John/Galilee Bridge

The road north became a school without a teacher.

The disciples did not travel as one tight company.

Men moved ahead and fell back.

Women walked together for a while, then one would join another group.

An older disciple slowed on a climb and found himself beside someone he had hardly spoken with during the years of following Jesus.

Questions changed hands.

Answers rarely survived an entire day.

They had Scripture.

They had memories.

They had an empty tomb.

They had seen Jesus alive.

They still did not know how the pieces belonged together.

No one had yet stood before them and opened Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms as a single map of what had happened.

So they tried.

A saying remembered in one group would travel backward.

A prophecy remembered by Nicodemus would travel forward.

Someone would think he had solved a question at midday and abandon the answer before evening.

The road gave them time to discover how much they knew and how little they understood.

John spent one morning beside Andrew.

For a while they walked in silence.

Then Andrew looked toward the wilderness country behind them.

“Do you remember John?”

John knew immediately which John.

The Baptist.

The wilderness voice.

The rough clothing.

The urgency.

Israel being summoned to wake up.

Prepare ye the way of the LORD.

Andrew smiled faintly.

“I followed him before I followed Jesus.”

John nodded.

Andrew had told the story often enough that John could see the day almost as Andrew described it.

The wilderness prophet standing with two of his disciples.

Jesus passing.

John looking toward Him.

“Behold the Lamb of God.”

Andrew glanced at John.

“He ruined my life.”

John laughed.

“In the best way.”

“That is not how it felt to my fishing business.”

“Peter survived.”

“That is a generous description.”

John smiled.

Andrew looked ahead again.

“He kept saying Someone was coming after him.”

“Someone greater.”

“He said he was not worthy to loose His shoe.”

John nodded.

Then Andrew’s expression changed.

“And then one day he looked at Jesus.”

The humor disappeared.

“Behold the Lamb of God.”

Neither man spoke for several steps.

Lamb.

After Passover.

After Golgotha.

After the empty tomb.

The word had changed.

John had heard the Baptist’s testimony repeated before.

Now the crucifixion had placed blood behind the word.

Andrew looked down at the road.

“I heard him say it.”

John waited.

Andrew continued.

“He said he did not know Him at first as the One he was waiting for.”

“But the One who sent him to baptize had given him a sign.”

Andrew nodded.

“Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him.”

The word remaining seemed to catch in both men.

Not merely descend.

Remain.

Andrew continued.

“He said he saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove.”

“And remain upon Him.”

“And he bore record.”

John knew the rest because Andrew had carried it from the wilderness into the years that followed.

“That this is the Son of God.”

Andrew nodded.

The Baptist was dead now.

He could not stand in Galilee and repeat the testimony.

But men who had heard him were alive.

They carried his words.

John thought about the unnamed disciple who had stood with Andrew in the account of those first days.

The testimony did not name him.

John did not need to make the silence say more than it said.

Andrew was enough.

The witness was enough.

“Did you understand him?” John asked.

Andrew laughed softly.

“No.”

“None of it?”

“I understood enough to follow Jesus.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“No.”

Andrew shook his head.

“I heard all of that before I understood any of it.”

John gave him a tired smile.

“That has become a theme.”

They walked on.

The Baptist did not need to occupy the whole story.

He had done what Isaiah’s voice was supposed to do.

He had cried in the wilderness.

He had prepared the way.

Then he had pointed away from himself.

The Lamb of God.

The Son of God.

The Spirit descending.

Remaining.

Witness.

John wondered how many things had been spoken plainly before they possessed the categories to hear them.

* * *

Later that day John fell into step behind Nicodemus and Joseph.

The two older men had been arguing quietly.

Or perhaps Nicodemus had been arguing while Joseph endured it.

“You are doing it again,” Joseph said.

“I am thinking.”

“You think with your mouth.”

“It is efficient.”

John smiled.

Nicodemus noticed.

“John, perhaps you can settle something.”

“No.”

Nicodemus looked offended.

“I have not asked.”

“I know.”

Joseph laughed.

Nicodemus ignored him.

“Isaiah.”

John’s smile disappeared.

“The Servant.”

Joseph continued walking.

Nicodemus’s voice slowed.

“Numbered with transgressors.”

John saw Golgotha again.

The criminals on either side.

Nicodemus continued.

“Yet His grave…”

Joseph slowed.

Nicodemus stopped speaking.

The road seemed quieter.

Joseph looked ahead.

“With the wicked.”

His voice was low.

“And with the rich in his death.”

John felt the fragment from the tomb return.

The wealthy garden.

The cut stone.

Joseph’s new sepulcher.

The phrase had come to John while he stood at the entrance, but it had refused to assemble.

Now the rich man himself was walking beside him.

Joseph’s mouth tightened.

“He was in my tomb.”

Nicodemus’s excitement vanished.

For a moment the scholar did not reach for another passage.

He simply looked at his friend.

