He paused a moment. “Come,” he said. “Let’s eat.”
They did. The twelve disciples began to eat, but there was nothing common about this meal anymore, nothing merely traditional, however ancient the practice. These men took their food with deliberation, as if every gesture required a conscious deciding.
Jesus did not eat.
He gazed into the faces that surrounded him, in some sense filling himself with his dear friends. But he had to temper his intensity: simply glancing at Andrew caused that man to stop chewing and begin blinking against his tears again.
Each face. Each disciple. Thomas, focused on the food, biting with strong clenches of the jaw muscles. Matthew, grey scholar, cutting his pieces very small. The battling eyes of Judas, that black explosion of eyebrow which snapped and twitched like the wings of a dying insect.
Compulsively, Jesus sighed. Suddenly, sorrow was tearing at his soul as with something like grappling hooks. Heat rushed into his face, and Jesus groaned aloud. The disciples glanced up and immediately stopped eating, looking guilty.
Almost inaudibly, Jesus whispered, “One of you is about to betray me.”
The whole company gasped, as if Jesus had cracked the table with an ax.
“What?” said Thomas. “What did he say?”
Andrew, in perfect anguish, choked: “Is it me, Lord?”
Jesus noticed that Simon made some sort of signal to John. John nodded. And then, because he lay in the place of honor, immediately to Jesus’ right, John leaned his head against Jesus’ bosom, and said, “Who, Lord? Who is it?”
At that same moment Judas was reaching his bread to the sauce of bitter herbs. “Rabbi,” he said, “is it me?”
Jesus picked up a piece of bread and dipped it in the dish with Judas. He said, “The one who is sharing the sauce with me, he is the one.”
Judas froze. He raised his eyes and stared at Jesus, his whole face writhing, beseeching, defying—
Jesus returned the gaze with a level looking and whispered, “The Son of man shall surely go as it is written of him; but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed! It were better for him if he had not been born.”
“What?” Thomas said. “What did he say? I can’t hear what he’s saying!”
Like tearing roots from the soil, Judas took his eyes from Jesus and covered them. “Master.” He whispered as softly as Jesus: “What do you want of me?”
Jesus, fixed upon the face of Judas, whispered, “That you waste no more time, whatever you choose to do, do it quickly.”
Judas took three brief and separate breaths, then by the strength of his thin arms he forced his body upward and away from the table. He walked to the door, opened it, and was swallowed by the darkness.
Night air wandered into the room, moist and cold. Simon got up and closed the door and lay down again on his stomach.
There was neither eating nor speaking in the room after that. Soon the candle flames stood as straight as soldiers—and all the shadow along the walls seemed a solid thing.
Jesus felt as if the light itself were dying. Only a little was left in which to live and to love his disciples.
“Children,” he said, “yet a little while I am with you—but then you will not see me, because where I am going you cannot come.
“A new commandment I give to you,” he said. He formed these words in his mouth as if he were carving them in stone—uncrushable words, the memorial he absolutely must leave behind:
“Love one another,” he said. “Even as I have loved you, you must love one another. By this will the whole world know that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.
“Do you love me now? Then you will keep my commandment when I am not here.
“And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, even the Spirit of truth.
“But I will not leave you desolate. I will return to you. Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live also.
“In the meantime, children, you will weep and lament. I am so sorry to tell you so. The world will rejoice, and you will be sad. Worse, already tonight you will fall away from me. All of you, just as it is written: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered abroad.”
“No!” Jesus recognized the shout immediately: Simon Peter. He had found something to say, and he was up on his knees to say it: “No, Lord! Though they might, I will never fall away from you!”
Jesus wondered if this clamorous disciple knew how often his voice sounded like mere whining. “Simon, Simon,” he said, “Satan asked to have you. He wanted to sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail.”
Simon thumped the table: “Lord, I’m ready to go to prison with you.”
“To prison?” said Jesus. “Oh, Peter, this very night before the first rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.”
But Simon raised his arm and declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you.”
In fact, Jesus had ceased listening to Simon’s bluster.
He gathered himself into a formal position, sitting cross-legged before the table. He took the unleavened bread in two hands and elevated it in a motion so dignified, so noble and holy, that Simon and every other man in the room was reduced to an aweful silence.
Aloud, Jesus blessed the bread. He brought it low and broke it and then handed it to the disciples, saying, “Take and eat.”
They obeyed. Jesus watched. And when they all were eating the bread, he declared: “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in the remembrance of me.”
Their chewing became massively slow.
Jesus took the cup of Passover wine and lifted it and gave thanks, then he gave it to the disciples exactly as he had given them the bread. While they were drinking, he said, “This is my blood of the covenant, shed for many for the remission of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in the remembrance of me.”
And while they passed the cup one to the other, Jesus began to sing. He rocked his body back and forth like the old men who prayed in the synagogue. He closed his eyes and rocked and sang in a strong voice:
Praise the Lord, all nations.
Extol him, all you peoples!
Great is his love,
his steadfast love
and his faithfulness lasts forever.
