Fishers of Men

by Gerald N. Lund

  Deborah was suddenly soaring. Simeon was here? Then he was safe. She barely heard the question.

  “But Simeon never uses the gate,” Joseph told her.

  David was nodding. “One of our warehouses backs on the city walls. There’s a small doorway there. We use it all the time at night.”

  “Get him, Joseph,” Deborah said, giving her son a gentle push. “Get Simeon and have him come down quickly.”

  IV

  Simeon adjusted the girth of the saddle, then jerked it down hard to make sure it wouldn’t slip. Satisfied, he turned around. David and two of their servants were finishing the harnessing of the team of horses that would pull the carriage. Phineas, their chief servant, was putting a basket of food in the netting at the back.

  There had been no question about going on foot. Getting to the Joknean Pass would require nine or ten hours of walking, and that was unacceptable. Their whole success now depended on them reaching the place where the Zealots were gathering before everything began to unravel. So David had sent Simeon to the livery stable to secure two riding horses for him and Simeon and a team of horses to pull Ezra’s hired carriage. That would cut the journey down by two or three hours, which they hoped would be enough. Almost an hour had passed since they had heard the first pounding on the gate.

  Simeon heard footsteps and turned to see his mother, Miriam, and Livia come out of the house. His mother was pulling a light silk shawl up over her head to protect her from the sun.

  He gave the horse a final pat and turned to meet them. “Mother, I still don’t like this. This is not going to be any place for women.”

  Deborah just smiled and walked on past him. “We’ve already made the decision, Simeon.”

  He turned to his father. David shrugged. “Miriam has to start back for Joppa or else her father is going to learn that she is not there. We can’t send them by way of the Jordan Valley because that takes them through Jerusalem and someone might see her. Nor do I feel safe sending them down through Samaria. Ptolemais is the best route.”

  “I’ll not be letting them get anywhere close to where you’re going to be,” Ezra spoke up.

  “I agree,” Miriam shot right back, “but we are going to find a place that’s safe, and we are going to wait until we find out what happens.” She glared at Simeon. “If you think I’ve come all this way only to go back to Joppa and stew and worry for the next three or four days waiting to hear the news, then you are not thinking clearly.”

  “Miriam and Livia have earned the right to know what comes of this,” his mother said. “Besides, you need them for another reason.”

  “We do?”

  “Yes, you really aren’t thinking clearly. As you start trying to decide what to do, you’re going to have a hundred questions. If you’ll remember, Miriam is the only one who can answer those questions.”

  Miriam smiled triumphantly. “But thank you anyway for trying to protect us from any harm.”

  Once the women were settled in the carriage, Simeon mounted up and prepared to move out in front. As he rode up beside the carriage, he caught a glimpse of Miriam’s face. She looked haggard and very tired. Livia was equally exhausted. He stopped the horse. “I haven’t stopped long enough to say thank you to you two,” he said without preamble. “Now it is Yehuda and I who are in your debt.”

  Miriam shook her head quickly. “Only if we are not too late.”

  “What you have done is incredibly brave. I apologize for anything I may have said the last time you were here about your being a coddled woman of Jerusalem.”

  She was startled; then she cocked her head, giving him a stern look. “You never said that in my presence, Simeon of Capernaum. Which means you must have been talking behind my back.”

  “I—well, I mean—” He was fumbling badly.

  Deborah chuckled softly. “I am afraid both Simeon and I said things about you that now prove to be an embarrassment. Please accept our regrets for being hasty to judge.”

  “I do.” Then the lighter mood disappeared as quickly as it had come. “My father is not a monster. He loves our country. He thinks this is the way to protect it.”

  “Unfortunately,” Simeon said, without malice, “sometimes those with the best of intentions are the ones who frighten you most deeply.”

  David was mounted, then urged the horse forward, motioning for the others to get started.

