Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

  For what sin James wanted to make this sacrifice I didn't know. Or I did know. But what did it matter to me? Cleopas said that I should see it, and that's why he had brought me along.

  It wasn't until tomorrow that we would receive the first sprinkling of purification.

  Now this puzzled me.

  "How is it we'll go into the Sanctuary for the sacrifice if we haven't received the purification?" I asked.

  "You know we are purified," said Cleopas. "We were purified before we left Nazareth in the mikvah. We bathed this morning in the stream beside the house of Caiaphas. We've just bathed in the bath. We go through the sprinkling because of Passover. It's the full purification in order to cleanse us if we've contracted any uncleanness of which we don't know." He shrugged. "And it's the custom. But there's no reason for James to wait. James is good. We're going into the Sanctuary now."

  "Let the Greek Jews go through the purification before they enter," said my uncle Alphaeus who was with us. "All the Jews from other lands."

  Joseph said nothing. He had his hand on James's shoulder as he guided him and us through the crowd.

  Before we could purchase the birds, which were all selected as perfect for the Lord, we had to change our money for the proper shekels received by the Temple.

  And above the busy tables of the money changers under the colonnade, I could see the burnt roof in either direction, and the men working on it, sweating under die sun, as they scraped and cleaned the stones that were left, and some fitting in new stones with mortar. I knew that job well.

  But never had I seen such a great building, and I couldn't even see the end of the colonnade to the right or to the left of me. The capitals of the columns were beautiful, and a great deal of the gold work had been restored.

  Voices grew angry in front of me. Men and women were disputing with the money changers. Cleopas was impatient.

  "What is the point of their arguing?" he said in Greek to me. "Listen to them. Don't they know these people are robbers?" He used the same word in Greek that we all used for the robbers who lived in the hills, the rebels who'd come down and taken Sepphoris and brought the Romans out after them.

  In our first visit, bloodshed had stopped us from ever getting this far. And now as we came up to the tables ourselves, it was a din of voices.

  "Well, if you want to buy two birds, then you change to this!" a man said to a woman who stood over him, who seemed not to understand his Greek. She asked a question in an Aramaic that was different from ours. But I could follow what she said.

  When Joseph offered to give her the right coins she needed, she put up her hand and would have none of it.

  Joseph and Cleopas and all the men changed their coins without any words, but then Cleopas drew back and said, "You pack of thieves, are you proud of yourselves?" The money changers waved him away without much of a look, and Joseph pressed him to stop.

  "Not in the House of the Lord," said Joseph.

  "And why not?" Cleopas said. "The Lord knows they're thieves. They charge too much for the exchange."

  "Leave it," said Uncle Alphaeus. "There hasn't been a riot yet today, has there? You want to start a riot?"

  "But why do they charge too much, Father?" James asked.

  "I don't know that they do. I accept it," Joseph said. "We've come with enough money for the sacrifice. Nothing's been taken from me that I haven't been prepared to give."

  We were already in the place where the turtledoves were kept. The sun was hot. And the stones were hard under my feet, though they were beautiful stones. I could hear more anger, more disputing, along with the cluck and coo of the birds themselves. It was a long time before we reached the tables.

  The stench of the cages was worse than any courtyard in Nazareth. The filth dripped from the cages.

  Here even Joseph was surprised by the price that he had to pay, but the merchant was cross and pointed out how many people were waiting.

  "Would you care to sit here and deal with these people!" the merchant demanded. "Or bring your own perfect birds from Galilee? That's where you come from, isn't it? I can tell by your speech."

  Everywhere I heard the same quarreling. A family had returned with birds that the priests wouldn't accept. The merchant shouted in Greek that the birds had been unblemished when he sold them. Again, Joseph oflfered to pay for another sacrifice but the father said no, this time with thanks to him. The woman was crying.

  "I've walked for fourteen days to get here to make this sacrifice."

  "Listen, you have to let us pay for another pair of doves for you!" said Cleopas. "I don't give the money to you," he said to the woman. "I give it to this fellow here and then he gives you two more birds. That way, it's your sacrifice still. You understand? You don't take anything from me for it. He takes it."

  The woman stopped crying. She looked at her husband. Her husband nodded.

  Cleopas paid die money.

  The merchant gave die women two fluttering little birds. Quickly, he shoved the others into an empty cage.

  "You miserable thief!" said Cleopas under his breath.

  The merchant nodded. "Yes, yes, yes."

  James made his purchase quickly.

  Thoughts came into my mind that frightened me, not memories of the battle or the man who'd died here, but other thoughts—diat this was not a place of prayer, that it was not the beautiful place of Yahweh to which all would come to worship Him. It seemed so simple, the laws of sacrifice when we recited the Scripture, but here it was a huge marketplace full of noise and anger and disappointment.

