Chapter 3

In Search of a Redeemer

Jerusalem lay northward—two Roman miles to Bethlehem then a climb of six more miles to the Holy City. Carrying a lamb on my shoulders was a burden, but nevertheless I pushed to quicken my gait. Time was a luxury I did not have.

Hooding my eyes with a hand, I looked skyward to check the position of the sun. I estimated that if I hurried I could arrive in Jerusalem by early afternoon and make my way to the temple shortly thereafter.

Amit was not cooperating. He bleated and struggled, obviously uncomfortable. He seemed irritated that his activities had been interrupted. I spoke reassuringly to him, but I knew his fate: Amit was destined to become my offering to God. Besides Miriam, Amit represented the best that I could give.

Certainly a merciful God would not hesitate to respond to such a sacrifice; surely He would hear and answer my pleading and save my wife. Imagining the rush of emotions that I would surely feel when the time came for me to offer my precious lamb on the altar of the temple, I tried to steel myself. Amit had become as dear to me as if he were my child.

As I hurried toward Bethlehem, I observed other shepherds leading their flocks to green pastures. They seemed completely unaware of my presence or plight. I wondered how an event as urgent as mine could go unnoticed. The shepherds were conducting their sheep along winding paths to fertile hillsides with nearby brooks.

I thought about my father and our fellow shepherds of Beit Sahour. To a passerby we might have seemed indistinguishable from other shepherds—ordinary, except for the extraordinary sheep that comprised our flock. Our sheep had been culled from other flocks and consecrated to a holy purpose. The yearlings shared a common destiny; they would be offered on the great altar at the temple in Jerusalem to fulfill the Mosaic law of sacrifice. Consequently, we who kept these sheep were specifically trained for this royal task.

The closer I came to Bethlehem the more congested the road became. I passed a young family. The man was leading a donkey with a little boy perched on its back, and his wife was herding two other small children, who were as cooperative as kittens. The woman seemed exhausted from the effort, her stomach showing evidence of another child on the way. The man called out to me, “Are you going to Bethlehem?”

“Yes,” I replied, “and from thence to Jerusalem.”

“For Passover, I presume.” He indicated the lamb on my shoulders. The celebration of Passover was fast approaching, and over two million people would soon converge on Jerusalem.

“No,” I answered, “I am going to the temple, and then I will return home.”

The man seemed intrigued by my answer. “Do you live nearby?”

“In Beit Sahour,” I replied, becoming anxious now. The conversation had slowed me, and I had not the time to pause and talk.

“We are from Cana,” he said. “We are going to Bethlehem for the taxing.” He made this last statement with a tone of disgust. Recently Caesar had ordered a census of his empire, accompanied by a taxing. Caesar’s edict had provided our Jewish leaders an opportunity to count the populace of Israel according to ancestry. Therefore, each family head was to return to his ancestral town to fulfill both the Roman and the Jewish proclamations. The man continued, “Do you know of an inn in Bethlehem?”

“There are several,” I replied. “Chinham’s khan is the oldest and best known.” When I had said so, I looked at his pregnant wife and considered her discomfort in such a place. Even for the most hardened travelers, a khan was a hard place to sleep.

Chinham’s khan was no exception. Miriam and I had once lodged in the seven-hundred-year-old inn. It was a large, bare building, constructed of rough stones boasting two levels of guestrooms, which were mere recesses cut in the walls. These rooms had no fronts and offered no privacy. Because everything that took place in a guestroom was visible to any guest in the khan, I had draped a blanket over the opening to allow my wife her modesty.

I asked the man if he had brought blankets to sleep on. The stone floors would be cold this time of year.

“Yes,” he replied. “We would not consider a khan if our family in Bethlehem had room for us. But with the taxing and Passover . . .”

I nodded that I understood, wished him well, and began to pick up my pace. The man was not finished. He called after me, “Is there a place to stable my donkey in the khan?”

