The Fisherman Page 7

  10

  It was now almost a year since the Master’s entrance into my world, almost a year since he called me Peter, almost a year since he quietly dropped his net of love around me and began drawing me to himself. I had fought that net as I had never fought anything before in my life. I wanted so much to keep him at arm’s length, to be objective, uninvolved. I could not deny his incredible authority, but neither would I submit to it. A year of fighting his gentle relentless pursuit left me exhausted. Now at last I was at peace. The quiet terror that had formed the backdrop to my life since the first day we met was finally gone, replaced by a vision of the most glorious future imaginable.

  How could I have been so fortunate? Here I was, standing beside the man who was obviously destined to rule our nation, perhaps even to rule the world. Jesus had spent the previous twelve months assembling his team, introducing himself, his message, and his powers to Israel. Now at last the conquest could begin in earnest. The goal was obvious—the restoration of Israel to its former glory. The role I would play in that restoration was not yet clearly defined, but now that my total allegiance to the Master was certain, and my remarkable gifts and abilities were at his disposal, together we would find a way.

  My heart was pure, but I had it all wrong—both the goal and the means. He knew, of course. He also knew if he had told me then that his goal was the cross and his means in all things was the Spirit of God, it would have sounded like gibberish to me. True, the hardest work was done; my spirit now belonged to him. But my confidence in my own abilities was still unassailable. He knew I would not let go of that confidence until I first placed all my hope in its sufficiency and then saw it fail me utterly.

  Though it didn’t seem like it at the time, the Master’s first year among us possessed an almost leisurely quality compared with the intensity of his remaining days on earth. His fame spread throughout the nation, and the understandable exuberance of some of those who were healed made life for the Master increasingly difficult. The impact of that fellow cured of leprosy was typical.

  We were on a short preaching tour in one of the villages near Capernaum when he approached the Master. As always the crowds were packed around Jesus, with everyone trying to touch him, to hear him, to squeeze in a little closer to him. My brother and I were right next to the Master, doing our best with crowd control, when a commotion erupted at the back of the crowd. Then suddenly the mass of humanity in front of us parted, like the Red Sea before Moses, with people fleeing in every direction. They were pushing and shoving to get out of the way of whoever or whatever was coming toward us.

  Then we heard a man giving the required warning to those who might be in his way: “Unclean! Unclean! Unclean!”

  We all knew what it meant—a leper was coming. Few diseases create a deeper sense of fear and revulsion in our society than leprosy. Though not highly contagious, the disease can be contracted through contact with an infected person. There is no cure, of course, and once infected, the leper is compelled to spend the rest of his life in isolation and poverty. Though the disease can eventually cause grotesque and hideous external deformities in the infected person, the greatest pain comes from being compelled to live a life of endless physical and emotional separation from the world.

  The man who approached us that day was as pathetic in appearance as any I have ever seen. His condition gave him a free ticket to a private audience with the Master. No one in that crowd would attempt to hinder his approach.

  He walked straight up to Jesus and dropped to his knees before him. Andrew and I instinctively stepped back several paces, but Jesus didn’t move. The man knew better than to risk touching the Master, but he looked straight up into his eyes. His nose was collapsed, and his lips and earlobes were enlarged and distorted into gruesome deformity.

  The man’s most distinctive characteristic, however, was not his appearance; it was his remarkable faith in Jesus. As he knelt in the dust before the Teacher, he said simply, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

  As I stood there staring at the pathetic wretch before us, I was struck with a sudden compulsion to protect the Master from the embarrassment of failure. I wanted to spring forward and say in a quiet, compassionate, yet authoritative voice, “I’m sorry, but we don’t do leprosy. I’m sure you understand.” The man’s request was unreasonable in the extreme. He had been afflicted by this disease for years until his body was now a mass of horrible deformity. To ask the Master to halt the progression of the disease might have been reasonable. To ask for total cleansing with the obvious anticipation of complete restoration was absurd.

  But before I could open my mouth, Jesus did what no other human being had done for more years than I even dared guess—he reached out and placed his hand on that leper’s face. He was obviously deeply moved by both the faith and the suffering of the man before him. Not only was he not repulsed by the man’s condition, Jesus actually seemed to be drawn to it. Then, with his hand still cradling the leper’s head, Jesus said simply, “I am willing; be cleansed.”

  And cleansed he was! In an instant the creature before us was transformed from an ugly mass of deformed flesh into a man in his midforties with strong features and clear eyes that radiated an obvious love for life. For several seconds he just stared at his hands. Then he felt his face, sprang to his feet, wrapped his arms around the Master, and began bouncing around with Jesus, imprisoned in his bear hug. The healed man alternately laughed and cried and bellowed, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

  When Jesus finally got the fellow calmed down a bit, he gave him two specific instructions. “See that you tell no one; but go to the priest, show yourself to him, and present the offering that Moses commanded, for a testimony to them.”