  There were Gentiles all around us in this great ever moving crowd and I blushed secretly for what they saw and heard. Yet I could see that many did not mind it. They had come to see the Temple, and they seemed happier perhaps than the Jews around me, who were the ones who would go on into the Court of Women, where the Gentiles couldn't enter.

  Of course Gentiles had their own temples, dieir own merchants selling animals for sacrifice. I'd seen them plenty enough in Alexandria. Perhaps they fought and argued just as much.

  But our Lord was the Lord who had created all things, our Lord was invisible, our Lord was the Lord of all places and all things. Our Lord dwelt only in this Temple, and we were all his holy people, every one.

  When we reached the Court of Women, Old Sarah, my mother, and the other women stopped here as this was as far as women were allowed to go. The crowd was not bad here. The Gentiles couldn't enter under pain of death. We were really in the Temple now, though the noise of the animals for sacrifice was still with us, as the men brought their cows, sheep, and birds with them.

  The terrible fires had not harmed this place. Everywhere around us was silver and gold. The columns were Greek and as beautiful as any in Alexandria. Many of the women went up into the gallery from which they could see the sacrifice in the Inner Court, but Old Sarah could not climb any more stairs, and our women remained with her.

  As we left her, we agreed to meet again in the southeastern corner of the Great Court. I worried as to how we would find each other.

  My legs were aching as we climbed the steps. But I was filled with a new happiness, and for the first time my painful memories, my confusion, left me.

  I was in the House of the Lord. I could hear the singing of the Levites.

  As we reached the gate, the Levite on duty stopped us.

  "This is a little boy," he said. "Why not leave him with your women?"

  "He's older than his years and he knows the Law," said Joseph. "He's prepared," said Joseph.

  The Levite nodded and let us go in.

  Once again, the crowd grew thick. The sound of the animals was loud, and the turtledoves fluttered in James' grip.

  But the music, the music was all around us. I could hear the pipes and the cymbals and the deep blended voices of the singers. Never had I heard such rich music, such full music as that of the Levites singing. It wasn't the gay, broken, and high song of the Psalms we sang on the road, or the happy fast-pa
ced songs of the weddings. It was a dark and almost sad sound that flowed on and on with great power. The Hebrew words melted in the chorus. There was no beginning or end to any part of it.

  It caught me up so completely that only slowly did I see what was happening in front of me, in front of the railing.

  The priests in their pure white linen with white turbans on their heads moved back and forth with the animals from the crowd in which we stood to the great altar. I saw the little lambs and the goats going to the sacrifice. I saw the birds being carried.

  The priests were so thick around the altar I couldn't see what they did, but only now and then see the splashes of blood high and low. The hands of the priests were covered in blood. Their beautiful linen robes were splashed with blood. A great fire burned on the altar. And the smell of roasting meat was strong beyond words. I smelled it with every breath that I took.

  Though Joseph pointed to the altar of incense and I saw that too, I couldn't smell the incense.

  "Look, the singers, do you see them?" asked Cleopas, bending down close to my ear.

  "Yes," I said. "James, look." I made them out through the goings and comings of the priests.

  They were on the steps going up to the Inner Sanctuary, a great number, bearded men with long locks, all with scrolls in their hands, and I saw the lyres from which came the delicate sounds I hadn't picked out from the great blended beauty of their music.

  Their singing grew louder in my ears when I saw them. It was so beautiful I felt myself floating with it. It drowned out the sounds of the crowd completely.

  All my troubles went away as I stood here, as I prayed, my words becoming no words—only worship of the Lord who had created all things as I listened to the music and looked on all that was happening.

  Lord. Lord, whoever I am, whatever I am, whatever I am meant to be, I am part of this, this world that is all of a flowing wonder—like this music. And you are with us. You are here. You have pitched your tent here, among us. This music is your song. This is your house.

  I started to cry, but it was quiet. Nobody saw it.

  James closed his eyes in prayer as he held the two birds, waiting for the priest to come. There were so many priests I couldn't count them. They received the lambs that bleated and the goats that cried until the last moment. The blood was caught in basins according to the Law. Then taken to be dashed on the stones of the altar.

  "Now, you know," said Cleopas to us in a clear whisper, "this is not the Altar of the Presence. The Altar of the Presence. That's up, past the singers, in the Sanctuary, and beyond the great veil. And these things you'll never see. Your mother was among those who wove those veils, two a year. Ah, it was such gorgeous embroidery. Only the High Priest goes into the Holy of Holies. And when he enters, it is filled with a cloud of incense."

  I thought of Joseph Caiaphas. I pictured him in my mind entering that sacred place. Then I thought of the young Aris-tobulos, the high priest whom Old Herod had murdered. If only the magi had not told Herod. . .

  My mother's words came back to me. "You are not the son of an angel." What a little boy I'd been when she said that to me. I hadn't thought of those words since the night she spoke them to me on the roof here in Jerusalem. I hadn't let myself think of them. But I did now, and all the strange pictures which James had painted for me in his tale were fired in my mind with color.

