Christopher Moore - Lamb - The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal

“Then you should have warned John!”

“I warned John! Every day I warned John. He didn’t listen to reason any more than you would have.”

“We have to go back to Judea. John’s followers—”

“Will become your followers. No more preparation, Josh.”

Joshua nodded, looking at the ground in front of him. “It’s time. Where are the others?”

“I’ve sent Philip and Nathaniel to Sepphoris to sell the camels. Bartholomew is sleeping in the reeds with the dogs.”

“We’re going to need more disciples,” Joshua said.

“We’re broke, Josh. We’re going to need disciples with jobs.”

An hour later we stood on the shore near where Andrew and his brother were casting nets. Peter was taller and leaner than his brother, and he had a head of gray hair wilder than even John the Baptist’s, while Andrew pushed his dark hair back and tied it with a cord so it stayed out of his face when he was in the water. They were both naked, which is how men fished the lake when they were close to the shore.

I had mixed a headache remedy for Joshua out of tree bark, and I could tell it was working, but perhaps not quite enough. I pushed Joshua toward the shore.

“I’m not ready for this. I feel terrible.”

“Ask them.”

“Andrew,” Joshua called. “Thank you for bringing us home with you. And you too, Peter.”

“Did my mother-in-law toss you out?” asked Peter. He cast his net and waited for it to settle, then dove into the lake and gathered the net in his arms. There was one tiny fish inside. He reached in and pulled it out, then tossed it back into the lake. “Grow,” he said.

“You know who I am?” said Joshua.

“I’ve heard,” said Peter. “Andrew says you turned water into wine. And you cured the blind and the lame. He thinks that you are going to bring the kingdom.”

“What do you think?”

“I think my little brother is smarter than I am, so I believe what he says.”

“Come with us. We’re going to tell people of the kingdom. We need help.”

“What can we do?” said Andrew. “We’re only fishermen.”

“Come with me and I’ll make you fishers of men.”

Andrew looked at his brother who was still standing in the water. Peter shrugged and shook his head. Andrew looked at me, shrugged, and shook his head.

“They don’t get it,” I said to Joshua.

Thus, after Joshua had some food and a nap and explained what in the hell he meant by “fishers of men,” we became seven.

“These guys are our partners,” Peter said, hurrying us along the shore. “They own the ships that Andrew and I work on. We can’t go spread the good news unless they are in on it too.”

We came to another small village and Peter pointed out two brothers who were fitting a new oarlock into the gunwale of a fishing boat. One was lean and angular, with jet-black hair and a beard trimmed into wicked points: James. The other was older, bigger, softer, with big shoulders and chest, but small hands and thin wrists, a fringe of brown hair shot with gray around a sunburned bald pate: John.

“Just a suggestion,” Peter said to Joshua. “Don’t say the fisher-of-men thing. It’s going to be dark soon; you won’t have time for the explanation if we want to make it home in time for supper.”

“Yeah,” I said, “just tell them about the miracles, the kingdom, a little about your Holy Ghost thing, but stay easy on that until they agree to join up.”

“I still don’t get the Holy Ghost thing,” said Peter.

“It’s okay, we’ll go over it tomorrow,” I said.

As we moved down the shore toward the brothers, there was a rustling in some nearby bushes and three piles of rags moved into our path.

“Have mercy on us, Rabbi,” said one of the piles.

Lepers.

(I need to say something right here: Joshua taught me about the power of love and all of that stuff, and I know that the Divine Spark in them is the same one that is in me, so I should have not let the presence of lepers bother me. I know that announcing them unclean under the Law was as unjust as the Brahmans shunning the Untouchables. I know that even now, having watched enough television, you probably wouldn’t even refer to them as lepers so as to spare their feelings. You probably call them “parts-dropping-off challenged,” or something. I know all that. But that said, no matter how many healings I saw, lepers always gave me what we Hebrews call the willies. I never got over it.)

“What is it you want?” Joshua asked them.

“Help ease our suffering,” said a female-sounding pile.

“I’ll be over there looking at the water, Josh,” I said.

“He’ll probably need some help,” Peter said.

“Come to me,” Joshua said to the lepers.

They oozed on over. Joshua put his hands on the lepers and spoke to them very quietly. After a few minutes had passed, while Peter and I had seriously studied a frog that we noticed on the shore, I heard Joshua say, “Now go, and tell the priests that you are no longer unclean and should be allowed in the Temple. And tell them who sent you.”

The lepers threw off their rags and praised Joshua as they backed away. They looked like perfectly normal people who just happened to be all wrapped up in tattered rags.

By the time Peter and I got back to Joshua, James and John were already at his side.

“I have touched those who they said were unclean,” Joshua said to the brothers. By Mosaic Law, Joshua would be unclean as well.

James stepped forward and grabbed Joshua’s forearm in the style of the Romans. “One of those men used to be our brother.”

“Come with us,” I said, “and we will make you oarlock makers of men.”

“What?” said Joshua.

“That’s what they were doing when we came up. Making an oarlock. Now you see how stupid that sounds?”

“It’s not the same.”

And thus we did become nine.

Philip and Nathaniel returned with enough money from the sale of the camels to feed the disciples and all of Peter’s family as well, so Peter’s screeching mother-in-law, who was named Esther, allowed us to stay, providing Bartholomew and the dogs slept outside. Capernaum became our base of operations and from there we would take one- or two-day trips, swinging through Galilee as Joshua preached and performed healings. The news of the coming of the kingdom spread through Galilee, and after only a few months, crowds began to gather to hear Joshua speak. We tried always to be back in Capernaum on the Sabbath so that Joshua could teach at the synagogue. It was that habit that first attracted the wrong sort of attention.

A Roman soldier stopped Joshua as he was making the short walk to the synagogue on Sabbath morning. (No Jew was permitted to make a journey of more than a thousand steps from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday—all at once, that is. One way. You didn’t have to add up your steps all day and just stop when you got to a thousand. There would have been Jews standing all over the place waiting for Saturday sundown if that were the case. It would have been awkward. Suddenly I’m thankful that the Pharisees never thought of that.)

The Roman was no mere legionnaire, but a centurion, with the full crested helmet and eagle on his breastplate of a legion commander. He led a tall white horse that looked as if it had been bred for combat. He was old for a soldier, perhaps sixty, and his hair was completely white when he removed his helmet, but he looked strong and the wasp-waisted short sword at his waist looked dangerous. I didn’t recognize him until he spoke to Joshua, in perfect, unaccented Aramaic.

“Joshua of Nazareth,” the Roman said. “Do you remember me?”

“Justus,” Joshua said. “From Sepphoris.”