Did He Return?

We just found this email in our inbox from back before Easter, from Zach. The writing that he sent is a brief but gripping glimpse into the events surrounding Easter. We're really disappointed that we couldn't post this around Easter, but maybe that's a good thing--maybe this will help us see Christ in a new light.

  "Did he return?"

  His friend's voice was the only interruption to the monotonous sound of two pairs of feet on the dirt road, now dry and dusty. 

  "Simon, you mean?"

  "Simon, yes. Or John."

  "Yes," he answered, "John came back. He found nothing."

  "Nothing?"

  In his depression, his friend's prodding was irritating. More irritating than it should have been, he knew. He sighed.

  "Only the head cloth."

  "No angels."

  He allowed his friend's half-question to remain unanswered. It hung in the air, sounding more like a statement.

They walked on, the Judean wind, hot and dusty, pulling at their clothes and turbans. How long they walked in silence, he didn't know. They were alone in their thoughts, and alone on the road, aside from a lone traveler far behind them. The exodus from Jerusalem after Passover had not yet begun.

  Darkness gripped the man's soul. The despair in his thoughts tortured him and made the road seem to stretch into eternity.

  "What will you do now?"

  A lump formed in his throat. Nothing. There was nothing left to do.

  "Nothing. Nothing new. I guess I will..."

  "Go back."

  "Yes."

  That was all there was now. His old life. His gut wrenched at the thought of it. Before, when he was with the Rabbi, he had told himself his life would never be the same. The mundane-ness and depression of his old life was gone.

  He had loved the adventure of it all, following the Teacher at a moment's notice up mountains and across the country, into cities and deserts. 

  But he knew now that that was not what had made him happy. That was not what had changed his life. 

  The lump grew, and it hurt.

  His friend broke into his thoughts. "I thought he was the Anointed, Cleophas."

  Please stop, he thought. He only wanted to forget, but his friend didn't hear his thoughts.

  "I thought that today we would be watching him sit on the throne, not...."

  His friend didn't need to finish. The ache in his chest swelled and tears blurred the horizon in front of him as the vision of their dead leader flashed into his mind. 

  He didn't want to remember, because now he knew. Only now, when he had lost it all, did he realize how much had been lost. The traveling and the preaching had not changed him. It had been fulfilling and exciting at first, but the excitement had eventually worn off. 

  He saw now what had changed in his own soul, and he could only see it now because now it was gone. He had found a reason to live. He had, for three years, known what it meant to love God. The Rabbi taught them that. Now he could never get that back.

  He spoke haltingly, trying not to weep with the emptiness he felt inside. Tears streamed down his face nevertheless.

  "Me, too. I already miss him. Did you feel what I felt when he spoke?"

  "I don't know what you mean," answered his friend.

  "When I was with him, I felt different, Yosef. I felt clean. I felt holy. When I was with him, when I heard him pray, I wanted to know Adonai. Like I never had before."

  "Yeshua knew Adonai. He was...he was holy."

  "He was."

  He was. And now he was no more. And I do not feel holy anymore, he thought. I do not desire to know Adonai anymore, not like I did. 

  "He didn't deserve that, Yosef." He said it softly. "He didn't deserve it. How could Adonai let it end like this?" 

  Shame and despair gripped his heart again.

  How could God let him be stripped naked like that? Beaten with such brutality? Crucified! Where were you, Adonai?

  He looked over at his friend, now sobbing softly. As if reading his own thoughts, Yosef asked him, his voice cracking, "Where is Adonai now, my brother?

  They both wept quietly. The monotonous sound of footfalls was louder now, for the pilgrim behind them was a faster walker, and he was now overtaking them.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From Zach: Obviously, the most beautiful parts of this story are not here yet, but on this Easter Sunday, it's easy for me to imagine what these men might have felt as they went home defeated and despairing on that Sunday close to 2,000 years ago. There might be more to come from me, but the rest (and the best) of the story is in Luke 24. 

God bless you!