  The man did fine with the second part of the Master’s instructions. The offering, of course, had to be made at the temple in Jerusalem, so the man set off immediately on the several days’ journey he had before him.

  But he failed miserably with the first part of the instructions. In fact, even before he was out of our earshot, we could hear him proclaiming to every person he met, “Look what Jesus did! Look what Jesus did! I was that leper you always ran away from. Now look at me. I’m whole, I’m cleansed, I’m free. Look what Jesus did!”

  We found out all too soon he kept this up with every person he met throughout the entire trip to and from Jerusalem, creating a massive wake of people who were frantic to find the man who could perform such wonders. By the time the cured leper had finished his journey, the crowds seeking an audience with Jesus were so great, we could no longer openly enter the cities.

  On the surface it looked as if everything was progressing gloriously. Jesus was the hero of the masses as no one had ever been in the history of our nation. But, if you could have forced me to be honest during those early months of my second year with the Master, I would have told you that I saw him making what I believed were potentially disastrous tactical errors. Popularity was all well and good, but popularity did not bring about political power, and it was political power we needed if Jesus was going to move into the leadership position I had in mind for him. Certainly I didn’t want him to compromise his values, but why did he have to intentionally make himself offensive to those who held the power?

  The trouble began as the result of an incident that took place in Capernaum shortly after the leper was healed. Motivated in part by the leper’s exuberant testimony in the temple, a number of key religious leaders from Jerusalem, Judea, and throughout Galilee came as a delegation, seeking an interview with Jesus. His popularity had increased to the point where he could no longer be ignored by those who held positions of power in Israel. This would be their first official contact with the Master.

  The nature of the group and the prominence of those involved necessitated a closed meeting. The house being used by Mary, and by Jesus when he was in town, was the obvious place to have such a meeting. It was well suited for gatherings, with a large, open, central living area id
eal for controlled meeting situations. The arrival of so many prominent men heightened the already intense interest of the local population, but only a select few were permitted inside, while the uninvited were forced to stand in the heat of the sun, peering in through the windows and crowding around the door.

  I was a nervous wreck that day. I wasn’t sure Jesus fully appreciated the importance of this meeting. These were the men who mattered, the men who possessed the power to move Jesus into a key leadership position. Their blessing and approval would do wonders for the movement. I wanted so much for everything to go well. I wanted them to like Jesus. I wanted them to be impressed with him. I wanted them to see his obvious potential for leadership.

  I spent the morning trotting from visitor to visitor, finding places for them to sit, making sure everyone was as cool and comfortable as possible. The room was packed, but somehow we were able to get them all in. I kept watching the religious leaders to see how they were responding. I found it hard to read their faces, but as far as I could tell things seemed to be going pretty well. They were clearly interested in what Jesus was saying. If only we could pull this off . . .

  Then a sudden commotion on the roof just above Jesus’ head disrupted the meeting. The sounds of heavy feet and breaking tiles on the flat roof overhead echoed throughout the room. Bits of dirt, broken tile, and other roofing material showered down onto the group, followed immediately by a sudden, brilliant blast of sunlight that caused us all to squint, making it impossible for us to see clearly what was happening just above our heads.

  The commotion continued for another few minutes as the opening grew ever larger. Then, without warning, a stretcher suspended by two ropes dropped directly in front of Jesus. A young man, paralyzed from the waist down, lay on the stretcher, looking up at the Master.

  As soon as the stretcher hit the ground, a silence and sense of anticipation more intense than the heat engulfed the crowd. This was what they were really here for. They had heard the rumors and the testimonies. Now they would see firsthand. Jesus would reach down, heal this helpless man with just a touch or a word, and victory would be ours. As I stood there next to the Master, waiting once again for the magic to happen, I wondered why I hadn’t thought of staging something like this myself.

  But the first words Jesus spoke to the man lying before him were not the words any of us anticipated. They were words I had never heard him speak before, words that sent a sudden shock through me and through every other person in that place. He said, “Take courage, my son; your sins are forgiven.”

  Nothing could have created a more disastrous impact on the group gathered before him than those eight words. With one sentence Jesus set the movement back by months, if not years. No man had the authority to forgive sins. Only God himself could do that.

  A little rumble of guarded comments rolled through the men. No one spoke openly, but the word “blasphemy” could be heard from several sections of the courtyard. Jesus knew what they were thinking, of course. When the rumble finally quieted down, he put it into words. “Why are you thinking evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” he turned to the paralytic, “rise, take up your bed, and go home.”

  And the man rose and went home!

  The crowd on the roof went crazy, cheering and praising God for what they’d just seen.

  Most of the men of power, however, reacted differently. It was obvious to all that something supernatural had just taken place. But it had happened in a way that made them feel as though they were being publicly reprimanded by this Galilean nobody. The meeting came to an abrupt conclusion. Jesus stood silent and alone at the front of the crowd, watching his guests cluster in little groups as they made their way outside. I did my best to patch things up, thanking each of them for coming, wishing them all a safe journey home, but my efforts did nothing to remove the suffocating tension throughout the crowd. The bits of conversation I heard as the men left made it clear the meeting had been a disaster. They saw Jesus as a blasphemer empowered by Satan. In their minds he needed to be silenced as soon as possible.

