Jesus! The one who will save his people! Immanuel! God with us!
Soon, Israel would be free!
They all returned together from Nazareth and went to the synagogue to worship the Lord. Jesus sat near the front, his disciples around him. Mary, throat tight with excitement, strained forward to watch from the women’s gallery as the Torah was read and the men began to talk about the meaning of the Law of Moses. When Jesus rose, there was a hush, for many had already heard he had been preaching along the shores of the Sea of Galilee. And it was rumored that he had turned water into wine at a wedding in Cana.
The old rabbi held out his hand in invitation to Jesus. Jesus drew his prayer shawl over his head and stepped up to the platform. The rabbi handed him the scroll. Jesus unrolled it and began to read. “‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has appointed me to preach Good News to the poor.’”
Mary’s heart leaped. She remembered Joseph’s words when, together, they used to marvel at Jesus’ reading of the Torah. “His voice,” Joseph would say, tears in his eyes. “His voice is like no other when he reads the Law. It doesn’t pass over his tongue by years of practice, but comes out through his heart.”
Now their beloved Jesus was proclaiming to all that he was the Anointed One, the long-awaited Messiah! Mary looked down at her other sons, sitting in the row Jesus had left. To her dismay, she saw their shoulders droop and their heads go down.
“‘He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the downtrodden will be freed from their oppressors, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.’” Jesus closed the scroll and gave it back to the attendant. Then Jesus stepped down from the platform and took his seat again. The silence was deafening, every pair of eyes fixed upon him. Mary’s heart was pounding faster and faster.
Jesus spoke with quiet authority into the pulsating silence around him. “This Scripture has come true today before your very eyes!”
A man came to his feet. “These Scriptures are about the Messiah! He blasphemes!”
Mary saw the one her son called Peter jump to his feet, his face flushed. “If you ask what he means, perhaps . . .” He was drowned out by the rising voices.
“I hear he’s performed miracles . . . water into wine . . . tells stories about seeds and sparrows . . . has great wisdom. . . .”
“Where does he get his wisdom and his miracles?” a man in the shadows mocked.“He’s just a carpenter’s son. What makes him so great?”
Mary felt her face heat up, for she could feel the glances of the women around her as the mocking words roused in the minds of the Nazarenes the foul rumors about her and Joseph and how Jesus was conceived. “No,” she said softly. “No, no.”
“We know Mary, his mother,” someone joined in.
“And his brothers—James, Joseph, Simon, and Jude.” Her sons, mortified, were pointed out.
“All his sisters live right here among us!” another called out.
Mary glanced back and saw Sarah blush and cover her face and Anne withdraw until she was near the doorway leading down and out of the synagogue.
“No . . . no . . . no.” Mary shook her head, feeling eyes of pity and condemnation upon her.
She turned away, only to hear a woman whisper, “And I always thought Jesus was such a nice boy . . . so good to his mother. . . . She’ll never live down the shame of this day.”
Jesus remained seated. “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown.”
“Now he’s calling himself a prophet!” a man shouted angrily.
Jesus looked down the row at his cringing brothers. “And among his own family,” he added. He stood and faced his accusers. “Certainly there were many widows in Israel who needed help in Elijah’s time, when there was no rain for three and a half years and hunger stalked the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them. He was sent instead to a widow of Zarephath—a foreigner in the land of Sidon. Or think of the prophet Elisha, who healed Naaman, a Syrian, rather than the many lepers in Israel who needed help.”
“Who does he think he is, speaking to us like this?!”
“He’s a blasphemer! Stone him!”
“No!” Mary screamed, seeing men laying hands upon her son, seeing the disciples enter the fray. She pressed through and raced downstairs. “Let him go! Let my son go!” The men below rose and pulled and shoved Jesus and his disciples from the synagogue. She tried to reach him as the mob propelled him up and up toward the brow of the hill on which the town had been built. “No!” she cried out. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”
A man shoved her back so that she fell to her knees, scraping her hands on the rocky ground. Gasping in pain, she scrambled to her feet and hurried after the crowd. Suddenly everyone stopped, and a strange hush fell over the mob. As Jesus walked back through their midst, each moved back from him as though being pushed back by unseen hands.
Panting, tears streaming down her cheeks, Mary ran to him and fell into step beside him, his disciples following. “Open their eyes, Jesus. Make them see. I know you can. Make them understand who you are!”
He stopped at the edge of town, on the road leading down the hill toward the Sea of Galilee, and looked at her. “They’ve hardened their hearts, Mother.”
“Then soften them. Please, Jesus. For me.” Never had she seen such sorrow in his eyes.
He reached out and tenderly cupped her cheek. “Mother,” he said gently, “Nazareth is no longer my home.”
Confused, she searched his eyes. “But, Jesus, how can you say that? I’m here. Your brothers and sisters . . .”
Jesus drew her into his arms and held her tightly. She inhaled the scent of her son and put her arms around him as she had done so many times in the past. But now something was different. She felt engulfed by his love, upheld in it, and yet felt him withdrawing from her. She held on tighter, but he took her hands from behind him and stepped back. He spoke in a still small voice. “Each must choose.” He searched her face for a moment and then turned from her.