Those who had finished drinking joined the song, but softly.
When the song was done, Jesus bowed his head and closed his eyes and took John by the hand.
“Come,” he said. “It’s time to go.”
So they all stood up and filed out into the dark night and descended the stairs from the upper building to the lower one. They passed through the courtyard and out the west-facing door which gave down the side of Mount Zion. But Jesus led them down the eastern slope of Zion, praying softly as they went: Abba, Abba, Abba.
The wind had died. Houses were closed against the vapors of the night. Jesus took his small band down the long steps, the ancient steps into the lower city.
Father, I’ve given them the words you gave me. They know I came from you. They believe you sent me—
Through the City of David they walked, through roads a thousand years old, dim and unlit. The stars gave a dead light. The disciples had neither a lantern nor a torch. Jesus persisted in his praying:
Holy Father, keep them in your name, that they may be one, even as we are one—
Out of the city by the Potsherd Gate and down again into the Kidron valley. The walls of Jerusalem rose high on their left side. On their right, like silent eyes, were the whitewashed tombs of the wealthy. And Jesus still was praying:
The glory you gave me I’ve given them, that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you have sent me, and that you love them even as you love me—
And so, as was h
is custom whenever he stayed in Jerusalem, Jesus came in the dark shadow of the night to the Mount of Olives, and there he stopped.
“STAY HERE.”
Jesus’ words were short and bitten.
To eight of the disciples, he said, “Stay here. While I pray.”
Touching Simon and James on their shoulders, then taking John’s hand in his own, Jesus entered a private olive grove called Gethsemane. There was no light beneath these ancient trees, whose trunks were great twists of shadow. Jesus moved by memory.
As he walked, breathing became difficult for him. His legs felt numb and heavy.
“My soul,” he groaned. “My soul is sorrowful. Even unto death.”
He stopped. His throat was thickening. There was no controlling this anymore.
“Wait here,” he said, releasing John’s hand. His voice sounded harsh. He knew it would get worse. He barked, “Watch with me!” and rushed through the grove the distance of a stone’s throw, then stumbled and fell face down on the ground. He drew his knees up under himself like a man palsied. He drove his fingers through the soil and howled, “Abba! Abba!”
Then the storm broke. Jesus wailed aloud from earth even unto heaven: “ABBA, FATHER, TAKE THIS CUP AWAY FROM ME!
Take this cup away from me.
Remove it, O my God.
I don’t want to drink such suffering.
Abba, Abba—I don’t.”
Silence. Jesus breathed through his nostrils, his cheek in the dirt. No wind. No light. No sound, not the rustling of leaves nor the call of an evening insect. Nothing.
Without lifting his head, by a terrible effort, Jesus uttered words more reasonable: “Father, all things are possible with you. You can abolish the cup. You can make this hour pass away from me—”
Sweat pooled in the bridge of his nose. It drizzled into his eyes, burning, and dropped to the earth as thick as blood. Jesus was suffering powerful oppositions. He wanted his prayer to be both truthful and obedient, but these seemed to be adversaries within him, each demanding his soul.
Jesus retracted his lips and ground his teeth and for a long while could utter nothing at all. But then he had brought his mind and his breathing and his horror under greater control, and he spoke the last part of his prayer in meek syllables:
“Nevertheless, not my will, Abba,” Jesus said. “Let yours be done.”
He lay a while in perfect quietness then, weak, empty, and exhausted.
Finally he rose up. His legs trembled under the natural weight of standing, but he was able to make his way back to James and Simon and John.
When he came to them, his heart sank into deeper and deeper loneliness. Their bodies lay like sacks at the bases of two trees. By the slow draw of easy breathing, Jesus knew that they were sleeping, all three.
“What, Simon?” he said to his oblivious disciple. “Couldn’t you watch one hour with me? The spirit is willing, but the flesh is so weak.”
Jesus composed himself. By conscious thought he stood erect and dignified. Then he saw small firelight below him, at the foot of the Mount of Olives, so he bent to his disciples and shook them one by one awake.
“Arise and look,” he said, “Look down the mountain. See? The hour has come. My betrayer is at hand—”
Simon snorted, then made a great show of being on guard and seeing the torch-fires that wound up the path from the Kidron valley, a long line of winking lights.
Jesus went out of Gethsemane and began to rouse the rest of his disciples. They, too, had been overwhelmed with weariness. They woke foolishly, clearing their throats, complaining like children, not quite comprehending where they were or what was about to happen.
But then the smoking torches began to arrive. There came, too, the soft clashing of armor, scabbards, swords. And suddenly, from three sides at once: soldiers appeared—the troops and officers of Herod Antipas’ armies, as well as captains of the Temple police. In front of them all Jesus recognized a nervous little figure, a taut fellow whose torch blazed brighter and blacker than the others: Judas, mirroring a smile, his great eyebrow fairly flying from his head in a manic show of civility.
Judas raised the torch above one disciple and then another, peering into their faces, chattering, “Yes, yes, greetings to you, yes,” and moving on.
