I panicked. How could I say ‘Jesus sent me’? I simply blurted out that I had been told that they may be in need of a labourer.
“Hold out your hands”.
I held them out, puzzled. Simon’s hands shot out like eagles’ talons, seizing my wrists and wrenching my hands palms uppermost’ to scrutinise my hands.
“It is plain to see that the great labour of your life is yet to come,” and he looked at me, questioningly.
“Please”, I murmured, “I must stay here at least until the Sabbath. I want no money, only food and a bed”. Then I added “I am no fugitive”.
“You can have your bed now, and she floats. You can sleep on the boat and be night watchman, but before then, you can put some hide on those soft hands by helping us fold the nets in preparation for the evening’s fishing”.
I learned that the boat made two trips each day, early morning and mid evening, except for Sabbath, and after the inevitable repairs following any decent catch, the nets were folded in an especial way into the boat, the more easily to lift and cast them in an arc, widening as they fell. So for three days I spent my afternoons and very late evenings folding nets, and when the boat was out I just walked up and down the beach, observing these people of Capernaum whose lives revolved around the stink of fish.
Wet fish, dried fish, smoked fish, salt fish, fish meal. Fish was their diet and fish was their business. Capernaum lay on the Way of the Sea, the trading route which followed the Fertile Crescent, coming up from Egypt, through the length of Judea’ Phoenicia and Syria, then following the Tigris and the Euphrates down through Mesopotamia to Babylon. Small wonder that the dread Roman Eagle roosted here, nurturing in her garrison erie a brood of revenue officers, all with razor sharp talons, constantly tearing at all the passing trade traffic.
Of course, travellers need provisions- provisions which will last and serve through desert and hill range, so as much of Simon’s catch was dried, smoked or salt cured to feed strangers as was sold fresh through the market to feed the town and surrounding villages.
So passed Wednesday and Thursday in a waking dream as I laboured for this large, oafish fisherman, Simon. By Friday morning I was beginning to despair of Jesus’ arrival, and I was all thumbs as I helped prepare the boat for the one trip of the day. Eventually the boat made off, and I sat on the shore to eat my breakfast of dried fish and unleavened bread washed down with a little goat’s milk. After I had finished, I set off walking up through the town, on the road to the south, pretending to myself that I was going anywhere but home. I reached the outskirts of the town well before mid morning, and suddenly I was obliged to stop.
In the middle of the road was sprawled- a man? No. Perhaps it had once been a man. Now it was a decaying carcass, misshapen, faceless- but still alive.
A leper.
The pitiable creature was so weak that he had obviously fallen, and was sprawling in a vain attempt to reach his staff, which had fallen beyond his reach. As I approached, he heard me and tried to speak, presumably to shout ‘unclean’ but all that issued from his throat was a sporadic escape of air sounding like dried sticks being disturbed.
I stood petrified. I could no more look away than I could help. The face was bloated, misshapen beyond belief, so much so that the eyes were almost obscured, obliterated by the puffy mounds of flesh on cheek and brow. These blister-like growths were all along the skinny forearms and the hands, fusing over the separation of fingers. Indeed, judging by the exposed limbs, the whole body was twisted and bound up in these horrible pouch-like eruptions of cankerous tissue. I have said that I was petrified. I could not pass by, could not turn about, could neither aid nor comfort, nor desert. I had never before seen so much suffering heaped on one human being. I knew of leprosy; I was aware of the varying ways in which it can afflict its victims, but this was different.
Here I was watching a man die.
Oh, he would not die today, not tomorrow, nor next week. Perhaps he would survive another year, maybe even more, but already he was dying. The hard fatty growths would accumulate under his arms, in his groin, in his mouth and ears and eyes, and he would very slowly be buried alive under his own rebellious flesh.
I do not know how long I stood there, or if any called to me, or passed by. As I looked down at this living corpse, I felt that the visible world was gradually falling away until there was only this- unfortunate, and me. I could neither see nor hear anything else.
Then the spell was broken.
A hand was laid on my shoulder, and I knew before I looked that it was Jesus. Or did I know? Is it not more feasible that it was he my soul was shrieking for? No matter; he was here at long last. I heard his voice breaking its way into my closed mind as though he were running towards me from far off. I became aware of his face before me as he came through the mists of my closed sensibilities.
“Judas! I am here!”
He was wiping the perspiration from my face, and I realised there were people standing around. I assumed that we had been discovered, the leper and me, like some horrible living sculpture, motionless, mesmerised one by the other, and passers-by had stopped to await possible entertaining developments. I heard a voice say-
“He has the sickness, too”.
“No!” I screamed “No! Jesus, I have not touched him!” indicating the leper.
“Were you so afraid, Judas?”
Then Jesus turned from me and knelt to the leper. He took the man’s head in his lap. He touched and wiped his face.
“Jesus, do not touch him!” and all the crowd were murmuring their shock.
“Do not touch him, do not help, do not care? Why do you think I am here? I am here to wipe away the works of evil, not to glorify them with fear. The priests will tell you, and maybe in truth, that this man’s sins must be many for him to suffer so, but do you think that you are any less unclean? Do any of you claim to be more worthy or needy of your Father’s love and forgiveness than this man? Spare me your denials! You piously acknowledge your sins, hoping that you will be spared the accounting of them, while this poor wretch is wracked and tortured by the forces of evil, destruction and death”.
None dared answer. As he was speaking, Jesus had been wiping the man’s face, and gently stroking his hands, arms and head.
“Someone give me some water”.
A young boy moved to the front of the crowd, holding a small leather bottle.
“Set it down where I can reach it”.
The boy did so, then shamefacedly stepped back. Jesus reached out for the bottle, removed the plug, and gave the man a drink. Then, pouring more water into his hand, he washed the man’s face.
The leper spoke for the first time. His voice was laboured, harsh and pitiful-
“Do you think you can wash me clean, master?”
“Do you think I can?”
There was a long pause as the leper considered the question, as he returned Jesus’ gaze. Finally in a voice so choked with emotion as he fought to form each word-
“I think you can, if you want to”.
“Of course I want to” and here that wonderful smile again- “You will be clean”.
This prompted some murmurings in the crowd, now numbering two or three score.
“Judas, go down into the town and get me a cloak, a clean robe, and some sandals for this man”.
“But where will I get them? I have no money?”
“Judas, Judas, ask and it will be given to you; seek and you shall find!”
Jesus was still smiling as I turned without answering, and the crowd parted to let me pass. When I think of Jesus now, the picture I see is not of his torn body nailed to the cross, not of the anger he showed when faced with the innocent sufferings of his flock- nor any dramatic or miraculous incident, great or small. No.
I see his smile.
A smile which spoke of so much love and peace, assurance and faith, so much goodness that is impossible to mere man, such unattainable selfless virtue that it would break your heart to see these things in his smile and at the same time be aware that one could not match them, nor even merit them in a one thousandth part.