Man in White Page 12

  The group of Nazarenes who met in Joseph’s warehouse had not been hard for Cononiah and Shemei to find. They had suspected certain ones, and they knew that Jesus had often met with his disciples at Gethsemane. They had hidden behind the giant olive trees and, as evening approached, followed them and watched them go into the warehouse. It was at the door of this building the witnesses now stopped and, pointing to the door, said to Saul, “They are here!”

  A crude wooden carving of a fish was nailed to the doorpost. “A secret sign,” Saul muttered angrily. “In place of the mezuzah, I find the symbol of the Galilean fisherman! This is a meeting hall for the polluters who would bring Israel down.” He took a sword from a guard, ripped the wooden fish from the doorpost, and chopped it to pieces on the ground.

  He pushed open the door and walked in. Many stone jars had been moved against the walls, clearing a large area where benches were made by setting the ends of boards on the remaining oil jars. At the far end was an altar, made by laying several boards together across some jars. Saul was somewhat surprised by the large number of people present as he listened to them recite a prayer, men, women, and children together. “Our Father, who is in heaven, holy is your name. May your kingdom come . . .”

  Their heads were bowed, and they didn’t notice the persecutor walk silently in. To one side he saw men and women apparently washing each other’s feet in the small tin pans used in the refinery work.

  Joseph of Arimathea carried a basket of round, flat bread through the congregation. Each person he approached broke off a piece of bread and ate it. A young girl followed Joseph carrying a chalice and a pitcher of wine. Each person ate bread, then accepted a sip of wine from the silver chalice the girl kept filled from the pitcher.

  Saul started to approach Joseph but was ignored. Instead, the Arimathean began speaking to the worshipers.

  “We do this in remembrance of him,” said Joseph. “This bread is a symbol of his body which was sacrificed for us.”He paused, glanced at Saul, but continued, “This wine is a symbol of his blood which was shed for us for the remission of our sins. As he ate and drank with the disciples on that Passover eve, so do we now commemorate that consecration.”

  Saul shouted at Joseph, “This entire congregation is under arrest by the authority invested in me by the high priest.” Everyone turned toward Saul, but no one seemed afraid. “You are charged with heresy, blasphemy, and abominable acts against the Law, the holy Temple, and the Most High.”

  The congregation became very still and quiet as Saul raved. He pointed to the people on the benches. “Praying in pagan tongues and reciting the Holy Scripture in heathen dialects!” Then he pointed to Joseph. “And I charge you with sacrilege! You desecrated the feast of the Passover by using certain of its courses as a memorial to the Carpenter on an improper date.”

  Joseph smiled at Saul and walked toward the door.“Hold him,” Saul said, shouting to his guards. Two from the Temple contingent took Joseph by each arm roughly. “Take them all to prison,” Saul shouted to the other guards, indicating the whole congregation. Then he turned back to Joseph.

  To the two guards he said,“Remove his robe and scourge him.” The robe was ripped open down the back and dropped to the floor, leaving the man standing in his loincloth. He turned his back to the guards to begin and, facing Saul, said,“May God have mercy upon your soul, Brother Saul.”

  Suddenly Saul recognized him. He had never seen Joseph of Arimathea in clothes other than his priestly Temple garments. Here in the dim oil light and in his homespun robe, he had looked like any of the rest of the rabble.

  For a moment Saul weakened and trembled. What am I about to do? A fellow member of the Sanhedrin, and he was about to punish him . . . But as he looked around the room again, blinding anger took control of his senses.

  “Scourge him!” Saul said, and at the same time he took his own tunic and rent it from the neck to the waist with a cry. He paced the floor in a circle, moaning, “Blasphemy! Abomination!” and beat himself on the chest with his fist as the whip landed on the back of Joseph. Joseph never once cried out.

