John/Galilee Bridge
Section 5B — Road North — Arrival and the Question
As the miles passed, familiar place names returned.
Not all at once.
One traveler would recognize a turn.
Another would mention a village.
The landscape slowly stopped being Judea and became the country many of them had known before Jesus called them into a life that kept expanding.
The change worked on Peter visibly.
His shoulders loosened.
James spoke more.
Andrew began pointing out routes nobody needed him to point out.
Nathanael argued about which road would be quicker.
Matthew, who had spent enough time traveling on official business to have opinions, disagreed.
Simon accused him of preferring roads with tax stations.
Matthew said he preferred roads where zealots were less likely to start arguments.
Thomas asked whether such a road existed.
Nobody could identify one.
The laughter helped.
Home was getting closer.
Yet everything familiar now carried another life inside it.
A road was not merely a road.
Jesus had walked it.
A hillside had held a crowd.
A synagogue had once filled with shouting when an unclean spirit recognized Him.
A shoreline remembered nets abandoned.
A village remembered a paralytic walking.
A house remembered a fever leaving.
A field remembered grain rubbed between fingers while men argued about Sabbath.
A boat remembered a storm obeying a voice.
The land itself had become a collection of witnesses.
* * *
Nathanael joined John during one afternoon stretch.
He looked toward a ridge in the distance.
“You know what bothers me?”
John laughed.
“That question has become dangerous.”
Nathanael ignored him.
“He kept showing us things.”
“What things?”
“Signs.”
John nodded.
“Water.”
“Bread.”
“Blind men seeing.”
“Lepers clean.”
“Dead men alive.”
“Yes.”
Nathanael looked at him.
“We treated them like separate wonders.”
John thought about it.
“Were they not?”
“They happened separately.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Nathanael frowned.
John realized he had begun sounding like Jesus and did not know whether to be pleased or worried.
Nathanael continued.
“What if they were all saying something?”
John looked toward the road.
“Then I hope He explains it.”
Nathanael smiled.
“So do I.”
A few steps later he added:
“And Jacob.”
John turned.
“What about Jacob?”
Nathanael’s smile deepened.
“He told me I would see heaven opened.”
John remembered the first days.
Angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.
Nathanael shook his head.
“I have carried that sentence for years.”
“Understood it?”
“No.”
John laughed.
“That has become a theme.”
Nathanael looked toward him.
“Andrew said the same thing.”
“He should stop stealing my observations.”
The two men walked on.
Another unopened door traveled with them.
Jacob.
Open heaven.
Son of Man.
* * *
The women carried their own questions.
Joanna had not stopped thinking about the genealogy.
Mary had not stopped thinking about Simeon.
Mary Magdalene had not stopped hearing her name in the garden.
Susanna appeared mostly satisfied that she had successfully introduced Nicodemus into at least one conversation that would otherwise have died from lack of a scholar.
One afternoon Joanna looked toward Jesus’ mother.
“Did you expect any of this?”
Mary smiled.
“No.”
“Not even after the angel?”
“Especially after the angel.”
Joanna laughed.
Mary’s expression softened.
“I knew promises.”
“I knew what I had been told.”
“I knew He was not ordinary.”
She looked down.
“That is not the same thing as knowing how every promise would happen.”
Mary Magdalene listened.
Jesus’ mother continued.
“When He was a child, people said things over Him I could not fit together.”
“Simeon?” Joanna asked.
Mary nodded.
“Salvation.”
“Gentiles.”
“Israel.”
“A sword.”
Joanna’s expression changed.
“A sword?”
Mary’s hand moved unconsciously toward her chest.
“A sword shall pierce through thy own soul also.”
Silence.
Golgotha entered the road.
Mary looked ahead.
“I heard that when He was an infant.”
Mary Magdalene’s eyes filled.
“And you remembered at the cross?”
Mary’s mouth tightened.
“I remembered many things at the cross.”
No one asked her to list them.
Not yet.
The words could wait until Galilee made room for them.
* * *
Nicodemus and Joseph were carrying another question.
Kingdom.
Joseph had waited for the kingdom of God.
That was not a secret in his own heart.
Now the King had been crucified and raised.
Nicodemus asked:
“Does resurrection establish the kingdom?”
Joseph looked at him.
“You are asking me?”
“You were waiting for it.”
“So were you.”
“I was waiting more academically.”
Joseph laughed.
“That explains everything.”
Nicodemus continued.
“David.”
“Solomon.”
“The throne.”
“The prophets.”
Joseph walked several paces.
“Daniel.”
Nicodemus looked at him.
“Yes.”
“Son of Man.”
“Yes.”
“Kingdom given.”
Nicodemus’s eyes sharpened.
“Given by whom?”
Joseph smiled.
“You are doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Having the conversation with Jesus before we reach Him.”
Nicodemus looked mildly offended.
“I am preparing.”
Joseph shook his head.
