Fifth Gospel (30 page)

SEVEN

I
n
those
days I wondered:
Why must morning always come with such regularity? Why can I not remain a vassal of the everlasting dominion of the night? Only fools love the day more, for the night is like death to them!

It
was not so to me. I lived for the night.

One
such night, waiting for Lea to come, I had a moment to look out onto the world outside the fortress. A heavy rain was falling to entice the buds on the trees and to attract the wild flowers from their beds. It reminded me of standing at the gates of the fortress a year ago, when I had the sense that I would not live to see a new spring. It had been a true sense, to my reckoning, for despite my newborn love of life and youthfulness, despite my open eyes and light-filled heart, I knew the end was near and the sadness I felt was not for death itself, but for a wasted life.

I
heard a humming in my ear then, a bee, crawling on the windowsill. Strange it was to see a bee out at night, with her little wings drenched from the rain. Guilhabert’s words returned to me. He had told me that I must seek the rose like a bee and my thoughts turned now to those songs sung by troubadours, songs of a love so chaste that it recalled the love of a bee for a flower.

If I were
a bee, then surely Lea was the rose!

I did not tell her
my musings when she came, finally. I was ashamed and confused, elated and forlorn as I listened to her voice tell about the Mother of God and her concerns for Jesus, who had just returned from his travels to Bethany.

‡

Jesus seemed weary and old, and his face, which had once shone so brightly with the majesty of youth now waned, pale and dry, as if the fire in his soul had all but consumed the wood of his body.

These long months
she had gradually come to know in her heart the measure of her son’s destiny, of the pain and suffering he would have to undergo, and it caused her a deep sorrow. Perhaps her son sensed her sadness, for he began to spend long moments with her. They walked in silence together or sat in each other’s presence in prayerful meditation, each feeling the wave-like proportions of the future hurrying towards them. Sometimes he touched her arm as she walked past, and she was full of comfort. At other times it was a look or a word that filled her soul with warmth and strength.

In one sense
, the pain of these dragging days made her almost unable to breathe, and in another, her heart wished to hold back the time forever, for she wondered how she would endure it when it came? How long would last her strength? How long could she bear to witness the violence and hatred and death that were to be visited upon him?

Recently,
Lazarus, the young man who had provided so well for all of them these many months, had become unwell. His sickness had grown worse and he had lain consumed with fever in the cool of the booth for most of the feast. He did not rise even when Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea came to warn of the desire of the Pharisees to seize her son.

Soldiers
had been dispatched to look for him in every place and they must be careful. To add to this, the disciples began to return again, two by two, from their apostleship in the villages and towns of Judea and Galilee. They brought more followers in their train and now the household was consumed with activity and the forward march of things - the feeding and housing of so many men and women. And yet in the quiet of the afternoons, beneath the date palm in the walled garden, she found time to sit among the other women to listen to his teachings

These past months
the women had marched in her son’s train with their skirts tied around their ankles and their sandaled feet bound in cloths. They did not sway like the women from the cities when they walked, for they had learnt that to travel long distances one had to conserve one’s strength. Now he was speaking to them without the men, of things only appropriate for the ears of women.

He said, ‘Listen to me…men
will rule over you only for a small time, for it is the task of the male to make a way in the world of matter, since it is the task of the mind to tear the world apart. But a future will come when what lives in the heart, what lives in you, will take precedence over the mind. What lives in you will unify the world, not tear it apart. Into your souls will be born a new spirit of
good will
, and it will not be male or female. Then the world will rejoice when a child is not born from the womb of a woman, but when the spirit is born in the heart, in the soul like a sun. Then shall healing come to the earth, for my spirit shall unite with my mother in heaven, and the earth itself will give birth to a new sun. This is the mystery of the blood, which I did unveil to the men when I raised Jairus’ daughter, but they could not yet understand it, for only women who bleed can know it – how the blood shall have a sacred task in future times, the sacred task of fashioning the heart into a sun.’