  As the carriage began to roll, Miriam called out to Simeon before he went ahead to join his father. “I know that you deeply disagree with my father. So why are you here in Capernaum and not up in the hills with the rest of the Zealots?”

  Deborah turned in her seat. “Yes, Simeon. You still haven’t explained why you are here.”

  He slowed the horse to keep pace with the wagon, his face a study in contrasts. Finally he shook his head. “I’ll explain everything when this is over, Mother. I have much to tell you. I’ll only say this much: Do you remember that day when Father was trying to warn me about going out against the Romans?”

  “Yes.”

  He saw that his father had turned in his saddle and was listening too. “Do you remember what he said?”

  Deborah nodded again. “He talked about why King David couldn’t build the temple.”

  “Yes, it wasn’t that he had gone to war. It was because there was too much blood on his hands. Well, yesterday the scripture he cited came back to me with great force. I had been struggling to know what to do.” He seemed a little embarrassed. “I was off by myself, praying about it, actually.”

  He turned his gaze on Miriam. “When that conversation came back to me, I thought that might be my answer. I thought the Lord was telling me that if I joined in this attack with the rest of the Zealots, I would end up with too much blood on my hands. Even if it was Roman blood, I knew I couldn’t do that any longer.”

  Deborah was staring at him, hardly believing what she was hearing. David slowed his horse to a walk and came back beside his son. “You thought it might be your answer?” he asked softly.

  Simeon nodded. “Yes. That’s when I told Yehuda I would not go with them.” He looked away. “And so I abandoned them.”

  “And now?” his father prompted.

  “Now I think I see better what the Lord was trying to tell me. That warning was not just about Roman blood; it was about Jewish blood as well. Galilean blood. The blood of good men who have been duped into thinking this is the way to hasten the coming of the Messiah, just as I was duped into thinking that.”

  He saw that his mother’s eyes glistened in the sunlight. He couldn’t meet her astonished gaze. He could only shake his head in sorrow. “And now I pray to God that Miriam’s coming has been in time. If not, then my hands will be stained with the blood of the very men who thought their lives were safe in my keeping.”

  V

  In the first two hours they made only one brief stop, resting their horses at the top of the long incline out of the Kinnereth basin. On the road again, Simeon and David rode alongside the carriage. Simeon had Miriam start from the beginning once more to tell everything she could remember about what she had overheard. He listened in silence, interrupting only once to encourage her to take her time and try to remember every detail. When she was finished, he thanked her, then motioned to his father. They rode out ahead, horses side by side as they discussed what strategy they would undertake as they tried to prevent a major tragedy from unfolding.

  It was not as simple as it sounded at first. For one thing, Moshe Ya’abin would be close at hand. If Mordechai had set this whole thing up with the Judean outlaw—which was an inescapable conclusion after what Miriam had heard—then he must not learn that he had been discovered. Ya’abin knew enough to ruin everything should he become suspicious. Gehazi was going to be a problem too. Stubborn as a piece of knotted oak, shrewd as a weasel, and fearless as a lion, he would be wary of this new information. Nor would he simply pack up and ride away, not when there were forty-some wagons filled with arms.

 
; One conclusion David and Simeon quickly came to was that Miriam’s name had to be protected in all of this. Not even the slightest shadow could fall upon her. She already knew that if her father learned of this, it would cause a breach between them that would be irreparable. What she hadn’t yet thought through was that if the Romans learned who had betrayed them, not even her father’s influence would be enough to save her. Simeon had explained that to Ezra as plainly as he could, but Ezra was no fool. He may not have seen all the implications, but he had already determined that he and his wife would do whatever was necessary to provide a believable cover story for Miriam’s absence from Jerusalem.

  Several times as they continued onward, Simeon would wheel his horse around and ride back to the carriage to fire questions at Miriam; then he would return to his father, and they would drop into deep conversation again. When they stopped briefly to water the horses about the fifth hour of the day, Deborah quietly took Simeon aside. “Miriam desperately needs rest,” she said. “She’s mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted. Can you leave her alone for a time so she can sleep?”

