Chapter 31: A Garden and a High Priest

               
5th Gospel--Told by Jesus' Beloved Apostle

               
A Novel by Richard Jewell

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Book II: The Rabbi
Part Five–Messiah
                                      

Jesus took the envoys and the others to the olive-tree orchard of a friend who lived at the foot of the Mount of Olives. Within the orchard was a pleasant, grassy knoll lit by the moon, and over it an older olive tree spread its wide, gnarled branches. The owner called this knoll Gethsemane, or Oil Press, because he kept an oil press here for forcing the olives of his orchard to yield their oil.

It was a pleasant spot, even now in the dark with ragged, towering clouds racing across the moonlit sky and sometimes obscuring the moon. Jesus breathed with relief as he entered the little garden with its wooden oil press in the center. The scent of unripe olives, sweet but green and pulpy, surrounded him. The envoys and the others behind him were making only the smallest of rustling noises as they, too, quietly entered with him.

“What did Pilate want?” Simon, the former revolutionary, asked as soon as they were all inside.

Jesus turned and looked into Simon’s eyes. “He wanted to give me a safe escort to Judea’s borders.”

Simon grimaced. “Yet you will stay.”

“I will,” Jesus said firmly.

He led them to the place of short grass where they often meditated together. They all sat, cross legged, and Jesus spoke to them quietly one more time, leading them into their meditation as all of them closed their eyes and concentrated inward. “Think on God the Father, the power and consciousness of all,” he said. “And on the Mother, the holy breath and spirit that blows as a steady wind through all. And think on the son, the living self from God that each of us is, which is love. I am the son in flesh as well as in spirit. Think on me, or within your own self.”

They all did these things, separately and in absolute silence in their own ways, for some time.

As Jesus meditated, falling quickly and deeply into the very center of his own awareness, he was surprised to find himself surrounded and filled by a great black cloud of emptiness and loss. Concentrating on it, he suddenly saw chains wrapped around him, and a crowd of men gathered about him, arresting him. He realized he would never leave this garden as a free man again.

He began to tremble. Suddenly the time of his capture and death was not next month, or next week, or even the next day. Here in the silence and peace of this olive grove, his closest friends around him, the hour had arrived.

He couldn’t control the trembling. He suddenly felt exposed and alone. He took a deep breath and stood up. He looked around him at the dozens of silent trees nearby, and the hundreds beyond them. Except for a small olive grower’s house much farther beyond and up another slope of the Mount, no sight of other humans was visible.

Quietly he went to Peter and the sons of Zebedee and tapped them on the shoulder. “Come with me,” he whispered.

He led them a stone’s throw away from the others. “Stay near me,” he told them, “and meditate for me. For the hour of my arrest is near and I am afraid.”

They nodded, tired from the wine and food of the supper, and tired from the burst of good feeling that Jesus had given them through the little ceremony he had made with the wine and the bread. As he walked another short distance away, they looked after him compassionately. Yet they had little idea how to comfort him, except to meditate for him as he had said. He was their master, not the other way around. They were used to drawing comfort from him.

As Jesus drew away from them, the trembling in his body became worse. With a great effort, he stilled it, only to be even more deeply overcome by complete despair and hopeless longing for all the pleasures of happiness and companionship that death ends. He had never felt such a total, helpless, and unending sense of despair even when his closest friend, John the Forerunner, had been beheaded.

He threw himself down on the ground before him, pushing his face into the grass and soft leaves, and began to cry. He knew he couldn’t control this crying. The terror of death was upon him. He let himself go, and for half an hour he sobbed. When he was able to speak, he cried out to God.

“Poppa,” he called, “cannot you take this kingship from me? I would rather not be crowned, not in this way. The royal cup that you pour for me is bitter!”

In his despair, he felt no answering chord of recognition or comfort from God.

He stood up and paced restlessly back to where his three closest envoys were waiting. He looked at them. Their bodies were slumped over, asleep.

Then he shook each of them in turn. “Peter, John, James, can’t you stay awake with me? This is my last time with you before I am to die. Please watch the night with me.”

The three envoys stood up and walked around as Jesus paced back out among the olive trees again.

This time he went down on his knees. The trembling was upon him once more. “Father,” he said, “and gracious Mother.” He looked around him, and felt some measure of peace from the quiet night enter into him. “I would not do this death as you wish me. Is there not a more simple and painless way than to die by the hands of the Pharisees?”

He felt the response this time. No. Quietly but thoroughly it entered into all the parts of his self. If you do not die a painful death in front of many, few will believe it. Then who will believe you have returned from death?

Unasked for, an image came to Jesus of the many people who doubted that Lazarus, whom he had raised, had been dead in the first place. The envoys had reported much skepticism concerning this. Jesus himself had been asked many times about it.

