“ARGH!” Tom screamed in agony.
David gasped as Tom’s face became visible in the fading sunlight. Dry blood was caked around the open gash created by Caiaphas’s whip.
David let go of Tom and took a step back. He could see by Tom’s stance, how he was holding his stomach, how he was leaning forward and breathing shallow, that he had been beaten, close to death. “What happened to you?”
“You should see the other guy, or should I say, ‘other guys,’” joked Tom with a laugh that made him flinch with pain. “Wasn’t exactly a fair fight.”
Tom leaned his weight against the tree and slid down to the ground, careful not to catch the open wound on his back on a shard of bark. David stood above him. “I saw you, Tom. They’re going to kill him, and you’re helping them.”
Tom looked up at David. “No… I’m not helping them.”
“Don’t lie to me,” David said, growing angry despite Tom’s wounds. “I saw you with them. I followed you to Jerusalem.”
“I’m telling you the truth. I told them I wouldn’t help them kill Jesus. I told them I just wanted to prove he was a fraud, that he was my friend and I wouldn’t have anything to do with killing him…”
This was news to David. “You did?”
“Next time you spy, try staying for the entire conversation.” Tom smiled. “Oh, and I told them that their religious laws were silly.”
David put his hand over his mouth.
“That didn’t go over too well,” Tom said.
“You said that to Pharisees?” David asked.
Tom nodded.
“Be glad they let you live,” David said with a nervous laugh.
“I don’t think they intended to,” Tom said. “David, we have to stop them.”
David kneeled down in front of Tom. “We can’t stop them.”
“Why not?”
“Remember when Jesus called you to be a disciple? And I went back to the future?” David asked.
“Yeah, what about it?”
“I never told you what I discovered.”
Tom sat up a little straighter, waiting for the news.
“Tom…the past can’t be changed.”
“Don’t be absurd.” Tom was near laughing, but held it in for fear of the pain it would cause.
“Did you stop to think about how Thomas the disciple could be in the Bible, before we came back in time? Time can’t be altered. Everything we’re doing now is already history.”
“I’m not following you.”
“You’ve been beaten up so I’ll forgive your mental incompetence.”
“Hey,” Tom said, as he sat up as though to converse better.
“No one ever goes back in time to kill Hitler. I know this for a fact because if they had, it would already be history and there would have been no holocaust. The assassination of JFK is never foiled, the World Trade Center still falls, and Jesus will die on the cross. These things can’t be changed. The past is already the past, Tom. The changes we make are already recorded in history.”
“You’re telling me that Jesus is going to be murdered and there’s nothing we can do about it?” Tom said.
“It’s already history.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Warn him if it will ease your mind, but I’m positive he already knows.” David stood to his feet and offered Tom his hand. “But right now we need to go see Mary and get you cleaned up.”
With a strong yank, David pulled Tom to his feet and helped support his weight. As the pair began the walk toward the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus, David smiled. Tom hadn’t betrayed his friends. The Bible was accurate. David realized he should have never doubted. But his grin swiftly faded as he discerned what that fully meant. The next few weeks would be the best and worst of his and Tom’s lives. They would experience the wonder of God and the pure evil of men. He felt secure with how things would turn out for Tom, but he had no idea what his own fate would be. And that’s what scared him most.
Five days passed before Tom felt well enough to leave his bed. His wounds healed well under Mary’s tender care. Tom would have stayed longer, enjoying the attention, but David insisted they rejoin Jesus and the disciples. It would soon be Passover and Jesus would be entering Jerusalem, the city that loved and hated him.
Tom remembered celebrating Passover with his family when he was a child and the story of Passover fascinated him. God freed his people when he smote their Egyptian masters by killing every first-born son in the land of Egypt, but sparing the Hebrews, who had marked their homes with the blood of the paschal lamb. The story continued with pillars of fire, Egyptian armies and the parting of the Reed Sea. And he could recall his Father complaining about Jews who said Moses parted the Red Sea. “Don’t they know their own heritage?” he would shout. “Any good Jew knows it was Yam Suph, the Reed Sea!” But what Tom remembered most about the story was how he tormented his older brother, telling him that their house was unmarked as the Passover came and went every year. He would watch at night as every breeze made his nervous brother twitch for fear that God might return for the firstborn again. A month after Tom’s tenth birthday, his parents separated, the Passover celebration was forgotten and Tom’s interest in Biblical things was replaced by mathematics and girls.
That was a lifetime ago and two thousand years from now. Tom rubbed the memories out of his eyes as he stared down at Jerusalem, glowing in the bright afternoon sun. Tom couldn’t believe what they were doing. Jerusalem was full of people, gathered for the Passover feast, many of whom wanted to kill Jesus. Yet here they were, on a hill overlooking the city, about to enter through the front door. Tom had warned Jesus and found David was right. Jesus knew of the threat to his life. Not only that, he fully expected to be killed.
That conversation ended abruptly as Tom didn’t want to frighten Mary with an angry outburst after she had tended his wounds so gently. And as for Mary, Tom wasn’t sure what to do about her. He hadn’t felt this way about a woman since Megan…but after Jesus was dead…and didn’t rise from the grave…Tom knew he and David would be returning to the future, without Mary. He thought it best to slow things down so that when he and David disappeared, it wouldn’t hurt her too badly. When she had closed her eyes for a kiss goodbye, all she felt was the breeze from Tom’s body as he turned and left without a word.
It was one of the hardest things Tom had ever done in his life, but what they were about to do was even worse. Tom, David and the disciples stood behind Jesus, looking down at Jerusalem. It was a surreal sight. Word of Jesus’s coming had reached the city and hordes of believers had prepared a welcome. Thousands of people stood in front of the city gates waving palm branches and shouting “Hosannah! Hosannah in the highest!” The sound could be heard from Bethany even before they set out that morning.
Tom stood next to Jesus. “You sure about this?”
Jesus nodded.
“Let’s get it over with then,” Tom said.
Jesus turned to Tom. “Wait,” he said, very seriously. “I’m not ready.”
Tom sighed with relief. Maybe Jesus didn’t have a death wish after all? Was Jesus coming to his senses? Maybe they would leave and Jesus wouldn’t be killed and Jesus ran behind a tree. Tom glanced at the other disciples, questioning them with his eyes. Most shrugged. They didn’t know what was happening either.
Then the answer came in the sound of trickling water. Smiles stretched across the faces of everyone present. “It seems even the Son of God has to relieve himself from time to time!” Matthew said with a hearty laugh.
Jesus reappeared from behind the tree, adjusting his robe with a smile. “Okay, now I’m ready.”
“Don’t forget your handsome steed,” Matthew said.
“How could I?” Jesus asked. “Bring him to me.”
Peter led a donkey to Jesus, who mounted its back. Tom smiled at how ridiculous this must look. The people
