The Master's Quilt (4 page)

• • •

Annas, the seventy-first member of the Great
Council at Jerusalem and the real power behind both the High Priest
and the Sanhedrin for more than twenty-five years, gazed out the
window of the inn at Caesarea Phillipi and marveled at the beauty
of Mt. Hermon, rising over nine thousand feet above the
Mediterranean.

“Such beauty. . .yet such apostasy,” he
mumbled, thinking of his last conversation with Caiaphas. “What a
contradiction Mt. Hermon represents,” he had told his son-in law
when he’d returned from his last visit to Syria.

“I don’t understand, Annas.”

“As you know it was at one time the primeval
religious center of Syria.”

The High Priest nodded.

“What you might not know is that the ancient
Canaanites sacrificed goats, bulls, dogs, and even men, offering up
the still warm blood from the dead carcasses to the demon god
Baal.” He knew by the look on his son-in-law’s face that he had his
attention. “And yet, in spite of the darkness it represents, there
is light. The melting glaciers of the mountain provide the main
source of water for the Jordan River. I have seen the cooling snows
of its white capped peaks from as far away as the Dead Sea, one
hundred twenty miles distant.”

“There are those here in Jerusalem who swear
that one can tell whether or not the crops will bring forth an
abundant harvest by how far down the white cap sits on the head of
the father of the dew,
Abu-Nedy
, one of its peaks,” the High
Priest observed.

“There, you see what I mean,” Annas had
replied with consternation. “Man is easily deceived by his
senses.”

He sighed with the recollection.
How long
it would be before he would have to intercede in his son-in-law’s
affairs?
There were serious problems within the Sanhedrin.

Fortunately, however, his meeting with
Vitellius had gone well. The governor had agreed with him that
Pilate was expendable and had informed him that he was receiving
regular correspondence from Pilate’s Praetorian. When he asked if
Vitellius was referring to Deucalion Cincinnatus, the governor had
gotten extremely angry and questioned him at length about his
source of information on the man he had sent to spy on the
Procurator of Judea.

Annas had been vague in his responses and was
satisfied that he had not divulged anything of importance to the
governor. Nevertheless, he could not shake an ominous sense of
foreboding. His internal barometer told him that the political
climate of Judea was about to change dramatically. Although he
wasn’t exactly sure what was in the winds, he could feel the change
coming. He had no way of gauging the magnitude of what he sensed,
but he didn’t intend to be caught unprepared when it
materialized.

A cloud passed overhead, briefly obscuring
the early morning sun, and Annas experienced a moment of dread. If
he believed in omens, it would be easy to believe that the dream he
had just before the sunrise was a harbinger of disaster.

Like all Jews, he was a great believer in the
power of dreams. Being but one of the many domains of his
experience, they had intellectual, ethereal, and spiritual
significance. This particular dream had attached itself to his
conscious, waking thoughts, as a barnacle attaches itself to its
host, and that made it unusual.

He stood in the middle of the desert,
sweating profusely, and listened as Elijah rebuked him for his
involvement with the Roman bureaucracy. The prophet, whose name
meant God is Jehovah, reminded him of his own problems with Jezebel
and the consequences of disobeying God, and then gave him a stern
warning. “If you persist in your self-serving manipulations, Annas,
no rain will fall upon Jerusalem and its environs for six
years.”

Before Annas could respond, the setting
changed to the top of Abu-Nedy. He stood waist deep in cold,
grey-white snow, shivering uncontrollably. Frightened by his
predicament, he tried unsuccessfully to free himself, but could
not. He cried out frantically in a hoarse voice, pleading for
someone to rescue him, but no one heard him.

Suddenly, the stars in the purple-black sky
melted together in an explosion of light, causing tears with the
consistency of oil and the odor of frankincense to flow from his
eyes like a river. In front of him, swathed in the light of the
sun, stood the Galilean—the Jew from Nazareth.

Stunned, he raised his arm towards
Jesus.

He must touch the man. . .

