Mary grasped James’s hand and looked at the others. “He took the road down to the Sea of Galilee. I think he’s going back to Capernaum. We should go there.”
“It might be a good idea to leave Nazareth for a few days,” Joseph said solemnly. “And let things settle down again.”
“And we can talk to Jesus,” James said.
“My husband needs me, Mother,” Anne said. “I can’t go without his permission.”
Sarah looked as aggrieved as her sister. “After what happened at the synagogue, how do any of us dare go?”
Mary was stunned by their faithlessness. “Have you ever known your brother to lie?”
“No, Mother.” James’s eyes darkened. “But then, he never claimed to be God before.”
“He is the Son of God.” She saw how her children stared at her. She told them again how the angel of the Lord had come to her. She told them how she had conceived by the Holy Spirit. She told them how the angel of the Lord had appeared to their father in a dream, telling him that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and how he had married her and kept her a virgin until after Jesus was born in Bethlehem. She told them about the star over Bethlehem, the visit of the magi, King Herod’s decree to kill the children. When she finished, she looked from face to face and drew in a sobbing breath. “Why won’t you believe me?”
James leaned forward, clasping his hands tightly between his knees, his face haggard with concern. “We know how children are conceived, Mother. He’s our brother and we love him.”
“You think I’m lying.” They preferred the lies of gossips to the truth she spoke.
“We think—” he looked at the others and then back into her eyes—“that you’re deluded.”
Anger and hurt rose in her. “Deluded? How? By whom? Your father, Joseph? Other than Jesus, have you ever known such a righteous man so eager to please God? And Jesus. Hasn’t he always done what is right and true and noble and . . . ?”
James hung his head. “Just because he’s obeyed the Law doesn’t mean he’s God.”
She stood. She was angry, but she was even more afraid for them. What would become of her children if they rejected the Messiah? “We will go to Capernaum. Your brother will make things clear to you.”
* * *
James and Joseph rose early one morning to speak with Jesus, but they were told Jesus had already gone off on one of his habitual solitary walks. “The men he calls his disciples refused to tell us, his brothers, where he went. They act like bodyguards!” they complained.
Mary had hoped that her sons and daughters would recognize Jesus’ true identity when they heard him preaching. But instead they were even more confused by Jesus’ parables about wheat and weeds and choice pearls and mustard seeds. They were offended when Jesus did not separate himself from the others and treat them with more consideration than the hodgepodge band hanging around him day and night. There was never time to be alone with him because so many were pleading for his attention. Furthermore, they were frightened by the approach of priests and dismayed when Jesus welcomed everyone. He even ate with prostitutes and tax collectors!
Mary’s daughters and sons-in-law left after two days, taking Simon and Jude back home with them. James and Joseph stayed another day, and then urged Mary to come home with them. “He doesn’t need you, Mother. He’s got a dozen men following him around like lost sheep.” She felt torn between Jesus and her other sons, and was finally swayed by their arguments.
Passover was fast approaching, and she must prepare for the yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Surely, Jesus would join them for the journey to the City of David.
It wasn’t until the family came down from Nazareth that they heard from others that Jesus had gone on ahead without them.
* * *
“Your son is in the city already,” Abijah told Mary when she arrived in Jerusalem with her family. “He’s been teaching in the corridors of the Temple.” The elderly man wore a frown.
“Everyone has been talking about him,” his wife, Rachel, said. “He seems to have a following.”
Abijah shook his head. “The Pharisees are not pleased with his teaching.”
“The Nazarenes weren’t either,” Joseph said grimly.
“I’ve heard that his disciples transgress the tradition of the elders.”
“How?” Mary said.
“They do none of the ceremonial washing of hands before eating. It was on that very matter that the Pharisees questioned Jesus, and he called them hypocrites.”
The hair rose on the back of her neck. “Hypocrites?” she said weakly, unable to imagine Jesus losing his temper.
“My friend said he told them straight to their faces that they honored God with their lips, but not their hearts. Your son said they worship in vain because they’re teaching the doctrines and precepts of men.” Abijah’s face grew more and more flushed as he spoke. “Of course, the unwashed mob that follows him loved it.” He glowered at Mary. “Where did your son get these ideas? You should speak to your son, and remind him of the respect due the men who take our sacrifices before God!”
Your son . . . your son . . . Mary could hear the accusation in her relative’s voice. She felt the heat come into her face. Surely there was some mistake. Jesus had never been disrespectful to anyone.
“If he keeps on like this, he’ll offend King Herod and end up like John the Baptist.”
“Abijah,” Rachel said in a hushed voice.
Mary felt her blood go cold. “What do you mean, ‘end up like John’? What’s happened?” She looked round at the faces of her sons and other relatives. What were they keeping from her? “James? Joseph?”
A muscle tensed in James’s cheek. “He was beheaded.”
Mary put her hand to her throat. “Beheaded?” Tears sprang to her eyes. John, the miracle child of Zechariah and Elizabeth, was dead? John, the child who recognized Jesus from the womb, was dead?
