meanderings

CHRISTMAS 2007


Judas stared into the sea. His fingers deftly explored the ropes of the nets, seeking weak or torn spots in need of attention. His hands moved over the surface of the net with practiced ease while his thoughts were distant and restless. He watched the waves break the surface, running through the rocks and sand, bubbling foam and debris before racing back to meet the next wave tumbling to shore. He felt that same troubled energy churning in his belly. Worry gnawed away at the breakfast he had forced himself to eat. It would worry his mother to see him fasting. She would think he had listened to the pious Pharisees who insisted on assigning blame.
It is not that she would object to a fast. Fasting had always played a part in their lives. Fasting and prayers were rituals of duty and comfort. But she would worry that his fast might represent a penance he didn’t owe, a penance both his parents refused to acknowledge. His mother’s heart might be breaking from sorrow, but not from shame.
His mother’s parting smile belied the pain that was written in the worry lines across her face. Although his mother had only given birth to two sons, both of those sons had reached manhood. Judas was well into his adulthood, having made his first trip to the temple almost four years ago. His mother’s face had long ago lost its smoothness and youthful beauty, but it was only in the last few months that she had begun to look old. Their sorrow had taken the lightness from her step and her smile, but he could still see the determination and love in her eyes as she watched him leave, accepting his excuse of checking on the boat and taking the nets with him into the impending storm. She must have sensed his need to get away. She would know that the boat would have been made secure the night before and the nets would have been better tended within the shelter of their home. She would know that he left to confront his guilt, a guilt their society encouraged and she denied.
“We will have faith,” she told him. “God will provide.”
He nodded at her words and tried to push his doubts aside. It was a harsh world. Many did not survive. Many suffered in ways that Judas could not even attempt to imagine. His family had never been hungry, had never lived with the want that surrounded so many around them. They owned their own boat. They did not have to sell their labor day by day with no guarantee of tomorrow’s wages. The nets he mended were their own. The sea was abundant with its daily bounty. They would not go hungry because the wind was fierce and the sea a churning mass of foam on this day. There would be bread and fish for their dinner, and there would be fishing tomorrow. He sat by the sea with the work of his hands, hands that were beginning to numb with cold, not because he had no choice. He did not live a life of luxury. He was not a tax collector or a landlord. But a plentiful fire warmed his house where he could have easily sat mending his nets. There was grain in their jars, salted fish for months if they needed it, and the oil to cook both. There was much to give thanks for. He knew that. Some days it was comfort enough. Some days it was not. Today, he faced the cold wind blowing off the sea to clear his thoughts, to look within himself to find the faith that came so hard for him in these last few months.
Judas was raised in a family of faith. His father had taken his brother and him to the synagogue to pray every morning since before he could remember. They dutifully kept the Sabbath and gave alms over and above their tithes. His mother could often be found visiting the sick of their community with her warm fish broth and bread. She gladly cared for the little ones of a sick mother with no older children. No matter what the religious authorities said, he would not believe that their suffering was the result of a secret sin on the part of his mother or father, or even of his brother. His parents had lived honest, loving lives and did not deserve the blame that was directed towards them. What happened to Benjamin was not their fault.
They didn’t believe so either. “Our God is a God of mercy,” his father told him. “He would not hurt our Benjamin for something we did. There is so much sickness and suffering. It is the way of our lives. We have suffered less than most. And God will teach us in our suffering and will provide us with mercy.” His father would not discuss who had sinned to cause Benjamin to become so ill, to almost die, and then to awaken without the use of his legs. “We must give thanks that God has spared his life. I would not like to think of life without Benjamin. I am thankful for both of my sons.” His father had embraced him then. “We will be Benjamin’s legs for him.”
And so they were. His father had made a special pallet for Benjamin. Judas and his father could easily move Benjamin around their small house; and on the Sabbath, there were always friends who were willing to give them a hand. Benjamin had not missed a Sabbath service since the fever had left him. Judas and three of Benjamin’s friends would share the burden of his weight. They had traveled the distance of more than a mile growing stronger with each journey. Whatever Benjamin’s friends thought of the Pharisee’s words, they were always willing to help carry Benjamin wherever he wanted to go. Never in his life had Benjamin lacked for friends and the loss of his legs had not changed that.