  Saul kicked over the pans of water used for foot washing. He turned over the chalice and bread basket and crushed with his heel the pieces of unleavened bread on the floor. With his foot on the bread, he stopped, for a thought struck him. He remembered the rat, the rat he had caught eating his scroll of the Scriptures that night. He looked at the man being whipped. He could crush out this man’s life as easily as he was crushing the unleavened bread. He had not killed the rat, for it was innocent in its hunger and it had the sacred shreds in its stomach. This man’s life was worth less than the rat’s.

  As he strode to the door, the guards were laying on the last of the stripes to Joseph’s bleeding back. Saul only glanced at him in passing, but a shocking chill overcame him for just a moment at seeing the man’s upraised face. He wore the same expression that the executed Stephen had worn. From where comes an expression of peace and joy out of agony? he asked himself.

  As Saul reached the door, Joseph cried, “God go with you, Brother Saul. And may you come to know the Lord Jesus.”

  Saul hurried away toward the prison to finish the night’s business. “This is enough in the City of God,” he said. “I surely must have them all here. Imagine, Joseph of Arimathea! Let him bleed. Let his scars remind him that he transgressed. My cause is just. I shall no longer debate with my own. I shall no more argue my cause with my own high priest. I gave my calling, and I must continue. I shall go on to richer gleanings.”He shuddered in the unseasonably chilly air of the early summer night as he rushed through the darkness.

  The morrow was a long time coming, for he barely slept that night. Arriving at his room well after dark, he remembered that he had missed supper again. The only food he had in his room was a bowl of figs and a few nuts. Rather than go back out in the night, he would let that suffice. He turned toward the Temple and offered a prayer of thanks for his meager meal.

  He sat at his table alone, staring into the lamplight and thinking. He was deeply troubled, and this was not the feeling he had expected, considering his success in his mission so far.

  Had he fallen out of favor with the high priest? This much he knew. Jonathan ben Annas wanted him out of the city. Was no one on his side? Was their faith so weak that everyone but him would tolerate this evil in their midst? Baanah ben David, and certainly Nicodemus, had tried to discourage him from fulfilling his task. Was the high priest suggesting that he abandon his work by emphasizing mercy and compassion in that last conversation? The high priest had given him authority on behalf of all the chief priests and elders. How many of them would still stand with him against the Nazarenes?

  His letter had not been rescinded. He would take his retinue and proceed toward Damascus tomorrow. He stood and prayed again. “I delight to do your will, O Lord.”

  He felt a slight relief as he snuffed out his lamp and lay down upon his mat. Many gains had been made. There was no visible evidence of public worship of the Carpenter anywhere in the city. The Most High is with me, he thought, closing his eyes and turning his face toward the wall.

  An image appeared in his mind’s eye of an upturned face with an expression of peace, joy, and resignation. Who was he thinking of? Stephen? The Greek Aristotle? Joseph of Arimathea? No, none of them, but all of them. They were the same. Why the same expression? And why didn’t the punished cry out from the lash?

  He had to admit to himself, though it troubled him, that such strength and inner peace at such a time were admirable. They had claimed the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This idea, in addition to being abominable, was pure rubbish! By the power of the Holy Spirit had come timeless oracles of God—the Law, the Prophets, the Writings. From the mouths of the Nazarene’s followers had only come blasphemous statements about the Carpenter.

  He tried to reason it out, and the human spirit, when caught up in lofty ideas, can become quite formidable. Had the popular delusion and extraordinary mad
ness surrounding this character Jesus given these people a false, superhuman spirit? Maybe that was the answer. They were caught up in a fascinating new idea—a god-man in beggar’s clothing who would stop and talk to them and even touch them, one of their own kind. And the healings allegedly wrought by his hand? Deluded belief. The people were healed simply because they believed strongly enough that they would be. But there were other questions. How could they so readily believe in the idea of a god-man? Thousands had been converted. Surely the true Holy Spirit would intercede and help stop this madness. Meanwhile, he must move ahead.