He stood up and paced tensely once again, finding himself returning to Peter, James, and John.

They had fallen asleep once more. Vigorously he awakened them. Tiredly they sat upright. “We are sorry, Master,” James said. He yawned sleepily, then blushed for having done so.

“We will try to stay awake,” Peter said. They all sat up rigidly, eyes wide but still full of sleep.

Jesus walked away from them and back to his spot under the olive trees. He laid his hand against the rough bark of an ancient giant. It was gnarled and thick with old age. He wiped his brow and found blood on his hand. He felt more carefully. He found blood oozing from his temples in drops, mixed with his sweat. A pang of shock and anxiety struck him. He sought the source of tension within him that had caused this bloody sweat. Concentrating on it–a hard knot of fear and pain in his solar plexus–he felt his whole body relaxing within him.

Feeling weak and tired, he knelt one more time. “Your will be done,” he whispered. “not mine.”

The response slowly swelled in everything around him. It came as a comforting, as a deep peace that was shimmering and dancing in every least particle of tree and leaf and grassy blade.

A figure in white appeared several paces away. It shone with brightness. Its face was neither male nor female, but more beautiful than both.

It is time, the white figure said, without using real words. Be comforted. We are watching you. Soon you will be with us.

Jesus stood. The peace was filling him. He turned to go. As he walked away, he felt the white figure following him. But when he turned and looked, it disappeared. He knew only that it was somewhere nearby, watching.

As soon as he reached the three envoys, he roused them a third time. “Come,” he said, feeling the peace within him already slipping away. “The time is here. The betrayers of the Messiah are even now approaching this place.”

“What, Master?” Peter exclaimed. “But is this really the hour? Don’t we have until dawn, at least?”

Jesus looked at him sadly. “Come, my Rock,” he said. The three envoys worriedly followed him to the garden of the oil press where they found the other eight envoys and the handful of close friends also sleeping.

“Rise!” Jesus commanded. “Look down the slope. They are coming!”

They all nearly fell over each other int heir haste to get up and be ready for whoever was coming. Looking down the dark, hilly slope, they saw a string of lights spread out along the path leading to their garden.

“Who is it, Master? What are they doing?” they began asking him.

“They are coming to arrest me,” Jesus said.

The envoys and friends looked at him in amazement, then again at the approaching crowd. Annas, the great high priest before Caiaphas, was at the front of the approaching line of lights, his face made ruddy by the torches. He was peering toward the group near the oil press. His old face looked afraid.

The envoys straightened themselves and clustered around Jesus, partly to protect him and partly to seek the comfort of his closeness.

Jesus concentrated deeply within himself. He was determined to be deep in meditation when he met these men, and to speak the words from that meditation that would be most right for the moment.

“Where is Jesus, who calls himself the Christ/” a Hebrew Temple guard shouted when he spied the small group of people under the olive tree.

Jesus stepped forth out of the shadows. The column approached him, and Annas stopped before him. Temple guards and Pharisees spread out in a semicircle on either side of Annas.

Jesus suddenly spread his arms. “I AM!” he told them in a thundering voice. He spun light off his fingertips. It danced around the clearing, lighting up the tree, the ground, and the faces of everyone present.

All of them, even Annas and Jesus’ followers, fell back from him in fear.

“He has uttered the unspeakable name of God!” a Hebrew Temple guard gasped.

“He calls himself by that name!” said a Pharisee priest.

Men fell down left and right, bowing before Jesus. Others turned and ran back down the hillside as quickly as they could. Still others held their hands over their eyes, afraid to look upon the unearthly light gently filling the clearing.

“Whom are you seeking?” Jesus commanded.

“We seek the Messiah,” Annas said with a growl, “the one who calls himself that.”

“I Am!” Jesus said again, more quietly this time. But still the authority ringing through his voice sent more men turning and running down the moonlit side of the hill.

Annas’ face paled. He turned with a helpless expression on his face to the man standing behind him. The man stepped forth. It was Judas.

“Do it,” Annas ordered.

Trembling, his face twisting with conflicting emotions, Judas went forward and embraced Jesus. “Long life and health to you, Master!” he exclaimed. He kissed Jesus’ cheek, then fell back, trying to smile.

Jesus looked at him sadly. “Must you betray me with a kiss, Judas?” he asked.

The other envoys angrily grabbed Judas, who struggled in great fear to get free.

“Let him go!” Jesus commanded. “By his own conscience, he will condemn himself when he sees what he has done.”

The envoys, angry and trying to contain their violence, stepped back.

“It is for you that I have done this!” Judas cried, falling to his knees. “I am making you Israel’s King!”

“No, Judas,” Jesus said, “for you have done this thing in secret, asking no one’s counsel but your own.”