He’d awakened at the first light of dawn,
drenched in sweat, and even now, over an hour later, his throat
felt raspy and dry, as if he’d been screaming in his sleep. He
swallowed gingerly and took one last look at
Abu-Nedy
, then
reluctantly pulled his eyes from the magnificent mountain as the
sun crested its snow-covered peaks.

His servant was in the courtyard below,
filling a bucket with water from the well. “Polonius, fetch my
bags,” he called out hoarsely. “It’s time we were on our way.”

T
en miles east of
Jerusalem and eight miles south of Jericho, on the shore of the
Great Salt Sea that the Arabs call
Bahr Lut
, the Sea of Lot,
the Watcher, Uriel, looked out over the greenish expanse of water
and licked the crystalline coating of salt from his cracked,
sun-parched lips. He was tall, over six feet, with silver-gray
hair. His shoulders were broad and well muscled, and even though he
was old, he seemed ageless.

As the sun passed its zenith, and as Annas
headed for Jerusalem, Uriel turned and walked briskly towards the
cliffs behind him and to the cave where he knew Joseph ben Kohath
waited for him. In a few moments he climbed almost to the top. It
would have taken a man in superb condition, half his age
considerably longer.

Joseph heard Uriel enter the cave, but did
not immediately look up from where he was tending the fire. The
heaviness in his heart had not lifted during the past weeks and he
was grateful that the old man had not pried into its cause.

They had met on the day after he fled the
tomb of the Nazarene. He’d come to the great inland sea because he
knew he would find what he desperately needed—solitude and time to
think. He’d been walking along the beach, looking for shelter from
the heat, when the old man had appeared, seemingly out of thin
air.

“Come, I have prepared a place for you,”
Uriel had said to him, staring at him with hazel-green eyes that
blazed with a luminescence that was soft yet penetrating.

Although he had been surprised by the old
man’s sudden appearance, oddly, he felt drawn to the silver-haired
stranger.

“Where?” he asked.

Uriel looked up. “There,” he replied,
pointing to the top of a shear wall of rock.

“I don’t see anything.”

“The eyes of a man can be deceived, my young
friend, and all is not what it appears to be. There is a cave. .
.where you can rest.”

That had been more than a month ago.
Unfortunately, there had not been much rest. Not because of
anything Uriel had demanded, but because of the battle that raged
inside him. He attempted to rid himself of his inner torment by
eating and drinking only the barest amount of food and water, and
by spending long hours in prayer late at night. During the day, he
spent several hours walking along the beach, reviewing Scripture in
his mind. The discipline had firmed up his soft flesh even as the
sunlight had steadily converted the dull pallor of his skin into a
handsome bronze coloring. Still, his dreams were often
troubled.

When he looked up, Uriel was staring at him,
and the old man’s eyes seemed to radiate light. Suddenly, Joseph
made a decision. “How was your walk this morning?” he asked.

“The smell of great change is in the air, my
young friend,” Uriel replied as he sat down across from Joseph.

Joseph wasn’t sure what the old man was
talking about, but then he was accustomed to cryptic replies to his
questions. His teachers had often spoken of spiritual matters in
the same manner—always using words that held double meaning.
However, the old man’s words had an astounding affect upon him. An
overwhelming surge of emotion welled up inside of him and,
abruptly, he began to sob.

Uriel was startled, completely unprepared for
the sudden outburst. Uncertain what to do, he waited patiently for
Joseph to regain control, then handed him a ladle of water from a
nearby bucket.

Joseph took several sips. “You probably think
me foolish,” he said as he wiped his face on his tunic.

Uriel remained silent.

“I was given the opportunity to share in the
life of one who was bound by neither wealth nor poverty, knowledge
nor the lack thereof,” continued the younger man, “and I turned my
back upon that freedom, unwilling to lose that which I perceived to
be of greater value.”

“And what was that?”

“Silver and gold.”

“Aha. . .I see.”

Joseph took a final sip of water, then handed
the ladle back, taking care not to spill the precious liquid. “Now,
the man is dead,” he added, looking at the old man with moist, red
eyes.

