Sunday, April 13, 2014

Awaiting His Return (A Passover/Easter Story)

Amit was jostled by the crowds near the city gate. Short for her nine years of age, she couldn’t see what the commotion was about, but her young ears caught the exclamation, “He’s returned! Rabbi Yeshua (Jesus) returned to Jerusalem!” 
Her heart leapt in joy. He came back! She vividly recalled the last time she saw him: the gentle voice and smile that lit his eyes as he told the children stories. 
Squirming her way through the myriad thicket of legs, she dodged her way through the crowd, toward home. Dashing headlong across the small courtyard, she threw all her weight against the heavy wooden door to open it, stumbling into the cool dark interior. 
Rushing to the hearth where two small bread loaves cooled from the morning’s baking, she carefully wrapped the better of the pair in a clean cloth. Cradling the still-warm loaf, she stepped out of the two-room home into the bright desert sunlight, pulling the door closed behind her. 
She ran through Jerusalem’s narrow streets back to the gate, but the crowd was gone, leaving only dust motes sparkling in the sunlight. With a rising panic, she glanced around and discovered a path of palm branches strewn in the street, clearly indicating the procession’s direction. 
Green branches crunched under her worn leather sandals as she panted up that street. The scent of newly cut palms rose from the dust, mingling with the scents of humanity and animals common to the city of her birth. 
When she finally caught up with them, Yeshua was dismounting the young donkey he rode into the city, and a great crowd of followers and curious onlookers gathered. 
Using her small stature to advantage, she clutched the loaf close to her heart and ducked between the people, pushing her way to the front where he stood. 
When one of his followers stopped her, Yeshua spied her and said she could come forward. 
With reverence and the unconscious grace only the young can exhibit, she approached smiling and held out her gift. “Here, Rabbi, it’s the first I’ve ever made!” 
The cloth was now dusty from its journey, but warm to his fingertips as he accepted it; the aroma of fresh baked bread drifted out from the folds to greet his nose. He smiled kindly with twinkling eyes and lowered himself on one knee, meeting her gaze levelly. “Thank you, Amit.” 
“I’m glad you came back, Rabbi Yeshua. I knew you would return to Jerusalem.” 
His smile broadened and he placed his hand lovingly on her slim shoulder. “I tell you this, child. I will always return to those who believe.” 
She grinned back and replied, “Thank you, Rabbi.” She bestowed a kiss on his bearded cheek and then simply turned and pushed her way back through the crowd towards her awaiting chores. 
+ + + 
The following days passed in bliss; she rushed through chores as her father attended Rabbi Yeshua’s teachings. Then she gathered with the other children to hear wondrous stories. At night, her family listened as their father recounted the Rabbi’s message. 
Four days after the memorable entrance, she helped her mother clean and prepare their home for the Pesach. She loved this holiday and even helped bake the matzo and set the Seder Plate for that first night. Her father read from the Haggadah and asked the youngest child the traditional questions, starting with “Why is this night different?” 
The family prayed together and sang the familiar songs, eating with the dishes reserved for this special holiday. All the while, Amit wondered where Yeshua celebrated the Seder that night, and how long he would be in Jerusalem. 
The next day arrived with a tumult in the streets. Her father departed early and returned quickly, demanding that she stay home with her siblings. “Do not even venture beyond our gate, Amit,” he admonished, knowing her tendency to be headstrong. 
“Honor your father’s wishes, Amit,” her mother added as she draped her head-covering over her head and shoulders, following her husband down the street. 
With her mother gone, Amit drew the water, tended the fire, baked the matzo, ground the grain into flour, and other household tasks she could do. 
Her curiosity grew as the hours passed. At one point, she heard a great crowd moving through the city. Laboring to get the ladder against their home, she clambered onto the rooftop. But the crowd was too distant to see anything of interest as it traveled down the hill and out the gate. The girl sighed disappointed and returned to her chores. 
Three hours later, she shivered and looked up from the small grinder. The sky had grown ominously dark; sunset was three hours away. Fearing a storm, she told her siblings to shutter the windows. She also prayed to God that if the storm was bad, her parents would find shelter; they were away a long time. 
Gathering bowls with wheat kernels and flour, she started across the courtyard. But before she reached the doorway, the ground violently shook, throwing her to her knees; bowls and contents clattered to the ground, spilling her day’s work. 
Heedless of the loss, she shouted to her siblings above the unknown roar and frightening shifting and explosions of stone and mortar from the surrounding buildings as though she suddenly found herself beneath a giant’s grinding stone. Hearing dismayed cries; she pulled herself to her feet and stumbled over heaving ground to the door-frame, bracing herself there. 
Her two siblings inside clung to each other, crying with wide, terrified eyes. Maintaining her grip on the doorpost just below the Mezuzah, Amit threw an outstretched hand toward them and grabbed a sleeve, yanking the pair through the door with a strength she did not know she possessed. 