  My hope, of course, was that the whole unfortunate incident would fade away in time and that Jesus would be given another chance to prove himself to our nation’s leaders. Not only did the incident not fade away, the gulf between us and them widened rapidly. From then on there were always at least a few spies in the crowds, watching Jesus, challenging his teachings, seeking to discredit and undermine his authority. They infiltrated every group, every meeting, always on the alert for anything that might help erode his popularity.

  I had no idea how closely we were being watched until a confrontation took place in the grain field a few days later. It was the Sabbath. A group of us were walking with Jesus along the edge of a grainfield just before the harvest. We were talking as we walked along. As usual, I was hungry. Without thinking I broke off a few heads of grain, rubbed them in my hands to separate the kernels from the chaff, and popped them into my mouth. Andrew saw me chewing and asked me what I was eating. I told him, and he along with several others in the group followed my lead.

  Then from out of nowhere an authoritative figure suddenly charged up to Jesus and bellowed, “Look! Your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath.” I recognized him as one of the Pharisees in attendance at the meeting in Jesus’ home a few days earlier.

  I felt like a fool. Without thinking I had led the whole group into a violation of the strict restrictions against harvesting on the Sabbath. I didn’t really consider what we were doing to be “harvesting,” of course, but I hated to be the cause of yet another open conflict between the Master and the Pharisees. I moved to the front of the group and was about to offer a repentant apology for my thoughtlessness when Jesus spoke. “Haven’t you read what David and his companions did when they became hungry, how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for them to eat because it was for the priests alone? Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and are innocent? But I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what this means, ‘I desire compassion, and not a sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

  It was a great response that left the accuser speechless and furious. I especially liked the part about the Sabbath being made for man and not man for the Sabbath. The problem, of course, was that rather than healing the rift between Jesus and the Pharisees, it intensified the battle. Within a matter of days he had publicly claimed for himself the authority to forgive sins, equated himself with King David, assumed rights given exclusively to the consecrated temple priests, announced that being in his presence was a greater honor than being in the temple of God, and declared himself to be “Lord of the Sabbath.” I loved the things he was saying, but I wondered if he fully appreciated how destructive these kinds of comments were to our plans for his move into national leadership.

  The third incident—the one that finally prompted me to take action—took place one week later. Again it was the Sabbath. We were in the synagogue listening to Jesus teach. The place was packed, with a large number of Pharisees scattered throughout the crowd.

  In the front row at Jesus’ feet sat a man with a withered hand. Jesus saw him. A number of the Pharisees saw him too. As soon as Jesus finished his teaching, one of the Pharisees popped up and asked Jesus a question.

  “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”

  The Pharisee’s intention was obvious. God himself had called our people to the sacred observance of the Sabbath when his finger etched the Ten Commandments into the stone tablets given to Moses. Our nation’s allegiance to the careful observance of the Sabbath was impenetrable. If this Pharisee could get Jesus to openly defy the authori
ty of God himself as revealed through Moses, it would be a powerful blow to the Master’s credibility.

  The place instantly went silent. We all waited for Jesus’ response to the question. He looked first at the Pharisee, then at the rest of us sitting in front of him, and finally at the man with the withered hand. Then he asked the man with the deformity to come forward.

  When the man joined him, Jesus rested his hand on the frightened man’s shoulder, then asked his own question of the Pharisee. “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?”

  The Pharisee saw the trap coming and didn’t say a word. What could he say? With one remarkable question Jesus had once again placed morality above legalism, the heart’s intent above external appearance.

  When the Pharisee refused to respond, Jesus turned to the man beside him and said, “Stretch out your hand.” As he stretched it out, we watched as the shriveled deformity was suddenly transformed into health and strength.

  A silent rage came over the humiliated Pharisee. He and his companions exited immediately. If they could have found some way of turning the crowd against him, they would have attempted to execute Jesus that day for blasphemy. They were wise enough, though, to know the time was not yet right. They would be patient. They would wait and plot and watch for their opportunity.

  At that point in my relationship with the Master, however, I was still optimistically hoping for some way to redeem what I saw as simply an unfortunate beginning in Jesus’ relationship with Israel’s political and religious leadership. Following what appeared to me to be three major public blunders in as many weeks, I finally felt compelled to speak to Jesus. Several days later, after carefully working out what I wanted to say, I found an opportunity to talk with him privately. I tried to impress upon him how crucial the endorsement of our national religious leadership was to the success of our program. I reminded him of the recent incidents that had generated so much tension between himself and the Pharisees. I suggested that if he would use a greater measure of tact and discretion in his future dealings with them, we might yet be able to redeem the situation.