Chapter 17: A Visit Home

               
5th Gospel--Told by Jesus' Beloved Apostle

               
A Novel by Richard Jewell

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Book I: Early Years
Part Three–Adventurer
                                      

Jesus shaved the beard he had started, as a sign of mourning. He made arrangements with Persia’s high priest that the white elephant he had given the priest would be his own again if ever he should pass through Persia once more. He spoke his goodbyes with Junner, who gave him a filled bag of medicines and a camel. In two short days, he was ready to leave the shimmering white city of the mountains and plains, with the Mount Carmel Essene, for the west.

They hurried across the mountains quickly because Jesus wanted to spend a few short weeks in Babylon and Assyria along the way. There was no need to get home immediately. The Essene had told him his father’s body was already placed in its cave in the Essene tombs. But Jesus knew his mother and his family would need him. He was now head of the household. He also had many things he wanted to discuss with Judy on Mount Carmel.

They returned to Galilee by way of Damascus and the road leading southwest of it, past towering Mount Hermon, and descended into the valley and northern shores of the Galilee Sea to Capernaum. Capernaum, town of his earliest childhood after Egypt, was now his family’s home

It was fall when he arrived. Fishermen were bringing home large catches of fish to salt in preparation for the cooler winter weather and for selling to faraway cities. In the fertile Plain of Gennesaret nearby, hundreds of farmers were cutting and hauling stacks of dried barley, and picking lentil pods, for harvesting. The sweet, mouth-watering scent of pressed olive oil was everywhere on the warm breeze.

A storm was whipping up. Jesus and the Essene could see it over their shoulders as they entered Capernaum. It was a Mount Hermon storm, the kind that started two days’ walk away on the slopes of the ice-capped mountain and in violent fury tore south, down the Jordan valley to the lake in minutes. By the time Jesus had found the small villa that was his home on the edge of town, the storm was lashing him and the other man with chilling rain, blowing their robes like billowing sails before them.

Soaked to the skin, they walked across the lush fall-time spread of green grass before the villa, a seven-room house of mud bricks and plaster, and in through the cedar wood doorway in front.

The two men shivered with cold and stamped their feet to shake the mud off in the small entrance hall. The whitened walls were covered here and there with inexpensive but colorful carpet hangings from Damascus, filled with designs of birds, crosses, and stars. A light scent of incense from the roses of the Plain of Sharon drifted pleasantly through the air.

A face peaked around the low corner of the inner doorway. It was a little child’s face. At first Jesus thought it was his little brother James. But the hair was too lightly colored, an auburn brown, and the age of the child was only about five. Jesus realized with quickened heartbeat that it was Ruth, his sister who was just a baby when he had last seen her.

The little girl flew away from the door. “Momma, Momma!” she yelled as she ran. “Strangers are in our house!”

The Essene smiled at Jesus. “They will learn soon enough who the stranger is! I will leave you here. A cousin of mine lives just across the hollow. I am so wet a few more drops of rain won’t hurt now.”

The two men shook hands, and the Essene quickly darted out into the hard rain.

Jesus shyly walked through the inner door into the central family room and waited politely. He noticed a new straw mat spreading almost from wall on the flagstone floor, and pretty wall hangings of red and blue linens.

An older woman with a wonderfully beautiful face surrounded by soft, dark hair stepped into the room and looked at him wide-eyed.

He realized with a shock that it was his mother.

“A stranger!” she exclaimed and laughed. She ran across the room and threw her arms around him, crying.

He lifted her off her feet.

“Oh my son!” she said, sobbing. “Five years!”

He realized the rainwater on his face was hiding his own tears. He spoke to her softly. “Hello Momma.”

A flurry of ten-year-old arms and legs burst through the far door and ran against Jesus’ side so hard he almost fell down. “Jesus!” a voice yelled.

He looked down. A head of curly dark hair was buried in his wet robes. He laughed.

“Both of you,” he said, scooping them into his arms, “will become sick from my wet robe!”

The little girl of five hesitantly came back into the large room. She swayed over to her mother across the huge straw mat on the floor and gave her a questioning look.

“Hello, Ruth,” Jesus gently said.

She looked way up at the tall, wet man. “Are you my big brother?” She examined his soaked red hair.

He nodded.

She solemnly laid her hand on the back of her mother’s robe. “I have heard about you,” she told him. “Will you tell me about India?”