I answered him, “Yes, of course. There is a central open-air courtyard below the room, where you can tie up your donkey.” Then considering his wife and small children, I added, “But you really must hurry to Bethlehem. The rooms are sure to fill up before nightfall, and then you will have no choice except to make do in the lower courtyard among the animals.”

The thought of clearing out an unoccupied corner of the stable to make a place to sleep made me feel ill. The stables of khans were perpetually filthy and crowded with sheep, horses, cattle, mules, and camels. The stench would be overwhelming, and achieving sleep in such a place would prove challenging.

Suddenly, the donkey stumbled and shied, and the boy riding on its back slipped off, landing on his shoulder. The child screamed in pain and in fright, and his parents ran to him. I took the rope tied to the donkey to hold him steady. The mother hovered over the yelping boy, and the father said, “Is his shoulder broken?”

“I don’t know,” the mother said. The other children were crying now. The donkey brayed, and Amit bleated wildly.

I set Amit on the ground and held him close in one hand while clinging to the rope in the other. “Will you allow me to examine the boy?” I asked.

“Do you know of such things?” said the mother.

“I am a shepherd and often deal with breaks and bruises.”

The parents stepped aside. The mother gathered her little ones to her, and the father took the rope to the donkey. Amit remained close by me as I knelt beside the wailing boy and gently felt for breaks. “Do not cry,” I said. “I will not hurt you.”

I spoke to him as I would have talked to my sheep, with quiet reassurance. Soon the child settled down, and I felt the bones in his shoulder and sternum for breaks. The boy allowed me to work with him, and at length, finding no permanent damage, I took him in my arms, and he wrapped his arms around my neck and laid his head on my shoulder. As I rubbed his back, I imagined doing this for my own son—an experience I might never have. Then his mother reached out her arms, and the boy quickly went to her. I said, “He’s fine. Just a little scared.”

The mother smiled. “You must be a father.”

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

“Then you are married?” she asked. When I nodded, she said, “Your wife is very fortunate.”

“I am the fortunate one,” I said. With that I gathered Amit into my arms and set him again upon my shoulders.

The man said, “My wife and I have been married for six years, and you can see the harvest.” He laughed and indicated the three children and the one on its way. Then he asked, “Have you been married long?”

“Seven years,” I replied.

His expression became one of embarrassment. His wife began to apologize for him. “We didn’t mean to pry.”

“You could not have known,” I said. “But I really must be going . . .”

With apparent understanding, the man said, “You are going to the temple to pray, aren’t you?” He indicated the lamb on my shoulders. I nodded. He paused a moment and said, “By the way you treat this lamb, it must be very special.” I nodded again. Then his eyes grew wide. “You are going to pray for your wife.”

My eyes filled with tears, and I could not answer. The man’s wife stepped forward as if to comfort me. “We have kept you too long. You have been so kind to us. What can we do for you?”

I turned my head, causing the young children to ask why this stranger was crying. The mother knelt to quiet them, and the man put a hand on my shoulder and said, “We will pray for you.”

I thanked him. “I must cross through Bethlehem in haste. I must hurry to the temple and then back to my wife.”

The man blessed me by the God of Israel and said, “Go in peace.”

***

I entered Bethlehem breathing hard. I had not made as much progress as I had hoped, and that reality tortured me. My temple errand grew more urgent with every passing moment. I must hurry through town and on to Jerusalem. I would only stop briefly to drink at the well.

As I hurried along the streets of Bethlehem, I was struck by the congestion in this little place. Bethlehem and neighboring Ephrathah were small villages, boasting fewer than five hundred residents combined. But now Bethlehem’s narrow streets seemed as crowded as Jerusalem’s great Hippodrome on the day of chariot races.

Adding to the confusion were the animals that accompanied the visitors. My senses were assaulted by the noise and odor of myriad sheep, cattle, camels, and donkeys.

The scene was a mass of confusion—each animal being driven by its master to an undefined location; every family seeking accommodations; each father pressing toward a publican—a tax collector—to submit to the taxation and begrudgingly hand over money that few could spare.