These things he taught them because they were seven
, since every truth has seven meanings and that is why wisdom has built her temple on earth with seven pillars.

‘I tell you
, that I will be with you always,’ he continued, ‘even unto the ends of the earth. For even though I shall not be among you in this body I will return in the beating of your hearts and in the pulsing of your blood…here shall you always find me. This is what I mean when I say that you abide in me and I in you, like a bride and groom abide together in the bridal chamber of the heart. Soon I will be beaten and killed and my blood will spill over the earth. Even so, take heart! When I was conceived in the Jordan I died to the spirit. Thus my death in the world will be a spirit birth! You will soon behold me as a man of sorrows but remember, I will soon be joyful and among you again. I shall rise again. Remember these things which I have spoken to you for I tell these things to no man, since women were the first to think, to imagine and to remember and they will be the first to see!’

After these teachings
her son gathered to him his male disciples and left for a place beyond the Jordan where John had baptised his followers. In the meantime Lazarus finally succumbed to his fever and Martha fell into an inconsolable grief. She could not help in the preparations so it was left to herself and Magdalena to wash and dress the young man’s body in linen cloths for his burial.

Magdalena sent word to Jesus and together the women waited, knowi
ng, awake, mournful and praying. For they understood that the time had come: ancient time, the devourer of its children had moved forward, despite all their efforts to restrain it.

SCORPION~EAGLE

T
hey
came into Bethany and Judas followed last of all, his mind full of strange thoughts. The sun began to drop its bruised body into the godforsaken hills as they neared the township and the men were weary, having travelled since yesterday.

It was now more than three days since word had reached them of Lazarus’ worsening sickness and all feared that he was dead.
But Judas was not concerned for it, something else made his brow dark and his eyes aflame. That spirit which had plagued him these many months had begun to make a way into his head and he could feel it, rearranging the rooms of his mind. It wrapped around his heart to combine his disappointments, his hate and his lust into a poisoned leaven for his limbs.

For months now he had waited for Jesus to bring back the glory days of the
Maccabees, but benevolence and kindness, patience and love were all that he had offered. In Judas’ mind all the deeds of salvation enacted so inconspicuously by Jesus whatever they might be, were worthless. Words of compassion and tolerance were not enough to change the world, only the sword could change it. Blood for soil!

It had taken him time to see it but finally Judas had realised
that Jesus was not the Messiah. For revolution and war were not accomplished by a man deliberate in his desire to change nothing, but to leave all men free.

The other disciples spoke of Jesus as the Son of Man. They spoke of how he had fed thousands, how he had quietened storms and produced otherworldly transfigurations of his being. Judas had seen nothing and yet he had been with them always. How could they have seen what he had not? He supposed that they had seen dreams…only dreams…and even now none of them could see what he could see: that even in his body, once so youthful and strong, Jesus was less vigorous and
obviously headed for decay, like a wasted old man.

But something more had stirred his hate and made his re
bellious spirit rip at his soul, a fire-laden desire had grown in Judas for the woman whom Jesus had named Magdalena.

From the first he had disliked
her brother, the Hellenistic youth, Lazarus, whose life was lived in luxury and privilege and whose soul was the opposite of his. However in Magdalena, Judas had sensed something akin to his own restlessness, a soul full of dammed up passions. But it was not only her soul that drew him, the woman’s unparalleled beauty had also stirred his loins, a beauty that betrayed her attempts to mortify it, or to conceal it. For no matter how many veils the woman wore or how coarse was the garment draped over her shoulders a fundamental note of allure was plucked from the instruments of his manhood each time he saw her and he would have the song played in full!

Each night
his daily thoughts rose up into the ecstasy of dreams full of the consummation of their mutual passion. In his dreams she had wanted him with a near crazed desperation, which had fired his virility and turned the seed inside him and churned the waters of his soul.