“Where they have elephants and tigers?” he asked.

“Yes!” Her eyes sparkled. “Wait a minute! I have a wood elephant Poppa made for me before he went away. I’ll show you.” She hurried off.

His mother tugged at his wet sleeve. “Come see Josi,” she said. “She will never let me forget it if I don’t take you to her right away.”

She and James, who stayed right beside Jesus all the way, led him, still dripping water, through the far door and back through a window-filled hallway to a quiet, well-lit bedroom. There Josi sat on a high golden cushion, rocking and singing to a little boy about two years old, who was asleep. The little boy had dark, curly hair like James and a small chin. His skin was lighter than anyone else’s.

Josi’s face lit up with joy when she saw Jesus. Quietly and carefully she rose and put the little boy on a raised sleeping platform beside her, and walked slowly to Jesus across the smooth wood floor, carefully avoiding toys here and there.

She held out her hand. Her radiant eyes looked deeply into his. “It is wonderful to have you home,” she said.

He took her hand. “Thank you, Josi,” he said. “You grow more beautiful while am away.”

She smiled. “And more in weight.”

He didn’t look down. He had already noticed she was becoming sturdier. He remembered both she and his mother were approaching the age of forty.

“It becomes you,” he told her. “You are very dignified.”

She laughed. “You should see me with him.” She nodded her head toward the sleeping little boy on his raised bed platform. “I still go down on my knees to play with him.”

“Who is he?” Jesus asked.

Josi drew in her breath in surprise and looked at Mary.

“That is your brother Jude,” his mother softly told him.

He felt a thrill of pleasure run through his shoulders. He looked at the little boy more carefully. The child looked like Joseph, only gentler. Jesus’ chest grew warm.

“A baby brother,” he said.

“Mine, too!” James exclaimed.

“Come,” said Mary, “let us return to the family room and talk.”

“But his robe, Mary!” Josi exclaimed. “He must be colder than a mountain stream!”

Mary nodded. “Go change in James’ room. James, go get one of your father’s robes.”

She looked up and saw Jesus staring at her. She choked and looked away. “It was peaceful,” she said. “He was asleep.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here, Momma.”

“You were too far away.” She choked again. She was looking out a back window atht wide Sea of Galilee beyond.

Josi looked from one to the other. “Both of you are crying,” she said. Her eyes were wet, too. “Look at each other and take your strength where you can get it.”

“I’ll go find the robe!” James exclaimed, dashing off through the doorway. His young face, as it disappeared into the hall, was sternly set.

Mary faced Jesus, crying freely now. “Go change and wash,” she told him. “Join us when you are ready. Your Poppa was the finest man I have met. You are good like he was. Now you are the head of our household.”

Then, before he could embrace her, she rushed out of the room sobbing. He turned and slowly went out to the hallway to where James was waiting in another doorway. James nodded once, quietly. The two men, the older one and the boy, stayed together while Jesus changed. Both of them felt heavy with sorrow. Only the older one let himself cry.

It was several days before Jesus could tell young Ruth and the others about his adventures in India and Persia. During those first few days at home, there was sorrow to be expressed and released. Jesus especially resented the fact that his father had died while he, Jesus, was in Persepolis learning to heal people. Once again he thought of his hope that someday people might even be able to cure death.

After several days of family talk, gradually the others’ interest turned to his travels. He told them what he had seen and done as they sat around the dinner table, and as they sat up far into the night in the family day room after Jude and Ruth had gone to bed.

He used every ability he had learned as a speaker and teacher of stories, trying to lift their spirits. It worked. By the third night of his storytelling, he had them hushed in excited fear of the temple guard who attacked him, and laughing at his and Ravanna’s reactions to the white tiger. He gave them a modified version of what Ravanna had tried to do for him with the harem women, bring blushes to Mary, Josi, and James’ faces. He also mentioned the surprising skills he had learned from Kahjian, but he carefully avoided emphasizing them except to explain how they might be learned by others.

He had another problem: his sister, Ruth. It was a small problem, but one that irritated him. Whereas James tried to be with him around the villa every moment of the day, and even little Jude liked to sit in his lap by the hour, Ruth just would not quite accept him. She carefully avoided going within a few feet of him. Yet she was fascinated by him, spending hours of each day silently listening to his stories and then gleefully acting them out in the privacy of her bedroom. Jesus loved her. She was beautiful and intelligent for such a young child, and a good if somewhat overcautious daughter. It bothered him that he couldn’t win her over completely.

