The Weeping Chamber Page 14

  In the heated passion of ideological disagreement, men can accept, even admire, another who is compelled to such a defined act as betrayal for a greater cause. But all found it repugnant that Judas had requested money for his betrayal, and more repugnant that Judas had agreed to the legal price of a slave for his deed.

  (I’ve often wondered if this price was offered so the Jewish leaders could later balm their consciences by telling themselves they had purchased Yeshua like any other slave, giving some sort of mock ownership that would allow them to legally hand him over to the Roman authorities.)

  Thirty pieces of silver.

  At this price, Judas had not joined in their cause, nor had he become an associate of the powerful and elite as perhaps he had hoped.

  Instead, Judas was seen as a contemptible slave trader, a hireling.

  The men in the hall treated him accordingly. He was ordered to follow, then ignored as their assembly moved through the night to gather armed reinforcements.

  **

  Cold high moon, pale, almost blue. Stars shivered in a blanket of black. Dim square outlines, houses crammed together in poverty. Temple gates shut.

  A small group of men—once thirteen, now twelve—crossed the south plaza, the shuffling of their footsteps a broken cadence of retreat. Ahead of them stood the city gates leading into the Kidron Valley—behind them, a city stilled in solemn observance of religious ritual.

  The remaining eleven disciples had no sense of the events ahead, no sense that their beloved teacher would truly die before the next sunset. Later they would look back and understand that Yeshua knew His future as He led them from the upper city through the narrow dark streets of Jerusalem. He had abandoned the teaching style of parables and spoken quietly to them in plain words of the world beyond the body, promising a Spirit to comfort them in His absence.

  Yet as He spoke, Thomas and Philip clearly struggled to understand. Midway across the plaza and near the back of the group, Philip, afraid of being chastised again, leaned over to Thomas and whispered his question. “What does He mean when He says, ‘You won’t see Me and then you will see Me’?”

  Thomas shook his head.

  Philip whispered again. “And what does He mean when He says, ‘I am going to the Father’? And what does He mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand.”

  Yeshua could not have overheard. Philip and Thomas knew that without doubt. Yet Yeshua broke off teaching to answer Philip. “Are you asking yourselves what I meant? I said in just a little while I will be gone, and you won’t see Me anymore. Then, just a little while after that, you will see Me again. Truly, you will weep and mourn over what is going to happen to Me, but the world will rejoice. You will grieve, but your grief will suddenly turn to wonderful joy when you see Me again. It will be like a woman experiencing the pains of labor. When her child is born, her anguish gives place to joy because she has brought a new person into the world. You have sorrow now, but I will see you again; then you will rejoice, and no one can rob you of that joy.”

  None understood, and a gloom seemed to fall on them.

  Yeshua turned away from them and continued His slow, steady walk toward the darkness beyond the city.

  The others followed.

  Chapter Forty-one

  I stamped my feet and shivered, as did many of the men milling around me. I regretted that I’d listened to Pascal at all. We stood at the gate at Antonia, the square stone fortress that butted against the northwest corner of the temple walls. Its ramparts overlooked the courts. Intimidating in height and bulk, it was still a poor second to the temple itself. The temple, however, did not have a moat. Nor did the temple hold six hundred Roman soldiers.

  Antonia, of course, had both. The reason for the moat was self-evident, and the soldiers were assembled to keep the peace during Passover.

  Armed only with torches, we had been a quiet procession crossing the bridge over the moat. The light of our flames bounced off the placid water beneath us. A sentry had seen us, and when we arrived at the gate, it was a simple task to send a message to the captain, who hurried out for a quick consultation with Caiaphas.

  I overheard only snatches of their conversation, enough to understand that the captain was unsure of procedure, which was what had forced our wait in the cool night air.

  When the captain finally returned, he announced that we should follow him and the soldiers to Herod’s palace, so named because it once belonged to Herod the Great. Roman governors, as Pontius Pilate, used it as residence when in Jerusalem. Herod, tetrarch of Galilee and beheader of John the Baptist, made his Jerusalem quarters the Maccabean Palace, near the chief priest’s palace. We would not proceed this night without permission from Pilate.