  “Of course.” He had planned to do that anyway. The first beginnings of a solution were starting to form, and he needed time to work it out in his mind.

  When they started again, Deborah put a small pillow against her shoulder and insisted that Miriam lean against her and try to sleep. Livia was in the second seat and had a place to lie down. Surprised and pleased, Miriam did so, but to no one’s surprise, sleep would not come. She was strung more tightly than the trip wire used to snare a rabbit or a fox. Sensing how much she needed to get her mind onto other things, Deborah began talking softly. She told her about their family, about Esther and Boaz, about the son and daughter-in-law Miriam didn’t know. She spoke of David’s work as a merchant and about life in Capernaum.

  Amazed at how comfortable she was feeling with this woman, Miriam began to talk as well. She told Deborah about her own mother, who had died some years before, leaving Miriam alone. She spoke briefly about her father and their life together, but that carried too much pain, and she went on to other things. She explained about Livia and what had happened between them since Simeon had appeared that morning in Samaria. She started telling Deborah about the city that she loved so much.

  As she spoke of the temple and how she and Livia loved to walk through the courtyards, Miriam had a sudden thought. “Have you heard of Jesus of Nazareth?” she asked. As she spoke, Miriam was sitting back against the seat, her eyes closed against the bright sunlight, so she did not see Deborah jerk around to stare at her. “Yes, I have heard of him,” Deborah said carefully.

  Eager now, Miriam sat up and told Deborah about the morning when Jesus had driven the moneychangers from the temple courtyards. She told her about Nicodemus and what he had learned and how neither of them knew exactly what Jesus meant about being born of the water and the Spirit. When Miriam finished telling Deborah about the woman who had been taken in adultery and brought forward by the scribes and Pharisees and how Jesus had dealt with her, to her astonishment she saw tears in Deborah’s eyes. “Do you know of this man?” Miriam asked in surprise. “Livia and I have determined to join his followers, but we have not been able to find him.”

  For the next hour, as they drove along together, they were barely aware of the world around them. Livia had sat up and was listening carefully as well. The grim circumstances that brought them together out in the highlands of the Galilee were forgotten for the moment. Deborah started at the first. She told Miriam about David’s experience thirty years earlier. She recounted how excited he had been when word had come about John the Baptist. Miriam half turned in her seat to watch Deborah’s face and sat without moving as she told about that day in Nazareth when Jesus had announced he was the Messiah, and about the sermon he had given on another day and the anger it brought her and Simeon. She told of what had happened to her family on the day of miracles while she had been visiting her cousin Naomi in Beth Neelah.

  They wept together without shame when Deborah told Miriam about little Esther, about how shy and reserved she was, and what had happened that day in the market when Esther had run up to Jesus and given him a kiss.

  Miriam wiped at her eyes, no longer tired, the tension in her completely gone. “Thank you, Deborah,” she said quietly.

  “I can’t believe it. You wish to be his disciple too.”

  “With all my heart.”

  “And I as well,” Livia said from the backseat.

  Miriam reached out and took Deborah’s hand. “I wish I could return to Capernaum and meet Jesus.”

  At that, Ezra, who drove the horses and had said nothing at all during the conversation, shook his head. “We must get you back to Joppa and then on to Jerusalem.”

  “Yes,” Deborah said. “There will be another time.”

  Ezra turned to Deborah. “I too would like to hear more of this Jesus.”

  And so as Simeon and his father talked of more sobering things, Deborah told her three listeners everything she could about Jesus, about what he said, what he did, the miracles he had worked.

  When Deborah finished, Miriam was filled with joy. “And I thought we were coming to Capernaum only to find Simeon and warn him.”

  Deborah turned to look at her fully. “Do you remember the words of the Psalmist, Miriam? ‘Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper. The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.’”

  “Yes, I love that passage.”

