was turned. He was listening to the woman whose words rushed out as if she were arguing for her life:

  “But I’ve been bleeding for twelve years, and nothing has stopped the flow, nothing, not even the doctors. I spent everything I had on doctors and they only made me worse than before, but then I saw you coming across the lake this morning and I thought: If I just touch the hem of his garment I will be well—”

  Abruptly she paused. She shrank backward in alarm. Jesus had taken a step toward her and dropped to one knee.

  “—so I touched your tunic, you see—” she breathed, her eyes terrified. Jesus was stretching his hands toward her face.

  “—and I’m well, now. I’m well. I’m not bleeding—”

  Jesus drew the woman’s grey face to his shoulder and patted her back. “Daughter,” he whispered, “your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”

  When Jesus rose up and walked toward Jairus again, the small man could not look at him. Neither was he trying to fight through the crowds toward his house any more. His face was white, drained of expression, his eyes sightless.

  Another man spoke to Jesus with an air of superiority. “No need,” he said, nodding as if he and Jesus were level-headed men while Jairus was a child requiring guidance. “You may as well go your way,” the man said. “Jairus’ daughter is dead.”

  Blankly Jairus looked here and there, as if he’d lost something.

  Jesus seized Jairus by his shoulders and, glaring at the messenger, said, “Jairus, do not be afraid. Do you hear me? Just believe. Now is the time for believing!”

  Jesus took Jairus’ elbow and led him with great strides toward his house. The master’s eyes flashed like weapons in sunlight; nor did he temper their aggression when he approached the house and heard tumultuous grieving inside. Women sat in the courtyard blowing on the wooden pipes of sorrow and wailing as loud as they could.

  Jairus blanched and pulled backward.

  Jesus still led him into his house. Jesus cried, “Stop this noise! The child is not dead but sleeping!”

  These were professional mourners. They were paid to be sad, and they thought they knew their business. They took just an instant to process what Jesus had said, then they broke into sardonic laughter.

  But Jesus’ eyes burned a more terrible heat. He released Jairus, tore the headband from his hair, opened it into a leather strap, and physically drove the mourners out of the house. He called Simon and John and James to join him, then he shut the door.

  At once the aspect of the master changed.

  “Where is the child?” he asked.

  Her mother answered, “This way.”

  She led them into a back room where a single candle burned. The girl had been clothed in clean linen. Her large eyes were closed,
the eyelids fringed with a rich black lash. Her eyebrows were high, beautifully etched; but her cheek was alabaster, and her fingertips a lily white.

  Jesus stepped to her pallet and took her hand in his.

  “Talitha,” he said, “cumi.”

  Damsel, I say to you: arise.

  As though she were waking from sleep, the child opened her eyes and looked at the faces surrounding her and smiled.

  Jairus fell on his knees beside her, weeping.

  “Papa,” she said, “what’s the matter?” She sat up and began to give his back many little pats.

  Her mother clasped her hands and whispered. “She’s twelve years old! She’s very smart.”

  Simon cleared his voice and said, “Child, do you know who this man is? Do you know who healed you just now?”

  Jesus said to her mother, “Yes, I can see how smart she is. She’s also hungry. Why don’t you find her something good to eat?”

  V

  IN THAT SAME SEASON, Jesus took his closest disciples and left Capernaum. For several weeks they traveled from village to village toward the central portions of the province—toward Nazareth.

  On the way the master grew quieter. He preached less. There was less quickness or humor in his glance. Often he seemed oblivious of the conversation around him. And every time he bade farewell to the people of a village, he seemed more burdened than before, compressing his lips in thought.

  Finally Jesus drew the disciples into a private grove of olive trees and sat and disclosed his soul to them.

  “These people make me feel so sad,” he said. “They are distressed and scattered—like sheep without a shepherd. They need the presence of shepherds. Their souls are ready to be harvested for the Lord.”

  Jesus looked specifically at the twelve whom he had chosen—all sitting on the ground and gazing back at him. “I am conferring upon you power and authority,” he said, “to cure diseases and to cast out unclean spirits. The Lord of the harvest sends you. I send you. Go forth two by two. Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, preaching that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils. Take nothing for the journey except your staff: no bread, no bag, no money in your belt. Wear one coat only. Go in sandals. Where you enter a house, stay there till you leave the village altogether. But if any village refuses to hear you, leave it—and when you go, shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against it.

  “Simon?”

  The large disciple stood up. Jesus rose, too, and embraced him. As they stepped apart, swiftly, Jesus reached and pinched his bald cheek and grinned.

  “Andrew? James? Judas? Matthew?”

  One by one he sealed the disciples’ commission with an embrace.

  “No need to wait. Nothing to buy. Let those who hear you also feed you. Pray to your Father in heaven. Go.”

  The order had been swiftly given. It should as swiftly be obeyed. In that same hour, then, the disciples divided themselves into pairs and departed into the world.

  They were an apprehensive lot. This switch from disciple to preacher seemed far too soon. How could they trust their own knowledge or skill? Only slowly did they find their voices.

  But from the beginning they used the words that Jesus had used, begging people to repent.

  Soon they were anointing sick people with a glistening olive oil, and then they became giddy with excitement when the sick were healed.

  VI

  IN NAZARETH, IN THE HOME of Jesus’ mother—the same house where her rabbi had been raised from a baby—Mary Magdalene baked a basketful of raisin cakes with honey, very sweet. She filled a flask with good thick cream and a bag with ripe figs and pomegranates. Then she gathered her goods together and by a winding path climbed to the top of the hill behind the city.

