Wings of Refuge

  “We’re not interested in your heresy,” he shouted. “Be on your way!” He nodded his narrow billy-goat head in the direction of the main road out of town as if he intended to butt the stranger off the steps. “Be gone! You’re not welcome here!”

  “You’re welcome in my home.”

  Leah recognized Master Reuben’s voice. He pushed his way between the gathered Pharisees until he stood before the stranger.

  “I’m Reuben ben Johanan. Would you share the Sabbath meal with me? I would like to hear more.”

  “Yes, thank you,” the man replied. “My name is Nathaniel ben Joseph.” He followed Reuben down the steps as the crowd parted to let them through.

  “You don’t know the kind of sinner that man is!” Reb Nahum shouted behind them. “He collects taxes for Rome! He eats with Gentiles and sinners! Neither he nor his household keeps the Law!”

  The stranger paused, turning back to Reb Nahum. “Yeshua the Messiah once said, ‘I did not come to call the righteous into God’s Kingdom, but sinners.’”

  Back at the villa, Miriam supervised the kitchen servants as they hurried to spread the table for their guest. Leah ate in her room with Elizabeth as usual, but after the meal, Reuben assembled the entire household, including all of the servants, to listen to Nathaniel preach. Master Reuben himself lifted Ruth into his arms and carried her into the reception room. Leah sat on the floor beside Gideon, but she could tell by her brother’s stiff posture and scowling features that he was skeptical.

  “God extends His grace through His Son to everyone—even tax collectors,” the preacher said, smiling. “In fact, one of Yeshua’s chosen disciples was a tax collector.”

  “Was the man’s name Matthew?” Master Reuben asked quietly.

  “Yes, that’s right. Did you know him?”

  Reuben shook his head. “No, but my father did. Matthew invited Abba and a few other tax collectors to a feast with Yeshua the Nazarene. My father never forgot how . . . how compassionate the rabbi was. He said it was the first time in his life—the only time in his life—that a rabbi treated him like a man, with dignity. Later we heard that the religious leaders had the Nazarene executed.”

  “Yes, but Yeshua is alive! God raised Him to life on the third day as it was written: ‘“You will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.”’ I am a witness, as are countless others, that Yeshua rose from the grave.”

  For the rest of the afternoon, Nathaniel wove Scriptures together like a master weaver until he had produced a stunning tapestry of the Messiah—a portrait fulfilled in the person of Yeshua the Nazarene. He talked about the new covenant God promised His people through the prophet Jeremiah: “‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their heart. . . .’” Leah recited the beautiful words along with him: “‘I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. . . . For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.’”

  “God sent His Son,” Nathaniel said, “born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He could set all of us free from that Law. In Christ we have our rightful heritage as sons, the privilege of close conversation with God our Father, just as our own children call their fathers Abba. God’s promised redemption is fulfilled, but it comes by faith, not by the Law, just as it did for our father Abraham.”

  Hours later, Nathaniel finished. The fire blazing inside him had finally spent its fuel. The silence he left was broken by a voice as fragile as butterfly wings. “I want to be baptized,” Mistress Ruth said. “I need the forgiveness Yeshua offers. I’ve been bitter toward my enemies, and that bitterness has turned me away from God. I know that I’m dying—”

  “Ruth . . . no!”

  “It’s all right, Reuben. I’ve accepted it. But I need to settle my accounts with God. I want to accept Yeshua’s offer to be the sacrifice for my sins.”

  Master Reuben stood and lifted Ruth into his arms. Leah followed as he carried her to their private mikveh. She watched as her master descended into the water in his Sabbath robes, carrying his dying wife in his arms. His love for her and his helpless despair were written on his features as if carved in the wax on Leah’s tablet.

  The preacher crowded into the mikveh beside them, his hands raised to heaven. “My sister Ruth, I baptize you in the name of the Father . . . and of the Son . . . and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

  A week later, on a rainy Sabbath afternoon, Ruth died.