As the three tumbled to the ground, the earthquake ended as abruptly as it started. An eerie silence surrounded them; their coughing exceedingly loud in the air thick with dust under a dark, ominous sky. As the event began to register in her nine-year-old mind, she clung to her siblings and wept with them. 
Not long after, their parents scrambled up the rubble-strewn street, entering their courtyard. Relieved to find their children alive and their home relatively intact, both parents clutched their offspring to their breasts and thanked God. 
After a while, Amit found her voice and asked, “What happened, Abba?” 
Her father gently grasped both her hands, meeting her curious gaze. “Today they crucified Rabbi Yeshua.” 
She stood there, shaking her head wordlessly; silent tears streamed down her dusty cheeks. She mouthed the words “No” and “Why” but no sound escaped past the lump in her throat. 
He embraced her, stroking her hair as the words sank in. 
After a few moments, she snuffled and pulled her head back, asking, “But Rabbi Yeshua will return, won’t he?” 
He gently shook his head, tears welling in his own eyes. “He’s gone, child. He died today.” 
“But… But he said he’ll always return to those who believe…. He said so….” The last words were a whisper fading into the dusty silence. 
He tried to draw his distraught daughter back into his embrace, but she pulled away. 
With all the determination she could muster, she marched to the side of their home and uprighted the fallen ladder, climbing back onto the rooftop. 
Shaking his head, he mounted the ladder and poked his head above the roofline.
The child stared toward the city gate through which Yeshua was escorted to Golgotha. Evening fell early under the dark sky, but there was an inner light shining in his young daughter’s eyes. 
He gently asked, “What are you looking for, Amit?” 
“I’m watching for Rabbi Yeshua’s return, Abba.” she quietly replied. 
Tears rolled over his cheeks into his beard as he climbed onto the rooftop, standing beside her. Wordlessly, he placed his hand on her slim shoulder, watching with her as the environs slowly grew darker. Sunset approached; it was time for his wife to light the candles and for them to recite the Kiddush. He helped his daughter down from the roof and inside. 
+ + + 
All through the Shabbat, Amit was quieter than usual, much quieter. She was deep in thought with a determined look that never left her features. 
When the first three stars appeared that evening, she approached her father, “Rabbi Yeshua has been gone for over a day now,” she started matter-of-factly. “He’ll be hungry. Let’s prepare some food we can leave out for him to eat when he returns.” 
Her mother was about to countermand her wishes, but her father solemnly nodded his assent. She practically skipped to the chicken coup in the courtyard, gathering the eggs to boil. As the hearth fire cooked the eggs and slowly heated the baking stones, she helped her mother prepare the matzo and the evening’s meal.
A few hours later, Amit wrapped a warm shawl around her head and shoulders and gathered the basket containing a skin of wine, the hard-boiled eggs and freshly-baked matzo. Her father held a lit lamp aloft, illuminating the dark road before them. 
While she had been out after dark before, for some unknown reason this night felt different, and her skin pimpled with a chill as the words of the first Pesach question echoed through her mind, Why is this night different?  
The familiar streets and known lamps in their stands, as well as the flickering light in the unshuttered windows and open doorways did not appear changed, but it felt as though she was seeing it all for the first time. 
He escorted her down several streets; the aromas of the evening meals and fresh-baked matzo filled the early night air, mingling with the scents of wood smoke and heated lamp oil. 
Those scents faded as they exited through the city gates lit by smoking torches and made their way into a nearby garden. 
There he paused and placed a firm hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him. “Child, I’m taking you to the place where they laid the body of Rabbi Yeshua after he died on the cross.” 
She nodded gravely; her determination only growing stronger. 
So he gestured with the lamp which path they should take. 
In a quiet part of the garden, there was a freshly-hewn tomb with a large stone rolled before the entrance, sealing it shut. Two bored guards entertained themselves with a dice game under the light of fluttering torches on poles to one side. 
Her father gestured for silence and took the basket from her, passing her the lamp while indicating that she should hide its flame. Hugging the ground, he slowly and carefully made his way along the rocky outcropping opposite where the guards sat. 
Still several feet from the tomb, he gently placed the basket in a nearby bush and quietly retreated to his daughter’s side. Firmly grasping her hand, he led her quickly away from the guards. 
When they were a safe distance, she returned the lamp and whispered, “Did you leave the basket where Rabbi Yeshua would find it, Abba?” 
He smiled and squeezed her hand reassuringly. “Child, if God in his wisdom led a serving woman to find the infant Moses in his basket among the river reeds, I’m certain God can help Rabbi Yeshua find that basket we left for him.” 
She studied his face in the lamplight as they walked quickly. “You believe Rabbi Yeshua will return too, Abba.” It was not a question. 
