The Fisherman (14 page)

Then Jesus spoke again, not a statement this time, but a question, a question possessing the power to bring peace and renewal and, in the most amazing way, hope to my heart. He said, “You don't want to go away too, do you?”

In that instant I saw the great divide between us and them. Jesus' words that morning had brought pain and frustration to everyone who heard them. But there was a difference. They brought pain and frustration to the mob because they knew they could not follow Jesus. They brought pain and frustration to us because we knew we could not leave him. I wonder if you can understand how Jesus' question gave me hope. Of course I had my agenda. Of course I wanted him crowned king so that I could serve as his right-hand man. Of course I wanted his fame and fortune and success, knowing my fame and fortune and success were inseparably linked to his. But if I could not have the fame, if I could not have the fortune, if I could not have the success, if we lost it all in an instant, I still wanted
him!
I wanted
him
more than I wanted anything he might bring me. If the movement collapsed, and the crowds never returned, and we all died in obscurity on the back side of the desert, it would still be worth it all, because what I wanted most I still possessed. I was still his friend, and he was still mine, and it was enough.

The words I spoke that day in response to that question were, I believe, the first words the Spirit of God ever spoke through me. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

As is typical with the working of the Holy Spirit, I spoke more than I understood. I have quoted those words to myself countless times since that day, savoring their truth, drawing strength from the security they bring. I did not understand the man standing before me. To be honest, I did not yet understand most of the things he said. But one thing I did understand—he was Truth. There was no place else to go. If there was no Jesus, then there was nothing. When Jesus asked if we too would leave, his question forced me to recognize I already had what I wanted most—I had him. And he was enough.

It is painful for me to recall those months immediately following the feeding of the five thousand men and their families. The memory of it makes me feel embarrassed even now. I wonder if you have had such a time in your own life—a time when you look back and marvel that you could have been so blind, so completely consumed with yourself, so totally immersed in your own fleshly, selfish little goals. My devotion to the Master and my desperate need for him remained as intense as ever. But that just made it all the worse.

You see, Jesus wasn't behaving correctly from my perspective. He wasn't doing the things I knew he should be doing. I know now why he concluded that hideous day following the great feeding by asking me that question, “You don't want to go away too, do you?” He knew the power of speaking the truth, the tremendous value of forming it into words and articulating it to others. He knew I needed to face the next few months having reaffirmed to myself and to my world the only truth about him that I was certain of. Even if he did it all wrong from my perspective, even if I could not understand what he was doing or why he was doing it, even if I knew in my heart that his way would lead us to disaster, still there was no place else to go, there were no other answers. Either there was Jesus or there was nothing.

Having watched the Master turn his back on what at the time I believed to be our greatest open door to success, rather than regrouping our forces and rebuilding our power base, he then chose to invest huge blocks of time with individuals and groups who were powerless to help him reestablish the throne of David and the righteous, sovereign rule of Israel. Timing was crucial. Momentum was essential. And yet Jesus seemed to be either blind or ignorant of the strategies that were so obvious to me. There were days during that period when I wanted to grab him and shake him and scream, “What are you doing with our lives? What are you doing with your own? We are not where we should be, and we won't get there heading the way you're taking us!”

Accounts of Jesus' most recent miraculous works traveled throughout the nation more quickly than I would have believed possible, each new account inciting our political leaders to more intense resistance against him. With his name now firmly established at the top of their “Most Hated” list, Jesus remained in the north, well away from the national power center in Jerusalem. That much of his strategy, at least, I agreed with. He was certainly not in hiding, but neither was he ready for direct confrontation in what our nation's leaders believed to be their home territory. At the time I assumed he simply wanted a few more months in order to regain our momentum and rebuild our forces. I now know the truth. He did need more time. But it had nothing to do with rallying the masses. It had everything do with the things he still needed to accomplish, both in us, his “little flock,” and in those who were bent on destroying him.

A few days following Jesus' rejection of the mob's offer to crown him king, another delegation of Pharisees and scribes arrived from Jerusalem. By now all pretense of politeness was gone. The Pharisees pounced on any apparent offense they could find that might help discredit the Master in the eyes of his followers. This time they lunged at him for not adhering to the proper form of ritualistic purification. Our traditions held to rigid divisions between places, people, and things we considered to be “clean” and those we considered to be “unclean.” Following even casual contact with anything on the “unclean” list, it was necessary for a person to adhere to a clearly established pattern of ritualistic cleansing in order to restore proper personal purification. Some of the Pharisees caught us ignoring this purification ritual and accused Jesus of failing to follow and teach the highest standards of our people.

Their words were barely out of their mouths when Jesus responded with the most direct and unqualified condemnation I'd heard him deliver up to that point. His words carried a ring of unquestioned and uncompromising authority. “You hypocrites! Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.'”