To the chorus of bleating, bellowing, and braying, Amit added his cry and his legs began to flail. I held him more securely and moved on toward the center of town and its well of spring water.

Bethlehem, I judged, was anything but peaceful. I had relatives here, but if I had expected to see them—and I had not—my expectation would have been in error. I could never have found them in this ocean of humanity.

I agreed with the man I had met on the road: such crowdedness and disorder could only be the work of Romans. The great Octavian—Caesar Augustus—had once again flexed his muscle, and because the Emperor was supreme, the world had cowered at his command. Even God’s chosen people. We, too, must bow again under the rod of Rome and be obliged to live in silent contempt of our conqueror or suffer our hatred to be nailed with us to the cross.

We had little recourse from the oppression of Rome, and we received no relief from our king, Herod the Great, Rome’s puppet, who ruled Judea with a bloody hand. Considering the myriads of poor, downtrodden people before me now, I wondered if the world had ever known tyrants as ruthless as Caesar and Herod. These cutthroats and the troops at their disposal, stationed in Jerusalem and elsewhere, were a constant reminder of our bondage.

As I surveyed Bethlehem, its poor and oppressed once again suffering under the edicts of Caesar and Herod, I longed for the promised Messiah, the Son of David, to deliver us, as had been promised by the prophets. The rabbis taught that this great deliverer would redeem Israel and return her to her ancient glory. Now, standing in Bethlehem, the birthplace of David, all I could do was mourn. Where was David’s son? We needed him now. As I watched the people file through the narrow streets toward Caesar’s and Herod’s corrupt tax collectors, I despaired at our nation’s hope for a redeemer.

Interrupting my thoughts, the shriek of a woman pierced through me. I spun around to see a young woman fighting off two Roman soldiers, one of whom was trying to shackle her and the other to rip her baby from her arms. The child was screaming.

Instinctively, I moved toward her. The incident had drawn a crowd of onlookers, some sympathetic and others curious. No one offered to help. I stretched to see the woman. Adjacent to me stood an aged man and woman who spoke to each other as though they understood what was happening.

I asked the man, “What has the woman done?”

The old woman answered for him. “The publican has condemned her because she cannot pay the tax.” The old woman’s mouth was vacant except for several bottom teeth. She was short and round, and I had to bend low to hear her.

The young woman continued to cry out as the soldier wrestled her child from her and the other pinned her arms behind her back. The terrified child wailed. The crowd uttered a collective gasp. We knew that none of us was exempt from such treatment; each of us could imagine ourselves in the woman’s situation. Living under the tyranny of Rome, we were always one misstep away from harsh retribution. “Can no one help her?” I asked. “Where is her family?”

“Her husband is dead,” the old woman replied.

“Then you know her?” I asked.

“Yes. She is from Ephrathah. When her husband died, he left her destitute and with a child. His brother agreed to marry her, but then he broke the marriage contract. Now she has no go’el. The Romans will flog her, and then she will be forced into slavery to pay the tax. Her child will be sold.”

I understood the gravity of the old woman’s words. Without a go’el, the young woman’s future was bleak indeed. God had made provision for the widows in Israel. When a husband died, his brother or a kinsman was to marry the deceased man’s wife to give her security. That man became her go’el, meaning “redeemer.” As I considered the woman’s plight, I knew that a second marriage would have freed her from debt and elevated her esteem among the people. But because her brother-in-law had abandoned her, she would become an outcast of Israel and a criminal of Rome.

The young woman cried out again, but this time it was with despairing resignation. Suddenly, she went limp. Her expression was that of a fawn, who having been shot through, looks at his own fur on the arrow that kills him. I pushed through the crowd and hurried toward her. The soldier holding her shrieking baby reached for his sword. I stopped short and put up a hand as if it were a shield. “I mean no harm,” I shouted, knowing that defying Rome could end in crucifixion.