As Jesus walked down the road, only his disciples followed.
Mary gathered her sons and daughters. “Your brother has left Nazareth and he won’t be coming back.”
“Even if Jesus wanted to come back, I doubt he’d be allowed back inside the synagogue.” James was downcast.
Mary grasped James’s hand and looked at the others. “He took the road down to the Sea of Galilee. I think he’s going back to Capernaum. We should go there.”
“It might be a good idea to leave Nazareth for a few days,” Joseph said solemnly. “And let things settle down again.”
“And we can talk to Jesus,” James said.
“My husband needs me, Mother,” Anne said. “I can’t go without his permission.”
Sarah looked as aggrieved as her sister. “After what happened at the synagogue, how do any of us dare go?”
Mary was stunned by their faithlessness. “Have you ever known your brother to lie?”
“No, Mother.” James’s eyes darkened. “But then, he never claimed to be God before.”
“He is the Son of God.” She saw how her children stared at her. She told them again how the angel of the Lord had come to her. She told them how she had conceived by the Holy Spirit. She told them how the angel of the Lord had appeared to their father in a dream, telling him that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and how he had married her and kept her a virgin until after Jesus was born in Bethlehem. She told them about the star over Bethlehem, the visit of the magi, King Herod’s decree to kill the children. When she finished, she looked from face to face and drew in a sobbing breath. “Why won’t you believe me?”
James leaned forward, clasping his hands tightly between his knees, his face haggard with concern. “We know how children are conceived, Mother. He’s our brother and we love him.”
“You think I’m lying.” They preferred the lies of gossips to the truth she spoke.
“We think—” he
looked at the others and then back into her eyes—“that you’re deluded.”
Anger and hurt rose in her. “Deluded? How? By whom? Your father, Joseph? Other than Jesus, have you ever known such a righteous man so eager to please God? And Jesus. Hasn’t he always done what is right and true and noble and . . . ?”
James hung his head. “Just because he’s obeyed the Law doesn’t mean he’s God.”
She stood. She was angry, but she was even more afraid for them. What would become of her children if they rejected the Messiah? “We will go to Capernaum. Your brother will make things clear to you.”
James and Joseph rose early one morning to speak with Jesus, but they were told Jesus had already gone off on one of his habitual solitary walks. “The men he calls his disciples refused to tell us, his brothers, where he went. They act like bodyguards!” they complained.
Mary had hoped that her sons and daughters would recognize Jesus’ true identity when they heard him preaching. But instead they were even more confused by Jesus’ parables about wheat and weeds and choice pearls and mustard seeds. They were offended when Jesus did not separate himself from the others and treat them with more consideration than the hodgepodge band hanging around him day and night. There was never time to be alone with him because so many were pleading for his attention. Furthermore, they were frightened by the approach of priests and dismayed when Jesus welcomed everyone. He even ate with prostitutes and tax collectors!
Mary’s daughters and sons-in-law left after two days, taking Simon and Jude back home with them. James and Joseph stayed another day, and then urged Mary to come home with them. “He doesn’t need you, Mother. He’s got a dozen men following him around like lost sheep.” She felt torn between Jesus and her other sons, and was finally swayed by their arguments.
Passover was fast approaching, and she must prepare for the yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Surely, Jesus would join them for the journey to the City of David.
It wasn’t until the family came down from Nazareth that they heard from others that Jesus had gone on ahead without them.
“Your son is in the city already,” Abijah told Mary when she arrived in Jerusalem with her family. “He’s been teaching in the corridors of the Temple.” The elderly man wore a frown.
“Everyone has been talking about him,” his wife, Rachel, said. “He seems to have a following.”
Abijah shook his head. “The Pharisees are not pleased with his teaching.”
“The Nazarenes weren’t either,” Joseph said grimly.
“I’ve heard that his disciples transgress the tradition of the elders.”
“How?” Mary said.
“They do none of the ceremonial washing of hands before eating. It was on that very matter that the Pharisees questioned Jesus, and he called them hypocrites.”
The hair rose on the back of her neck. “Hypocrites?” she said weakly, unable to imagine Jesus losing his temper.
“My friend said he told them straight to their faces that they honored God with their lips, but not their hearts. Your son said they worship in vain because they’re teaching the doctrines and precepts of men.” Abijah’s face grew more and more flushed as he spoke. “Of course, the unwashed mob that follows him loved it.” He glowered at Mary. “Where did your son get these ideas? You should speak to your son, and remind him of the respect due the men who take our sacrifices before God!”
Your son . . . your son . . . Mary could hear the accusation in her relative’s voice. She felt the heat come into her face. Surely there was some mistake. Jesus had never been disrespectful to anyone.
“If he keeps on like this, he’ll offend King Herod and end up like John the Baptist.”
“Abijah,” Rachel said in a hushed voice.
Mary felt her blood go cold. “What do you mean, ‘end up like John’? What’s happened?” She looked round at the faces of her sons and other relatives. What were they keeping from her? “James? Joseph?”