He paused and lowered himself to one knee, meeting her gaze levelly. “Amit, my daughter, I have heard of the many wonders Rabbi Yeshua has done. I believe he was, indeed, sent by God to our people. If he told you he’d return, perhaps… just perhaps he will. We shall see.” 
He stood upright, affectionately squeezed her hand in his and together they headed home in mutual peace and understanding through the night air filled with Pesach songs. 
+ + + 
In the darkness before the dawn, someone gently touched Amit’s cheek, awakening her from a deep sleep. A soft voice whispered in her ear, “Be quiet, child, and come outside.” 
Careful not to disturb her siblings sleeping in the same bed beside her, she slipped out from under the warm covers and shivered in the chill desert night air. Barefooted, she left the sleeping room and padded across the main room past the banked hearth fire and out the open door. 
Under a moon only days past its full face, Yeshua stood smiling at her as he stood there in brilliantly white robes. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and drew her unkempt hair away from her face. “Rabbi? Is that you?” she whispered. 
His teeth showed clearly in his beard as he grinned broadly. “It is I, Amit,” he whispered back. He held out the empty basket. “Thank you for your gift.” 
She accepted the basket and was about to reach up to bestow a kiss upon his cheek, but he stepped back. “Touch me not, child, for I have yet to go to my Father.” 
She pouted. “You are leaving Jerusalem again?” 
“For a time, but I will Return to those who believe. I will always return.” With another smile and a friendly wave, he passed through the courtyard gate. 
Racing to the gateway, she looked up and down their street, but he was nowhere in sight. Closing the gate, she clutched the basket to her heart and told herself, “He’ll return someday, and I’ll be waiting.”

Innocence of Eggs (An Easter Story)

The fat hen opened one eye and glared at her husband, “What’s a-a-all that ru-ru-ruckus?” she clucked. 
The rooster pulled his head out from under his wing and stretched his neck toward the wall. “I’ll g-g-go see,” he replied and fluffed his feathers against the cool desert night. 
With a few awkward flaps, he crested the stone and mortar wall and looked down into the courtyard. “I-i-i-it looks as i-i-if they’re br-br-bringing a cr-cr-criminal to the high pr-pr-priest,” he reported to his wife. Before he could turn around to return to their warm nest, the hen was beside him, feathers equally fluffed against the coolness. “Th-th-the eggs!” the rooster reprimanded. 
The hen shrugged and stretched her neck as far as it could go toward the gathering crowd. “I wa-wa-want to see this,” she cackled in reply. 
The majority of the crowd moved into the building, but a number of people remained outside in the courtyard, building a charcoal fire to keep warm.
While the gathering outside remained peacefully quiet, there was a rising ruckus within the building. The rooster fluttered to an open window to witness the scene inside. The sounds of buffets and cries of “Prophesy!” drifted through the window where the cockerel sat. The glint of battle and bloodlust sparkled in the bird's eyes. 
At that moment, a woman left the building on some errand. Spotting the small group gathered near the fire, she eyed one of them closely and remarked, “You also were with Yeshua (Jesus) of Nazareth.” 
The indicated man shook his head vehemently, shrugging his head deeper into his head-cloth. “I neither know nor understand what you are saying,” he replied defensively. 
Seeing a seed of potential for more conflict and violence, the rooster alighted onto the courtyard wall and crowed, “His words are tr-tr-tr-tr-TRUE!” 
The hen was shocked. She knew as well as her husband that those words were a lie. Could his desire for a fight drive him to this? She kept silent, for she didn’t want the fight brought to her nest. What would her friends and neighbors say? No, it’s best to stay silent and let the fight go on elsewhere. She turned her attention back toward the fire. 
The woman spoke to the others; gesturing to the man claiming, “This is one of them.” 
Again, the man denied it. 
By now the rooster was hopping from foot to foot; a wicked gleam in his eyes as he watched the scene unfold below. 
One of the others turned toward the man and added, “Surely you are one of them, for you are also a Galilean.” 
The accused man began to curse and swear at the others gathered around the fire. “I do NOT know this man you are talking about!” he shouted at them. 
With glee, the rooster tossed up his head and crowed again, “His words are tr-tr-tr-tr-TRUE!” 
And the hen remained silent. 
Upon hearing the rooster’s crow a second time, the man paused as if poleaxed and then broke down and wept, fleeing from the courtyard in tears. 
The rooster and hen did not see what became of that man, for at that moment, an angel of the Lord wrapped in the brilliance of Heaven appeared before them both.
Turning wrathful eyes to the rooster, the angel proclaimed, “Because you have crowed such blasphemy not once, but twice, you shall not live to see another sunrise.” Then the angel's glare fixed upon the hen. “Because you knew his words were false and you did and said nothing, you shall also never see another morning.” 