“Do you know this woman?” the soldier asked.

“Yes,” I lied. The woman looked at me with a bewildered expression. I made a gesture, hoping to signal her to follow my lead.

Cautiously, I stepped near her, the soldier tightening his grip on the handle of his sword. But when he made no further movement to prevent me, I turned and looked upon the woman, searching my mind for a way to help her.

I judged her to be about Miriam’s age, remarkably beautiful, dark-eyed, skin the color of goat’s milk. She was a wisp of a girl, frightened, vulnerable, and as delicate as a lily petal, certainly no match for the publican or the soldiers. I gazed at her with pity, and then suddenly I heard myself announce, “She is my . . . sister.”

A low murmur swept through the crowd. The woman’s eyes spoke confusion and then reflected a glimmer of hope. I tried to hold my expression firm so as not to betray my lie, praying that the officials would not ask me her name. The soldier holding the woman jerked her arm hard and asked her, “Is it true? Is he your brother?” When she hesitated, he jerked again.

“Yes,” she whimpered.

“What has she done to deserve this treatment?” I demanded. Romans only responded to the language of force. I took a bold step toward the soldier holding her. His eyes darted nervously between the crowd and me, as if he were a rat caught between two cats.

Apparently sensing the tension, the publican stood up from behind his table and said, “She refuses to pay the tax.”

“That’s not true!” the woman cried. “I have no money to pay it, and I have nothing to sell.”

The soldier holding the woman spun her around and backhanded her across the mouth, sending her sprawling. I rushed to her and pushed aside the soldier. He drew his sword and brandished it at me. The crowd took a step back. I held Amit in one arm as my only defense. When I put up the other to wave off the soldier, I called out to the publican, “How much is her assessment?”

“Twenty silver shekels for the woman, plus ten for the child.”

Thirty shekels—the price of a slave! In my entire life, I had never had that much money at one time. I glanced at the woman and locked eyes with her, both of us seeking a solution that eluded us. I considered the purse of coins that my father had given me for my journey, but I knew it contained only a few mites, enough for a little food but no more.

And then I knew what I must do. The thought crushed me with sadness. I also knew that Miriam, had she been present would insist on this solution. I knew I could never live with myself if I did not act, as I felt prompted to at this moment. Sadly, I gazed at Amit. Then turning to the publican, I asked, “Will you accept my lamb for the debt?” I yelled the question loudly, so that my offer rang in the ears of the onlookers. I knew that a lamb could never be worth the price of the woman’s debt, but I was counting on public pressure to negotiate a settlement.

The publican was a short bull of a man, stout of build, heavily bearded, with black expressionless eyes. His fine clothing betrayed his success as a tax collector, who was allowed to keep part of each assessment. The publican put a hand to his chin as if to ponder my offer. His delay prompted a low, angry murmur from the crowd that encircled us. He lowered his hand and surveyed the people, realizing that the situation might grow out of control. Then he glanced nervously at the soldiers, who had also taken note of the unrest. He frowned and then turned to me and nodded. With that, he motioned for a soldier to fetch my lamb.

I was not prepared to lose Amit so abruptly. The soldier severed my lamb from me, and I felt a sensation not unlike running a thumb along the edge of a blade. Amit bleated wildly. I reached out for him, but the soldier was swift, and in a sudden movement, he spirited Amit away. I staggered under the weight of the loss. Now, watching him disappear into the crowd in the soldier’s arms, my mind flooded with memories.

I had taken Amit to myself when he was orphaned, at a particularly low point in my life, when Miriam and I imagined that she would never conceive again. Amit became the child I thought I would never have. I lavished upon him my affection. I fed him, loved him, and gave him a name. He was beautiful, as perfect and spotless a lamb as I had ever seen. When I called to him, he would bound toward me, bleating happily. I would play with him, sing to him, and stroke him every night when I bedded him down, as though he were my child. He always pastured nearby. I grieved, knowing that tonight Amit would be the publican’s supper.