“It was only a matter of time,” Abijah said. “He offended Herod and Herodias. You can’t shout that the king and his wife are adulterers without expecting repercussions. He said it wasn’t lawful for Herod to have Herodias because her husband is Herod’s brother Philip and still alive.”
She stared at him. “But that’s true. Everyone knows it’s true.”
His face reddened. “Of course it’s true, but it’s foolish to proclaim it. King Herod had John arrested. I think he merely intended to keep John away from the people for a while, but Herodias held a feast for the king’s birthday. Herod was drunk when Herodias’s daughter danced for him, and he promised her anything up to half of his kingdom. And you can guess what happened. Herodias closed the trap, and told the girl to ask for John’s head on a silver platter.”
Mary slowly shook her head. “No. No! How can this be?”
Abijah seemed distressed at her reaction to his news, and turned to her sons in accusation. “How is it your mother has not heard any of this?”
“We didn’t want to worry her,” Joseph said. “John was arrested during the time Jesus was missing.”
“Missing?” Abijah looked between her two oldest. “When was this?”
“After he went down to the Jordan and was baptized,” James said.
Mary clutched her hands in her lap, struggling against the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. Her sons must think she was weak and could not bear to hear what was happening around her. What else were they withholding from her? “John was a prophet of God,” she insisted.
“Some say so,” Abijah said sardonically.
She lifted her chin and looked at the men of her family. “A prophet of God speaks only the truth.”
James frowned. “And every prophet who has done so has died for it.”
Abijah leaned forward. “Your brother is going to get himself killed if he persists in offending everyone.”
Mary’s eyes glistened. “God brought Jesus out of my womb and made him trust in the Lord even at my breast. From conception, Jesus was cast upon the
Lord. He can only do what God tells him to.”
Abjiah and Rachel stared at her, openmouthed. Abijah looked at James. “Is she claiming what I think she is?”
“She believes it,” James said, glancing at her and bowing his head in shame.
“Woman,” Abijah said in pity, “you are out of your mind if you think your son, the boy who has come every year to Jerusalem and sat at my table, is the . . . the Messiah. . . .” He rose and moved away from her as though she were contaminated.
Mary felt Rachel’s hand on her back. “Mary, Mary, my dear friend. You are a good woman, but do you really believe yourself worthy to be chosen to bear God’s anointed? A poor woman from . . . Nazareth, whose husband was a humble carpenter?”
“Our father was from the line of David,” Jude said, pride pricked.
“So are a lot of other men, in higher stations than your father,” Abijah said and raised his hands. “We are not speaking against our relative. He was a good man, devout and faithful. But to be the father of the Messiah?”
“Jesus is not Joseph’s son.”
“Mother!” James said harshly, his eyes black with anger. “Everyone in this room knows what really happened.”
Mary felt the blood surge into her cheeks. She looked around at them all. “God will keep Jesus safe. Jesus will not die!” He was the Messiah! He was the Anointed One of God, the Promised One who would save Israel! “The Lord’s hand is upon him.”
But she saw in their eyes that they didn’t believe her and, consequently, would not believe in Jesus either.
* * *
Mary returned home to Nazareth despondent. The tension in the family had increased over the Passover week. Their relatives had pressured her and her sons again and again to speak to Jesus before harm came to him. Mary had the distinct feeling that Abijah was less concerned with the welfare of her son than with the shame Jesus might bring upon his household.
When James and Joseph told her Jesus was back in Capernaum, she was not surprised that they wanted to go down and talk with him. She knew they feared for his life. But even more, they feared being excluded from the synagogue. The rabbi had been furious after Jesus’ visit and said openly that anyone who believed Jesus was the Messiah would be cast from the congregation, just as the carpenter’s son had been.
“We will go,” she said firmly. “We will go and talk with Jesus, and then you will see.”
But when she and her sons arrived in Capernaum, there was such a crowd around Peter’s house that they couldn’t even get close to the door. James shouldered his way through the crowd. “Make way for us! This is Jesus’ mother and we are his brothers!” Hearing that, people touched them and exclaimed how blessed they were. Still, they were allowed no closer than the doorway. From there, they could hear Jesus, but not see him. Farther than that, they could not move.
James told the man in front of him to send word forward that Jesus’ mother and brothers had come to speak with him. A few minutes later, Mary heard a voice call out. “Your mother and your brothers are outside, and they want to speak to you.”
“Who is my mother?” she heard Jesus say. “Who are my brothers? These are my mother and brothers. Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother!”
Mary felt the heat surge into her cheeks as those around her glanced at her and her sons, then looked quickly away.
Your son no longer needs you, and now he rejects you!
My son loves me. He loves his brothers. He would not reject us. He would not!
James’s face was red and angry, Joseph’s pale, Simon’s and Jude’s, confused and hurt. James leaned close to her ear. “You see how it is now, Mother. Now that Jesus has a following, he doesn’t care for his own flesh and blood.”
“We will wait for him.”
“Why?” Joseph said. “To be further humiliated?”
James put his arm around her as if to shield her from the curious glances of the crowd. “We’re leaving,” he whispered harshly.
If she argued with her children, she would cause further disruption. She went with them a ways, and then she put her foot down firmly. “Are you all so proud you think Jesus must stop what he’s doing the minute we appear?” She did not say again that Jesus was about God’s work, for that would only incense them more.