  * * *

  The sound of weeping awakened Leah in the night. She rose from her mat at the foot of Elizabeth’s bed to comfort the child. Barely eighteen months old, Elizabeth was too young to comprehend what had happened to her mother, why the lovely woman in the room next door was suddenly gone, why the entire household had plunged into deep mourning. Nor had Leah herself finished grieving for Ruth. She had grown to love her mistress. The empty place Ruth left in Leah’s heart seemed as dark and as vast as the cloudy sky above Galilee.

  But when Leah knelt at Elizabeth’s bedside, she saw that the child was still asleep. Listening in the darkness to the heartbreaking cries, she realized that they came from Mistress Ruth’s room. She tiptoed to the adjoining door, thinking it might be Miriam. But the figure slumped in despair wasn’t the gray-haired servant.

  Master Reuben sat alone on his wife’s sleeping couch, his elbows on his knees, his face buried in his hands. Leah knew she should turn away and allow the man to grieve in privacy, but the sound of his brokenness brought tears to her own eyes. He had no one in all the world to comfort him.

  He didn’t look up as Leah came into the room. Standing over him, she wrapped her slender arms around his shoulders and rested her head on his. “I loved her, too, Master Reuben,” she said softly.

  After a moment he reached for her, clung to her, and they wept together. When his tears were spent, he released her. Without a word, he stood and left the room.

  * * *

  Leah watched little Elizabeth devour a slice of melon, then stretch her chubby hand out for another piece. “More!” she said. It was her favorite word. They had just returned from their daily walk, and Elizabeth had been reluctant to come inside when she saw that the walk was finished, saying “More . . . more.” Leah had lured her through the door with the promise of fresh melon, which Elizabeth was now stuffing into her mouth. She was a vibrant, curious child and the joy of Leah’s life.

  “I’m so worried about Master Reuben,” Miriam told Leah as she cut more fruit into small pieces. “He hasn’t left his room since Mistress Ruth’s funeral, not even to go to work. We leave food for him, but he barely touches it—only the wine flask is emptied.”

  As Leah watched Master Reuben’s daughter, she wondered if it was possible for Elizabeth to fill her father’s empty arms, for her simple, trusting love to take root and grow in his heart as it had in her own, filling the void that Mistress Ruth had left behind. She handed Elizabeth another piece of melon, then caressed her soft chestnut-colored hair.

  “Miriam, I think that Elizabeth and I should take Master Reuben his dinner tray tonight.”

  Miriam’s face registered surprise, then comprehension. “Mmm . . . it’s worth a try, Leah. It’s certainly worth a try. The child is the image of her mother at that age.”

  Leah didn’t know what to expect as she knocked on the door of Master Reuben’s private chamber that evening, the tray of food unsteady in her hand. “Your dinner, Master Reuben,” she announced before opening the door. Miriam had warned her not to expect him to reply. Leah bent to whisper in Elizabeth’s ear, coaching her, then gently pushed the child ahead of her into the room.

  Master Reuben slouched on a chair in front of his shuttered window and didn’t look up when they entered. He appeared disheveled, his gaze vacant, his beautiful robes torn in grief. None of the lamps were lit, and the room smelled strongly of wine. Leah set down
the tray and gave Elizabeth another gentle push. The child stopped in front of her father’s chair and looked up at him curiously.

  “Abba?” Her tiny voice penetrated the gloomy silence of the room like birdsong. Reuben’s gaze focused on her in surprise. “Abba . . . Abba . . .” she repeated. Leah handed her a piece of apricot, and Elizabeth held it out to him, as Leah had coached. Reuben didn’t respond, sitting so still he might have been a piece of furniture. Finally Elizabeth grew tired of waiting and popped the apricot into her own mouth, then giggled at the trick she had played. “More!” she demanded.

  Leah’s heart was in her throat as she gave Elizabeth another piece. Once again, the child held it out to her father. This time Master Reuben slowly raised his arm from the chair as if it weighed more than he could lift and extended his hand to accept her gift. But instead of eating it himself, he bent forward and fed it to her. Elizabeth gobbled it down, then laughed again, obviously pleased with the way this game was being played. After feeding her several more bites of fruit, Reuben lifted her to his knee, and she settled comfortably onto his lap. As she offered him the next piece, Elizabeth saw the tear coursing down her father’s bearded cheek.

