When Jesus Wept

Chapter 12



It was Patrick, my barrelmaker, who suggested I again go hear John the Baptizer speak.

Samson and I were in my wine caverns, tasting from the barrels of the latest vintage. He and I sampled the wine from Faithful Vineyard on the first day of every week. The oak had contributed much to the flavor and aroma of the new wine, but there would come a time when I needed to move the contents to clay jars. I did not want to let even an extra Sabbath pass untested, lest perfection be lost.

Since the barrels were his creation, Patrick was equally interested in following the progress of the wine.

As Samson drew out a sample from yet another barrel, I remarked, “I met Nicodemus the Pharisee at the Street of the Coppersmiths yesterday.”

“A good customer and a worthy gentleman, if I may say so, sir,” my winemaker suggested. “Not at all like most Pharisees, if you’ll excuse my bluntness.”

Patrick chuckled as he sipped a mouthful of wine.

“Will he be ordering his usual allotment?” Samson continued.

“I let him sample this,” I returned, then paused.

“And?” Samson and Patrick simultaneously urged, though Samson added, “If you please, sir.”

“Double last year’s purchase!” I concluded triumphantly. “A great success.”

“Congratulations, sir,” Samson praised.

“Congratulations, indeed, but it goes to you and Patrick here. In fact, the only question remaining is how soon we will run out.”

“Very true, sir,” Samson concurred. “Especially after Lord Nicodemus lets his friends try it as well. I believe he is among the leaders in Jerusalem, isn’t he?”

“A member of the Sanhedrin,” I replied. “You are right that he is around the most wealthy and powerful men in the Holy City.” I rubbed my forehead as I reconstructed the conversation. “In fact, I just remembered something he said that I wish I knew more about.”

Samson and Patrick waited patiently for me to continue, as it would be impolite to ask the master to share his thoughts unless he volunteered them.

“Now I recall: it’s said there is a rift between the Baptizer and Jesus of Nazareth. Some other Pharisees say John is envious of Jesus’ success.”

“And do you think that’s true?” Patrick inquired.

Samson shushed him, as being out of line, but I waved my hand to show I was not offended by the inquiry. Slowly, thinking aloud, I responded, “Only if John was wrong about who he proclaimed Jesus to be.”

“Why not …,” Patrick began, then continued over Samson’s protests, “why not go hear for yourself?”

And so it was arranged. Patrick accompanied me, while Samson continued to tend the wine.

John was baptizing at Aenon, near Salim, on the east bank of the Jordan. It took us a day to journey there, with me on the white mare and Patrick riding another of Samson’s donkeys.

Aenon was a village located on a tributary of the Jordan.

Our route lay along the stream, which chuckled and laughed as it ran down from Mount Ebal. As the water reached the level of the valley floor, the rivulet slowed and spread out, forming a series of pools and ponds, perfect for John’s purposes.

“Is the Baptizer safe here?” Patrick inquired.

I considered the matter. “I think so. More importantly, he must think so.” Reining to a halt on a knobby hill, I raised my free hand to draw an imaginary half circle from west to east. “We are near the border of four provinces: Galilee and Samaria on this side of the river, Perea and the Decapolis on the other. Over there is Wadi Cherith, where the Lord sent Elijah the prophet to hide from wicked King Ahab.”

“So he would be safer over there?”

I shrugged. “But on this bank he is near Salim … ancient Salem … where Melchizedek was both ruler and priest. Even Father Abraham honored the King of Peace and Righteousness.”

Shading his eyes against the sun, Patrick said, “I think I see a group of people by that pond, there. And the man standing up to his waist in the water …”

“… is the Baptizer,” I confirmed.

His beard and hair wiry and unkempt, he seemed leaner than when I had last seen him.

At opposite ends of the pond, their backs to us, were two knots of men. A handful, dressed much as John was, appeared to be his remaining disciples.

The group at the other extreme was better clad, with colorful robes and clean turbans: Pharisees, by the look of them.