“We came because we love him, and look how he treats us!” Simon said, tears running down his cheeks. “We came because we don’t want him to end up like John, with his head on a platter.”
Mary embraced her youngest sons and looked up at James and Joseph. “Wait for him. Wait! Did you come all this way to turn your back on him?”
“He turned his back on us first.” James turned away, but not before she saw the sheen of tears glistening in his eyes.
She refused to be swayed by hurt or confusion. She knew Jesus better than they did. Had she not been the one to suckle him at her breast and watch him grow into a man? Even as she walked away with them, she tried to turn them back. “Remember the parables your brother told us when he came home to Nazareth the last time. He’s teaching the people about the kingdom of heaven. He is defining the children of God. He does not think as we think, my sons. His ways are not like ordinary men’s. His ways are higher.”
As she spoke her faith, assurance came, bringing comfort with it. “He is not excluding us, my sons, but including all those who have come to him to hear what pleases God.” She looked back at those who craned their necks to hear her son’s words of hope. “Those who realize they need God—the gentle and lowly, the sick, those who mourn, those who are hungry and thirsty for justice . . .” She put her hand on James’s arm, stopping him. “You know him. James. Joseph. Simon. Jude. You know him. Can you really say in your heart that Jesus has no love for you?”
They wouldn’t listen.
She yearned to stay behind in Capernaum, but knew that if she did, these sons of Joseph would feel she had rejected them just as they were convinced Jesus was rejecting them. So, with sinking heart, she walked home with them. Every step away from Jesus made her feel more alone.
“Each must choose.”
The words echoed in her mind and made her heart ache. Jesus knew she loved him. Jesus knew she believed he was the Messiah. Jesus would understand that she couldn’t leave her other sons.
“Each must choose.”
She had to stay with them and make them understand.
“Each must choose.”
If she left her other children, they would be hurt and angry, believing she had always favored Jesus over them.
“Each must choose.”
The farther she got from Capernaum and Jesus, the softer the echo of her son’s words to her . . . and the deeper the ache in her heart.
* * *
Her sister, Mary, and Clopas stopped by Mary’s house on their way out of Nazareth. “We’ve talked about it for months and decided to close our house and shut down our business so we can go with your son.”
Mary’s eyes spilled over with tears. At last, her sister and her husband believed! She had thought the day would never come. “Wait,” she said and hurried to the box that held the last of the gifts from the magi. Mary put the incense and remaining pieces of gold into a bag and gave them to her sister. “For Jesus to use.”
“Why don’t you come with us?”
“I must try to sway my sons and daughters.”
Soon after, Mary went once again with her sons and daughters to Jerusalem for Passover. She sat among her disbelieving relatives, overhearing rumors that King Herod was looking for Jesus because he thought he was John the Baptist come back to life. There was growing antagonism in high places against her son. Wisely, Jesus had crossed the lake to Gennesaret and was preaching in the surrounding district.
Upon her return to Nazareth, she heard that Jesus had departed from the district of Galilee and gone into the region of Judah beyond the Jordan. She heard rumors that Jesus had gone to Sidon and Tyre. But why would her son be among the Gent
iles? It was Israel that awaited the Messiah.
With each day that passed, she felt the distance widen between her and Jesus, and the hearts of her sons growing harder.
“I want to go to him,” Mary said, weeping. “I want to see my son!” All her efforts to save these stubborn children had failed. She was powerless to change their minds and hearts, powerless to turn them to the truth she knew: that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Oh, Lord God of Israel, God of mercy, why are they so stubborn? I can do nothing with them. Oh, Lord, I’m placing them in your mighty hands. Be merciful. Please be merciful.
“You tried to see him in Capernaum, Mother,” her sons argued with her. “Do you not remember what happened? He has thousands of followers crying out his name. He has his inner circle of friends. He’s famous throughout Judea. He doesn’t care about us anymore.”
It did no good to say Jesus loved them. It did no good to remind them of the years he had provided for them, held them in his lap, read to them, laughed with them, taught them. What would Jesus have to do to prove his love for them?
A year passed, and another, and Mary knew the time was fast approaching when she would have to do what Jesus said. She would have to choose. And she knew she must make the same choice she had made thirty-three years ago.
She must say yes to God and stop counting the cost. Even if it meant giving up her children.
SEVEN
Mary traveled with her sons and daughters and their families to Jerusalem for the Passover. Everyone they met was talking about Jesus, telling stories of his miracles and preaching. He had not gone to Jerusalem for Passover the previous year, but had spent the week with his disciples in the desert after feeding a multitude on five barley loaves and two fish.
“Rumors, just rumors,” someone near her said.
“I tell you, this man is a prophet of God!”
“He’s my brother,” Simon said proudly.
The strangers laughed at him. “Your brother!” They sneered. “Why aren’t you following him?”
Her sons and daughters made no claims after that, but they talked a great deal among themselves, speaking softly, gravely concerned. Everyone they encountered was talking about Jesus, and all were hoping “the Nazarene” would come to Jerusalem this year so they could see him.