A muscle tensed in James’s cheek. “He was beheaded.”
Mary put her hand to her throat. “Beheaded?” Tears sprang to her eyes. John, the miracle child of Zechariah and Elizabeth, was dead? John, the child who recognized Jesus from the womb, was dead?
“It was only a matter of time,” Abijah said. “He offended Herod and Herodias. You can’t shout that the king and his wife are adulterers without expecting repercussions. He said it wasn’t lawful for Herod to have Herodias because her husband is Herod’s brother Philip and still alive.”
She stared at him. “But that’s true. Everyone knows it’s true.”
His face reddened. “Of course it’s true, but it’s foolish to proclaim it. King Herod had John arrested. I think he merely intended to keep John away from the people for a while, but Herodias held a feast for the king’s birthday. Herod was drunk when Herodias’s daughter danced for him, and he promised her anything up to half of his kingdom. And you can guess what happened. Herodias closed the trap, and told the girl to ask for John’s head on a silver platter.”
Mary slowly shook her head. “No. No! How can this be?”
Abijah seemed distressed at her reaction to his news, and turned to her sons in accusation. “How is it your mother has not heard any of this?”
“We didn’t want to worry her,” Joseph said. “John was arrested during the time Jesus was missing.”
“Missing?” Abijah looked between her two oldest. “When was this?”
“After he went down to the Jordan and was baptized,” James said.
Mary clutched her hands in her lap, struggling against the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. Her sons must think she was weak and could not bear to hear what was happening around her. What else were they withholding from her? “John was a prophet of God,” she insisted.
“Some say so,” Abijah said sardonically.
She lifted her chin and looked at the men of her family. “A prophet of God speaks only the truth.”
James frowned. “And every prophet who has done so has died for it.”
Abijah leaned forward. “Your brother is going to get himself killed if he persists in offending everyone.”
Mary’s eyes glistened. “God brought Jesus out of my womb and made him trust in the Lord even at my breast. From conception, Jesus was cast upon the Lord. He can only do what God tells him to.”
Abjiah and Rachel stared at her, openmouthed. Abijah looked at James. “Is she claiming what I think she is?”
“She believes it,” James said, glancing at her and bowing his head in shame.
“Woman,” Abijah said in pity, “you are out of your mind if you think your son, the boy who has come every year to Jerusalem and sat at my table, is the . . . the Messiah. . . .” He rose and moved away from her as though she were contaminated.
Mary felt Rachel’s hand on her back. “Mary, Mary, my dear friend. You are a good woman, but do you really believe yourself worthy to be chosen to bear God’s anointed? A poor woman from . . . Nazareth, whose husband was a humble carpenter?”
“Our father was from the line of David,” Jude said, pride-pricked.
“So are a lot of other men, in higher stations than your father,” Abijah said and raised his hands. “We are not speaking against our relative. He was a good man, devout and faithful. But to be the father of the Messiah?”
“Jesus is not Joseph’s son.”
“Mother!” James said harshly, his eyes black with anger. “Everyone in this room knows what really happened.”
Mary felt the blood surge into her cheeks. She looked around at them all. “God will keep Jesus safe. Jesus will not die!” He was the Messiah! He was the Anointed One of God, the Promised One who would save Israel! “The Lord’s hand is upon him.”
But she saw in their eyes that they didn’t believe her and, consequently, would not believe in Jesus either.
Mary returned home to Nazareth despondent. The tension in the family had increased over the Passover week. Their relatives had pressured her a
nd her sons again and again to speak to Jesus before harm came to him. Mary had the distinct feeling that Abijah was less concerned with the welfare of her son than with the shame Jesus might bring upon his household.
When James and Joseph told her Jesus was back in Capernaum, she was not surprised that they wanted to go down and talk with him. She knew they feared for his life. But even more, they feared being excluded from the synagogue. The rabbi had been furious after Jesus’ visit and said openly that anyone who believed Jesus was the Messiah would be cast from the congregation, just as the carpenter’s son had been.
“We will go,” she said firmly. “We will go and talk with Jesus, and then you will see.”
But when she and her sons arrived in Capernaum, there was such a crowd around Peter’s house that they couldn’t even get close to the door. James shouldered his way through the crowd. “Make way for us! This is Jesus’ mother and we are his brothers!” Hearing that, people touched them and exclaimed how blessed they were. Still, they were allowed no closer than the doorway. From there, they could hear Jesus, but not see him. Farther than that, they could not move.
James told the man in front of him to send word forward that Jesus’ mother and brothers had come to speak with him. A few minutes later, Mary heard a voice call out. “Your mother and your brothers are outside, and they want to speak to you.”
“Who is my mother?” she heard Jesus say. “Who are my brothers? These are my mother and brothers. Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother!”
Mary felt the heat surge into her cheeks as those around her glanced at her and her sons, then looked quickly away.
Your son no longer needs you, and now he rejects you!
My son loves me. He loves his brothers. He would not reject us. He would not!
Unafraid_Mary Page 11