The other soldier stepped toward the woman and roughly handed her the baby. She buried her face in the bundle and wept. Reunited with its mother, the child sobbed at first and then whimpered. The onlookers became silent, as if they had just entered a sanctuary. I looked at the people to encourage them to step forward and offer the woman comfort. But perhaps because they feared the Romans, they withheld their compassion. I was profoundly disappointed. My occupation as a shepherd had taught me that a lost or wounded sheep needed the comfort of others in order to heal. Because the curious people would not help her, I motioned for them to disperse. One by one they departed.

Alone now, I knelt beside the young woman. She reminded me of a frightened lamb that had been separated from the flock. With the instinct of a shepherd, I reached out a comforting hand to touch her on the shoulder, but she did not immediately respond. I understood.

When a sheep was sick or hurt, a shepherd would need to exercise empathy and patience. He would run his hand over the sheep’s head and down its back until he found a spot where the sheep could feel a connection. Then when the sheep responded to the touch, the shepherd could begin the healing process.

This woman needed the calming hand of a shepherd. Tenderly, I reached out and touched her hand. She did not withdraw it. Her breathing became more measured, and she looked up at me gratefully. I pulled back the covering from her baby and gazed at him. I smiled and asked, “What is your child’s name?”

The young woman dried her eyes and answered proudly, “Gideon.”

“And yours?” I asked.

“Rebekah.” She paused. “Thank you,” she said softly. “Thank you for both of us.”

I nodded. “I, too, have a wife and a—” I was about to say “child,” but I caught myself.

“They must be so fortunate,” she said. “My husband was much like you. Kind, generous . . .” Her eyes filled with tears.

Embarrassed, I turned my head and waited for her to compose herself. Finally, I asked, “How long has he been gone?”

“Six months tomorrow.”

“You have no one?”

She looked at her child and began to cry again. “My husband has a brother—” She could not continue.

“I understand,” I said, touching her hand again. “Is there no one else?”

“My parents are dead. I have no brothers or sisters, but I have relatives in Capernaum.”

“Could you go to them?”

She pondered my question and then offered a slight nod.

“Then you must go to them immediately,” I said. “Do you have any money to make the journey?”

She cried and shook her head. I thought for a moment and then removed the cloak from my shoulders. “This is made of fine wool,” I said. “It will fetch a good price. Take it and sell it for your journey.”

Rebekah resisted. “No, you mustn’t. You have already done so much, and you don’t even know me.”

I gazed down at her son then at her, and smiled kindly. “I know you,” I said. “You are my sister.”

She buried her head in my shoulder and wept. She answered softly, “And you are my go’el. This day you have redeemed us.”

I departed Bethlehem empty-handed and cold, but strangely my heart felt full and warm. As much as I could, I avoided thinking about Amit; so many emotions were crushing me already. Instead I gathered my energy to focus on Miriam and the quest before me. I must still go up to Jerusalem and in the temple petition God for her life.

My mind filled with uncertainty. Without a lamb, I did not know how I would make an offering. I had been taught that a prayer without a sacrifice is only half a prayer. I reached for the purse that my father had given me and counted five mites, coins of slender value. I allowed myself the luxury of unrealistic optimism: maybe I could use the money to barter for another lamb in the temple courtyard. But reason prevailed, and I discarded the notion. Such a small amount could not purchase another lamb.

As I left the northern entrance of Bethlehem, I entered the Hebron Road that led to Jerusalem. Marking that spot was the tomb of Rachel, Jacob’s beloved wife. She had died giving birth to her son Benjamin while she and Jacob were traveling from Bethel to Hebron. A monument had been erected there to her memory. I was a Benjamite and proud to be one of her descendants.

As I passed by Rachel’s memorial, I thought of her courage and the sacrifice that she had made to bring a child of promise into the world. Then I thought about Rebekah and Gideon. They would be on their way to Capernaum to be with family, freed by the price of a lamb.

And I thought about Miriam and the child I would never know.