Martin Fieber - He Who Returned

“Children, wait here. I will be right back.” He had hardly stepped outside when he returned with hasty steps.

“Let us quickly pray, for we have to cancel class for today. I will have to speak with the visitor for a while. May God, our Lord, bless our life, give us enough food and a loving heart.”

Then Samuel hurried off, after he had stored the torah scroll in the shrine.

“Your father has pretty words on his lips, scar-face.” Simeon stopped briefly in front of Joshua. “A loving heart. Pah, what a joke, I heard he hit your mother black and blue.” He made a strange grimace and hurried out of the synagogue with his pals. They would probably use the next hours for their weapon games. They didn’t think of anything else anymore. But Joshua for once had to agree with Simeon. His father should not have said that bit about a ‚loving heart’. Joshua felt as if he had turned to stone.

“You are not feeling well today, or?” Jesus had sat down next to Joshua.

“I hate my father. I hate him and I am afraid of him. You know what he did to my mother. I will never forgive him that.”

“Yes, it is horrible. But try to give these bad feeling sup to God, our loving father. Then he can carry the burden which would otherwise crush you at some point, and then you will feel lighter around your loving heart.”

“That is easy for you to say, Jesus. But I can not do that.”

“The main thing is that you remember my words for the future. If my father had done that to my mother, I would feel just the same.” Jesus put his hand on Joshua’s shoulder. Joshua could tell that Jesus wanted to distract him and get him to think of something happier.

“Joshua, in a few days I might be allowed to accompany my half-brothers and Joseph to Sepphoris. Would you like to join us?”

Joshua’s eyes beamed with joy before they were filled with sadness again abruptly.

“I think my father would not allow it.”

“But I am sure that you would enjoy it.”

“Yes, I love stories. It sure would be nice.”

“Joshua, trust me.” Suddenly the face of Jesus took on an otherworldly quality and his eyes shone even brighter than usual. “Our father in heaven is all-powerful. He makes it possible. There will be a way, even if you can not see it now.”

The blue eyes which gazed deep into him peered down into the depths of his soul. He felt recognized. He felt loved. He felt at peace. Everything else around him disappeared into a mist and all he saw were these smiling blue eyes which he never ever wanted to forget again.

“Joshua, my son“, he heard a voice say, “brighten your heart. Forgive Samuel, for he does not know what it is that he does.”

In these moments Joshua felt happier than ever before. He felt Jesus gently brush his arm as he stood up and left the synagogue. A few teardrops ran down his cheeks. He felt so sheltered, and it was completely normal for him in this instant that Jesus addressed him as a son. It fit into the holiness of the moment.

Joshua made his way back to his mother. On his way across the courtyard he briefly watched his sisters who were baking some bread. Before he reached the doorway of the entrance he heard an unknown voice that was speaking with his father. Both of the men were seated at a table and speaking excitedly when Joshua entered.

“Joshua, come over here. I want to introduce you to an important man from Jerusalem.” Samuel smiled proudly. “Bealja, this is my son. He will enter upon the same path later on. He is very talented and can already read at his young age.”

“Joshua, I am pleased to meet you.”

“My pleasure as well, sir.”

Joshua went over to his mother who was cutting bread in the room next door and preparing a salad with herbs for the guest.

“Mother, how are you?”

“Don’t worry, Joshua. I will always be there for you. I will protect you and your sisters, even if we have go to another country.”

“Is it really true that we have to go away?”

“Yes, my son, it is. We will journey to a Greek city, to Ephesus. It is supposed to be a large city in which many people live.”

“Mother, I do not want to go away from here.”

“I know, but there is no alternative to it. We are bound by a duty of loyalty to your father and he has to take on an important task there. In a couple of weeks the time will come for the move. This man said earlier that we will hear about it early on.” His mother gently stroked his hair. “Joshua, Ephesus is supposed to be a town of the arts. There is supposedly a theater there and also private libraries. And I know how much you like old writings.”

Though that was a glimmer of light on the horizon, Joshua still did not want to leave. He wanted to remain with his friend Rachel. And he especially did not want to leave Jesus, for he loved his beautiful blue eyes.

Sarah brought both the men the salad and the bread and then took Joshua with her into the yard to see after his sisters.

“Off with you now, go play with the others.” She smiled at Joshua, who immediately took off into the alleyways of Nazareth.

Meanwhile Judith was annoying Esther, as she always did. Today she was pulling at the braids of her older sister, who was just fetching the bread from the oven.

∞

Sarah smiled. She was proud of her children. She loved them. Judith and Esther were wonderful girls who fortunately did not have to endure much of Samuel’s violence. Samuel always let her or Joshua feel the full force of his dissatisfaction. Joshua worried her, for he had a hard lot. And the fact that he would be leaving Nazareth soon, was on the one hand important in order to escape from the narrow confines, yet on the other hand also not good for him. He had finally made a friend. Jesus was a good boy, she even felt that Joshua could not possibly find a better friend. After al she deeply and firmly believed that Jesus was the Messiah. And to play with a Messiah in your childhood was of course great and a unique chance. Joshua had always been together with the girls earlier, which had made him kind of an outsider. On the other hand Joshua would begin a new life in Ephesus and also find new friends. Maybe a new town where Samuel would be assigned many new tasks would change the relationship to his son. Maybe he would become calmer. Then the move would have already been worth it. She has this hope, and it would be worth this hope. No matter how hard the farewell from Nazareth might be.

Sarah was able to find some peace and return to her self whenever she baked bread. Baking bread was a source of divine energy. It was a time in which she clearly felt the presence of God’s love. She enjoyed the time which she gave to the bread, the time required to prepare the dough and with every motion of kneading to give her love to the bread and thus to her family. Baking bread was holy for her, it was a mystical prayer to her creator who then gifted her with the wholesome smell of the hot bread when she removed it from the oven.. What a joy was spread in the world through the bread! Something that had truly mystical power was created by the simple union of flour, water and salt. Every person should always have a right to bread. No person should ever be allowed to starve from lack of bread. Hopefully future generations would always have enough bread. Without bread there would be no life, in her eyes bread was life itself. God had created grain, the flour was ground by human labor, and the dough was formed by human persistence and baked by the holy fire of God. It was completed when it was broken and shared with all friends and sometimes also with travelling foreigners. Then God was very near. Then Sarah felt thankful and recognized herself as a creation of God.

Sarah loved fire. For her fire was sacred. It was her secret that she spoke with the fire-spirits. Sometimes she saw these graceful and at the same time wild beings in the flickering flames. Maybe this was the reason that her bread was so popular in Nazareth. The women of Nazareth often had differing opinions regarding the subject of how best to prepare various dishes, but they all agreed on one thing: Sarah’s bread simply tasted the best. One part of her talents as a baker consisted in building a fire and watching it until the ashes had reached just the right temperature for baking. Then the fire spirits whirled about in the flames especially quickly and gave her the sign to begin with the bread-baking. She had to smile. That was always like that and worked like a charm. Often some of the women of the village cam by as if by chance and watched her enviously. She knew that they wanted to find out what her secret was, but her secret was well hidden. Sarah’s artistry as a baker was one of the greatest mysteries of the village.