Then to everyone’s surprise, even Jesus’, Annas motioned a Temple guard quickly forward, and the guard wrapped chains around Jesus’ arms and legs.

Jesus looked at the chains angrily. Then his darkening eyes stared at Annas’ shadowed face.

“Fool!” he said. “Why do you come in the dead of night with your swords and clubs? Have I not taught in the Temple every day, and walked the streets of the city in the evenings?”

Annas scowled and began to speak, but suddenly he fell silent as a strong, powerful look came into Jesus’ eyes.

Jesus was concentrating on the chains. He felt through the small particles of them with his awareness, weakening the particles as he examined them. Then he bunched the muscles of his arms and legs and spread them out. The chains fell away.

“Moses’ beard!” Annas whispered. He stepped back a pace.

“Send these other men away,” Jesus said. “I do not need soldiers to escort me back to the city.”

The body servant of Caiaphas, fearing Jesus would now escape, fell on him with a club. He swung the club toward Jesus’ face.

In one swift motion, Peter leaped between his master and Caiaphas’ servant, swinging the sword he had put on earlier in the day. The blow connected. The servant’s ear fell off, and a wet gush of blood followed it.

Other men, both those among the envoys and friends and those of the remaining Temple guards, drew out their swords. The sounds of iron rang through the garden as the weapons met in clashing crosses.

“Put away your swords” Jesus commanded. “He who kills by the sword in this life must die by the sword in another incarnation! Do you not know the law of rebirth? You, servant of Caiaphas, come here. I will heal you.”

Jesus stooped to the ground and picked up the severed ear. As blood dripped, he held the ear against the trembling servant’s head. When Jesus took his hand away, the ear was perfectly healed.

Jesus turned to Annas. “Now let us go,” he told the old man. “I will not run from you. See? I am ready to die.”

“All right!” Annas yelled, filled with rage that this stupid magician was making a mockery of his own arrest. “You have almost fooled even me! But we know you are full of tricks. Guards! Seize the rest of them!”

The Temple guards fell on the envoys and friends who suddenly scattered immediately.

Jesus sadly watched his friends run. They knew these olive-tree groves well. Each of them escaped. He was torn between wishing he could go with them, and sadness that not even one of them was willing to join him. He turned abruptly toward Annas and nodded.

“No more tricks!” Annas exclaimed.

Guards fell in on either side of Jesus. He went down the hill between them, his head full of the many dreams and visions he’d had of the coming hours.

Behind him, left alone in the clearing under the olive tree, Judas stared in fear and confusion at the back of his departing master. Judas couldn’t understand why Annas had lied to him and had treated Jesus as a criminal. Slowly it dawned on Judas that all along, Annas had been using him, rather than becoming a friend. Judas suddenly felt an agony of fear and doubt welling up from the depths of his self. He sat down suddenly, overwhelmed by his pounding heart and his twitching limbs. Exactly what, he wondered, had he just done to his master? Was his simple little deceit really a great error, as Jesus seemed to have told him?

As the moon set and the night grew darker, Judas continued to sit under the olive tree of Gethsemane, trying to think things through.

Jesus found himself being quickly led to Caiaphas’ house. The whole great reception room at one end of the house, and the galleries around and above the large room, were packed with Pharisees, angry that they had been called here secretly in the middle of the night, and angrier still at the man who was responsible for this. The scent of roses and green herbs, sprinkled throughout the house by the maidservants in anticipation of the meeting, mixed with the heavier smells of burning torches and olive oil lamps hanging on shelves and brackets along the wood-paneled rooms.

Jesus controlled his breathing and concentrated deep within himself, preparing to speak, as the priests and Pharisee lawyers settled down and began the proceedings. He saw Peter at the door vigorously shaking his head. He and another envoy had secretly followed the guards to Caiaphas’ home. Jesus could overhear snatches of the conversation from the doorway as Peter talked anxiously with Caiaphas’ maid. He realized Peter was denying knowledge of him. Jesus discovered that the denial didn’t bother him. He was glad just to have Peter and the other envoy nearby

“Attention, attention!” called a servant of Caiaphas’ house. “The great high priest Caiaphas now declares this meeting starts!”

Everyone grew silent. Though the reception room was large, the wood paneling and heavy wooden chairs in which everyone sat made it seem small and cozy in the waiting silence. Jesus felt the first flickering tongue of ear gently touch his stomach.

A tall, gaunt Temple scribe stood up with arched eyebrows and swinging black robes, holding an official scroll. Not giving Jesus even a single glance, he began to read in his deep, strong voice. “The charges,” he announced, “are as follows:

“First, he calls himself God.

“Second, he profanes our holy days by healing and doing work on them

“Third, he declares himself King!”

The gaunt scribe glanced at Jesus quickly with a look of scorn, then returned to reading the charges.

