'Here, here is quieter,' Lemuel says.
They look to one another. None has been prepared for this. None has imagined the world so and in their dismay wonder what the Apostle has understood of the scene before them. How will their faith be adequate to the world?
'We should go back,' Meletios says. 'It is too crowded, too dangerous. There is no place for us here.'
'For this we are come,' John says.
His face is composed, his manner unperturbed. What depths of belief are in him cannot be imagined by the others. What sustains him, what remains not only undefeated but even undiminished by human weakness, capriciousness, by time itself, is outside their understanding. How is it he is not dismayed? How is it, with the jabbering range of religions arrayed before them, he believes still in beginning here, now? Who will listen to their quiet Word? The opposition will be outrageous. The odds against them making headway so great that to all but the Apostle it seems a doomed enterprise. Yes, spread the Word, but to those ready to receive it, to those in their own houses, where the disciples will not be troubled by clamour and jeering and ridicule. This is the easier path. Then, too, because of love, because they love the one who has been at the centre of their so long, they would not see him attacked and belittled. Because of love, they urge him once more to go back.
But John is of another mind. His resolve such that neither argument nor age nor force will impede him. The world will not obstruct him from the place he is to come. No pain, no rejection it can offer, will dissuade him, for he believes he has long ago been taken from himself, that the one who should have died many times ages since is not the one who remains. He is become the instrument. And this, in the scope of his understanding, is what love has made of him, what love wants, and to which he has submitted his being entire. For this he is here. To tell of love.
'Be not afraid,' John says to them. 'The Lord is with us.'
He raises his blind eyes to the light. He holds out his hands not far from his body. He begins.
28
Fools of a fool. Of an old fool. Of a blind old fool. In the State Agora, Auster says, preaching to no one. They should have stayed on their island, let their bones whiten on the shore.
This is the time of the Divine. Not a carpenter's son.
The world is more full of fools than wise men know.
My hour approaches.
On the third day of preaching in the square, their audience small and temporary, there comes before the Christians a file of figures in coarse shrouds, their faces smeared with dirt. They are at first no different from others of bizarre practice who cross there. But one among them stops when he hears John say the name of Jesus.
'Jesus was a prophet,' this one calls out.
The few who are gathered turn back to look.
'Jesus was a witness to the Son of God,' the dust-faced says, 'to the great Lazarus, who rose from the dead.'
'Lazarus was raised by Jesus,' Danil shouts. 'It was Jesus, of Galillee, who prayed at the tomb and brought Lazarus back from the dead.'
'Blasphemy! Lazarus sent word to the mind of Jesus that he come and bear witness to his resurrection. Jesus came because he was sent for. To tell the world of the greatness of Lazarus. Pray to Lazarus that ye might all be resurrected!' the Lazarean cries. From the ground he lifts a handful of dust and pushes it to his mouth. 'Dust to dust,' he shouts out, chokes. 'We are dust lest we be resurrected again to new life by Lazarus. Come, follow.'
The man, with dust mouth and dirt face, leads the file like ghosts away, and some, attendant on the Christians, follow.
In ways they have been no different from others trafficking there, but in their aftermath the Apostle is quietened in himself. It is as though a cloak of weariness has been left on his shoulders. It is past the noon. Papias asks him if he will rest on the steps, if he will take water.
'Yes, Papias. I would drink now and gladly.'
He sits into the shade of a porch. The others continue to preach to whomever delays before them.
Lazarus. Because of Lazarus you returned.
We had gone beyond Jordan into the place where John first baptised. And there abode.
And there were many who came and believed in you there.
I thought: we might remain. We might continue here in safety and love.
It was a place of peace. Our needs were simple. We were free of accusers and hatred. Might we not have remained there? The twelve and the others that came. A first community. Might we not have lived thus, sitting between the olive trees to hear your teaching?
To build a church even there, to live in example of love.
Might that not suffice? I thought. That we might live so in your presence.
Then came the figure out of the sunlight.
I saw him first, a shape moving in a wave of heat. He approached steadily across the burnt ground, small dust of haste in his wake. I went to meet him.
'I bring news to Jesus of Nazareth,' he said.
I did not want the news. I confess it. I did not want the world to come and find us. To find you.
'What news?'
'I am to tell Jesus of Nazareth,' he said, and went past me.
I felt the cold of death then. As foreknowledge. I understood submission but did not want to submit. Understood sacrifice but did not want you to be sacrificed. I am a man only. And knew and feared what must come.
When I followed after already, you had risen and walked to make easier his finding you.
'Lord, the one whom you love is sick,' the messenger said. The one who was sick, he told, was Lazarus from Bethany, brother of Mary and Martha. They sent word that you might come, for they believed in you and prayed you might intercede.
You withdrew into a quiet place.
We were left with argument.
'We should not go, it is dangerous,' James said.
'Why can we not remain here?'
'They will take him if he return.'
A chorus of consent then among us.
'How take him when he is the Lord?' the question of Judas.
Two days.
For two days you did not go.
For two days you remained apart and did not eat and did not speak and took but little water.
I sat not far distant. I wanted to tell the messenger return, tell them he cannot come. Tell them it is unsafe and he will be killed for this Lazarus. Tell them we are at peace here, that there will be no more signs and miracles. This time is now for our community of love, here, and we will welcome who will come to us.
There was no need to go. If it was your wish, you could heal Lazarus from afar, I thought, simply by saying it should be so. You could stay and cure both.
From where I sat, I prayed it would be so. I prayed another figure might come out of the sunlight with word Lazarus was healed.
At the dawning of the third day, you shook my shoulder. Had I slept? How had I slept when I wanted so to remain awake?
You woke all the disciples, in the thin light said, 'Let us go again into Judea.'
The protests were quiet but firm. Voices about the mystery. 'Master, they have of late sought to stone you, why should you return?'
'Are there not twelve hours in the day?' you said. 'If any man walks in the day he stumbles not, because he sees the light of this world. But if a man walks in the night he stumbles, because there is no light in him.'
We did not understand of night and light and of what you answered. You said, 'Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him out of sleep.'
'But if he sleeps, Lord, he shall be well,' Philip said. 'We need not go.'
In your face a cloud.
'Lazarus is dead,' you told plainly. 'And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe.' You looked away into the sun rising. What pity was in your eyes. For pity is love.