  About sixty soldiers escorted us back through the city, armed with swords and shields. Volunteers and onlookers joined us as we walked. By the time this group reached Herod’s palace, there might have been as many as a hundred and fifty people.

  Later, when I had a chance to make more sense of this hurried night, I would realize the herald who disturbed Pilate’s sleep also woke his wife, Procula. For her, the sight of so many men gathered on the street beneath the palace balcony must have been disturbing; over the previous few years, Pilate’s previous miscalculations had resulted in other night mobs howling loud protest, and our torches flickering up at her would only remind her of those earlier times. Thus, it came as no surprise when I later heard that bad dreams that night inspired her to write a note of warning to Pilate as he tried Yeshua.

  Having obtained Pilate’s approval, the mob followed Judas as he led the soldiers to the upper room, where he had left Yeshua celebrating Passover. As we walked, we could not know that Yeshua had His own agenda and, like a canny fox, had long since bolted during our delay.

  **

  At the entrance to the garden of Gethsemane, Yeshua paused. The twisted deep shadows of shrubs and olive trees, innocent in daylight, looked sinister in the countryside darkness. Yet often He and the disciples had used this garden as evening fell into night, staying for hours, sometimes until dawn. This was a sanctuary, a place of peace and beauty, where the breeze caused the leaves to flutter pale gray in the moonlight, where the tall grass in the open places among the trees caressed sandaled feet that moved through it.

  It wasn’t fear of the garden that halted Yeshua’s approach. He paused among His disciples because He faltered. He had begun to walk slowly, almost stooped with the weight of sorrow and desolation.

  His voice was almost a croak. “Sit here while I go and pray.”

  Without question, all the disciples obeyed. It was usual for Yeshua to take time alone.

  “Pray that you will not be overcome by temptation,” He said. Was this a warning for their trials ahead? Was He hoping that they, too, would take advantage of this time of contemplation to ask God for strength?

  Yeshua began to walk away, then turned back.

  Had He been flooded with the cold of utter loneliness? If so, His anguish caused Him to seek out the three closest to Him, the men who had witnessed His transfiguration, the men who had been with Him when He raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead.

  Yeshua placed one hand on Peter’s shoulder. With His other hand, He lightly touched James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, so that all three understood to follow. Yeshua took them on a diagonal path through Gethsemane. Well before reaching the oil press, He stopped them.

  “My soul . . .” A shudder choked His words.

  Arms rigid at His side, He clenched His fists and looked to heaven. The moonlight draped His shoulders and head with soft light and made visible the glistening trail of tears on His face. He drew a deep breath to find the strength to begin again.

  “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death.” He turned to them. “Stay here and watch with Me.”

  He had not begged, but the need was in His voice. The obvious agony in His soul terrified each of them. This was the man who they had dimly begun to believe might be
God incarnate. What did He see that they could not? And what thing of horror could this vision be to bend Him to this point of defeat?

  Terror muted them.

  Yeshua walked away, but not so far that they were unable to see Him collapse face forward as He knelt to pray.

  Chapter Forty-two

  The house where Yeshua had shared His last supper with the disciples belonged to a widower who lived there with a son, John Mark, who was nearly grown. The widower was called out by the captain at our arrival. The man, who had dressed in haste, stood helplessly on the street before the crowd as soldiers marched inside to the upper chamber.

  I noticed Judas did not accompany them. He passed back and forth nervously on the fringes of the crowd, head down, trying to ignore the stares sent his direction. Every person who had joined to swell this procession had heard, in immediate whispers, of Judas’s role in this drama. By morning, it would spread rapidly among the general populace how he had betrayed the Messiah of their hopes.

  I, too, watched Judas closely, idly curious at how he would react when Yeshua appeared as the soldiers’ captive.