“Fourth, he threatens to tear down the Temple.

“And fifth, he declares that Jerusalem will be destroyed, and all its priests scattered! We do accuse him of conspiracy to raise an army for the destruction of our city and its priests.’

“Raise an army, will he!” cried several old priests sitting far back in their wooden chairs. They had their wide bottoms nestling comfortably on leather cushions.

“God cannot be flesh! Blasphemy! Blasphemy! cried many young Pharisees.

Jesus watched as Caiaphas and Annas looked at each other impassively. Annas nodded very slightly to Caiaphas, who grinned. Jesus felt a second shiver of fear ripple across both his shoulders and meet in his spine, traveling down it.

Caiaphas stood up in all his ceremonial glory. The olive oil lamp before him shone brightly on his golden breastplate. The precious jewels on it blazed in their multicolored beauty. Caiaphas’ great robes of fine purple, blue, and scarlet shimmered eerily in the shadows cast by the robes’ own folds.

Jesus examined Caiaphas, who was carefully relaxing his face so all sign of his pleasure was wiped from his lips and eyes. Then the high priest bent his heavy eyebrows in a deep frown and set his dark, staring eyes on Jesus.

Jesus looked carefully into those eyes. He saw no sign of mercy or love there, not even a sign of compassion. Jesus stared harder, pushing his own awareness further and further into those eyes, ignoring Caiaphas’ feelings and thoughts but looking for the high priest’s true self. He brushed the edge of it.

Caiaphas quickly glanced away, instinctively, like a cat leaping out of the path of danger.

“Now tell us Jesus of Galilee,” Caiaphas loudly commanded, looking around the torch-lit room. What have you to say about these charges!”

Jesus also looked around the room, at the unmasked hatred and distrust flowing out of the stares he met from most of the men sitting comfortably in the room. He had been standing for several hours, since he had finished kneeling in the garden of Gethsemane. Briefly he wished that he, too, could sit and relax while he argued with these men.

“You have heard me teach in the Temple, Caiaphas,” he said softly. “If you do not remember my words, ask those who were there.”

Jesus suddenly felt a long, bony hand slamming against his face. He reeled back, almost falling over, as the surprise and pain from the blow spread through him.

“Is that any way to talk to your high priest!” a guard was snarling in his face. “Show some respect!”

Jesus stood straight again and wiped blood from his eye. The blood was coming from a gash in his eyebrow, made by the guard’s ring, and looked almost purple in the darkness. He noticed his own hand was trembling and his knees were weak. His whole body was pounding inside from the guard’s sudden hatred and violence. He began to take deep, sweet breaths of air over and over, drawing them quickly, holding them long, and then releasing them for more.

They tried him. The nighttime court in Caiaphas’ house had no legal standing. This was an unofficial pre-trial hearing that would be copied later in the real court. As Jesus slowly regained his composure, holding his hand against the gash in his eyebrow to stop the bleeding, they asked him question after question.

“Are you the son of God?”

“Will you tear down the Temple by yourself, or with others?”

“Are you the reincarnation of Elijah? Who do you think you are?”

He would not answer even one.

They sent witnesses against him, men who had misheard him, or forgotten all but what the Pharisees wanted them to remember. Other men were in the pay of Caiaphas, or belonged to the political party that supported Herod, the present King of Galilee, who felt threatened by Jesus’ claims.

Finally, since Jesus would neither disprove the charges nor answer anything to them, they gave up in disgust.

Caiaphas glowered at him from beneath dark eyebrows. Jesus stared him down again until Caiaphas glanced away.

“Take him to the Temple court!” Caiaphas commanded with a wave of his arm. “We will see how he likes it there!”

Through the windows of the large room, Jesus could see dawn slowly creeping into the orange and gold sky. In the distance, a cock crowed. He felt more tired than he had for many years. On the third of the cock’s piercing, insistent calls, Jesus glanced out the window nearest the main door and saw Peter outside. The envoy appeared to be arguing yet again with a flushed, threatening servant. Peter was shaking his head. He looked up quickly as if he felt Jesus’ glance.

Jesus smiled to him. He saw Peter start with fear and guilt.

Jesus then remembered what he had told Peter. He watched his envoy whom he had named the Rock suddenly turn, with tears in his eyes, and run away to hide.

The guards began wrapping the chains around Jesus’ wrists and ankles. Then quickly they marched him away to the Temple’ stone curt. He looked in vain for friends along the nearly empty dawn streets. There were none. In spite of his deep breathing and meditation to remain calm, he felt loneliness penetrating him. It was that deep, scratching kind of loneliness, the kind that is a hole of despair. With each step he took, he felt himself sinking farther in.

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Most recent revision of text: 1 Oct. 2020.