My eyes snapped open and I looked around me. Only three of the Jesuses were still standing there. Portland Jesus, his hands in his pockets. Legalist Jesus, the oldest of them, with his rules and regulations. And my own personal Jesus, my old friend. A Jesus of comfort and religion. Traditional but funny. Challenging enough to give the impression of being real, but accommodating enough not to demand actual change in my life.
Daisy smiled at me. “You’re down to three, Matt. All those hundreds at Powell’s, all children of your brain. And now you’re down to these three.”
I grabbed her head and scratched behind her ears. “Thank you.”
Without a word, she trotted off into the dark, back the way I had come. I stood at the edge of the dark hallway. The terminating line between the chamber and the darkness seemed like a precipice. Without a backward glance, I stepped in.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Holy Mother of God
A woman sat at a small wooden table, her gray-streaked hair pulled back in a knot. She wore jeans, a plain blouse, and a cross around her neck. A simple meal lay on the table in front of her: meat, bread, and wine. Pete sat to her left, his legs folded under the table. He looked tired, but he smiled when I walked in. Jesus and Jesus and Jesus trailed behind me, silent.
I sat at the table. Pete took a sip of his wine. There was no plate and no cup in front of me. “I wanted to introduce you to someone,” he said to me. “She and I are having Communion. The Lord’s Supper. The Table. The Passover meal.”
“I’ll take it with you.”
“No,” he said. “For you, Communion is tiny, tasteless wafers and a little plastic cup full of grape juice. Someone reads a few verses, you swallow the bread, you throw down the juice, and you think to yourself, Jesus, thank you for dying for my sins. You put the cup in the pew holder, and you’re done. Later someone comes by and cleans up the leftovers.”
I thought to protest, but I honestly didn’t see anything wrong with the way he described it. He clearly disapproved, but that was basically what Communion meant to me. Jesus had said, “Do this in remembrance of me,” which meant aren’t we lucky to be saved, and we spend a minute making sure we’re not sinning, because that would be insulting after he died for us and all, and then we drink our sip of juice, eat our nibble of bread, and we’re done.
“What do you think ‘Communion’ was like at first, Matt?”
I shrugged. “I’ve never thought about it, I guess.”
“That first year after he died, do you think we threw back our cups, took five minutes to say thanks, and then moved on?”
He made a good point. I could spend more time than that reminiscing about a good meal. “Probably not.”
“We knew him, Matt. He changed our lives. Our thankfulness wasn’t some theological construct. It was deep and true and unstoppable.” He paused and put his thick hands on the table in front of him. “This is my dear friend Mary. She would like to show you what it means to do this in remembrance of Christ.”
Mary smiled at me, the lines around her eyes crinkling up. “I could tell you so many stories,” she said. “I wish you could have seen him when I first held him. Do you have children?”
I nodded. “Two,” I said, but tears came to my eyes when I said it. I blinked them back. Two living.
“Then you know that when you hold your first little baby, the whole world changes. His fingers were so small, and he cried when he felt the cold air of the stable—it was the purest sound in the whole world. When we took him to the Temple for his dedication, an old man named Simeon came to us and started praying and praising God. He took hold of Y’shua and told us, ‘This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.’ Then, as if in an afterthought, he said, ‘And a sword will pierce your own soul too.’
“Of course we had no idea what that meant, even though the prophetess gave similar testimony that same day. But we had seen the angels. Have you seen angels?”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“‘Don’t be afraid,’ he commanded me, but I was terrified! And we had seen the shepherds crowding in around the manger, all wanting to touch him, and I didn’t want them to hold him. He seemed so tiny and vulnerable, and they were rough and filthy and they stank. But Joseph said, ‘He isn’t ours alone, Mary. He’ll never be ours alone.’” She stopped and took a small drink of wine. Pete put his hand on her shoulder and gently encouraged her to go on.
“One day when he was twelve, we thought maybe he was with his friends. We were all traveling in a caravan, and at the end of the first day’s journey we went to look for Y’shua, but he was gone. We raced back to Jerusalem and spent three days searching for him. All of the worst possible thoughts tormented me in those three days. Finally, Joseph found him in the Temple teaching the teachers. Those old, learned whitebeards, bowed in careful thought as our son explained the holy words to them. I was so afraid when we couldn’t find him—my heart like a frantic bird in a cage—and I kept pushing my breastbone, as if to keep it in with my hands. When we found him, I was amazed, and proud, and so angry that he would do that to us. I thought, This is what the old man meant when he said a sword would pierce my soul. But I was wrong.”
“I can’t imagine that,” I said. “I guess it would be like some twelve-year-old kid going to a pastors’ conference, and all the pastors gathered around him in the hallway to hear his insights.”
“He was a boy. They had high hopes for him, of course. He could be a great teacher, they said. They wanted him to move there, to live in Jerusalem. But Joseph said, ‘He’s of the house of Judah, and firstborn. He’s to be a carpenter, not a priest.’ But the way the men deferred to him, the way they leaned forward to hear his high voice read the scrolls, it reminded me of when the kings came to us, when Y’shua was a boy.” She smiled, and her eyes focused on the middle distance. Pete leaned toward her and again touched her lightly on the shoulder. “‘A great king,’ they said. The words the magi spoke about him encouraged us deeply. Everyone always had something to say about him.