“Then prepare this: if Daniel sees the kingdom given, perhaps the giver matters.”
Nicodemus stopped walking.
Joseph kept going.
After several steps he looked back.
Nicodemus was still standing in the road.
Joseph sighed.
“Come along.”
Nicodemus caught up.
“You may have accidentally said something useful.”
“I will try not to repeat the mistake.”
The word stayed with Nicodemus.
Given.
Not seized.
Not stolen.
Not negotiated with Rome.
Given.
He had another question for Galilee.
* * *
Simon the Zealot did not abandon his concern for Israel because Jesus had risen.
If anything, the resurrection made the concern sharper.
One evening he found Peter.
“I need to ask you something.”
Peter looked at him.
“Why?”
Simon frowned.
“Because you answer questions.”
“Poorly.”
“Frequently.”
Peter accepted the correction.
Simon sat.
“When He asked us who He was…”
Peter’s face changed.
Caesarea Philippi.
“Thou art the Christ.”
“Yes.”
“The Son of the living God.”
“Yes.”
Simon continued.
“You said it.”
“I did.”
“And then He began speaking about Jerusalem.”
Peter’s jaw tightened.
Simon noticed but continued carefully.
“Suffering.”
“Yes.”
“Death.”
Peter looked away.
“And resurrection.”
“Yes.”
Simon paused.
“You did not like it.”
Peter laughed without humor.
“No.”
“What did you think Messiah was supposed to do instead?”
Peter looked at him.
“The same thing you did.”
Simon nodded.
“Win.”
“Yes.”
“Restore Israel.”
“Yes.”
“Defeat the enemies.”
“Yes.”
Simon looked toward the fire.
“And now?”
Peter took a long breath.
“Now I think I did not know which enemy He meant.”
Simon looked up.
Peter shook his head.
“That is all I have.”
It was more than Simon had expected.
Peter stood.
“Ask Him in Galilee.”
Simon smiled faintly.
“That seems to be everybody’s answer.”
Peter started away.
Then turned.
“It is a good answer.”
* * *
The farther north they went, the more the questions began to converge.
Not answers.
Questions.
Why did Messiah suffer?
Why did He permit His own death?
What kingdom had He won if Rome remained?
What did Daniel mean by dominion given to the Son of Man?
What had the Baptist meant by Lamb?
Why had the Spirit descended and remained?
Why did Isaiah speak of a Servant cut off and then seeing seed?
Why did Jesus call His body a temple?
Why Galilee?
Why had unclean spirits recognized Him before many men did?
Why had He spoken of binding a strong man?
Why had He repeatedly told them He would rise when none of them possessed the category to understand Him?
And under all of it:
What war had they actually been watching?
They did not yet phrase the question that way.
Jesus would.
* * *
The final approach to Galilee changed Peter more than any conversation had.
The land became familiar in the body.
The angle of hills.
The smell of water carried farther than sight.
The air.
Birds.
Voices shaped by home.
Names that once meant ordinary days now returned with the weight of memory.
Capernaum.
Cana.
The lake.
Fishing villages.
Hills where crowds had once sat.
Places where Jesus had healed men before the disciples had learned to ask what healing meant.
Places where unclean spirits had cried out before the disciples understood they were witnessing a war.
Places where Jesus had fed people.
Taught people.
Offended people.
Called people.
Home.
At last the road opened.
Water came into view.
Galilee.
Peter stopped.
John stopped beside him.
The lake lay below, catching the changing light.
For several breaths Peter said nothing.
Then his shoulders loosened slightly.
His breathing deepened.
His eyes moved toward the boats.
His thumb rubbed once across his palm.
A faint smile appeared.
“At least I remember how to do that.”
John followed his gaze.
The water looked almost ordinary.
Nothing was ordinary anymore.
Behind them came the sounds of the others arriving.
Nicodemus was still talking.
Joseph laughed at something he said.
The women were gathering one another.
Matthew and Simon had resumed an argument that sounded less hostile than the first one.
Thomas watched everything.
Andrew stood looking toward the country where another voice had once cried in the wilderness.
James found Peter.
Mary looked toward the hills.
Joanna saw the roads stretching through a region Israel shared with the memory of nations.
Nathanael looked as though he was waiting for heaven to open.
They had carried questions all the way from Jerusalem.
Why the cross?
Why resurrection?
Why Galilee?
Why Rome still stood?
Why the prophets had spoken of suffering and glory in the same breath?
Why the Lamb?
Why the kingdom?
Why the Shepherd had allowed Himself to be struck?
Why a rich man’s tomb?
Why so many clues had been present before they understood them?
They had argued over the answers for days.
They had found fragments.
They had not found the map.
Now the risen Jesus had brought them back to the place where so much of their following had begun.
Galilee.
John looked across the water.
Soon they would be gathered around Him again.
Soon somebody would finally say what all of them had been carrying.
Not as accusation.
Not as unbelief.
As bewilderment.
Lord—
what had just happened?