“Oh?” Uriel poured the remaining liquid into
the bucket without taking any.

“We awaited His coming for a thousand years
and yet, in the end, we denied Him. Now, the bitter irony of our
apostasy, Golgotha, the place of the skull, shall indelibly mark us
even as Cain was marked for the murder of his brother, Abel.”

Both men were quiet, pensive, and each seemed
disconnected from the present as they sat facing one another in the
late afternoon stillness, their eyes locked together. There was a
loud
pop!
from within the fire, and an amber colored slug of
dried sap arced upward and outward, landing between the two
statue-like men.

“It is not easy to battle wickedness,
especially when one hasn’t seen the enemy,” Uriel said, breaking
the silence. Then, as if reminding himself of something he must not
forget, he added, “And the weapons of our warfare are not of the
physical realm, but mighty through God, that we might pull down the
strongholds of the destroyer and his minions.”

Joseph had the impression that he and the old
man shared a similar pain. Oddly, he felt that soon he would come
full circle from his mistake in Bethel. “You speak of strange
things,” he whispered, frowning. “And your words remind me of my
time of study with Rabbi ben Hillel. . .in preparation for my
bar mitzvah
. Yet with him I knew what was expected, what I
was preparing for. But here in this cave, separated from all that I
once held in high esteem, it seems I am isolated from purpose as
well.”

“What you seek, Joseph is Life and Light.
Life that remains uncaged by the bars of time. Light so pure that
its brilliance knows no limitation.”

“I don’t understand.”

Uriel smiled. “Finish your story. If you
still need an explanation after that, then I’ll give you one.”

He’s doing it again
, thought Joseph.
Speaking with words that hold double meaning
. Still
confused, but, strangely, no longer blindingly frustrated, he
continued where he left off.

“About the middle of March, my father sent me
to Judea to purchase a new boat for our fleet. I concluded my
business and was waiting for a boat to take me back to Cyprus when
I chanced upon my cousin from Jerusalem, John Mark. As we had not
seen each other for quite some time, we sat down in the shade of a
palm tree and caught one another up on what had been happening in
our lives.”

“I told him of the growth of my uncle and
father’s fishing fleets, and of my family’s prosperity. “I too have
prospered,” he said smiling, “but in a much different way.”

“When I questioned him about it, he asked me
if I would go with him to Bethel.

“There,” he added cryptically, “you will find
your answer.”

“By the time we arrived, a great multitude
had gathered in a large semi-circle. In front of them, reclining
against a tree, was a man. The hot afternoon sun filtered through
the tattered canopy of palm leaves, lighting His face as if it were
glowing.” Joseph sighed and poked the embers of the fire with a
stick. “His gaze was penetrating, unwavering, and I had the
impression that as he made eye contact with each of us he could
read our character in an instant. I was overcome with an almost
overpowering desire to touch Him.”

“Why?”

“Because, when he spoke, it was difficult
not to listen to Him
—His words were full of power.”

Uriel nodded with understanding. “Go on.”

“I implored my cousin to get me close enough
to the man called Jesus, so that I might address Him personally. He
was on his knees, praying for a group of children. When he looked
up at me, all I could think to ask of him was, ‘Good Master, what
good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?’”

“He didn’t answer me immediately, but again
looked deep into my eyes. This time my whole body trembled as he
stared at me.”

“‘Why do you call Me good?” he asked. “There
is none good but one that is God: but if you would enter into life,
keep the commandments.”

“Which commandments?” I asked.

“You shall not murder, nor commit adultery.
You shall not steal, nor shall you bear false witness. Honor your
father and your mother, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

“But all these things I
have
kept from
my youth,” I replied, bewildered. “What do I lack?”

“If you would be perfect, go and sell all
that you have and give it to the poor, and you shall have treasure
in Heaven. . .then come and follow me.” Joseph paused and sighed
heavily, then added, “That was something I could not do.”

Night fell as the two men talked, and the
cave walls came alive with shimmering shadows of flickering
firelight as Joseph placed another log on the dying fire.