During those long months apart from her, when the women were sent to Bethany for their safety and the disciples were sent out
, two by two into the villages to announce the coming of the Kingdom, Judas’ desire had matured and curdled in the darkness of his soul. So much so that by the time he had returned to the rich youth’s house with the other disciples, it had sought, by any means, to find its satisfaction. What dread force of hate had he felt then on finding that in his absence a love had grown between Magdalena and Jesus? A love that others said was warm and calm of heart, full of wide spheres and generous pastures – a love that cared nothing for itself but sought only the welfare of the other.

A love he did not understand!

He suffered when he saw how Magdalena’s eyes were full of devotion for a man who would never take her in his arms and ignite her womanly passions.

Even Simon-Peter had seen it
, and had asked Jesus, ‘Why do you love her more than all of us?’

‘Think of it like this, Peter,’ Jesus had told him, ‘
I am the light of the world and your soul receives my light, my love, according to its capacity to see and to receive it. Magdalena’s soul has more capacity than yours, and for this reason she receives more love than you.’

Judas
, blinded by anger, schemed and schemed.

M
any of the disciples were simple fishermen and they did not know that Jesus had in the past months revealed secrets of initiation to ordinary people. The betrayal of these secrets was punishable by death and it was for this reason that the Pharisees and Sadducees sought vehemently to find witness of it. Judas would use this to his advantage, an advantage that became clearer at Perea where Jesus finally unveiled his reason for leaving his ailing favourite, Lazarus, behind.

When
Jesus told his worried disciples that Lazarus’ sickness was not unto death, but only a sleep, that his sleep was for the glory of God, Judas put two and two together. Lazarus was not dying but undergoing an initiation, and this was the reason why Jesus waited a day before returning to Bethany, since the initiation must last three days.

Jesus
wanted to make a show of his power near to Jerusalem, not those powers that had made possible the raising of the dead boy at Nain, but something higher. Jesus would show to all men what lived only in the deepest recesses of the mystery temples: the raising of an initiate from the tomb, from the underworld of the dead!

Everything now made sense
. Throughout their time in Perea when Jesus spoke of the good shepherd who gives life to his sheep he was pointing to himself as the priest who is the awakener of initiates. When he had spoken of other sheep which were not of the fold but which the shepherd must bring forth with a call he had been speaking of Lazarus. But when Jesus had said that he and the Father were one, Judas recognised these as mystery words. Words that meant a priest was ready to use the forces of the Father, that is, the forces of his will to awaken the body of an initiate and to raise him from his
temple sleep
.

No man came to the Father, that is, no man returned to the physical body from the three-day initiation
sleep except through a priest!

Jesus was not a priest!
This would be enough to destroy him.

Now, w
hen they came near Bethany, some furlongs from the township, they passed that desolate place of burial where tombs are set into the walls of the hills. Here, near what they called
The House of Rest
, many men stood mourning without their women, as was the custom. The sun was near gone over the land and made long shadows of those dry hills when the mourners turned to see Jesus and rushed to tell him of Lazarus. Soon Andrew was sent to fetch Martha and the woman came, in her drab attire of lament, with her face the colour of ashes.

She
fell at Jesus’ feet and told him that Lazarus was dead. She said that had Jesus had been here he could have prevented his death by performing a miracle. She said her sister Magdalena was full of grief and was sitting as still as death in the house waiting for him to come.

Ju
das watched Jesus carefully. His face showed pain for her sorrow and something other, which he could not discern. Jesus told Martha that Lazarus was not dead, for he was the resurrection and the life and all who believed in him though they were dead would live. After that she fell on her knees and affirmed that he was Christ, the Son of God.

He said to her, ‘T
ell Magdalena I call her. That she must arise, for I need her by my side.’

Martha
took herself away and many came to gather around, speculating as to what Jesus might do next, but Judas was taken by something else that emerged from out of the sun’s vanishing luminance – the figure of Magdalena.

Judas saw only her
tearful face gazing out from her mourning veil. And what a face it was! Arresting, inscrutable! His blood made skips in his veins. He was restless. He waited for her to glance his way. He beckoned her to look just once.