  “Well, I know now that it was the Lord who brought you and Livia and Ezra here today. And now we all know why.”

  VI

  “Miriam asked me a question a few minutes ago, Simeon.”

  Simeon was about to take a bite from the small loaf of bread he held in his hands. He lowered it again and looked at his mother. “What was it?”

  They were stopped near a small spring about a hundred paces from the road. It was past midday, and their stop would be a brief one.

  “She asked me if you were a follower of Jesus.”

  It was hard to tell who was the more startled at that, Simeon or his father. David stared at Miriam for a moment, then turned to watch his son. Miriam quickly explained, summarizing what she had told Deborah about her experiences in Jerusalem.

  Deborah then spoke up. “I have told Miriam that we were all baptized a short time ago. Except for you, Simeon.”

  Ezra looked back and forth between them, clearly curious as to how this was going to turn out, but Simeon didn’t see that. Nor did he see the questioning look on his parents’ faces. He was staring at the ground, his eyes hooded and unreadable.

  “Are you a follower of Jesus?” Miriam asked. “Your mother isn’t sure how to answer that.”

  He looked up. “No,” he said softly.

  Now it was Deborah who was startled. That was not what she had expected at all, not after what he had said that morning. “But—”

  Simeon faced his mother squarely. “Has Peter told you about what happened the other day on the Plains of Kinnereth?”

  “About the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes? Yes, he told us. Your father and I were so disappointed that we were not there.”

  “Did Peter tell you that I was there?”

  David leaned forward. “You were?”

  “Yes.” Simeon offered a quick and silent thanks to the big fisherman. He wasn’t going to pressure Simeon into anything, not in that way at least.

  “You saw that yourself?” his mother said, her eyes wide with wonder.

  “I sat no more than ten or fifteen feet away from Jesus.” His voice was still low, barely audible.

  “And yet—” His father stopped, not sure what to say.

  “There’s something else you need to know.” He took a quick breath. “I went to Nazareth yesterday. I spent more than a couple of hours with Mary, who is the mother of J
esus.”

  Deborah stared at her son in astonishment. “Why didn’t you tell us? What did she say?”

  Simeon shook his head. “When we return and things are at peace, I would like very much to tell you and Father everything. It was—” He stopped, searching for the right way to say it; then he shook his head again. “I’m still trying to take it in.”

  Miriam could not restrain herself. “You speak as though you believe that Jesus is the Messiah, yet you say you are not one of his followers. I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t believe that Jesus is the Messiah,” Simeon said, sitting back on his heels, watching his father’s face carefully. Then, even as the disappointment filled David’s face, Simeon went on. “I know that he is the Messiah. And he is more. I know that as well.”

  “Really?” Deborah cried.

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “But—” Miriam was fumbling. “How then can you say you are not one of his disciples?”

  “I am just learning what it means to accept him,” Simeon said sadly. “Even now I wonder if I can go in the way he would have me go. Perhaps when this is over, I will have a chance to ask him if he will teach me what it means to be a true follower.”

  Deborah stood, tears streaming down her cheeks, and walked to her son. As Simeon stood to meet her, she took him in her arms. “Why didn’t you tell me, Simeon? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “That’s why I came home last night, Mother. I came down to tell you and Father that I had found my answer.”

  VII

  It was approaching the tenth hour of the day when they reached the place where the road forked and two hand-painted wooden signs were nailed to a post. The sign pointing to the right said Ptolemais; the other, Caesarea. Simeon reined his horse around and rode back to the carriage. Ezra reined in, and the three women straightened.

  “There’s a grove of trees over there,” Simeon said to Ezra. “Wait there for us. Stay out of sight of the road.”

  “We will.”

  “From here you can see across the valley.” He lifted an arm and pointed. “See where the line of hills begins, about five miles away? There’s a cleft there. That’s the entry to the Joknean Pass. If you look closely along the base of the hills to the right, you can see some wagons.”