ALIVE: Chapter 159. The Reveal

Jesus had managed to escape the clutches of the priests, Pharisees, and the officer, because as He said, it wasn’t time. That was not how it was supposed to end. But it was a turning point. Jesus’s message to the people became increasingly bold.

It was the last day of the feast. Jesus was back out speaking and teaching the crowds that grew around Him like neonatal cells rapidly multiplying to become a whole new person, His Bride. On that day, before the majority of people would leave the feast in Jerusalem for their own villages and cities, Jesus made the boldest statement ever spoken by a human being from Adam to eternity.

The children closest to Him looked up in awe, their mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles nearby. Many of them came from as far as northern Tiberius to southern Aqaba. They had heard about this celebrity; some were curious and thirsty for knowledge that would bring relief from their fears and pains, while others, the naturally skeptical and critical looked for fodder to feed their arrogance.

Jesus did not disappoint either when He said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.” He paused to give them time to absorb the images and try to understand what He was saying. Jesus knew He was speaking to people who lived in very arid lands, for whom water was the most precious element of life. Being thirsty was common, even dangerous, as dehydration meant death. To say Living Water is as redundant as to say Sun-Light.

Hannah heard that statement and struggled to understand it, grateful for the pause. “Water, precious water. I need it. When I’m thirsty I even get a headache. What kind of water is Jesus offering? Does He mean that we should drink His words, to understand them? Rivers of living water? Does that help me? Is He saying that the water He offers is alive and can grow? Oh! I’m so confused, I don’t understand what He’s saying. Oh! He’s talking. Stop thinking and listen!”

Rachel standing beside Hannah cupped her hand over Hannah’s ear and said, “This Man is a true prophet! I feel like Elijah is standing here speaking!” Hannah turned her head, nodded and smiled but didn’t dare speak over Jesus. She turned back to stare at Him, wanting desperately to imbed His image in her mind.

At the same time Ari announced loudly, “This is the Messiah!”

Ephraim heard that and said, “Can’t be. Does the Messiah come out of Galilee? The scripture says that the Messiah comes from the seed of David, and from Bethlehem. This guy is an imposter. Listen to how boastful he is? Let’s go.”

The crowd was divided. It is always that way. Individual freedom of thought is the essence of humanity. Freedom is a reflection of man’s likeness to his Creator, who made man to depict the infinitely magnificent image of Himself in miniature upon the earth. Freedom of opinion is a necessary consequence of the purpose of mankind’s  origin and creation. * The many others who agreed with Ephraim wanted to grab and arrest Him, but no one had the nerve. The crowds that gathered around Jesus continued to be a mixture of devotees and enemies.

In that crowd on that day were two Roman officers who went to hear what the celebrity was telling the people. They heard and immediately left the crowd to go directly to the office of the chief priests where the men were meeting with some Pharisees. When the officers entered the room, a Pharisee looked up and said, “Did you arrest Him yet? Where is He?”

One of the officers answered, “We’ve never heard a man speak with such power and authority. I, we didn’t dare arrest Him in front of all those people who were looking at Him as if He were the Messiah. One guy even shouted that out! How could we arrest Him after that?”

To that, Lev, a priest, said to the officer, “Are you also taken in by this imposter? Have any of us or the government rulers believed Him or has any one of these Pharisees here. Listen to me, those people in that crowd are ignorant. They don’t know enough of the law which is why they stick to Him the way they do.”

Nicodemus, one of the Pharisees in the room spoke up. “Does our law judge a man, before he first hears from him speak in his own defense and knows what or why he is doing what he did?”

The chief priest quickly spoke up and answered Nicodemus “Are you also from Galilee? You should know better. You know that no prophet is coming out of Galilee.”

The two officers looked at each other to say, “Let’s get out of here. This isn’t a Roman problem. Talking about prophets and messiahs.” And the one said, “We must be going, goodbye gentlemen.”

“Go.” replied the chief priest and whisked him away with a brush of his hand.

Nicodemus said, “I need to go home too.”

….

Although Jesus and the disciples who were with Him at the time, they stayed at His mother’s home along with the Mary’s who were happy to be with her and care for the menfolk, His mother decided not to go out with Him. She sensed the tension in the air and became increasingly concerned for His safety.

Safety was exactly what Jesus was not concerned about. He knew what His mission was and provoking the authorities and causing division was exactly what He was aiming for.

Amidst the hubbub and controversy, Jesus managed to slip away from the temple and walked over to the Mount of Olives. He had this miraculous way of being unseen or unrecognized when He wanted to. It was His way of protecting Himself and maneuvering through the world. I suspect my reader won’t believe this and think I am taking poetic license, but the absolute truth is that He could. This is proven by the fact that there are and have been saints, images of Christ on earth, who levitate, like St Francis, and who can transport themselves to be in two different faraway places at once. In fact, the Scriptures say that after the resurrection they didn’t recognize Him; well that wasn’t just because He was risen, He could do that all along. No one wrote about it because it wasn’t obvious to anyone like it was after the resurrection when He wanted to be revealed.

Back to the story. Jesus spent that night up on the Mt. of Olives alone, communing with His Father. Early the next morning He returned to the temple. The word got out that He was there and the temple soon filled with locals. He sat down and taught them about the law, about their history, the prophets and what God expects from them. While He was talking, the people looked over at the doors to see four men, what looked to be Pharisees and scribes two of which were clutching the arms of a beautiful woman and nearly dragging her into the temple.

