History belongs to time, but truth belongs to what is beyond time. In writing of things as they should have been, you are letting truth into history. You are the word of God.’
‘When will you come again?’ said Christ.
‘I shall come when I am needed. And when I come again, we shall talk about your brother.’
A moment later, the stranger had disappeared in the darkness of the hillside. Christ sat for a long time in the cold wind, pondering on what the stranger had said. The words ‘we who know’ were some of the most thrilling he had ever heard. And he began to wonder if he had been right to think that the stranger came from the Sanhedrin; the man hadn’t exactly denied it, but he seemed to have a range of knowledge and a point of view that was quite unlike those of any lawyer or rabbi Christ had ever heard.
In fact, now that he thought about it, Christ realised that the stranger was unlike anyone he had ever come across. What he said was so strikingly different from anything Christ had read in the Torah, or heard in the synagogue, that he began to wonder whether the stranger was a Jew at all. He spoke Aramaic perfectly, but it was much more likely, given all the circumstances, that he was a Gentile, perhaps a Greek philosopher from Athens or Alexandria.
And Christ went home to his bed, full of humble joy at his own prescience; for hadn’t he spoken to Jesus in the wilderness about the need to include the Gentiles in the great organisation that would embody the Kingdom of God?
‘Who Do You Say I Am?’
Around that time, King Herod began to hear rumours of this man who was going about the country healing the sick and speaking words of prophecy. He was alarmed, because some people were saying that John the Baptist had been raised from the dead. Herod knew full well that John was dead, for hadn’t he himself ordered the man’s execution, and offered his head on a platter to Salome? But then other rumours began to circulate: this new preacher was Elijah himself, returned to Israel after hundreds of years; or he was this prophet or that one, come back to chastise the Jews and foretell catastrophe.
Naturally, all this concerned Herod deeply, and he sent out word that he would be glad to see the preacher in person. He was unsuccessful in this attempt to meet Jesus, but Christ noted it down as evidence of how well known his brother was becoming.
To go by what his informant told him, though, it was clear to Christ that Jesus was not happy about this increasing fame. On one occasion, in the region of the Decapolis, he cured a deaf man who had a speech impediment, and ordered the man’s friends to say nothing about it, but they went and told everyone they knew. Another time, in Bethsaida, he restored the sight of a blind man, and when the man could see again Jesus told him to go straight home and not even go into the village; but word got out about that too. Then there was an occasion in Caesarea Philippi when Jesus was walking along with his disciples, and they were talking about the public following he was gathering.
‘Who do people say I am?’ Jesus asked.
‘Some say Elijah,’ said one disciple.
Another said, ‘They think you’re John the Baptist, come back to life.’
‘They say all kinds of names – prophets, mainly,’ said a third. ‘Like Jeremiah, for instance.’
‘But who do you say I am?’ said Jesus.
And Peter said, ‘You’re the Messiah.’
‘Is that what you think?’ said Jesus. ‘Well, you’d better hold your tongue about it. I don’t want to hear that sort of talk, you understand?’
When Christ heard about this he hardly knew how to record it for the Greek stranger. He was confused, and wrote it down in the disciple’s words, and then erased them and tried to formulate the expression to be more in keeping with what the stranger had said about truth and history; but that confused him further, so that all his wits seemed to lie scattered about him instead of working firmly at his command.
Finally he gathered himself and wrote down what the disciple had told him, up to the point where Peter spoke. Then a thought came to him, and he wrote something new. Knowing how highly Jesus regarded Peter, he wrote that Jesus had praised him for seeing something that only his Father in heaven could have revealed, and that he had gone on to make a pun on Peter’s name, saying that he was the rock on which Jesus would build his church. That church would be so firmly established that the gates of hell would not prevail against it. Finally, Christ wrote that Jesus had promised to give Peter the keys of heaven.
When he had written these words, he trembled. He wondered if he were being presumptuous in making Jesus express the thoughts that he himself had put to his brother in the wilderness, about the need for an organisation that would embody the Kingdom on earth. Jesus had scorned the idea. But then Christ remembered what the stranger had said: that in writing like this, he was letting truth from beyond time into history, and thus making history the handmaid of posterity and not its governor; and he felt uplifted.
Pharisees and Sadducees
Jesus continued his mission, speaking and preaching and offering parables to illustrate his teaching, and Christ wrote down much of what he said, letting the truth beyond time guide his stylus whenever he could. There were some sayings, though, that he could neither leave out nor alter, because they caused such a stir among the disciples and among the crowds that came to listen wherever Jesus went. Everyone knew what he had said, and many people talked about his words; it would be noticed if they were not in the record.
Many of these sayings concerned children and the family, and some of them cut Christ to the quick. Once, on the road to Capernaum, the disciples were arguing. Jesus had heard their raised voices, but was walking apart from them and didn’t hear what they were saying.
When they went into the house where they were to stay he said:
‘What were you arguing about on the way?’
They fell silent, because they were embarrassed. Finally one of them said:
‘We were discussing which of us was the most important, master.’
‘Were you, indeed. Come around here, all of you.’
They stood in front of him. Now in that house there was a little child, and Jesus picked him up and showed him to the disciples.
‘Whoever wants to be first,’ he said, ‘must be last of all and servant of all. Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes as humble as this child will be the most important in heaven. And whoever welcomes a child like this in my name welcomes me.’
Another time, Jesus had stopped to sit down, and people brought their little children to him to be blessed.
‘Not now!’ the disciples said. ‘Go away! The master is resting.’
Jesus heard them, and was angry.
‘Don’t speak to these good people like that,’ he said. ‘Let them bring their children here. Who else do you think the Kingdom of God is for? It belongs to them.’
The disciples stood aside, and the people carried their children to Jesus, who blessed them, and took them in his arms, and kissed them.
Speaking to his disciples as well as to the parents of the children, he said, ‘You should all be like little children when it comes to the Kingdom, otherwise you will never enter it. So be careful. Whoever makes it difficult for one of these little ones to come to me, it would be better for them if a millstone were hung about their neck and they were drowned in the depths of the sea.’
Christ noted down the words, admiring the vigour of the imagery while regretting the thinking behind it; because if it were true that only children could be admitted to the Kingdom, what was the value of such adult qualities as responsibility, forethought, and wisdom? Surely the Kingdom would need those as well.
On another occasion, some Pharisees tried to test Jesus by asking about divorce. Jesus had spoken about that