He stayed home for two weeks, talking with his family and getting to know James and Jude. He and James built a playhouse of wood and stone for Jude, using their father’s tools and scraps of driftwood from the lakeshore. Ruth stood cautiously by, watching.

He also went for walks around the tree-lined streets of Capernaum, visiting friends whom he had known when he was younger in the prosperous little town, and several elders of the Capernaum Essenes. But he avoided teaching. Sometimes he was stopped by strangers who asked him if he was a teacher or a rich man. His confident bearing, and the better-quality robes of his father, which he wore, made him appear as more than the son of an ordinary Capernaum fisherman or businessman. He carefully and politely excused himself from taking on any responsibilities in such conversations. He felt the time was not ripe.

Besides, he had many questions about his awakening abilities. He knew he could heal people, even cripples. He knew he could speak well enough to turn people’s hearts to love and their minds to keen seeking. And he knew he had a rare and unusual mastery of the ancient books and disciplines of many countries.

He wasn’t quite sure what he should do about it all. Was he the Messiah, he wondered? It had been easy to forget such ideas, and the weight of them, in foreign countries where he was unknown. But the pressure of his own people all around him, and of thousands of years of prophecies and hopes by his race, closed in on him all the more now that he had come home. He knew he needed to see Judy.

His restlessness increased to the point when, three night in a row, he dreamed Judy visited him in his sleep and called to him to come. He knew she could leave her body at will and let her mind travel to other places. He had seen, or rather sensed, her presence frequently in India. He determined now to visit her immediately.

He got permission from his mother, though this wasn’t necessary, to leave for a short time. And he counseled James to watch after the family.

Then he packed and, with a new walking stick he had carved while telling the family his stories, he started off for Mount Carmel. He took the main road down the coastline on the west side of the lake to Tiberius, then west to Sepphoris and across the great Plain of Esdraelon by footpaths to Mount Carmel.

Mount Carmel lay in what, roughly, was the upper left-hand corner of Israel. Israel was like a short, wide pillar thicker at the bottom than at the top. The smaller top third was Galilee, the middle section was Samaria, and the thick bottom third was Judea. The west edge of this strong pillar was the Great Sea of the West, the waters of which led to Greece and Rome. The eastern side of the pillar was the valley of the Jordan River, from the Small Lake and the Sea of Galilee at the top, down through the curse of the Jordan River to the Dead Sea far below.

Between the low Jordan River valley on the east, and the Plain of Sharon by the Great Sea on the west, lay chains of mountains. Some were high, especially in Galilee, and some were low like Mount Carmel by the Sea.

As Jesus mounted Carmel toward the Essene temple, he could look out over the Great Sea. He hadn’t seen it for five years. A few Greek trading vessels had their large sails spread out to catch the breezes. In the distance a Roman fighting ship was idling while the slaves in the hold slowly dipped their oars in and out of the water in rhythm. A little brown sea bird with a long bill flew, piping, over Jesus’ head. Jesus breathed the Sea’s air deeply into his chest. It was moist, warm, and refreshing.

A half hour later he was climbing over the last rocky outcrop below the entrance to Judy’s cave. She was outside the entrance, sitting on the little grassy porch and knitting in the afternoon sun.

When she saw him, her face broke forth in a joyful smile. “It’s about time,” she told him.

He was amazed at how she looked. Her hair had turned almost completely white, and the little wrinkles spreading from the corners of her eyes now covered her cheeks as well.

“Yes,” she said, shading her eyes from the sun as she looked up at him. “I have aged since you were last here. Come here, my son.”

Overwhelmed by his feelings at that moment, he went to her and kneeled on both knees before her, lowering his head.

“Teacher,” he said, “I am home.”

She lifted his chin and gazed into his eyes. They reflected the blue of the sky all around them. “I have watched you from time to time in India and the other places,” she told him.

He nodded.

“So much love is in your face!” she exclaimed. She drew a breath. “We were wise to send you to India. You have learned the ways of life, there, that book rolls may never tell.”

“It is good to be here with you again, Teacher.” He felt a piercing joy, being there. Her face and voice, the rocky entrance of her cave, and the sounds of Essene men, women, and children calling to each other on the hilltop above were all part of this joy.