  But I didn't want these thoughts, these fragments of something that I couldn't complete.

  I wanted the peace and happiness that I'd felt only moments ago. And it did come back to me.

  Such a peace and happiness took hold of me that I was scarcely a boy standing there among others. I was my soul, my mind, as if it could grow beyond the size of my body, as if it could move outward from me, carried on the waves of music, as if I had no weight or size and in this way, in this moment, I could go into the Holy of Holies, and I did, passing through gate, and wall, and veil, and moving yet even farther outward. They called you Christos Kyrios. Christ the Lord.

  Lord, tell me who I am. Tell me what 1am to do.

  The sound of crying brought me back to myself. A little sound amid the music and the Hebrew prayers whispered all around.

  James cried. He was shaking.

  I looked once more at the great stone altar of sacrifice, and the priests dashing the blood against the stones. The blood belonged to the Lord. It belonged to the Lord when it was in the animal, and it belonged to the Lord now. The blood was the life of the animal. Never could an Israelite eat blood. The stones of the altar were drenched in blood.

  It was a dark and beautiful thing like the music rising, and the prayers spoken everywhere in Hebrew. Even the priests going back and forth seemed like the movement of a dance.

  No, I'm not a child anymore. I'm not.

  I thought of the men killed on that day last year. I thought of the men burned in the rebellion within this very

  Temple. I thought of blood on the stones of this Temple. Blood. And blood.

  James held the two birds tightly as they tried to escape from his hands, his fingers a cage around them.

  "I confess my sins," he whispered in Hebrew. "That I am guilty of envy, of spite."

  He choked back his crying. At thirteen he was a man crying. I didn't know that anyone else but me knew he was crying. Then I saw Joseph's hand pressing his shoulder, rubbing it, and comforting him. Joseph kissed his cheek. Joseph loved James. He loved him so much. He loved me. He loved each person in a different way.

  James held the birds, and he bowed his head as the priest came down the line towards us.

  " 'For a child has been born to us,' " James recited from Isaiah, " 'a son is given us, and dominion shall rest on his shoulders.' " He tried to stop his tears. He went on, " And die name he has been given is Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty God, Eternal-Father, Prince of Peace.' "

  I turned and looked at James. Why this prayer?

  "May the Lord forgive me my envy. May the Lord forgive my sins, and may I be cleansed. Let me not be afraid. Let me understand. I repent of all."

  The priest was suddenly standing tall in front of us, and the blood spatters were on his beard and on his face. But he was beautiful in his white linen and his miter. The Levite stood beside him. The priest held the golden basin. With very narrow eyes he looked at James, and James nodded and gave over to him the two birds.

  "This is an offering for sin," said James.

  I was pushed forward and bent over to see, but the priest was soon lost among the other priests and I couldn't see what they did at the altar. I knew from the Scriptures what they did. They would wring the neck of one bird and pour out its blood. That was the sin offering. And the body of the second bird would be burnt.

  We were not there very long.

  It was finished. Paid in full.

  We made our way back, pushing and almost shoving, and soon into the mob of the Court of the Gentiles. This time we walked not in the very middle of everything but along the colonnade called Solomon's Portico.

  Teachers sat back under the porch, with many young men gathered around them. Women stopped to listen as well. I heard one teaching in Aramaic and the next one who had a very large crowd was answering a question in Greek for one of a great gathering.

  I wanted to stop, but the family kept moving, and every time I went slow to look at the teachers, to catch a single word perhaps, someone took my hand and led me on.

  Finally, I saw the great stoa coming up ahead. The crowd was easy now.

  We passed the stairs for leaving and then I saw why.

  Old Sarah was under the roof, seated beside one of the columns in the shade, with Bruria, our sad refugee, and also Riba playing with her little baby. My mother and my aunts were there.

  I'd forgotten all about them. I hadn't even known we were to find them. Old Sarah at once received James in her arms and kissed him.

  As we were all very tired, we sat down there with them. And I soon saw that many people were doing the same, even though the st
onemasons were working not far off on the back wall of the colonnade. We kept very close together so as not to be stepped on by others.

  Many were leaving the Temple. Even two or more of the merchants had packed up their birds in their cages and were going down the stairs. But still there were others complaining and even shouting at each other, and some people were backed up at the tables of the money changers.

  The Levites who sold the oil and flour for sacrifice were folding up their tables. And then I saw the guards, perhaps the men who are called the Temple Police, coming near to the stairway to watch the flow of those leaving.

  The evening sacrifice of the lamb would very soon be over. I didn't know for certain. There was so much to learn. It would all come in time. I wasn't worried about it.

  Nearby I saw a blind man seated on a stool, a man with a very long gray beard, and he was talking in Greek to no one, his arms out, or maybe he was talking to everyone. People threw coins in his lap. Some listened for a moment and then moved on. I couldn't hear him too well over the noise. Finally I asked Joseph if I might give him something and go listen to him.