The tallest one said, “This woman was taken early this morning in the very act of adultery. A sullen man who was following her said, “She was, I mean she is, my wife. She didn’t come home last night and these men helped me find her.”

The men released her arms and said again to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was found in the very act! Now the law Moses commanded us to stone such a woman. What do You say about her, what should be done?” As much as they wanted to see this woman stoned in public to teach all the women a lesson, they also wanted to test this itinerant teacher who frequently broke the law of the Sabbath, to see if He would break other laws.

Jesus stood up and pensively sized up the situation looking at the woman whose head was bowed down looking only at the ground in fear and embarrassment. Then Jesus stooped down, and with His finger wrote symbols on the ground.

“WELL? What do you say Master?” said the tall Pharisee emphasizing the word Master. Everyone’s whose eyes were focused on the shamed lady looked over at Jesus. He stood up again, looked around the room at the curious and the arrogant and answered, “Whoever is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

Then He stooped down and went back to writing on the dusty ground with His finger,

One by one, starting with the wise elders, then the scribes, and the husband, then the young bucks who would have wanted to have this loose woman for themselves suddenly remembered that it was time to go to work. Only Jesus was left there with the woman. He stood up and looked around at the empty room and down at what He wrote on the ground.

Then eye to eye, He said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no man condemn you?”

She replied, “No man, Lord.”

Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. “Go on, get out of here; go back to your husband and sincerely ask for forgiveness and never ever for the rest of your life do that again.”

“I promise Master; thank you, oh thank you, I won’t.” With tears of relief, not even daring to touch Him, she briskly walked out of the cool dark temple into the bright sunny day to go home. Facing her husband was going to be hard. He would probably dismiss her and she had no where else to go. She was determined to try and save her marriage feeling that she was given a new chapter in her life.

Seeing the woman leaving the temple, some people started filing back in. Some to find a cool place, others to hear what Jesus had to say. When the temple was fairly full again, Jesus stood up and proclaimed , “I am the light of the world: he that follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”

“What does He mean by the light of life?” whispered Hannah.

Rachel replied, “I think He is saying that His interpretation of the law shines light on the laws so we can understand them and please God who gives us life. I don’t know. What do you say?”

The returning Pharisee who had brought the woman in, not happy with his loss shouted, “You can’t boast about Yourself like that. Your own witness is not proof.”

Jesus answered, “Even if I do bear witness of Myself, My witness is true; for I know where I came from, and where I am going; but you do not know not where I come from, or where I am going. You judge according to the flesh; I judge no man.  But if I judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone, I am always with the Father that sent Me.”

Then He paused, not backing down one inch. He was bold, He was brash, but most importantly, He spoke the truth.

After the pause, He continued, “In your law it is written that the witness of two men is true. I bear witness of myself, ONE, and the Father, TWO, that sent me bears witness of Me. There, you have it. I give you two witnesses.”

An elder called out, “Where is this Father of yours? I don’t see Him.”

Jesus answered, “You know neither Me, nor My Father. If you knew Me, you would know my Father also.”

This time, no one tried to arrest Him for blasphemy.

He continued,  “I will go away, and you will look for Me. You will die in your sin. Where: I go, you cannot come.”

The Jews murmured to each other saying to the effect, “Will He kill himself? What does He mean by that?”

He continued, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. You will die in your sins, unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins. Everything that I have told you from the beginning. I have many things to tell you  and to judge concerning you. He that sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I tell the world.”

These statements were very enigmatic and confusing to this congregation. But they were remembered and passed on, in fact they were passed on for an hundred years, even though at the time no one perceived that Jesus, this young Master in the temple was talking to them about the Creator of the universe, who was His Father. And that made all the difference. But the fact that the message lived and was believed by hundreds of people who were not in the temple that day, that the power and the truth of those words outlived physical bodies for generations provided the multitude of witnesses required. Not the words only, but the proof, the supernatural evidence of the truth gave witness that Jesus’ bold and brash statements illuminated a path, the yellow brick road glistening in the forest to a place of peace and unending life.

Back to the temple, before leaving that day, with a strong authoritative voice Jesus closed with, “When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself, but as the Father taught Me, I speak these things. And that He that sent Me is with Me. He has not left Me alone; for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.”

As phantasmagoric as these words sounded, to that group of people many believed them, and those anonymous men and women started the golden links that carried the message from above to below through the ages.

Jesus said to those special people that had believed him specifically, “If you abide in My word, if you live as in the luminous bubble of truth that I describe and show you through the healings and the teachings, in this dark world then are you are truly My disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will  make you free.”

One man, a non believer taking the side of the arrogant but powerful Pharisee, shouted, “We are Abraham’s seed, and have never been in bondage to any man: how can you say, You will be made free?”

Jesus answered, “Every one that commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not live in the house for ever. Only the son lives in the Father’s house for ever. If therefore the Son frees you, the slave of sin, you will be free indeed.”

But when we sin master. We can’t help it. We do it out of ignorance, out of self indulgence, out of pride. How can we ever be set free?

Someday you will know. Keep that question in your mind and in your heart, and don’t forget it. When you become free, you will know the difference. We will rejoice together. Now I must be going. Shalom.”

*read testimonies from Saint Paisios of Mt. Athos by Hiermonk Lev

*Saint Nectarios Kefalas