The women of the town, those
who had followed Magdalena’s steps, came upon the place where Jesus now stood with his disciples. They wept and pulled at their clothes while Magdalena fell at Jesus’ feet – without so much as a fidget of glance in Judas’ direction.

He
waited. Quiet fell over the day, save the groaning and moaning of the mourners.

‘Had you been here
my brother would not have died!’ she said to him. But her words were spoken differently, for in them Judas noted a tone of thankfulness that Jesus had not come sooner! Could these be tears of joy?

When Jesus saw this
he raised Magdalena’s chin with his hand and Judas saw then what passed between them, and this awakened in him a realisation. Rage and discontent surged through him and he could taste gall in his spit. He wanted to howl like an animal for the anguish of it – not only for its intimacy, which must be clear to all, but also for its complicity, since he now understood that Magdalena was in some way entangled in Lazarus’ initiation.

His bowels were full of thorns
.

‘Where have you laid him?’
Jesus asked her, his voice soft and tender, his eyes veiled with tears.

Judas knew that
he was harnessing a force of love in his heart, a force that would raise his pupil from his death trance. Even those who were not his disciples sensed it, and said, ‘Look how Jesus loves Lazarus!’

Magdalena showed Jesus a
grave that was covered with a great round stone.

Would Jesus
do it now? Judas leaned his mind in his direction, daring him to do it.

Jesus walked to
the grave and paused before it. Looking troubled he turned and his eyes fell on Judas. Judas felt a gasp come. Could Jesus have discerned the nature of his thoughts? But Jesus, for his part, was now telling those gathered around to take away the stone blocking the grave.

Martha was alarmed, ‘But Lord! By
this time there will be a smell, for he has been dead near four days.’

Jesus said to her, ‘Martha, did I not
just say to you that if you believed you would see God glorified in Lazarus?’

Martha lowered her eyes, ‘Yes, Lord.’

When the men rolled away the heavy stone and returned to the crowds the people put the corners of their garments about their faces to fend off the smell. But there was no smell.

Jesus raised his eyes and said, ‘Father, I thank you. That my word is one with you in spirit, and that you hear me always, but because of the people who stand by
, I will say it out loud, that they too might hear how the Word, your Son, is in me, so that they might believe that you have sent Him to me and that through Him you and I are one!’

Judas knew that by saying this Jesus wished to reveal how in himself lived the Word, the Son of the Father, which he would make enter into Laz
arus’ soul to awaken him.

‘Lazarus come forth!’ resounded the forbidden words.

Nature drew a breath. Above, came the sound of a great eagle making its noises as it rose upwards over the mountains, circling the skies and falling away into the melting sun of day’s end.  The world followed it and Judas also followed it as it soared aloft and died away. A thought, foreign to his experience, now crossed his mind: why could he not be like that bird, basking in the light of the sun with hopeful abandon? Why must he live always like a scorpion fearing the sun?

But this self-understanding was short-lived, for upon hearing a round of gasps his concentration was now returned to
witness the beloved of Jesus, the initiate, coming from out of the black mouth of the cave bound with graveclothes.

‘Loosen him and let him go!’ Jesus told the women.

Martha, shocked, remained behind. Only Magdalena went to Lazarus to help. After that Jesus was thronged by all those who had come to the burial place, and was swept away to Bethany, but not before turning once more to look upon Judas.

That glance made a path clear from Judas’ head to his heart. He
understood now that he was standing upon the soil of freedom, between his hope and his fear. Here, it seemed to him, was a last occasion to love this man, to love him despite his urge to betray him, to recognise his greatness despite his impulse to follow his destiny.

But he could not.

The eyes, multi-coloured and endless-deep, held and held him until they held no more. Gasping, with his head turning in circles, Judas was let go and he sat upon a rock to get his breath back. It was a long moment before he could rise again and make his way to Bethany with his eyes tethered to the ground.

High above him the eagle scooped wind
with its wings and circled him. Its eye ranged the sky…its gaze was upon him, unblinking, open, shut, perfect…but Judas did not see it.

Instead h
e told himself, ‘The time for pruning has come!’