Everyone loved Benjamin. He was the perfect child. Adults loved him for his intelligent, respectful way of talking with them. Men had always commented to Judas’s father what a blessing it must be to have a son like Benjamin. He was always first to memorize a scripture and to understand its meaning. He was the only one in the village to master the languages of the travelers who passed through their town on the way to Jerusalem. It had been a great boon to the fishermen of the town to have a native child who could bargain with the strangers passing through for the best price. Until his illness, no one in the town had a single, harsh word to say about his family. Any family that could produce a man like Benjamin was to be honored and respected.
The strange thing was that all of the other children liked Benjamin as well. He had more friends than anybody. No one seemed to resent the positive attention the town bestowed upon Benjamin. He was everyone’s favorite playmate as a child and everyone’s best friend as they grew up. He was kind and considerate and the kind of person everybody just liked. Everyone wanted to be around Benjamin. Even now, when Benjamin was so limited by his inability to walk, their house was constantly filled with friends and laughter. Others would drop in at the end of the day to tell Benjamin an amusing story or to share the news of a new engagement or to describe the dress of the newest travelers in town. Benjamin was everybody’s friend, and even from the confines of his pallet, he brought a brightness into any room he occupied.
Judas loved Benjamin. Benjamin brightened Judas’s life in the same way he brightened everyone’s life around him. Judas would rather be with Benjamin than with anyone else. But…he had also resented him, had traveled that dark path of feeling inferior. Benjamin excelled at everything with what seemed complete effortlessness. How could a younger brother not feel inferior? He hated those feelings within himself. They were not good for him. They hurt. When he concentrated on how good Benjamin was then everything Judas himself did well paled in comparison and he felt like a failure. Judas actually had a wonderful, bass voice that in any other family would have been a gift worth noting. But what was the ability to sing next to the ability to speak four different languages and to understand as many more different dialects. It was nothing.
Judas had never actually crossed the line into hatred for his brother. Even the anger he felt towards his parents’ obvious favoritism never reached expression. Instead, it burned within him, filling him with shame. It only decreased his sense of self worth. And now, there was the fear that his self loathing was justified. What if it had been his resentment that had caused Benjamin’s illness and resulting paralysis? What if Benjamin suffered now because of his own jealousy? The Pharisees certainly believed that someone had sinned to cause the sickness that had afflicted Benjamin, especially when he lost the use of his legs upon his recovery. His parents didn’t think so, and Judas didn’t want to believe it, but what if they were right? What if all this pain really was his fault?
He reached to wipe his tears away with the edge of his cloak, and looked to the horizon of the dark sea ahead of him. The swell of the waves, their white caps blinking at him and the sound of the lapping of the waves on the shore provided a rhythm that was soothing in spite of its harshness. He waited before the sea. His hands fell still. His eyes glazed over as he allowed the sounds to lull him into a peaceful rest that he couldn’t explain. It was so much bigger and grander than his feelings of self doubt and pity. The enormity and power of the sea washed away at his worry and fear. Slowly the worry began to pass. The tightness in his gut loosened. His breath became smoother and the pain within began to dissipate. A prayer stumbled from his lips, joining the rhythm of the sea. Soon he found that he was singing to the accompaniment of the booming water. He sighed at the unexpected relief from his troubled mind. The sea always seemed to hold the power of healing for him. He would return to his home refreshed, relieved for the moment of his doubts and fears.
*************
Judas’s eyes sought out his brother Benjamin as he came into the room. Benjamin sat listless on his pallet against the wall. His hands lay limp in his lap. However, as soon as he looked up to see Judas, a bright smile lit Benjamin’s face.
“Hello brother, weren’t you cold outside? I would gladly have helped you with the nets. It’s one of the things I can still do to help. I want to do whatever I can.”
Benjamin’s eager eyes held his and Judas saw in them the pain his own helplessness gave to Benjamin. Judas was overcome with love for this brother who so often had held him and carried him when they were younger, and who now had to be carried wherever he went.
“It was nothing,” he told Benjamin, “You know how I love to be outside when it starts getting colder.”
“That’s true,” Benjamin replied. “I never have envied you the time you spent on the boat during the winter.”
Benjamin’s words gave Judas pause for thought. He had never thought of Benjamin envying him at all. The idea seemed ridiculous. It was true, however, that their father would sometimes ask Judas and not Benjamin to work on the boat during the winter months, trusting Judas’s superior skills in the restless sea. It was one of those things that Judas did better than Benjamin that he had never even considered. He glanced back at Benjamin with this new, unexpected thought, but Benjamin’s smile was unchanged. It was full of love and absent of envy. If Benjamin held any resentment of Judas’s ability to come and go as he pleased, it did not show on his face.