In her horror, the hen finally remembered her nest of eggs cooling in the night air. “I-i-i-if I go, wh-wh-who will ca-ca-care for our ch-ch-chicks? Wi-wi-without one of us he-he-here, how wi-wi-will they sur-sur-survive?” 
The angel’s eyes moved to where the nest lay at the foot of the courtyard wall, and the wrath in those eyes became tempered with mercy. “Your chicks are innocent of these crimes. The children need no longer bear the burden of the sins of the parent. So I will take these with me and they will be kept safe.” With these words, the angel gathered up the eggs, nest and all and vanished. What became of them, neither the hen nor the rooster knew, for they did not see the next sunrise. 
On the very next Sunday morning, however, someone very special walked out of a lonely tomb into the rosy light just before sunrise. Nearby, a rabbit nibbled quietly on some greens. This rabbit paused and shyly approached Him. The fact that His feet were pierced, as were the hands that lovingly petted, did not disturb this rabbit at all. 
The man smiled and said to the rabbit, “Because you are the very first of My Father’s creatures to greet me this day, I have a very special task for you.” 
As He straightened, an angel appeared at His side. In the angel's hands was the nest full of eggs, but with additional branches woven in an arc over it.
The Man took the basket and gave it to the rabbit saying, “The world is full of children as innocent as these eggs.
"I ask that you bring these eggs to children everywhere. Do this every year, in memory of this morning.
"In their joy of innocence, they know Me. But as their innocence fades, they must strive to seek Me, for the world will try to hide Me from their eyes.
"So you must hide the eggs so the children must seek them. Perhaps in this way, when their innocence fades, they will remember these mornings and seek me with the same enthusiasm and joy in their hearts. Do this in memory of Me.”

Planting the Seed (Story)

The early morning sun rose gloriously as two walkers strolled down a quiet New England Main Street.
As they passed a new eatery, the woman grinned mischievously when she read the name: Mustard Seed Cafe
She sipped her coffee and commented, “That sign reminds me of something. Maybe something you said once, about a seed....” 
The man laughed, white teeth showing through his beard. “And what did you take away from that one?” 
She glanced about, looking for something to inspire a witty reply. “Wasn't there a parable involved...?” 
A little bird dove to the sidewalk before them, picked at the concrete block a moment, and then fluttered away. 
“No,” she admitted with a wry grin, “The parable in mind involved seed being tossed in different places, each failing save the seed that hit fertile grown and produced hundredfold or something like that.” 
He chuckled nodding, “...something like that. So what about the mustard seed?” 
She grinned as she took another sip. “Little seed becomes big plant. Right?” 
His deep brown eyes took on a blend of challenge and mischief, “Maybe you can write a story about it?” 
She smirked, “Yeah, right.” 
He gestured expansively with his arm, “You are a writer; you were given that gift. Write a story about it. Maybe then you'd understand it better.” 
She took a good swallow of her coffee, while she wrapped her mind around the challenge, knowing there was something there that maybe DID make a good story. As the story shifted to her mental back burner, the conversation changed, covering a broad range of topics. 
Before she knew it, they arrived at the topic she needed to broach. Part of her shyly wanted to hold back and digress, but another part knew this is why she asked her companion to walk with her this morning. She really needed his advice, his guidance. She rolled the still-warm metal travel mug between her palms as she searched for the words. 
“I... I really don't know what I should be doing with my life. All these little projects get started, and then... they just seem to peeter off into nothing. I feel like I start so many things and just can't seem to finish them. What is it that I should do?” 
He draped his arm lovingly across her shoulders and smiled gently. “Plant the seeds.” 
“And then?” 
“Nurture them a little until they sprout.” 
Her hands paused as she glanced quizzically at him. “And then?” 
“Nothing.” 
“Nothing?” 
He grinned, seeing she wasn't getting it, but - with infinite patience - gave her the time to think. “Nothing.” 
She knew that look on his face, she'd seen it before. 
She walked wordlessly at his side for a spell, fingers wrapped around the warmth of the mug and her shoulders snug in his embrace. “But if I do nothing, what will happen to all I started? It would just unravel, wouldn't it?” 
“Not necessarily.” 
Again she shot him an inquiring look, raising one eyebrow in his direction. 
He laughed at her expression, but didn't say a word. 
“Well?” 
He paused and turned to face her, with a mischievous smile of his own. 
She stopped and faced him with a look that clearly read, “Tell me or stop teasing me.” 
He playfully poked the bridge of her nose and quietly replied, “That's my job.” 
The challenge in her eyes faded as comprehension dawned in her mind. 
Smiling, they resumed their walk. 
She nodded and tossed back the last of the coffee. “You're right. I really should trust you more often.” 
Companionably the two continued their stroll down a New England Main Street. Two pairs of sandals tapped quietly along the sidewalk: one pair worn below jeans and a T-shirt, and the other beneath a desert robe from a bygone age.