Her eyes filled. She shook her head slowly. “Come,” she said, pointing. “Sit here and tell me what is in your heart. I cannot see inside of it, no matter how many times I visit you in dreams.”

He spied his old straw mat leaning against the cave entrance. He laid it beside hers on the grass and sat down beside her. She offered him a bunch of green onions to chew on. He smiled and took them, drawing out the fattest one to eat first.

“Where should I start?” he asked.

“How about your father Joseph,” she said.

He glanced away. “He is dead,” he answered, looking across the great Palin of Esdraelon spread out before their eyes below. “Of course you know that. And I miss him. It is like losing a real father. You must surely know that, too. For many years I thought he really was my father.”

She nodded. She picked up the knitting in her lap and began passing her wood needles in and out of the yarn again.

“But that is not what bothers me most.” He looked at her again. “It is his loss to my mother and the rest of my family, and to the Essenes. Why must people die?”

She gazed at him silently. A small blue bird landed several lengths away on a bushy thorn shrub and trilled a few high notes.

“Why can’t we cure death?” he continued. “In India and Persia, I learned how to heal wounds just by concentrating on them. Here, Teacher, let me show you–.”

She stopped him by laying her hand on his arm. “I already know,” she told him. “Besides, it is a skill I also possess.”

He looked at her in amazement. “Why didn’t you teach me?” he asked.

“It was not time.” She smiled. “And you learned the skill from one who knows it better than I.”

“But don’t you understand?” He shifted restlessly. “With such power to heal as this, we could save everyone from death!”

“Would you do this,” she asked quietly, “even for those who the very next day will die again because of their own failings?”

“Why not?” He spread out his hand as if he could place the whole great valley below in his palm. “If we heal enough people of death, some will continue to survive and everyone will want to know how to do it. Then we can gather them together and teach dozens, even hundreds of them at one time. You can help!”

“Jesus.” She shook her head tiredly. “Don’t you understand that you already know this skill better than I?”

He stared at her in confusion.

“You are the Messiah, not I,” she explained. “You have learned in a few short years what is taking me a lifetime of slow practice.”

“Everyone can learn,” he said. His mouth set stubbornly.

Judy sat up straight. Her eyes were fiery. Jesus leaned back, as he had the distinct feeling she had stood up and was towering over him.

“You,” she told him, “are unaware of the advantages you have.” Her eyebrows were stern, straight bars. “You were carried in the womb and delivered carefully so you would have a good body and mind. You were raised in a family that, if not rich, at least had enough money to give you all you needed. You were protected as a boy by Essenes, both morally and physically, even when you were unaware of it. And you had a rich boy’s education here and in Egypt, a better education than even Herod’s or the high priest’s sons!”

Jesus was not used to being lectured. He felt a rush of shock go through his spine and to his limbs.

“And that is not all,” she continued. “You are the Messiah! Do you think it means you are just more intelligent, or just more powerful at speaking to crowds?”

an Essene man came over the lip of the hill, looked at the two of them, and then quickly went back. Jesus felt his face burning with embarrassment even as he listened closely to Judy’s words.

“You have the advantage over everyone!” she told him. “by birth, by the way you were raised, by the gift of God, and by all your own past lives, you are the most advanced person living on this earth.”

“What about John?” he quickly said.

She waved the question away. “He is not the Messiah,” she said, though he comes close to you. Do not attempt humility that hides the truth of what you are.” Her voice suddenly became normal. “You, my son, have all the advantages that most of us don’t. Is it any wonder you can heal people of disease, and even, perhaps someday, death?”

“But what good is it, Judy, if others can’t learn it, too?” He was shaking his head.

She tapped her fingers one by one on the straw mat under her. “First,” she said, “you are an example. What you teach, others will wish to learn because of your power. Second, you will become a leader. Your ability to heal will give you more power as a leader.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want power.”

“You already have it,” she said. “For what exact purpose I do not know, but it is in everything you do. Now listen. Third, your power to heal will help many who are sick and in despair.”

He nodded slowly. A small black beetle ran up onto his robe. He gently flicked it away. “But I will also teach other people how to heal,” he said, “so they can learn to do it themselves.”

She smiled. “You are stubborn, Jesus. If you say this still, then I must believe you. You are old enough to know things now that I haven’t taught you.”

She picked up her knitting once more, clacking the wooden needles together and setting them to work.