**********************

“He’s back.”
The door was filled with Benjamin’s friends.
“He’s staying again at Peter’s mother-in-law’s house.”
“Everyone has been talking of the healings wherever he goes.” This was Matthew and he looked directly at Benjamin. “One man was healed of a skin disease that he had since childhood, almost twenty years and they say his skin is as clear as a baby’s.”
Judas saw the hope in Benjamin’s eyes. He had heard of this traveling preacher. He had heard of the healings, but he had never witnessed one. He knew of Peter, had fished the same waters of Capernaum that Peter fished. He knew James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They had told him a story that he had found hard to believe, a story of an angry sea and waves that listened to this man’s voice. How could that be possible?
Benjamin’s friends were urging Benjamin to come with them.
“We must go now,” they insisted. “The house will be filled if we don’t leave immediately.”
Benjamin looked to Judas. His eyes a question mark. Should they go to see this healer? Would he be able to give Benjamin back his ability to walk?
Once again, Judas was filled with love for his brother. Hadn’t his father and mother both predicted that God would show them mercy? Hadn’t he already provided them with so much to be thankful for?
“We will go,” Judas told him. “We must get Benjamin’s cloak. It is a longer walk than we’ve taken before and the night is cool.”
They bundled Benjamin against the cold and took their places around the pallet. Their excitement gave them energy as they walked down the road. They walked steadily but the way was long and they were forced to stop several times to rest. Finally, they could see the house from the distance and the crowd that surrounded it.
“Don’t worry,” Judas assured Benjamin. “We’ll find a way to reach him.”
But the crowd was immovable. They tried several different ways to push their way to the front door or even to an open window. A single man might maneuver his way to the front, but four men with a pallet had no chance. The three friends and Judas lay Benjamin down to rest.
“Perhaps some of the crowd will leave,” Benjamin said hopefully.
It didn’t look like it. No one had moved in the last hour since they had been there. If anything, the crowd had increased so much that Jesus could hardly be heard at the edges of the crowd. Judas looked at Benjamin. He sat quietly hopeful, waiting patiently. Judas would not disappoint him. Judas would take his brother to Jesus. Jesus would heal his brother. If there was ever a person who should be granted healing, it was his brother Benjamin, and Judas was determined that he would do whatever needed to be done to get Benjamin to Jesus.
“We’ll never get through the crowd,” Judas told the friends. “But I think there’s a way to get Benjamin to Jesus if you’re willing to help me.”
And he told them his plan. At first, they were skeptical, and then Benjamin laughed. “Judas, you are brilliant! Of course it will work.”

**************************
It was hard work, and before they were finished, all of them had taken off their outer garments and were dripping sweat. A few people had gathered to watch them, commenting softly; but no one had tried to stop them.
They could see directly down over Jesus’ head. Others had been watching their progress with obvious curiosity. They had not been quiet. They could not avoid the dirt dropping into the room. The crowd made room around Jesus, but Jesus himself had ignored them completely, continuing with his lessons. The rabbis and the lawyers were looking up at them. Their faces showed their hostility and disgust.
Matthew had gone for ropes and they had made the pallet as secure as they could. Judas and the others embraced Benjamin before they began to ease him downward as gently as possible. It was not possible and the pallet jerked so that Benjamin had to hold tightly to the ropes to keep from falling. Finally, he lay at Jesus’ feet. Benjamin said nothing but focused his eyes on Jesus with a love that was pure and bright.
Jesus looked down upon Benjamin. Judas could not see his face but he could see Benjamin’s. It was totally trusting.
“My child,” Jesus said. “Your sins are forgiven you.”
An almost audible gasp went through the teachers and lawyers at Jesus’ words. Benjamin’s own heart sank and all of his feelings of guilt and shame came roaring back. “It is my sin,” he thought, “not Benjamin’s.” At that point, Jesus raised his eyes to the roof and looked directly at Benjamin. It was as if his thoughts had been spoken aloud. He thought his heart would burst from the pain.
And then Jesus smiled, a smile that felt like the sea, and he returned to face the Pharisees who were whispering among themselves.
“Why do you have these thoughts in your hearts? Which of these is easier to say to this paralytic man? ‘My child your sins are forgiven’ or to say ‘Get up, take up your pallet and walk’?”
Benjamin’s expression had not changed at all. He continued to look at Jesus with shining eyes. Jesus’ words had brought no disappointment to him.
“But to prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins on earth,” Jesus turned to speak to Benjamin. “I order you to get up, pick up your pallet and return to your parents.”
Benjamin never hesitated. He stood on the legs that had been useless for months, he picked up the pallet his father had made, he looked up to the roof at his friends and Judas. His face radiated the joy they all felt. He bowed his head to Jesus and walked boldly from the house. People moved aside before him, many shouting praises to God, all of them expressing their amazement at his healing.
Jesus looked once again to the roof and into Benjamin’s eyes and his words rang again in Benjamin’s heart. “My child, your sins are forgiven.”