Healing Waters

It's now been years that Kelsia and I have been writing Healing Waters. We've grown in writing together and collected memory after memory, from snail-mailing the story back and forth to sitting in a coffee shop for hours editing our story together. I don't think we'd take back any of it (except for maybe the one coffee shop moment when we somehow lost the results of the past few hours of our work).
  What has been so special to me is getting a chance to write a story along with my dear cousin and friend Kelsia, a talented writer and loving heart. And then there is the chance we had to delve into the story at the Pool of Bethesda two thousand years ago. (Really, to write about something, you have to delve.) We did research. We got to explore, with our imagination, the streets of Jerusalem in Jesus' time. We created characters we got to know and love, and probably my favorite is a little boy named Kaleb. He would run up and down those streets in Jerusalem looking for adventure. Everyone he met was his friend; he didn't know the meaning of the word "stranger." When he discovered the Pool of Bethesda, where crowds of sick people waited for a chance to be healed, he made friends with Zephi, a cripple. Their stories interwoven are what make up part of Healing Waters.
  When I read our story, I see it through Kaleb's eyes. Funny how a character who doesn't even exist becomes a part of your heart ...
 
  Can this be true? Can I really be in Israel?
  It is April 2012, and I find myself standing in the famous city I've only read about in the bible and wrote about in our book.
  The book ... it's been finished, and sometimes forgotten as it sits in some publisher's office while they decide its fate.
  It's been a wonderful time here in Israel--indescribable. Beyond words. Better than imagined. I could spend hours telling you of the places we've been already.
  I am in Jerusalem.
  One place I have been waiting to visit is--you guessed it--the Pool of Bethesda. I could hardly bear it if we came to Israel but missed this place! Here in Jerusalem is where the site of the Pool lies.
  The day has finally come ... we get a chance to visit the place where, thousands of years ago, such an amazing story took place ... Jesus ... coming to the Pool of Bethesda ... meeting the lame man, the man my cousin and I named Zephi ...
  I look down at my feet as I walk down the street. I'm following our little group as we make our way through the city trying to find the place of the Pool. There are people all around us, voices, foreign dialects ... I smile. Beautiful.
  I look up just in time to see a little Israeli boy dash ahead of me, through our little group, and out of sight.
  He's Kaleb's age. He looks like Kaleb. 
  I smile again at the absurdity of this little boy reminding me of one who doesn't exist.
  Suddenly we find the place of the Pool. Through a gate, past a railing, and you're there.
  How changed it is. I can hardly picture how it would have been. Remains of little mikvehs, remains of two larger pools, remains of a Byzantine church built beside it in later years. It only makes it more mysterious, more elusive, more special ... that I will never see how it was in those days, but that I am standing right where it happened.
  Chills run down my spine.
  Jesus.
  Here.
  "Do you want to be made well?"
  "Zephi" the cripple must have scarcely been able to believe those words. What kind of a question is that? I have been lame for thirty-eight years! What could I want more than to be made well?
  Why would Jesus ask that question? I've never thought about it before ... it's like asking a starving man if he wants a hot meal. Is it a joke? Are you trying to be funny? How can it be this easy?
  Why would Jesus ask that question?
  Zephi's faith. It was about his faith.
  How surreal; it's like someone asking you if you want what you've always wanted but never believed you would have, but Jesus asked it like He was holding it out right there in front of you. Not "Would you want this," but "Do you want this?"
  No, really ... do you want to be made well? Here! Take this gift! I'm holding it out to you!
  The only way it can be received is to reach out and take it--grasp the impossible.
  What a beautiful story.
  Here, where I'm standing.
  It's a special time for me. After a while, though, our time is up. We follow the railing and exit through the gate, back out into the Jerusalem streets. I look to the street on my right.
  A lame man. An old lame man, sitting on the street, clutching his cane.
  My heart stops.
  Zephi.
  I can hardly tear my eyes from him as I walk past. When I finally look forward, I realize I've stopped and everyone else is ahead of me. And so I pick up my pace, trying to catch up.
  I steal one more glance back at the old man.
  And suddenly there beside him on the street is a little boy. The same little boy I'd seen right before the Pool is sitting down with the crippled man, and the picture they make stops me in my tracks again and goes straight to my heart.
  It's like a smile from God, a reminder of the beautiful story ...
  ... and I'm reminded of how convinced I am that He wants us to tell this story.