  The night moved so slowly. He was anxious to be up packing and getting ready to leave for the trip tomorrow, but he knew he had to rest, had to sleep. But the face kept reappearing in his mind. He turned over again and again, trying to close it out. He could not, and he could not sleep.

  He would think of something else—the trip, the six days’ journey north to the Syrian capital. He would go through Samaria. Maybe he would stop in Shechem and rout out any of the People of the Way who may have congregated there. The ancient city of the prophets must not suffer this sect in its midst. He would cross the lush green Jordan Valley just south of the lake, the Sea of Galilee. He would go around the eastern shore rather than pass through Tiberia, the Roman city built on the western side. He would not defile himself by walking on the soil of Caesar’s puppet, King Herod Antipas, that incestuous, idolatrous, Romanized half Jew. He would follow the caravan route past the lake over the lower western slopes of Mt. Hermon and across the watered plain to Damascus. There would be plenty of food along the way, with the early harvest having begun—grains, berries, melons, anything and everything from the fields. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof,” he quoted and said a silent prayer of thanks for the strengthening food that the Lord would provide on the journey. He, his guards, and the witnesses would dine on fish on the eastern shore of the lake. The melons would be ripe in the fields below Hermon.

  Earlier the peasants had planted those fields just as they had done for a thousand years, two thousand years, with a simple wooden plow and an ox. The plowman used one hand to steer the plow and carried a goad in the other hand, a long pole with a sharp end to prick the animal when it slowed every few steps. The dumb animals would kick at the goad every time they were pricked, but it was to no avail; they had to move forward.

  It was pleasant contemplating country life. The six-day trip, seeing affluent travelers by the thousands headed for everywhere in the world, would be a welcome relief to Saul, who had spent the last few weeks dealing with those he considered simpleminded and disillusioned.

  With that thought, the face presented itself again in his mind. Stephen. That smile! That joyful submission to death! They’re all insane, he thought. He began reciting Scriptures and contemplating the Law, then the Psalms. “I will not think of their faces. I will sleep now with the sacred words of the prophets singing in my mind.” And finally, he did sleep. For a while.

  He dreamed a variation of an earlier dream. He was standing on a hill looking down into the endless sea. The light was behind him now, and his back was turned to it because his eyes couldn’t stand the brightness of it. The stream of blood ran near his feet and on down the hill. Among the bodies ran the stream into the dark sea. He thought he heard his name again coming from the water, and moving toward the water, he could hear it more clearly. They were calling him. “Saul! Paul! Paulus!” It sounded as if the people of all the world were calling to him in many languages. “Why are you calling me?” he cried in his sleep. “And what are you calling me? I am Saul of Tarsus. Of the tribe of Benjamin.” Still they called him.

  He feared the dark waters, and he turned and began climbing back up the hill. He had to reach the light. He fell on the face of Stephen. Or was it Aristotle? Or one of the women? They all had that angelic countenance. For the first time he saw that they were not all Stephen, but they all were dressed in the common garments typical of Jesus’ followers and looked as if they had died in ecstasy. Rushing on up now, for some reason he felt he had to reach the light. Groping and clawing, he finally fell at the base of the cross and found the terror gone. But he refused to look up, fearing the sight of the crucified Nazarene. He touched on the ground something with his hand, and looking down, he saw the sign of the fish, the splintered board that he had cut with his sword that night. He raised himself, and straining against the brightness, he again saw the sign nailed over the head of the crucified man. The Carpenter was hanging upon the cross, but because of the light Saul could not look upon him. He awoke with a moan.

  For the first time, he felt pangs of guilt. For the first time, he thought of the one who had died as a result of his purge. Then he thought of Damascus and the other great cities and how many, many more would die in the exercising of his vow. The road of Damascus suddenly seemed like a long, arduous journey.

  But he turned over and admonished himself for the weakening thoughts. He would not let himself think on these things. He would not be distracted. The preservation of the unity of the true worship had to be accomplished. The Most High himself had decreed death for blasphemers. Saul had to be strong; he had to be sure of himself. He could not allow unjustified pangs of conscience to alter anything. Trying again to go to sleep, he whispered, “Tomorrow, Damascus.”