  It was mid-afternoon when she went. She appreciated the breeze into which she walked on that high ground. It came from the Great Sea to the east, still carrying a salt smell and causing in her the sense of spaciousness.

  Ahead of her—sitting on rock at the edge of the hill, staring out over the green Esdraelon Valley, his back to her—she saw Jesus, and she paused.

  Mary had a piece of news for him which would be very difficult to deliver and even more difficult to hear. Bad news. Right now she regretted her born expression, always frowning, always sober. She wished it were in her nature to smile lightly and make cheerful, senseless conversation.

  Well, but she had the cream and the pomegranates.

  Jesus shifted his gaze. He angled his head to the left. Suddenly, under the sunlight, she saw that her rabbi’s black hair reflected a deep red sheen. That discovery raised a small commotion in Mary’s breast, and she blurted: “Raisin cakes, Rabboni! A little lunch, sir, while you are sitting here!”

  Jesus turned and smiled. To Mary his eyes were as steadfast as medallions. He was radiant and ruddy, his teeth perfectly white. Foolishly she bustled toward him, her face warm with feeling, then she raised her eyes and saw the drop-off, the depth of the valley before them, and she gasped. She buckled at the knees and began to fall.

  But Jesus caught her elbow as well as most of the food. One round pomegranate bounced over the edge of the rock and was swallowed by the blue air.

  “Oh, my!” Mary whispered, pressing backward but peering down into the valley.

  “Sit,” said Jesus.

  In a fleeting whisper Mary breathed: “Rabboni, I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “Sit, sit,” Jesus said. He had not released her elbow. He was settling her slowly to the ground. “Sit with your back to the stone. You’ll feel less like sliding into the abyss. Did you bring enough food for two? Ah, yes. Exactly enough.”

  He picked through her basket and chose a raisin cake and handed it to her. “Mary from Magdala,” he said with a formal tilt to his head, his cheeks bunched like beds of spices: “would you be pleased to dine with me?”

  Mary took the cake and nibbled at it, wishing her face were round and easy with common happiness. But she knew she had the countenance of pale longing.

  Jesus selected another cake, sighed, bit hugely, and chewed—looking out over the wide valley.

  “Ah! You baked it with honey,” he said. “What a pleasure. What a pleasure this afternoon has become.”

  He glanced at Mary. “For years this was my hiding place,” he said. “When I was a lad I hid here in plain sight, swinging my feet over the world. Mary, it really is a map of the world of our people. Look there.”

  Jesus raised his left hand and pointed across the vast patchwork of farmers’ fields and orchards and vineyards to the eastern reaches of the valley.

  “Twelve centuries ago Deborah the prophetess, the judge of God, fought King Jabin and the Canaanites in that very place. Jabin came riding down this valley with an army of mighty iron chariots. But the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped! The clouds dropped water. The Kishon became a torrent. God mired Jabin’s chariots in mud, and Deborah’s light-footed armies rushed down to victory.” Jesus turned and smiled. “My mother loves that story. She has told it to me again and again—right where you are sitting now.”

  Mary whispered, “Thank you.”

  Jesus raised his eyebrows. She couldn’t help noticing that he had a forehead as broad and noble as his mother’s. Each had the same distinctive widow’s peak—though his mother’s hair was streaked with grey and pulled severely back.

  “Thanks for what?” Jesus said.

  “Well, it’s your hiding place,” Mary whispered. “And I’m sitting in it, too.”

  “Ah,” said Jesus. “So you are. Pale Mary! The alabaster maiden from Magdala is swinging her feet above the whole world.” He smiled again, then pointed to the extreme southeast.

  “There,” he said. “Do you see that ridge of hills at the edge of the valley?”

  She nodded that she did, and he continued: “It was called Mount Gilboa. One thousand years ago King Saul and his son Jonathan died in battle on that mountain. And then King Da
vid wept for their deaths. For both of their deaths, for his brother and for his enemy.”

  Jesus plucked a fig from the bag by her knee and held it just in front of his lips. “Saul and Jonathan,” he murmured, “beloved and lovely, swifter than eagles, stronger than lions. That’s what David sang in his sorrow.”

  Jesus bit into the fig and chewed.

  Mary said, “Rabboni?”

  “Yes?” he said.

  “You are a good man.”

  “Well, so you say,” he said. “But there is none so good as God.”

  “You do good things,” said Mary. “You do good things for everyone who comes to you. I have never seen you do a bad thing.” She paused, having come to a distressful question. “Then why are so many people angry at you?”

  “These are excellent figs,” Jesus said. “But I like your raisin cakes better. It’s the honey I like.”

  He chewed with a slow clenching of his jaw muscles. Mary could hear the popping of tiny fig seeds between his teeth.

  Jesus said, “God is doing a new thing. It’s the change that troubles some people. The old covenant is passing away. A new one is coming. But new wine requires new wine skins. Old skins would burst from a new ferment, and all the wine would be lost. The old traditions cannot contain what the Father is doing through me. Even the rules for the Sabbath have to change.”

  “Are you sad when people get angry at you?”

  “Sad,” said Jesus. “Yes.”

  Mary’s heart was moved inside of her.

  “But I have to do what I see my Father doing. The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing—and greater things than these will he show him, that they may all marvel.”

  “Greater things, Rabboni?” Mary said. “Oh, I need no greater thing than this, that I can bake you raisin cakes, and you may enjoy a bite or two.”

  Jesus still stared out over the valley. His eye had a faraway look, and his words a grave formality, like the tolling of a bell. “The hour is coming,” he said, “and now already is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. Even those in tombs will come forth.”