  “Uh oh,” she said and reached out to wipe it away. “Uh oh, Abba.”

  Master Reuben caught her tiny hand in his and raised it to his lips to kiss.

  * * *

  Every evening that he wasn’t away on business, Reuben called for Leah to bring his daughter to him.

  “How is she? What did she do while I was away?” he would ask, wanting to know every little thing Elizabeth had said or done, every new tooth or word, every smile or tear. He would surprise his daughter with trinkets and playthings he had bought on his travels, then smile as he watched her play with them. He laughed out loud as the child toddled curiously around the huge reception hall with Leah chasing after her to keep her from knocking over the lampstands.

  When she grew tired of exploring, Elizabeth would crawl onto Master Reuben’s lap, and he would tell her stories of the places he had been and the things he had seen. Leah loved listening, too, as he described a pounding horse race in the hippodrome, a colorful play he had watched in the amphitheater in Caesarea, or the bite of salt spray in his face as his sailing ship plowed the waves of the Mediterranean Sea. When Elizabeth grew sleepy he would kiss her tenderly, often carrying her to bed himself in his strong arms.

  Never in her life had Leah seen a father lavish his daughter with so much love and affection. Just as she had forged a bond of friendship and love with Mistress Ruth over the months she’d spent with her, Leah now found herself drawn more and more to Master Reuben. It was the highlight of her day, as well as Elizabeth’s, when he called for them in the evening. Leah cherished the time she spent talking with him, watching him with his daughter. One evening Elizabeth tripped and fell as she bounded into the room to see her father, bumping her head on the leg of his chair. But it was Leah she ran to for comfort, not him. As she soothed the child’s tears with her kisses, she was aware of Master Reuben watching them. He sat very still, his gaze intense.

  “You are more than a servant to her, Leah,” he finally said. “She loves you like a mother.”

  Leah knew he was right. She also knew that she had overstepped the boundaries of a servant’s role by allowing it to happen. She gently pried Elizabeth’s chubby arms from around her neck and turned her toward her father with a little push.

  “Forgive me, my lord. We must do something to change that before it’s too late. She needs to learn that I am only her servant . . . and yours.”

  Reuben appeared thoughtful as his daughter climbed onto his lap and nestled close. His blue ring sparkled in the lamplight as he stroked her curly hair. Leah held her breath, watching him. How would she ever bear being separated from Elizabeth—or Master Reuben? The evenings were lonely enough for her when he was away on business; what would they be like if she couldn’t be with him at all? What if he gave her kitchen duties again and she could no longer kiss away Elizabeth’s tears or listen to Master Reuben’s stories and laughter?

  As she watched him hug his daughter, Leah remembered how it felt when Master Reuben’s arms had encircled her the night they had grieved together for Ruth. She remembered the scent of his silky hair, the dampness of his tears on her gown after he had gone. Her heart twisted inside her like a wrung cloth when she realized how much she longed to hold him again.

  “No,” he said after a long moment, “I don’t want anything to change. I can see that she loves you, Leah . . . and that you love her. I can’t deprive either one of you of that.”

  Leah bowed her head—as much to hide her tears of joy and relief as in humility. “Thank you, Master Reuben,” she murmured.

  That spring, the master was away for two long weeks, traveling to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover. When he returned, he brought Nathaniel the preacher home with him, along with a small group of the preacher’s followers. No longer welcome in Degania’s synagogue, they held services every Sabbath in the villa’s spacious reception hall. Nathaniel stayed until the Feast of Pentecost, teaching Leah and everyone in the household who wanted to learn about Yeshua the Messiah. What amazed Leah the most was the fact that the followers of Yeshua allowed women as well as men, servants as well as Master Reuben, to sit side by side at the teacher’s feet and discuss the Scriptures. Several families from Degania and the surrounding villages began coming and were baptized in Master Reuben’s mikveh. Many of the servants, including Miriam and Ehud, were baptized, too, but it grieved Leah that her brother Gideon wanted nothing to do with the meetings in the master’s reception hall.