Joseph’s throat moved.

“I thought I was giving Him the only thing I had left to give.”

Nicodemus reached toward him, hesitated, then touched his arm.

John remembered the empty place.

“He did not need it very long.”

Joseph looked at him.

A laugh escaped before he could stop it.

The laugh became tears.

Nicodemus began crying too, which seemed to irritate him.

He wiped his face with the back of his hand.

“This journey is becoming undignified.”

Joseph laughed harder.

John smiled.

Nicodemus looked at both of them.

“You realize this passage still does not answer everything.”

Joseph recovered enough to speak.

“I would have been disappointed if it did.”

Nicodemus resumed walking.

“Cut off from the land of the living.”

John listened.

“With the rich in His death.”

Joseph nodded.

“And then?”

Nicodemus stopped again.

John looked at him.

The old teacher’s brow tightened.

“He shall see…”

He did not finish.

Not because he did not remember the words.

Because he did.

Seed.

Prolong days.

The pleasure of the LORD prospering in His hand.

Joseph looked at Jesus’ absence from the road around them, then toward the north.

“Alive.”

Nicodemus exhaled.

“Yes.”

They did not force the conclusion.

They had seen Jesus alive.

They had Isaiah’s words.

They still did not know precisely how the suffering Servant, the rich grave, the Seed, and prolonged days fit together.

The road was giving them clues.

Galilee would have to give them the Teacher.

John looked from Joseph to Nicodemus.

“So we ask Him.”

Nicodemus nodded.

“Yes.”

Joseph smiled.

“That was your plan from the moment Mary said He was alive.”

Nicodemus considered.

“Yes.”

“Every question?”

“As many as time permits.”

Joseph sighed.

“Galilee may not be far enough.”

John laughed.

The road carried them north.

The prophecy remained unfinished in their understanding.

Cut off.

Rich in His death.

Yet alive.

They would have to ask Jesus.

* * *

Farther back, the women had fallen into a smaller group.

Several men walked well ahead.

Others trailed behind.

Between them Mary, Joanna, Susanna, and a few of the others could speak without competing with louder conversations.

For a while Joanna simply listened.

There was something she had been turning over in her mind since Jerusalem.

Everyone called Jesus the Son of David.

Joseph was of David’s house.

That much was familiar.

But Joanna also knew what Mary had told them concerning Jesus’ birth.

Joseph had not fathered Him.

At last Joanna looked toward Mary.

“May I ask you something?”

Mary smiled.

“Of course.”

“Your family. Your own family. Were you also of David?”

Mary nodded.

Joanna’s brow tightened.

“Through Solomon?”

“No.”

Mary watched the road beneath her feet for another few steps.

“Through Nathan.”

Joanna slowed.

“Nathan?”

“David’s son.”

“I know who Nathan was.”

Mary laughed softly.

“Then why did you ask?”

“Because I was hoping I had misunderstood you.”

Susanna glanced between them.

Joanna was no longer merely curious.

Names had begun arranging themselves in her mind.

“And your father?”

“Heli.”

Joanna repeated the name under her breath.

“Heli.”

Mary nodded.

“And Heli was of Nathan?”

“Yes.”

Joanna walked several more paces in silence.

Then:

“And Joseph?”

“Joseph was of David also.”

“Through Nathan?”

“No. Through Solomon.”

Joanna stopped walking.

Mary took two more steps before realizing she was no longer beside her.

Susanna turned.

Joanna stood in the road staring at Mary as though she had been handed two pieces of a puzzle that should not fit.

“Two lines.”

Mary looked back at her.

“Two lines from David.”

Mary nodded.

Joanna caught up.

“Joseph through Solomon. You through Nathan.”

“Yes.”

“And Joseph did not father Jesus.”

“No.”

Joanna became quiet again.

Susanna smiled.

She had seen that look before.

Joanna had reached the point where conversation had become investigation.

“What are you doing?” Susanna asked.

“Getting confused.”

“That looks much more serious than confusion.”

Joanna ignored her.

“Mary, did your father have a son?”

Mary shook her head.

“No son to carry his line?”

“No.”

Joanna drew a long breath.

“I do not have answers for this.”

Mary gave her a sympathetic smile.

“Neither do I.”

Susanna looked from one woman to the other.

“I know someone who will.”

Joanna immediately knew what she meant.

“Susanna—”

But Susanna had already lifted the edge of her garment clear of the dust and hurried up the road.

“Susanna!”

She waved once without turning around.

Mary laughed.

Joanna covered her face.

“I was not asking for a council of Israel.”

“No,” Mary answered. “You were only asking about my father.”

“That was apparently enough.”

Farther ahead, Susanna threaded her way through two groups of disciples until she found the man she wanted.

Not long afterward Joanna saw Nicodemus step away from the company ahead.

He moved to the side of the road and waited beneath the thin shade of an olive tree until the women caught up.