Fifth Gospel (11 page)

WATERMAN

J
ohn,
son of Elisabeth and Zacharias, neared his thirtieth year.

In fulfilment of his father’s vow to God he had been taken
as a child to the Nazarites to be instructed. Thereafter he had lived in the desert among the peoples of the caves and the peoples of the gorges, and for this reason he now remembered little of his mother and father, and his youth in Hebron. Instead, he remembered other things: the surface of the salty sea, the scorched winds that fanned the palms, the taste of cool waters flowing from natural springs, and the endless round of fasting and deprivation, which formed a part of the life of every Nazarite. He had never taken a razor to the head, He had abstained always from any fermented drink, ate no animal flesh and had never come near a dead body. Moreover, the exercises he had endured since childhood and continued to endure had been harsh, the maceration and mortification of the flesh had hardened his body and loosened his soul in readiness for the coming of the Messiah.

Towards this end he spent
long days and even longer nights in meditation and fasting, sitting before the mouth of his cave with his throat parched and his hunger gnawing and biting him like a ravenous animal. The cave was located in the walls of a steep gorge. From its lip he could look over the mountainous wilderness of Judea, over the death-imbued waters of the Dead Sea and the rigid bareness of the low lying deserts. This landscape recalled to him the impoverishment of the human soul; the soul that chose only a striving for earthly things. In the distance he could also see that other place, which had once been cursed by God – Gomorrah. This was now the colony of the Essenes, who came to call it
Qumran
.

He would sometimes go to Qumran and on the way he would pause to visit
those little colonies that here and there dotted the wilderness. He spoke to the people of these hamlets of his hopes for the coming of the Messiah. But the people did not hear his words with open ears, for they possessed lame spirits.

He
often spent time at Qumran, for he acknowledged the struggle for purity of the Essenes, and they, in turn, seemed to approve of his pious life and allowed him to enter their cloisters from time to time, disclosing some of their ways to him. He knew they only did so, however, in the hope that he might incline his heart towards them. But he had always sensed something misshapen in their teaching and for this reason he never remained long with them, preferring the solitude of his cell, his own rules, and his own ways.

It was on such a visit to Qumran
, that John met the man whom they called Jesus of Nazareth.

The day of the meeting he was sat on the highest pinnacle of the Essene house
, feeling particularly troubled. A deep gloom had settled over the expanses, making the desert’s pillars and domes seem to him like sinister beings. The entire world seemed cast in murky tones by the grey-green clouds of an oncoming storm, which loomed above and made his bones and sinews creak – a storm, sure enough, caused by the devil.

He
was torn from his thoughts by a voice.

‘
You are the prophet?’ The voice said, and when John turned to look, he saw that it came from a man no older than he, a man who was tall, brown of skin, fair of hair, with eyes that were neither brown nor green nor blue: the eyes of a Galilean, a stranger of mixed heritage.

He did not like strangers.

‘If I am a prophet,’ he said, turning around again, ‘then I am a solitary one.’

The Galilean
did not seem put off by him, which in itself was enough to make him curious.

‘All prophets are solitary
,’ the other man pointed out, sitting next to him. ‘Elijah was a voice in the wilderness, unknown by a world that did whatsoever it wished with him.’

John
made a huff. ‘What good did Elijah do? The souls of men have not changed, the world remains the same.’

‘
Did you hope you would find it otherwise?’ the other man said.

What was this question that did n
ot seek an answer, but seemed to be the answer itself? He took a closer look at the silhouette of the man sitting beside him. He was gazing out at the desert as if it were a pleasure garden! On the one hand, this man seemed as old as Abraham and on the other, there was something fresh and youthful that played about his eyes. The perception of these opposing natures made John fall into bewilderment and he did not know what to make of it, so he did something rare – he smiled.

‘What is your name?
It seems to me that we have met before.’

The
stranger said, ‘I am Jesus. I was born in Bethlehem, but I come from Nazareth.’

‘Nazareth?’
John said, ‘Nothing good ever came out of Nazareth, isn’t that what they say?’

‘Yes…
that is what they say,’ the stranger looked at him, with a wide smile in his colourful eyes.

There was something in that
smile. ‘I have heard tell of you, I think…’ He frowned, trying to put a finger on it. ‘Are you one with this Order?’

Jesus
shook his head slightly.

‘Wh
at are you doing here, then?’

‘
I am the same as you.’

John
nodded, reflecting on it. ‘I am a solitary wanderer…a seeker…’

Jesus said,
‘And that is what I am.’

He threw him a hard
stare. ‘What are you seeking?’

Jesus
returned it, measure for measure. ‘The truth.’