Using the words of Isaiah as an attack weapon against them enraged this self-righteous flock of Pharisees. Their entire lives were based on creating the appearance of absolute adherence to the writings of Moses and the prophets. Nor did it help when he equated their attitude toward him with their attitude toward God himself. A few seconds of stunned silence followed his rebuke. He then added a few more words of direct condemnation for their behavior before turning his attention to the onlookers observing this heated exchange, warning them about the dangers of the hypocritical teachings flowing from the mouths of the Pharisees. Nothing could have more completely or more quickly alienated these Jerusalem visitors. Not only did Jesus not honor them for their piety, he actually held them up as the worst possible examples of true righteousness, men whose approach to God was to be avoided at all costs.

The crowd loved it, but the tension and hostility between us and the Jerusalem leadership surged to new heights. The following day Jesus took us out of town for a while—way out of town. We headed north to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and the Gentile regions of Tyre and Sidon.

At the time I felt as though Jesus was running away. Except for the obvious advantage of keeping us out of Jerusalem's reach, our journey north was a puzzle to all of us. With his own people so close to crowning him king, why turn now to the Gentile world? An occasional gesture of kindness to a Samaritan or prominent Gentile leader was fine. But why suddenly fling wide the offer of his love and kindness to those who had no claim to it? There were so many things I did not understand at the time. How could I, with my narrow, selfish little goals? Most of all I did not understand the absolute perfection with which Jesus was orchestrating not only his own actions but also the actions of all those who were to play a part in this supreme drama scripted by God himself from before the foundation of the world.

Each step of the way he told us what he was doing, but we did not have ears to hear. He told us why he was taking us north. “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.” Most would not respond to his voice until after the resurrection, but at least he wanted a few of them to hear it and to taste just a little of the sweetness of his love.

Even in this Gentile region, Jesus' reputation preceded him. A few healings, a few acts of deliverance, and the Gentiles followed him with the same fervor and devotion as did many of the Jews. In fact, in some respects the Gentiles' response surpassed that of their Jewish counterparts because the Gentiles brought no rigid religious standard with which to measure the Master. It wasn't long before his Gentile followers gave him their own special title. To them he was “the man who does all things well.”

We spent several weeks in that Gentile world with Jesus' popularity growing daily in numbers and intensity. They knew nothing of a promised Messiah. When Paul wrote that letter to the Ephesian Christians, nearly all of whom came to Christ from the Gentile world, he described their condition well when he reminded them that prior to their submission to Christ, they were separate from Christ, excluded from the Commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. That says so well what we saw in the lives of those we encountered throughout our northern journey. And yet they were hungry, desperately hungry for hope, for him.

I must admit that throughout the entire trip I fluctuated back and forth between resentment and envy. I resented their intrusion into our lives, seeking a claim in the riches flowing from
our
prophet,
our
messiah, the hope for
our
nation. And yet I envied them as well. I envied the simplicity and purity of their devotion to the Master. They brought no tub full of intellectual questions, no troublesome passages from ancient writings. They brought no intricate religious agenda with which to test the Master. And because they brought no agenda, their spirits were freed to drink of his kindness and his love in great, greedy, guilt-free gulps. It was a tiny glimpse into what we now see in such vast numbers throughout the Gentile world. At the time, however, we could only assume Jesus was laying the groundwork for good relations with those who would border him on the north when he finally established his kingdom in Israel. No other explanation made sense to us.

By the time we turned back toward Israel, our tiny band had once again grown into a massive throng. Thousands of Gentile followers refused to let Jesus out of their sight. Many wanted healing, of course, but most just wanted to listen to him talk. This man understood life. He wasn't pushing some new religious fad. He didn't want them to join anything. He wasn't after their money. He simply wanted to love them, to touch their lives, to meet their needs. Jesus fed their spirits and gave them hope.

The size of the group forced us to spend our final few days out in the uninhabited regions of the Decapolis, along the eastern coast of the Sea of Galilee, miles from any cities or towns. The Gentile tour culminated with a mass meeting in which Jesus taught all afternoon. There were about four thousand men with at least twice that many women and children. Many had been with us for several days.

When Jesus finished his teaching, he asked the Twelve of us to join him at the front. He told us he didn't want to send the people away hungry and asked what food we had with us. Our own supply was down to nearly nothing—just a few small loaves and fish.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking we'd been here before, and surely we'd get it right this time. I'll admit the thought crossed my mind, but I wasn't about to speak up, nor did any of the others. You see, in our minds the situation was not at all the same. These were not Israelites. These were pagans, Gentiles with no right to his gifts. Surely he would not feed them. Even our presence with them made us unclean. And then, too, we remembered vividly what happened the last time someone asked Jesus to do a repeat of his magic food trick. That was the day his refusal made everyone so mad they turned away from him. No, it was better to say nothing and let the Master do whatever he was going to do.

It could not have been a more glorious conclusion to our Gentile tour. For a second time we watched as he took our few loaves and fish and fed us all—not just a bite or two but heaps and piles of food from which we all ate until everyone was stuffed. The crowd's response was understandable. With their minds filled with truth, their spirits filled with hope, and their tummies filled with fish and bread, “the man who does all things well” could not be allowed to leave. Jesus made it clear his visit was now over, but in the end we found it necessary to recruit the help of a sympathetic fisherman who provided us with his boat and an escape route across the Sea of Galilee. As we set sail for home, I hoped things had settled down in our absence and that we would be able once again to get the movement moving forward.