  But the soldiers returned to Caiaphas’s house almost immediately—without Yeshua.

  Caiaphas screamed at them to search the widower’s house. They ignored him, waiting for an order from the captain, who sighed and told them to go through all the rooms.

  Again they returned without Yeshua.

  Caiaphas stepped close to Judas. “You make us look like fools,” he snarled. “Where is He?”

  The torchlight threw dancing shadows across Judas as he screwed his eyes shut to think. “There is only one place He would be at this hour,” Judas said. “In a garden. It is called Gethsemane.”

  **

  As Yeshua prayed a stone’s throw away, there was no one to explain to the three who sat against the trunk of an olive tree.

  A man is born with the seal of death’s claim already stamped on his soul. Body and soul are fused from the beginning to be torn apart at the end, this dissolution a mystery so unknowable that every instinct and every breath fights against the moment of death and the soul’s rebirth beyond.

  To One born into the world without the taint of death upon His soul, without the lifelong struggle of flesh dimming the spirit’s awareness of God, the approaching dissolution of body and soul would hold not fear but the sensation of an ultimate loneliness of being caught between God and man, unable to take comfort from either side.

  Yeshua, in the conflict the men could not share, prayed aloud, and His voice carried to the three. “Father, everything is possible for You. Please take this cup of suffering away from Me. Yet I want Your will, not Mine.”

  Born only of flesh, Peter and the two sons of Zebedee could only hear, not understand, the prayer uttered by Yeshua.

  Through Yeshua’s prayer, His body and soul cried out to God. Both agonized in the contradiction of a perfect duality submitting to the humiliation of death. It was the spiritual anguish of a single star shrinking to oblivion in an eternal midnight of infinite black. And a physiological anguish so great that the body responded by squeezing the vessels near the skin into a bloody sweat.

  Drops of blood fell from Yeshua’s brow, marking the grass with the scent that drew the stalking presence of the hunter Satan.

  **

  We marched through the city and into the countryside. Some of the soldiers carried torches set on high poles, casting light far and wide to aid their search.

  I wondered if I should try to slip away and circle ahead, out of range of the torchlight. If Yeshua was ahead, I could warn Him. Even now in my disbelief, I still held that remnant of hope—and perhaps in His gratitude He would help my daughter.

  Or perhaps once we arrived, I could help Him escape among the confusion of so many men.

  It was a thought. I held on to it as we proceeded deeper into the countryside.

  **

  Where His soul’s agony led Yeshua to deep and passionate prayer, inexplicable dread settled on Peter and the two sons of Zebedee like a heavy blanket, and their stress-fatigued bodies escaped into sleep.

  Utterly alone in the garden, Yeshua returned for comfort to the three men who knew Him best and found them oblivious to His suffering.

  “Are you asleep?” He asked Peter. “Couldn’t you stay awake and watch with Me even one hour? Keep alert and pray. Otherwise temptation will overpower you.”

  He admonished them gently, for to Him they were children in need of compassion. “For though the spirit is willing enough, the body is weak.”

  Yeshua again left them.

  The hunter waited in the shadows beyond to wrestle with His soul.

  **

  I was near Caiaphas when the Roman captain stopped him.

  “This man you seek,” the captain said. “How will we know Him?”

  Perhaps Judas was anxious to redeem himself. More than a hundred men were walking along a country road at night because of him. And what if he was wrong about the whereabouts of Yeshua? Fool would be added to the name betrayer.

  Thus, Judas anxiously answered before Caiaphas spoke. “There will be no mistake,” Judas said. “I will greet Him with a kiss.”

  **

  At Yeshua’s second departure, Peter and the sons of Zebedee had tried to straighten to alertness. The hard coldness of the ground and the nip of the night air should have been ample discomfort to keep them awake.

  But a palpable presence of evil in the garden pushed them down, so that in utter weariness they were already sinking as Yeshua’s renewed prayer reached through the fog of heaviness on their eyes.

  “My Father!” He cried, “If this cup cannot be taken away until I drink it, Your will be done.”