John shrugged.
‘That is what every man seeks.’

‘
Is that not also…what you seek?’

‘Yes
…’ he said disconcerted, ‘but have you found it? That is the question.’

Jesus
was tranquil and courteous, ‘I had hoped to find it among the
good men,
but I didn’t.’

‘
And where else have you looked for it?’

‘Among
the pagans,’ Jesus said, ‘and the priests at Jerusalem before that.’

‘
And you didn’t find it?’

‘I found
temptation, but I also found that when a man flees from temptation, that is when he falls all the more into its pit.’

John smiled
again to himself. This was a day full of rarities. ‘Yes… that is so,’ he agreed.

‘I had to ask myself
,’ Jesus continued, ‘why must salvation come only to those who have the blood of Abraham? Why could it not come to all men?’

John
thought it a novel idea.

‘
Have you never asked yourself this?’ Jesus continued. ‘Here, in this seclusion the Essenes strive to be pure. They touch no money and don’t stain their hands with labour and yet, a man has to eat bread and drink water, he has to have clothes to ward off the cold and a shelter to ward off the sun, don’t you agree?’

John nodded. ‘
So he must, and the Essenes, who need these things, lay the burden of sin on those who support them, those who are willing to taint themselves with worldly things for their part, and do what the Essenes will not do.’

Jesus
looked out to the desert. ‘I have seen what happens to what they turn away from their gates…it goes out into the world to taunt ordinary people.’

John
was attentive. ‘What have you seen?’

‘
I have seen Satan, and the Devil,’ Jesus said, looking at him, ‘and when they flee from here, they tempt those that live outside all the harder.’

John was dumbstruck
. His own concerns and intuitions were, through this man, made more understandable to him. He peered into the landscape, torn and abandoned. Yes, he had seen the Devil and Satan: one a hot creature that made men fall into frenzy, the other a cold creature that lived in hard thoughts and hard hearts. He had known them in his meditations, and they had tempted him. It was difficult for him to speak of these things, which defied the tongue and words, except with this man.

‘
Yes…as you speak I realise that a time for seclusion is passed!’ He looked at Jesus. ‘And a time must come, when blood is of no importance…it is so near I can taste it on my tongue! Surely redemption cannot come by selfishly casting off burdens, but by shouldering the burdens of others!’

‘
That means,’ Jesus told him, ‘that if we are to find redemption we cannot escape suffering.’

John looked at
Jesus squarely in the eye. ‘For men like you and me, men who spend a long time looking at the same desert and wondering when He will come, this suffering cannot come soon enough!’

‘Who
m do you wait for?’

‘The
Messiah,’ John said, ‘whom else? I tell myself that Daniel’s prophecies are all fulfilled! Lions and beasts, war and famine, degradation and enslavement have come to us. A great supply of calamities! How much suffering will convince God that we are ready for the consolation of Israel? How much suffering before the liberator comes to relieve us?’

‘You sound angry with God.’ Jesus of Nazareth
said, pointing out the obvious.

‘I have a bone to pick with him, it
’s true!’ John said. ‘All my life I have fasted and waited and fasted, and denied the flesh and fasted again – does God not hear the anguish of the soul that is alone and weary and waiting for the day of the Lord to come?’

The Galilean
looked thoughtful, ‘Perhaps the Lord is waiting for
you
to fulfil Elijah’s task.’

John
measured his guile. Finding none, he said, ‘Tell me once more who you are.’

‘We are
kin, I think. My mother was Mary, your mother’s cousin.’

‘My mother’s cousin…’ he said
. An amazement washed over him and a sense of destiny signalled his soul to attention.

Jesus
stood.

‘Wait!’ John
moved to stop him. ‘What do you mean…God is waiting for me to fulfil Elijah’s task?’

‘
That is not for me to say…’ Jesus answered, ‘that is something between you and your angel.’

Jesus left
then and John remained, pondering these words.

By the time afternoon had gathered up the day to its bosom, John had gathered up his
things to return to the seclusion of his cave to ask the question.

‘How must I fulfil Elijah’s task?’

There he sat, over twelve days and nights, until his longing for understanding had reached a feverish pitch and his devotion was poured out towards the planets and stars. Now in the darkness he heard a mysterious tone – louder, gentler, louder again, resounding harmoniously in the night. He saw his soul as a dark disc around which bloomed an effulgence of light. Ring upon ring of rainbow colours appeared to form a radiant iris around it. The colours gathered in strength and began to eclipse the darkness, revealing the violet-red orb of his inner sun.