  FOUR

  THE ILLUMINATION

  Saul looked straight ahead at the approaching city of Damascus. His body was weary, but with his destination in sight he was anxious to conclude his journey and rest. He was in desperate need of sleep. The house of Judas the Pharisee would provide a comforting refuge from the long, weary road. And he hoped the hospitality of Judas would help ease his troubled mind. Perhaps Judas would give him encouragement. Fears and doubts had plagued him for the last six days and nights.

  Damascus was a big city and a strange city. Even armed with his letter from the high priest, he felt ill at ease. If he felt no sense of triumph in his accomplishments in Jerusalem, would this be any different? The purging of the Nazarenes in the City of God had brought him no real satisfaction. No one had offered support, no one except the Roman soldiers. They had been hard on the prisoners because they knew no one would care how cruelly they treated Jews condemned by their own people. He regretted the suffering of his victims at the hands of the Romans. Perhaps it would be better in Damascus. No Roman soldiers accompanied him. But the treatment of his captives in the Syrian prisons would probably be just the same. The Damascus stockade was infamous for its cruel treatment of the prisoners.

  I must not let my mind dwell upon these things, he thought. He had forced himself to suppress his doubts and fears every evening as he and his companions had stopped at inns to sleep. But sleep was always slow in coming. Then the dream. Every night the dream, the same dream. The face of Stephen in a blissful smile. The people calling to him, crying out to him. Nightly now he also dreamed of the man in the warehouse who had said, “May you come to know the Lord Jesus, Brother Saul.” The man wore the countenance of Stephen. It didn’t matter who he saw, the dream—the joyous expression—was always there.

  There was a strange love in these faces. A radiant love when they had died in torture. They looked at him as if they loved him. Why? Why did they love him? He didn’t love them. He hated everything they were doing to the true religion of his fathers. But did he hate them personally? He thought so. He couldn’t be sure. But he knew he didn’t love them, he told himself.

  Was that love from God? If it was real love, it must be. All goodness is of God. God is all goodness. But these people were an affront to God, opposing God. Still . . . love? Their apparent expression of love lingered until their last breath. Was God trying to tell him something through these people? Should he abandon his mission? How many would die in Damascus in the fulfillment of his task? The thought of the dying men, women, and children overwhelmed him, and he was almost sick to his stomach, but he came to his senses. The Evil One is working against God’s work in my mind,
he thought. I will never be divided between two opinions. I am tired. A fatigued body is fertile ground for forces opposing God.

  And the noonday sun—the heat was exhausting. Homes, farms, and flocks were numerous now alongside the road through the irrigated plain. Cattle rested in the shade of the scattered trees. Not a breeze moved. The crops in the fields beside the road stood motionless. No birds were in the sky. They were all in their nests somewhere waiting for the passing of the heat of the day.

  The earth shuddered. Or did it tremble in fear and wonder? The ground shook; the stones moved. Limbs fell from trees, and dust quickly arose from the ground in every direction. Before he could cry out, he was overwhelmed by pure light. The awesome brilliance of a light far greater than the sun burst through the gulf between heaven and earth. The Shekinah glory streamed with such force that Saul and his companions fell to the ground. The nucleus of the light’s power appeared before his eyes in such splendor that instant prostration was the result. One moment he was on his feet; the next he was on his back, his face blistered and his hair singed. Though the center from which the light emanated had been before him, he felt its heat all over his body. He quivered in shock.

  The light, the beautiful, horrible light. And there before his eyes, manifested physically in glorified reality, for just a split second, was the figure of the Man in White. The Man, carried to the earth to appear before Saul in a stream of wonderful, dazzling beauty, a flowing stream of divine substance, came in a white so white, so pure, so brilliant that his eyes were seared and scaled over.