  None knew how much time had passed before Yeshua’s second return for comfort and companionship. He found them in slumber, and stood over them, smiling sadly at the peace of their sleep.

  Peter stirred, dimly aware of Yeshua’s presence. But Peter’s sleep was so deep he could not rouse himself. He dropped into unconsciousness again as Yeshua stepped back into the darkness for a final savage, silent battle with the hunter.

  **

  We were almost at the garden. I told myself I did not care about the prophet’s fate.

  I was lying to myself, of course. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been among the mob arriving to take Him captive.

  Part of me perversely hoped He was not the Messiah but a fraud.

  I could not deny, however, that a greater portion of me hoped for another miracle.

  **

  Dozens of torches lit the approach to Gethsemane’s low garden walls, throwing warning flares of brightness that reached like fingers through the trees where Yeshua finished His prayer.

  Without hurry, He moved to Peter and John and James. He crouched beside them and gently shook each one to wakefulness. Peter’s hair had fallen over his eyes, and Yeshua softly pushed it away for him.

  “Still sleeping? Still resting?” Not questions with the base of anger, but more like a father upon finding his children asleep in the corner of a host’s house, waking them to carry them home.

  As the men blinked and yawned, Yeshua pointed at the bobbing light of the torches, now almost at Gethsemane’s entrance, where the other eight disciples waited.

  Yeshua said, “Look, the time has come. I, the Son of Man, am betrayed into the hands of sinners.”

  Groggy, they didn’t quite understand.

  “Up,” He commanded. “Let’s be going!”

  They stood and lurched on uncertain legs as they followed Him through the trees, not fleeing but instead going forth to meet the mob.

  In the darkness, even with the torchlight, it was hard to distinguish how many men approached. It was clear, however, by glimpses of swords and clubs and armor that among them were Roman soldiers.

  The other eight disciples were huddled in a nervous group, waiting for Yeshua. He stepped through them, calming them with low words.

  While they peered thro
ugh the confusion of the darkness, Yeshua spoke, for His vision was different from theirs. “See, My betrayer is here!”

  And Judas and the soldiers stepped through the garden entrance.

  Chapter Forty-three

  Judas broke away from the crowd and quickly crossed the short gap to reach Yeshua and the disciples behind Him. Illuminated from behind by the torches, to the other eleven Judas was just a dark figure detaching itself from other shadows.

  He, however, had no difficulty discerning the features of the men who awaited him. With unerring line, he reached Yeshua. Raising both hands in enthusiasm, Judas called loudly. “Greetings, Teacher!” He brought a hand down on each of Yeshua’s shoulders and hugged Him closely, kissing first one side of Yeshua’s face, then the other.“Judas, how can you betray Me, the Son of Man, with a kiss?”

  It was a sad question that needed no answer. Judas had expected Yeshua to react with anger or shock. Either would have given him great satisfaction. Either would have allowed Judas to spill his bitterness and tell Yeshua He had been a fool to forsake the chance of becoming the Messiah and conquering the Romans, and an equal fool to slight Judas in as many ways as He had. It would have allowed Judas to remind Yeshua of all that he had sacrificed and how he had worked hardest of the followers to please Yeshua. And for what? he had been prepared to ask with proper indignity. All this would have given Judas justification for the kiss of betrayal.

  Instead, Yeshua’s resignation became a heart blow to Judas. In one horrifying moment, he realized the full magnitude of what he had done—feeling the desperate shame of a straying husband who, before the sin, had enjoyed the intoxicating temptation and the shivers of false expectations, only to see clearly after the sin and pain he had caused his wife.

  “Judas, how can you betray Me, the Son of Man, with a kiss?”

  Would that he could have turned and sent the soldiers and the chief priests away. Would that he could have fallen at Yeshua’s feet and begged for forgiveness. Would that it could have been any other moment along any of the dusty Galilean roads when the sun shone brightly and the future was filled with the hope that Judas had first carried in the presence of Yeshua.