July 4, 2019 – Tel Aviv, Israel
Rabbi Saul Cohen finished his morning prayers and rose to his feet to answer the knock at the door of his study. Benjamin Cohen, the rabbi's seventeen-year-old son and only living relative since the Disaster took his four older children and wife, stood outside, nervously shifting from side to side. Benjamin Cohen knew not to disturb his father's prayer time without good cause, and he did not relish comparing his own evaluation of what constituted a 'good cause' with that of his father's. Nevertheless, he relished even less the possibility of angering the man who waited in the sitting room.
The man – 'guest' hardly seemed like the right word – had arrived without appointment. Benjamin had opened the front door to let him in but then backed away, sensing instinctively that there was something very unusual about this visit, if not about the man himself. As the man closed the door behind him, it seemed to Benjamin that the sitting room had grown strangely crowded. He was only too glad to leave the room to retrieve his father, and was halfway to his father's office before he realized he had not asked the man his name. Like it or not, he would have to go back and ask.
Peering around the comer of the doorway, Benjamin's eyes met those of the visitor. He wanted to look away, but he saw something there which held him. He could see clearly now what so unsettled him about this man. Benjamin had been trained to discern wisdom in a man's face. He had been taught that wisdom came with age, but the wisdom in this man's eyes was unnatural for a man no older than this. Benjamin discerned a depth of wisdom that would be unnatural for a man of any age. He asked the man his name. The answer only added to Benjamin's disquiet, but he felt it unadvisable to probe further.
Ordinarily Saul Cohen's morning prayers lasted at least an hour, but for some reason this morning he stopped after only thirty minutes. When he heard the knock on his study door at that very moment, it seemed to him a confirmation. He did not know what news Benjamin brought, but he was sure it was important or the boy would not have interrupted him. Cohen opened the door.
'What is it?' he asked, with no sign of the consternation Benjamin had expected.
'There's a man here to see you, Father.'
Cohen waited for more information but Benjamin was not forthcoming. 'So what is this man's name?' Cohen asked finally.
'He didn't say,' Benjamin responded, in a muffled voice.
'Well, did you ask him?'
'Yes, Father.'
'And, what did he say?'
Benjamin wasn't sure how this was going to sound. It seemed very authoritative when the man in the sitting room said it, but coming from his own lips, Benjamin thought it might sound a little dumb. Still, he had to say something: his father was waiting. 'He said to tell you that he is 'he who has heard the voices of the seven thunders.''
Cohen did not respond but the look on his face registered recognition. Finally he managed a nod and Benjamin went back to the sitting room to retrieve the man.
Saul Cohen closed the door and mechanically began to straighten his desk. A few seconds later, he heard footsteps coming down the hall and watched as the doorknob began to rotate. Suddenly it seemed as though he had forgotten how to breathe. Benjamin pushed the door open, and Cohen, remembering his manners, managed to move around from behind his desk to meet the man. If this man was, indeed, who he claimed to be, then Cohen had no desire to insult him with bad etiquette. For a moment, the man stood in the doorway just looking at Cohen as if savoring the moment, and then finally he entered.
Cohen didn't know how it could be possible for this man to be who he claimed, but in Cohen's vocation he had learned that nothing was impossible. He had known since the Disaster that there was to be a prophet who would someday come. But could this man really be who he claimed to be? It was almost more than Cohen could accept.
'Hello, Rabbi,' the man said, cordially, as he extended his hand. He was not at all what Cohen expected. He didn't appear to be a day over sixty. Most disconcerting of all was the way he was dressed – in a modern, dark gray business suit with a red tie. Somehow, as silly as it seemed, Cohen expected that the man would be wearing sandals and a long robe, tied at the waist with a rope. Yet, despite his appearance and the impossibility of his claim, there was something about the man that made Cohen believe he was exactly who he said he was.
'I'm the one you've been waiting for,' the man said, still extending his hand. 'But believe me, I've been waiting for you for a lot longer than you've been waiting for me.' Cohen was silent, still unsure of what to say. 'And you are Saul Cohen,' the man continued, 'of the lineage of Jonadab, son of Recab about whom Jeremiah prophesied.'
Cohen's mouth dropped open. 'That secret has not passed outside of my family for nearly twelve hundred years,' he said.
'It is the only explanation for why you were not taken in the… um, 'Disaster',' the man explained. 'And when you have completed your work, your son will take your place in the Lord's service, as was promised through Jeremiah.'
Cohen grew pensive.
'Why don't we just sit down,' the man suggested. 'We have a lot to talk about.' Cohen complied silently. 'As our meeting indicates, the time is at hand for the end of this age.' Without pausing to allow Cohen to consider the full impact of this statement, the man continued. 'I've observed you for a number of years and I am now certain that you are the other witness. The fact that you recognize me confirms that belief.'
'You were not sure before?' Cohen asked.
'I was not told who the other would be. I now see that I was led to you, but confirmation was left to the discernment and wisdom God has granted me. I had no special revelation on the matter.'
This discovery caught Cohen off guard. 'But… I don't understand. How could you not know?'
'Well, as the Apostle Paul wrote, 'For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. ' I can assure you that as long as you and I remain on this side of life, that will never change – not even if you were to live to be two thousand years old.'
'Rabbi,' Cohen said, not knowing how else to address this man whom he considered to be hundreds of times his spiritual senior.
'Please,' the man interrupted, 'call me John.'
This had gone on long enough. Cohen had to be sure he understood what was happening. 'You are John?'
The man nodded.
'Yochanan bar Zebadee.' Cohen said, using the Hebrew form of the man's name.
'I am,' he answered.
'The Apostle of the Lord? You were there, at the foot of the cross?'
'I was there,' he answered with an expression that showed he still felt the pain of that event nearly two thousand years earlier.
'But how? Have you returned from the dead?'
The man smiled. 'In many ways I would have preferred that. But, no, I've been here, alive on this decaying world, waiting for this moment for almost 2000 years.'
Cohen didn't repeat his question but his eyes still asked 'how?'
'Do you not recall what our Lord told Peter about me on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias?'
Cohen knew the words but he had never thought their meaning to be literal. After his resurrection, Jesus told the Apostle Peter how he (Peter) would die. Peter then asked what would happen to John. 'If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?' Jesus replied.
'But you also wrote that what Jesus said didn't mean you'd never die, just that you might not die until after his return. ' As soon as the words left his mouth, Cohen realized that he did not need an answer; both he and John were fully aware of the fate that soon awaited them – and that fate matched Jesus' words perfectly.
'The Lord told my brother James and me that, like him, we would both die a martyr's death. James was the first of the Lord's apostles to die,… and I shall be the last. I suppose in this way at least, my mother's request to