Jesus looked across the rich farming valley below, to the green and rocky hills on the other side. Nearby an Essene fire burning in front of another cave was sending its rich, resinous smoke toward him and Judy. Smelling it reminded him of the many times he had cooked simple meals for her in front of her cave, when he had lived with her. He wondered what it had been like to eat over an open campfire many thousands of years ago. He turned to her suddenly.

“Who was I in past lives, Judy?” He watched her carefully.

She glanced at him, then back to her knitting. “Have you had no visions or dreams of this, yet?” she asked.

He stood up and began pacing restlessly. “I had a dream,” he said, “in which I was standing on a hillside with the Jordan River a few hours’ walk behind me. Before me, a fortified city with a high wall was surrounded by friends and other people I knew well. We were attacking the city, though we had no armor or large weapons of war.”

She nodded.

“Some of the men,” he continued, “had great rams’ horns that they began to blow. We were trying to break the walls by the sound of the horns.”

“Who did such a thing in our history?” she softly asked him.

“Joshua,” he answered. He stopped pacing and stood before her. “Was I Joshua?”

“The first leader of our people to bring us into our land,” she said. “Yes, you were he.”

“How do you know?”

“I have seen many of your past lives, myself, in deep meditation. It is a skill I can teach you, like healing and deep breathing.”

“Will you teach me now?” he asked, brightening. “I should know these things, especially when the Pharisees ask. They also believe in reincarnation of the dead, so they will want to know my past lives.” He sat down beside her again on his straw mat and picked out another green onion to eat.

“I will teach you,” she said, “but not until you have returned from Egypt. You should go there a second time. There are seven degrees of initiation in their temple of the Great Pyramid. You have taken only three.” She smiled and leaned forward. “Your cousin John, the Forerunner, is now ahead of you.”

Jesus felt his chest suddenly grow lighter. The muscles of his legs, which had been knotted with tension, began relaxing. “I will see John,” he said. “Has he done well in Egypt while I was gone?”

“We have word he has taken six of the seven degrees.” She chuckled. “You will have to catch up with him.”

Jesus smiled in return. “I will.” Then he became serious again. “Who was he in past lives? Was he Elijah the prophet, as he once told me?”

Her face became solemn. “I don’t know,” she said. She looked up from her knitting. “He is the concern of the Essenes down by the Dead Sea, and my meditations reveal little about him to me. Ask him. He may already know.”

Jesus nodded. He smiled to himself as he thought of being with John again. It had been so long since he had seen his cousin. Jesus picked up a small pebble in front of his straw mat and sent it skipping down the hillside, through the brush and trees to a wooded vale below. Judy’s voice brought him back to the present.

“Jesus.”

He looked at her.

“Do not tell the Pharisees your past lives,” she said, “once you have learned them.”

“Why not, Teacher?”

“They will not believe you. They will think you are either insane or a fool. It will be bad enough to name yourself Messiah, savior of our people.”

The sun was beginning to set and the breeze was growing chillier. Jesus drew his father’s robe more closely around him.

“I must proclaim myself someday,” he said.

“I know.” Her eyes grew sad. “I fear that day. You will have the Pharisees on top of you constantly, asking for proofs. The Sadducees and the Romans will not believe you even after you have given your proofs. You have a rough road ahead of you.” She gathered her own robe about her and, suddenly, nimbly, stood up.

Jesus stood, too. “It is my job to teach here in Israel,” he said. “I know that now. I must take the road that is offered.”

She put her hand on is arm. “Your face looks weary,” she said. “Already you act like an older man with a large family to feed in the middle of a dry year. Don’t grieve. Learn to laugh.”

“I am looking forward to seeing John in Egypt,” he said.

“He will raise your spirits.” She turned toward her cave. “Now,” she told him, “go to the main kitchen by the temple and get supper for us. Since you left Mount Carmel, I rarely cook my own meals here. Stay with me, if you can, for several days. Then you must return to your mother. She needs you, for soon you will be leaving for Egypt.”

Before she could go into the cave, Jesus stepped forward and embraced the old woman. She smiled up into his face.

“Go, now,” she said, even as he began to feel awkward. “Get our supper. Otherwise it will be too cold to eat.”

She quietly walked into her cave and, finding her oil lamp, lit it while Jesus climbed up the rocky path to the hilltop above.

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Most recent revision of text: 1 Aug. 2020.