CHAPTER 86
That day, only a few hundred yards from where I had first proposed to Flavia, I walked down the muddy banks of the river, holding her hand. Mansuetus was on Flavia’s other side. We had watched Paul baptize more than forty new believers, men and women of every stripe. Each one of them had come out of the water smiling and looking to heaven. They all embraced Paul when they were done.
Paul had intentionally saved us for last. The others watched as one of Rome’s storied advocates and a former priestess from the temple of Vesta, along with their son, entered the waters to symbolize our commitment to our new faith. About halfway to Paul, I stepped on an algae-covered rock and slipped, pulling Flavia down with me. We laughed, and the believers cheered. Mansuetus just shook his head.
As the three of us approached Paul, he was beaming like a proud father. Mansuetus went first, which was only fitting, because he had been the first to believe. When he came out of the water, Paul threw his arms around my son and patted him on the back. I saw tears glistening in Flavia’s eyes.
“Your son is a good man,” Paul said to us.
“I know,” Flavia replied. I simply nodded, at a loss for words.
Flavia went next. She stood in front of Paul and grasped his left hand. He placed his right hand on the small of her back.
“Are you willing to die to yourself and follow Jesus of Nazareth as your Savior and Lord?”
The question was not just an academic one. Everyone knew we had escaped Caesar’s judgment hall that day by the narrowest of margins.
“I am,” Flavia said.
And with that simple declaration, Paul leaned her back under the muddy waters of the Tiber and then raised her out. Water dripped from her long dark hair, and she brushed it out of her eyes. It reminded me of the first time I had seen her, drenched in the blood of a sacrificed bull, her face glistening and beautiful and magnetic. I had loved her from that moment, but I had never loved her more than I did right now.
She walked over to me, and we embraced for a moment before I stepped forward to take my turn.
The entire experience was a blur. Paul asking me if I was ready to put my life on the line. A quick look at Flavia and Mansuetus before I went under. The breathtaking exhilaration of coming out of the water and looking up at the sky. Experiencing the pleasure of God.
By nature, I had never been an emotional man, but I suddenly wanted to shout or cry or raise my arms in celebration. I settled for a slap of the water.
When we were done, the three of us walked out of the river together, climbing up the slippery bank without saying a word. I didn’t know what Flavia and Mansuetus were thinking, but as for me, I went back to that evening I spent with Nicodemus just a few days before the troubling events in Jerusalem. At the time, the words made no sense, but I understood them perfectly now. Back then they were concepts. Today they described my feelings and my life.
“Unless a man was born of water and the Spirit, he could not enter the kingdom of God. . . . What was born of the flesh was flesh, but what was born of the Spirit was spirit.”
That day, on the banks of the Tiber, I felt the cool wind on my skin. We were all soaking wet, and there was a bite in the early spring breeze.
“How do you feel?” Flavia asked me.
I thought for a moment before answering. The guilt I had lived with for so long —guilt for my cowardice at the trial of Jesus, guilt for conspiring against Caligula and for killing Lucian, guilt for a thousand other acts of selfishness and greed and deceit —all of it was now gone.
“Forgiven,” I finally said. “Forgiven and fully alive.”
Six days after our baptisms, Paul and Luke set out for Hispania. Paul had long been determined to share the good news about Jesus with the Celts and Iberians there. It was part of his quest to take the message to the very ends of the earth. Beyond the Roman region of Hispania lay only the sea.
He promised to return, but that didn’t make his departure any easier. Mansuetus took it especially hard. He begged me and Flavia for permission to go with Paul, but we all agreed he wasn’t yet ready. Besides, Paul told him, he was needed in Rome.
I wanted to see my son complete his training in rhetoric. I had no doubt that somehow God would use him to spread faith in the Nazarene, but not in a remote province like Hispania. I had always dreamed of Mansuetus following in the footsteps of great orators like Cicero right here in Rome. Maybe he and his generation could usher in a return to the values of the Republic based on the principles the Nazarene had taught.
Besides, I needed Mansuetus with me. I wanted us to learn about this new faith together.
As we watched Paul and Luke walk away, I felt a mixture of bemusement and loneliness. Paul’s brisk pace, limp and all, made me smile. I imagined that the much-younger Luke would be the one suggesting that they stop for the night. We had offered to help them buy horses, but Paul told us to use the money for the needy believers. He preferred to walk.
I also felt a profound sense of loss. Paul was the unquestioned leader of the believers in our city, and I had spent most of my waking hours the past few days soaking in his wisdom. Now the man who had led me to faith and inspired me to be bold in Nero’s court was leaving. I still sensed the Spirit at work in my life and in the lives of the other believers, but that did nothing to dissipate the sadness. The apostle, the man who had performed so many miracles and endured so much suffering, was walking down the road, leaving the rest of us behind.
Dozens of us watched them leave, but Paul never turned to acknowledge us a final time. He had obviously done this before.
Last night he had met with Flavia, Mansuetus, and me privately. He had prayed for us. He had thanked me again for delivering him, as he put it, “out of the mouth of the lion.” He had encouraged us to become leaders among the believers in Rome.
And now he was fading into the distance. As he and Luke disappeared, one of the believers broke out in song. It was a song of praise, taught to us by Paul, one he said he had used in the jail at Philippi. I joined in as best I could, though the lump in my throat made it hard to participate.
To do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,
According to his power that is at work within us,
To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus
Throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.”