“It embarrassed me sometimes. What people said.” Her chin set forward, her jaw clenched down. I suddenly remembered that he had been born before she and Joseph married, and that the names he might have been called by others were not polite ones. “Sometimes when he was speaking, and all the people were talking about him, people would say, ‘Mary, control your son.’ And I tried. But do you know the moment that broke my heart?”
I shook my head.
“When they had him on that cross. It was my baby boy, and I couldn’t recognize him. Y’shua’s friend, John, had to tell me which cross was his. His face was battered and swollen, and blood was caked all over his sides, his arms, his feet. And when he pulled himself up to breathe, it made the most horrible noise . . . like he was drowning.” She stopped and wiped at the tears pouring down her cheeks with the palms of her hands.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She didn’t seem to hear me. She just talked on. “I was standing below the cross in that horrible crowd. People jeering. Throwing stones, throwing insults. John was standing beside me, holding my arm. Y’shua’s good eye moved back and forth over the crowd, and I thought he saw me. His eyes were so swollen, I couldn’t tell for sure. But he said, ‘Dear woman,’ and I looked up at him. He smiled, and his mouth was bloody and horrible. ‘Here is your son.’ John looked up to him, what was left of him, and he spoke to John. ‘Here is your mother.’ And John took care of me after that.” She wiped at her face. “One of the last things he said, broken and dying. ‘Take care of my mother.’ In the midst of his pain, in the center of his suffering, he stopped to take care of me.” She fidgeted with her hands and whispered, “A sword that pierced my soul.” Her fingers came upon the cross around her neck and she jerked back, as if startled. She held it up for me to see, and it caught the dim light and flicked sparks into the dark. “Do you unde
rstand how painful it is for me to wear this?”
Pete broke the bread and handed it to her. “This is the body of Christ,” he said, “broken for you.”
She wiped the tears from her eyes and smiled at Pete. “Thank you, Simon.” I looked at the three Jesuses, and they flickered like the flames of candles. “And the cup,” she said, taking a sip, then placing it in Pete’s hands.
He took the cup and walked off into the darkness without a word. I stood to follow, and Mary reached out and touched my hand, her skin wrinkled and warm. I looked into her eyes and she smiled at me. “God be with you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Dinner with the President
I was walking down a dark corridor with Pete and Legalist Jesus. I didn’t see the others. Legalist Jesus said, “I don’t know why you expect God to show up. You haven’t been good enough for that.”
“On the night when we betrayed him,” Pete said, “Y’shua met with us to eat together. We called it Passover then, of course. The room had been prepared by the man who owned the house. But there were no servants there to wash our feet.” Pete asked Legalist Jesus, “What would you have done in that situation?”
He shrugged. “Ordered one of the disciples to do it.”
“Jesus took off his clothes and washed our feet. My friend John says that this was the moment when Jesus showed us the full extent of his love. Not by coming to Earth as a baby. Not by dying. But rather that moment in the upper room, washing our feet. He says that Jesus did it because he knew he had come from heaven, that he had all authority in heaven and on earth, and that he was returning to heaven.”
Legalist Jesus scoffed. “He knew he was all-powerful, so he washed your feet? I don’t think so.”
Pete turned toward me. “Do you understand this?”
“I . . . I’m not sure.”
“Look,” Pete said, and he pulled open a door on the wall and stepped through. I followed him and found myself in my own kitchen.
Krista looked at me, and she was clearly unhappy. “I told you this would happen one day.”
Just then three men in black suits with a giant dog walked through, the dog carefully sniffing at every surface in the house. They moved down the hallway and into the front room.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“The president of the United States is coming to dinner,” she said incredulously. “Because you invited him. What is wrong with you?”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes,” she said in her best I-told-you-so voice.
I had been inviting the president to various family events for as long as I could remember. I had invited President Clinton to our wedding. I had sent President Bush birth announcements for our daughters. I liked to keep the executive branch updated on our family. Krista always said, “What are you going to do if the president shows up for something one of these days?” And I would assure her that this would never, ever happen.
But it had.
Krista gave me a lengthy list of chores to get our house ready. I needed to lecture the kids on correct manners when conversing with the president and his family. I needed to get the neighbors to move all their cars to make room for the presidential caravan and news vans. I needed to clean the bathrooms and mop the floors.
I dove into the work because we didn’t have much time: the president was coming to dinner at seven. I mopped the floor, I got the neighbors to move their cars, and I offered drinks to the Secret Service, which they politely refused.
I grilled some steaks on the barbecue on the back porch. At one point, Krista called me into the house, wondering if we shouldn’t have salmon instead. We talked about that for a minute, and then I looked out the window and saw that the hood of the barbecue was standing open. I was sure I had closed it. I ran out and the steaks were gone. I could see slight claw marks in the muddy grass, as if some animal had sped away from the scene with terrible speed. I went to the fence and could see one set of marks there, as if claws had touched wood for the briefest moment. “Houdini Dog,” I said. He must be a magnificent animal. I had turned my back on the grill for only a few moments and he had come over the fence, lifted the barbecue hood, snatched six steaks, and gone over the fence again. I shook my head in wonder. “Salmon,” I told Krista. “Let’s have salmon.”