Jesus, watching the progress of the small zealot, suffered an enormous sadness.
Finally, Judas spied him where he stood. The man’s mouth grew tighter in smiling, but his eyes swelled with begging. He began to bob his head as if Jesus and he shared secrets.
He came so close to his Teacher that Jesus could see the pores in his flesh. Loudly Judas exclaimed, “Hail, Master!” Then he went up on his toes, and he kissed him.
A servant of the high priest called, “Is that our man, then?”
Judas backed away, saying nothing, staring at Jesus.
The servant began to stride forward with a knife and a rope.
Suddenly, someone huge hurtled past Jesus, bellowing and slashing the air with a short sword.
Judas screamed, “Simon, Simon! Messiah is here!”
Simon Peter struck the rope and the knife from the servant’s hands and in a wild stroke cut off the man’s ear.
But Jesus sprang forward and grabbed Simon from behind. He tightened his left arm against the big man’s throat, and with his right hand stripped the weapon from Simon’s fingers.
“Put it up!” Jesus growled in Simon’s ear. “Those who take the sword perish by the sword.”
Simon went slack. Jesus released him. “Don’t you know,” he said, “that I could ask my Father for twelve legions of angels and he would send them to me?”
Jesus reached down and picked up the severed ear of the servant and touched it again to the side of the man’s head and healed him. At the same time he found Judas in the throng and glared at him. With a raw, specific condemnation, he declared, “But I would never ask my Father for such a thing, or else the Scriptures would never be fulfilled.”
Little Judas dropped his torch. It seemed an involuntary act. Yet he left it on the ground. He hesitated no more than the time it takes to shrug one’s shoulders, then vanished.
Jesus, now drawing himself erect before the captains of the Temple, said, “Have you come out with swords and clubs to capture me like a robber? Day after day I sat in the Temple teaching, and you didn’t seize me then. But,” he said, starting to stride toward them, “this is your hour, and the power of darkness.”
As if his word were their command, the soldiers also moved forward. In torchlight they began to bind Jesus’ arms.
One of the disciples bleated in fear. This was proving to be a very large contingent of soldiers. The more they filled the area around Jesus, the more the disciples shrank backward.
Jesus watched as terror overtook his children and they fled. Some crept away. Some dodged and raced away. But they all scattered, all of them, till no one was left and Jesus was completely alone.
III
JOHN!” IT WAS A HOARSE, guttural whisper, unrecognizable.
“John! Is that you?”
John had been hurrying through the narrow streets of the lower city. He froze and flattened himself to a wall. The night was impenetrable.
“John son of Zebedee! Where are you?”
The young man almost crouched down in order to hide. Instead, he surprised himself by calling out, “Who’s that? Who’s there?”
The whispering stopped. Except for a distant clatter of running feet, the city was still as stone. John suffered a moment of panic—then a hand grabbed his shoulder. He whirled and delivered a blow to the side of someone’s head. It cracked his knuckles, and he yelped.
The voice said, “Relax. It’s me, Simon.”
“Simon!” John snapped. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Sorry,” said Simon. “Sorry. Where are you going?”
John, rubbing his hand, began to walk at a quick pace.
Simon followed.
“I know you�
�ve got some sort of a plan,” he said.
John bent his elbows and started to trot. Simon, puffing harder, ran, too.
“First you went toward Bethany like the rest,” Simon said. “But then you stopped. I saw you. You turned round and came back to the city. I followed you. You knocked on someone’s door. Who was that? I saw him rush out ahead of you, throwing on his robes as he went. You’re going after him now, right?”
“Yes, Simon—and if I don’t get there when he does, I miss my chance. You’ve already taken more time than I can spare.”
John broke into a steady running.
“Get where?” Simon called. “What chance?” The bigger man was having trouble keeping up.
“To be with him!”
“Him? Who?”
“Jesus! To be with Jesus!”
“Jesus? Where?”
“The high priest’s palace!”
“Jesus!” Simon exclaimed. “That’s exactly what I thought!”
But John said nothing now. He was running swiftly up the ancient steps to Mount Zion. Simon, gasping for air, fell farther and farther back.
On the heights of Zion other people were hurrying through the dark streets, too, all converging northeast of the Essene quarter. John tempered his speed to match theirs. He didn’t want to attract attention. These people were members of the Sanhedrin, summoned suddenly by Caiaphas to his palace. John knew of the meeting. It was a trial. Joseph of Arimathea had told him.
He turned a corner and ran along a low wall, then stopped at the gate of the high priest’s courtyard. It was shut. But there, just inside, was Joseph himself, peering anxiously into the night.
As soon as he recognized John, he spoke to the maid who was keeping the gate, gestured toward John, then dashed through the courtyard to stairs that led to an upper chamber.
The maid came and opened the gate to John.
There was too much light in here. Officers were standing by a central fire, warming themselves. Lanterns were attached to the walls round about. John felt uncomfortable. He bowed his head and began to walk toward the stairs, when a voice boomed, “John! John—here! Out here!”
The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel Page 73