Between the two opposing forces, twenty-five onlookers jostled with each other as they listened to the exchange.

Patrick called my attention to a figure at the edge of the audience. “Isn’t that Master Porthos?”

It was the Greek, listening attentively to the dialogue.

“Where are your crowds now?” one of the Pharisees taunted. “The whole world is running after the Nazarene. What do you say to that?”

I could not imagine that rich men would come into this wilderness merely to mock someone they despised. What was their motive?

Another jibed, “He keeps company with tax collectors and drunkards and all manner of sinners. What do you say to that?”

“I say that you are a brood of vipers,” John snapped back at them. “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? I tell you, he is already separating the wheat from the chaff.” Leveling a bony index finger, John shook it in their faces. “Soon enough the chaff will be heaped up and burned!”

The Pharisee jeered, “Where have the rest of your own disciples gone? Maybe they prefer wine and feasting to eating locusts and drinking cold water!”

I was surprised that John’s reply, though forcefully stated, was not shouted in anger. Shaking his head firmly, he responded: “He must increase, while I must decrease.”

“And what about Herod Antipas?” another man in a brocade robe shouted.

Now John threw his head back and the old fire roared to life in his response: “That snake? The tetrarch knows full well all the sins he is guilty of! Does he merely add adultery to murder, or is it the other way around? The sword of judgment hangs over his head as surely as it fell on King Ahab of old and his Jezebel!”

What happened next was sudden and violent, and the reason for the taunting became clear. In the crowd were a half dozen Herodian soldiers, their uniforms hidden beneath nondescript robes.

As John was goaded into his rash comments, they threw off their disguises. Three of them rushed at the prophet in a body. Another three drew short swords and flung themselves at the crowd.

The audience and John’s followers scattered … except for Porthos. The Grecian Jew stood his ground, even as a stocky mercenary bore down on him, stabbing blade lifted high and glinting in the sunlight.

Then Porthos did the bravest thing I had ever seen: he ran toward the soldier, ducking beneath the descending dagger so that it missed his shoulder by a whisker.

Seizing the Herodian guard with both hands, he lifted the man fully off the ground and flung him into the other pair of attackers. They tumbled together in a heap of short swords and curses.

Still Porthos did not flee. Instead, he roared at the men surrounding the Baptizer and charged them as well.

The latter trio had not even drawn their weapons, believing no one would resist them. Startled by Porthos’s sudden onslaught, one tripped on a rock in the pond and disappeared beneath the surface in unwilling submission to the Baptizer’s message.

With Patrick at my side, I darted forward. The three guardsmen overthrown by Porthos blocked our intervention with whirling blades. “Back off,” one of them snarled.

Porthos managed to land a fist on the jaw of one of the soldiers, then stopped fighting suddenly when the captain of the squad put the point of his dagger against the Baptizer’s throat. “Stop now, or he dies,” the man bellowed.

Porthos dropped his clenched fists and stood helplessly, shaking with barely suppressed rage.

That was the moment when the soldier who had been ducked in the pool emerged sputtering … and stabbed Porthos in the back. The Greek dropped face forward into the water and lay unmoving.

Two of Herod’s assassins kept us at bay while the rest quickly bound John’s arms behind his back. Dragging him bodily out of the creek, they soon disappeared in the direction of Aenon.

Even before they were out of sight, Patrick and I hauled Porthos, streaming blood from a gash in his back, out of the stream. We laid him on a mossy bank and turned him over. As the sunlight hit his face, he coughed weakly and his eyelids fluttered. He was not dead, then!

Patting his face, I said, “Porthos, brother, I’ll get you some help. Don’t worry.”

His eyes opened, and he struggled to focus on my features. “Ah, David,” he said, then was racked by a cough that brought scarlet foam to his lips. “Did you think … you had to repay me? I told you … I’m not … not a brave …”

And he died.

We located Pleasant the donkey tied in a grove of trees near what had been the Baptizer’s camp. I used her to take Porthos’s body home with me and buried him in my family cemetery, near the tomb that held my wife and child.