Then came the knock on the door. The kids crowded by the window. “DAD!” Zoey yelled. “IT’S THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!”
“SHOULD WE OPEN THE DOOR?” Allie yelled.
Krista had made a feast. Salmon and butternut squash risotto, homemade bread and green beans from our garden. She looked gorgeous in a red dress, her hair up. The president complimented her and our home, and he apologized that his wife and children hadn’t come on this particular trip.
We sat down to eat, and the meal went great. The president loved the food, and he made conversation easy and enjoyable. I was in the midst of convincing him which rock bands would be best to have at the White House for his daughter’s birthday party (either The Autumn Film or Switchfoot, of course), when a creeping sensation started up the nape of my neck. I had forgotten something important. Something that would make my wife furious if she realized that I had missed it. I started to look around the house nervously.
“May I use your restroom?” the president asked.
Horror bled into my heart. I had forgotten to clean the bathroom, and Krista had specifically told me to make it a priority because the kids had tracked mud and grass into the guest bathroom earlier in the day. What could I say? We don’t have a restroom? It’s broken? I wondered how long I could buy myself by giving directions to the hall closet instead of the bathroom.
“I forgot to clean it,” I blurted out, figuring that Krista couldn’t kill me with so many Secret Service agents in the room.
An agent stood between the president and the bathroom. “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you, sir.”
“Why didn’t you clean it?” the president asked the agent.
The agent cocked his head sideways and stared at the president through his dark glasses. “It’s not my job, sir.”
The president smiled. “You know,” he said, “I have all the power of the executive branch of the most powerful nation in the world. And I came from my seat of power in Washington, D.C., and I know that in a little bit I’m going to board Air Force One and return there. And because of all those things, I’m going to clean your bathroom for you.” We sat in stunned silence. He stood up and started loosening his tie.
“Mr. President,” I said, “there’s really no need for that.”
He loosened his tie. He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off, then his undershirt.
“Sir, I would rather you didn’t,” I said.
But he was down to his boxers now. He handed his expensive suit to the Secret Service agents, and before we knew it he was down on his knees scrubbing our toilet.
My wife looked at me with weary eyes that said, How is it possible that I have married a male version of Lucy Ricardo? I laughed nervously. Sorry, my love.
The scene faded with the sound of a door shutting. Pete and I stood in the dark hall again. “Washing feet was servants’ work. And yet there he was, wearing only a towel, wiping the grime and the dirt from our feet.” He leaned against the wall. “What bothered me later was that he knew we would betray him. When I told him, ‘I’ll never leave you, Y’shua, even if they come with swords, even if we all end up on crosses outside the city,’ he simply said, ‘Peter, before the rooster crows you’ll deny three times that you even know me.’ As he poured the water over my feet, he knew that in a few hours I would call down curses on myself and swear that he was a stranger.”
I thought about that for a long time. “It wasn’t about things you had done, or good behavior. It was just—”
“Just that he loves us,” Pete said. “He didn’t wash our feet and then follow up with a list of rules. He said to us, ‘Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you should also was
h one another’s feet.’ Every time I refuse to serve and love those around me, I am saying that I am better than Christ, better than God.”
Legalist Jesus stood nearby, nervous. I asked him what he had to say to all this, and he shook his head. “God doesn’t love us when we disobey him.”
Pete grinned. “You know who was in that upper room with us, getting his feet washed? Judas. The traitor. Jesus showed him love too. Not because of anything Judas had done, or would do, but despite those things.”
And in that moment, Legalist Jesus flickered again, guttered, and finally went out completely, like a flame snuffed in darkness. He was gone. Pete took my arm gently. “He won’t be back,” he said. “If you focus on this story of Christ and remember what he has done for you, the temptations to bring Legalist Jesus back into your life can be overcome.”
A voice came to me again out of the darkness—that strange, whispered, echoing voice, calling me deeper into the labyrinth. One simple word: “Come.” I walked deeper without stopping to see if Pete would follow.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The Center
My two remaining Jesuses stood on either side of me, their arms linked through mine.“You don’t have to go in there,” Imaginary Jesus said. “We can still go back the way we came.”
I pulled my hood up over my face. The whispering voice ahead beckoned me, calm and clear. The passageway narrowed, and as I pushed myself through, I felt Imaginary Jesus’ grip on my arm loosen. I turned sideways to try to fit through the crack. I could see a room beyond, brilliantly lit with candles, but I couldn’t quite fit through. I exhaled all my air and wedged deeper in. Portland Jesus lost his grip. I could feel him grabbing at my sleeve. I was wedged in and not sure I could move forward. I forcibly exhaled all the air in my lungs and for one terrifying moment I thought I still wouldn’t make it, but with one last push I fell into the room. Imaginary Jesus and Portland Jesus stood on the other side, dimly lit and motioning for me to come back. I couldn’t hear their voices. It was deathly silent.
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