Th
is sun spoke thus:

‘John! Come closer, straighten you ears, lean them on my heart and listen. Yes…I am your angel, before I was your angel I was the angel of Buddha,
but he no longer needs me since he is now transfigured so I am come to you, to tell you how you must fulfil Elijah’s task. Come, my dishevelled one…you must prepare the way for the Being of the Sun who descends to the earth. You must make the path straight for his descent. Go forth and preach the gospel of repentance. It will be like Buddha’s Sermon at Benares, for I will inspire you! You will tell all men that the ‘kingdom’ of God is at hand. Then you will plunge their dirty souls into water, to loosen them from their bodies and cause them to see that they belong not only to bones and flesh, but also to the spirit. That is how they will be reborn, in the water of life, like fish.’

‘Will I also baptise the coming one?’

‘Yes…but the Son of God is only once born! That is the secret.’

‘
Oh angel!’ John anguished, leaning on that angelic being with all his might. ‘Tell me, how shall I know Him when he comes?’

‘Leave that to me! I will prise open your eyes
and you will see the spirit descend. Then you will be a witness that He is the Son of God. For you are the last of the prophets…my little baptiser…and the constellation from which you have seen the sun at midnight shall remain a memory of your deed and be known forever as Aquarius.

M
en will call it the region of The Waterman.’

BROTHERS

Y
eshua’s
brother
Jacob was a Nazarite. After his brother’s death he had left his home and offered himself to the elders and they had welcomed him because they had hoped that one day he might take his brother’s place as the Messiah’s chosen instrument. This, however, could only be known with certainty on his thirtieth year. Until then, he was expected to enter into the strictest branch of the order of Nazarites and become an Essene.

Over the years
he passed every trial and all was well, but when time came for him to ascend to the highest grade – that grade which leads the son of darkness towards ‘enlightenment’, he failed, and the elders were forced to turn him away from the sanctuary doors at Engaddi. He could remain in the outer circle and live his life in the Essene communities, but he would never partake of the ceremonial meals with the elders.

When he left
Engaddi, he did not return to Nazareth, but instead journeyed through the land; a man without a reason to sustain him, like a bird without a sky.

The
world was a tense, dangerous place, everywhere prophets shook their fists at the heavens, the Sicarri plotted against the Romans, and the Romans taxed the people, crucified them and caused blood to flow through the streets. The Levites, priests and rabbis were powerless and watched from their high places as if the trials of their people were none of their business. In the meantime, every faithful Jew waited for the Redeemer of Israel to come.

The
sun pressed its fingers into Jacob’s head and told him of the suffering and anguish of his people and he shouted back to it:

If
I was meant to take Yeshua’s place, why did you let me fail?

Yeshua would
not have failed. In Yeshua’s eyes there had always lived the seal of his ministry; the testament of his kingship had always throbbed in his heart. Did Jacob recognise such a kingship in his own mind, such a ministry in his own heart?

He did not know.

To think on Yeshua was to recall a resentment, which had long ago settled into the soil of his soul for the son of the carpenter, Jesus, the addled shepherd who could only play the flute and stare at the clouds. His brother’s affection had been reserved for Jesus alone and after his death, Jacob’s resentment had combined with his grief and had grown in him a suspicious, childish obsession, and it was this:

A
bewildering change had come over Jesus, a change that could not be explained. Suddenly, the backward boy was speaking eloquently, thinking unclouded thoughts and even arguing the law with the rabbis! How had he come by such cleverness? Even Jesus’ coloured eyes had flecked with his brother’s intelligence! He had grown certain that Jesus had stolen Yeshua’s soul and taken it for his own by some strange magic.

This had lived in him as a child, but as an adult
he had buried these suspicions, jealousies and hatreds deep below his thoughts, concentrating on his destiny and his work with the Essenes. But now, on his journeys, when he took refuge at inns and khans, these feelings began to surface again. For in these places Jacob found himself taken for another man, a man from Nazareth who had sat with the innkeepers and with the poor and the lowly – a man who had made such an impression on them that at times, when the firelight was soft and the conversation turned mellow, he seemed to be among them. Jacob had been full of misery to learn the man’s name – Jesus.

To add to his woes, when
he finally returned to his home, he learned that the Essene elders had begun to train their eyes on his stepbrother, and had invited him to Engaddi on his own terms! And so his deep-seated spite drove him to visit his stepbrother, to have it out with him.

The home
of Jesus was simple but skilfully built. It was set away from other houses, amongst a grove of olive trees, with a small garden and a place for the animals and for work. This day, Jesus was in the carpenter’s workshop and Jacob stood a long time watching him from behind a tree, trying to find the courage to confront him.