  “Please come,” she begged her brother. “Why won’t you come? I know you would like what Nathaniel has to say if you would only listen.”

  “Reuben ben Johanan works for the Romans,” Gideon said. His face was cold and hard, the way it had looked after the Roman soldiers had beaten him. “It’s bad enough that he owns my body. I won’t have him trying to own my thoughts, too.”

  Master Reuben listened thoughtfully to Nathaniel, but he always stopped short of declaring himself a Christian and being baptized. He had spent an enormous amount of money to purchase a set of Torah scrolls from the Essene community in Qumran, along with as many scrolls of the prophets as he could acquire. One day he showed Leah where he kept them. “I want you to read these to Elizabeth when she is old enough,” he said. “I want her to know how the Messiah was promised to us in God’s Word.”

  Not content to wait until Elizabeth was older, Leah began reading the scrolls to herself each night so that she could talk about what she read with Nathaniel and the others. God had satisfied the hunger of her heart, she realized one day. She could read and study Scriptures for herself, feasting on them as she had longed to do when she used to stand outside the synagogue windows. And in that Word, God had slowly revealed Himself to her, showing the fullness of His love. Leah marveled at how perfectly Yeshua had fulfilled all those prophecies.

  “Five days before Passover,” Nathaniel explained, “on the day the lambs are chosen, Yeshua made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem as our king, just as the prophet Zechariah had promised. ‘Behold, your King comes to you, righteous and having salvation . . .’ The people proclaimed Yeshua king that day, shouting ‘Hosannah! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

  As Nathaniel explained the Scriptures, from the fall of Adam and Eve to Yeshua’s death and resurrection, God’s plan took form and shape before Leah’s eyes, as if she had stepped back from her loom and suddenly discovered that the intricate pattern of stripes and colors were not individual threads, but a finished garment.

  “I believe that Yeshua was the promised Messiah,” she told Nathaniel one Sabbath afternoon.

  “Would you like to be baptized?” he asked. Leah looked away. A cold chill washed over her, as if she had plunged into an icy bath.

  “What’s wrong, Leah?” Nathaniel asked when she didn’t reply.

  “I don?
??t want anything to do with ritual baths. I have too many bad memories from when I used to go—” She stopped, embarrassed to mention the law that required bathing after a woman’s uncleanness. She hadn’t gone back to the public mikveh since becoming Reuben’s servant.

  “Yes, I know the Pharisees have misused it,” Nathaniel said gently. “They demand meaningless cleansing from all our daily impurities, real or imagined. But their washing cleans only the outside. The Pharisees say nothing about cleansing the heart.”

  “Reb Nahum and Rabbi Eliezer keep watch like a couple of jackals waiting to pounce,” Leah said. “They condemn everyone for transgressing the Law, yet they never keep it themselves. They make so many holes in the Law to slip their own sins through that it resembles a fishing net! And the priests in Jerusalem are just as bad. They demand a ritual cleansing before we enter their Temple, but they make themselves rich by cheating the poor people who only want to worship God!” She stopped, horrified to discover that she had spoken her thoughts so freely. It was one more reason the Pharisees had always condemned her, and now she had done it again—in front of Rabbi Nathaniel. She stared at her hands, folded in her lap, afraid to see his face.

  “You’re right. Baptism does symbolize our cleansing from sin,” Nathaniel said. There was no shock or anger in his voice. “But Yeshua Himself was baptized, and we know that He was without sin. Baptism also symbolizes a new beginning as we leave the old ways behind and are born again into a new life in Christ. Our ancestors went through the waters of the Red Sea as they left slavery behind. Their children passed through the Jordan River as they began a new life in this land. We believe in one baptism, in Yeshua’s name, for those who want to identify with His ministry, His sacrifice, His forgiveness.”