W
atching Jesus busy with his work reminded Jacob of a life grown distant to his mind. And as he watched the angle of Jesus’ head, half-turned to the light of the morning sun, began to play a trick of his eyes. Jesus’ face began to grow about it the likeness of Davidic descent, and Jacob was taken aback by it – for was this not a reflection of his dead brother? His mind told him it could not be so, he was falling once again into the delusions of his childhood, and yet…and yet…his heart could not deny what his eyes were seeing!

A
pain tore his soul from its hiding hole, so that it stood before him, perfectly clear and visible to his eyes. He saw himself as a despised creature, full of snakes and vipers in his heart. He understood the reason for his failure at Engaddi – he had not managed to purify his diseased soul!

He
left without a word to Jesus, and made his way to the Nazarite caves in Judea where he hoped to burn away his earthly failings and self-loathing through a regime of fasting and solitude.

He spent long months living in these caves, grappling with himself
, and yet he did not find himself altered. Finally, defeated and on his way to Jerusalem again word reached him of a man who was baptising for the remission of sins. He was baptising in that place where an arm of the Jordan formed a bend in the river and created a clear, still pool. Crowds were gathered on the riverbank, men and women, even children, stood listening to the words of the baptiser. The baptiser was broad-made and tall. He wore a garment of camel hair over his chest and a girdle of skin about his loins and stood waist deep in the water. His eyes were dark and troubled, his hair was auburn, long and unkempt but when he spoke his voice was full of authority, an authority beyond the world and its men.

He told the people that the kingdom in the heavens was approaching
the earth. He spoke of the Messiah who would soon come to redeem the errors of men. He said he would be able to recognise Him when he came, and so would all those who made pure their souls and repented their sins.

After that
, men wearing only loincloths clambered towards the water to enter the cool depths of the river. They were completely immersed in the water and when they surfaced Jacob saw them gasp like newborns. And when they walked past him, he saw the edifying and majestic inner change apparent on their faces.

Jacob
, loaded with a consciousness of his sins, heard the call of the river. He heard the murmur of pleasure and the cry of sorrow; the thunder of righteousness and the shame of wrongdoing. He heard the laments of mourning and the sighing for lost dreams. He heard stories of envy, murder, adultery and false witness. He heard of heresies, robberies and lusts. The river, for its part, chorused and harmonised these deaths and rebirths until all sin was turned to its opposite.

In his heart
Jacob felt an urgent pull to join his voice to the river’s voice, to immerse his failings in the healing waters and to surface again free from them; free from the festering and the spoilt deeps inside him. This was the redemption he had been seeking! Perhaps, free of his jealousy and covetousness he might find the path to his destiny?

He stood before the river’s rim. The crowds were near gone
. The sun, in its lowering path watched over the pastured lands, and the haze of afternoon began to fall over the trees. He removed his only garment and moved towards the water in his loincloth. The river was chilly. He stepped into its coolness and let it gather around his knees, then his thighs, until he was waist deep. It made him shiver. He felt alive.

He paused before John the Baptist
, and trembling, asked, ‘You say you can recognise the Messiah?’

The other man
answered, ‘I have put my soul at the disposal of an angel, and he has not opened my eyes yet…so He is not yet come.’

Jacob took this in. He was not the awaited one
. He was surprised to find relief flooding his heart! He crossed his hands over his chest as he had seen others do and the Baptiser immersed him into the water. He held his breath. An instant stretched to eternity, an eternity fashioned an instant. Full of fear, fear and panic and fear again he held to his heart, for harder tests had he withstood. Finally, he let go his dread of death and allowed the water to drown him.

He
was dying and in this dying something began to prise open the eyes of his soul, to reveal not the form-dwindling water, but something else – the weaving of his life in picture forms. Everything lay around him: his accomplishments and his many imperfections; his desires, his passions and his weaknesses; all of his vices and his transgressions; all the defilement of this life’s journey and the dust of his misplaced hopes and dreams.

All the content of his life
was added to the river’s many voices and by way of the stream’s sacrifice, these remnants floated away from him, leaving him clean. Now, a vision of profound beauty was granted him, so great and so mighty as to cause him to feel the very ground of his being shaken with love.

He saw, in his mind’s eye, a man carrying a lamb on his shoulder.

Of a sudden he was lifted out of the water and he gasped for breath. He felt life enter into the dead parts of his soul. He heard a voice,

‘Arise, yo
u have seen the good shepherd!’

Jacob
knew that his wound was healed and so his pain was eased. He had found harmony in the stream of his life, for in the river’s stream he had found his salvation.

In this peace there was a species
of loneliness. The world had grown alien to him and he would never again return to his former life. He would not remain a member of his family but would always be like a man in the wilderness, a solitary soul.

Such was the price of a new life
, and a new name.