By Mark Pearson
To read the first three chapters of Mark’s novella, “Alms for the Lame” click here.
Chapter Four
About three and a half years back there was a rumor going around about some teacher who came out of Nazareth up in Galilee. What I heard about him was that not only was he going around telling people that the kingdom of heaven was at hand but he could perform miracles as well. Has anyone told the Romans that? They have been ruling this country since long before I was born. They don’t mind telling us just to remind us that it’s they who run things and it is the power of the Divine Roman Emperor and the many Roman gods that has given them the power to conquer and rule an empire that stretches west from where the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea meets the vast ocean beyond that. In the east, it stretches all the way to Persia and then some. They don’t let us forget that this barren forsaken land is part of that empire too, so it must ruffle their feathers some to hear tell of a new kingdom coming.
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“Alms for the lame alms for the lame!” I cried aloud as a new bunch of people came through the gate remembering that I still had to make a living. Here came a bunch of Pharisees in all their finery, the same type that I referred to earlier. They looked us over with disdain as they reached into their fat purses and pulled out a few copper coins that weren’t worth much. The way they acted in front of us and the other onlookers, why you would have thought that they gave each one of us a bag of gold. I would so much like to have thrown those coins back into their faces just to show them how much I was impressed with there show of generosity but a man like me still has to eat. I knew that if I did that, the next time they came by us they wouldn’t even be that generous.
I still live with my parents even though they are getting on in years so some of this money has to go to them in helping them live. They still take care of me when I am sick and can’t be brought to this place to beg. Over the years there have been other people who used to come here to beg but as they pass on, they leave a vacant place. We try to reserve their places and hold them until we find out about their passing or some other reason why they won’t be back. It doesn’t take long for some other unfortunate soul to occupy their place and the ritual starts all over again.
I know about the pool of Bethesda which is a little way north of the temple where other handicapped people are. They not only beg but they actually hope to be healed. It seems that from time to time an angel comes down and troubles the water. When this happens, the first person in gets healed, so the story goes. I have never met anyone who has ever been healed that way but they say it happens occasionally. A couple of years back, this same rabbi, the one from Nazareth came through there and healed some man who couldn’t ever get into the water before somebody else beat him to it. They say that he was there about the same length of time that I have been here; some thirty-eight years they said.
What I thought was funny about the story is that this teacher healed him on the Sabbath. When the Pharisees saw him walking out of there carrying his mat, they had a cow. “How dare you carry your bed on the Sabbath!” They said. “Well the man who healed me told me to, he didn’t give me his name!
That had to have gotten under their skin. I would be in the same predicament like him if I was over there. My friends bring me here each day and then leave. If I was over there begging they couldn’t stick around and hope that some angel may show up on that particular day and then have them grab me and scramble in hopes of getting me into the water in time. And what am I to do to relieve myself? No facilities there! My friends have jobs to get to and I appreciate the fact that they take the time to get me here every day to beg and as for facilities, we have a place where I can crawl to when I need to go.
Just to show how arrogant some of these self-righteous people are, one day I overheard some folks talking about us lying here and they were asking each other who sinned, those poor wretches or their parents and as a result could that be why they were born in this predicament? First of all, they have no clue which of us was born this way and how could we be accused of sin before we were even born. “What do they think I did, kick my mother too hard before I was born and as a result, I was born lame? What about the blind or the deaf, did they hear or see something that they shouldn’t of before they were born?” This seems to be the popular question going around these days even though you would think they would have thought that one through before asking it and embarrassing some poor soul who had no control over their infirmity.”
Chapter Five
I had mentioned how my friends bring me here to beg daily but it has not always been the case.” There have been times that I have been under the weather and had to stay home and have my parents take care of me. The first occasion when that happened, it was just my luck, even though I don’t believe in luck, the healing rabbi showed up at the temple and actually healed some of the people that had been there with me. What a shock I had when I came back the next day and saw so many vacant spots. When I asked what happened to them, that is what I was told. If only I hadn’t had the flu yesterday. Why I could have been one of those who could have been healed. What a shock that would have been if I was one of the ones that were healed. I would have been able to walk home and appear before my parents. Boy, wouldn’t they be surprised! Later in the day when my friends would have come to the house looking for me and wondering why I wasn’t still at the temple. What a story I would have had to tell them, but I wasn’t there and that was that. Well, maybe next time.
This very thing happened several times after that, I would not be in my usual spot when this healer came by. “Why? I would lament. Oh God of my fathers who brought the widows son back to life in the days of Elisha the prophet. Others you have healed even here and across our land. The fame of this teacher has spread and that he has obviously been sent by you to preach the good news about your kingdom, so why not me? Why did he come on a day that I wasn’t at the temple so I could be healed?”
This threw me into a deep depression, now, I was not only lame in my legs, but I was also now becoming lame in my spirit. My parents and my friends saw the change in me and tried their best to encourage me in spite of how much it appeared that God wasn’t listening to my prayers. Oh how I prayed that the next time he would come through this gate, I would be here. I begin to inquire of anybody who came by if they heard any news about the healing rabbi whose name I now know as Yeshua, the teacher from Nazareth. Where is he now? Has he decided to come back here to visit the temple?
Wouldn’t you know it, he came here again and of course I wasn’t there. It was on a day after the Sabbath and I was so sick that I could verily get out of bed. There was a commotion on one of the streets leading to the temple. It was so loud that we thought that a new Roman Legion was coming to bolster the garrison that was housed in Antony’s fortress or some other dignitary like the governor. My parents went over to investigate and when they came back a couple of hours later they said that all they saw was a man on a young donkey riding toward the temple with twelve men alongside, six on each side. That was it, no parade, no priests, just them. The people lining both sides of the street were waving palm branches and placing them on the road as he passed by. They were shouting “Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” We watched him go by and then we asked someone, who was that man? Someone told them that he was that healing teacher from Nazareth “I missed him again!” I said with a frown on my face. “For the last three years, every time he came to the temple, I have been sick or my friends weren’t able to take me at all on that day! Am I cursed or is God angry with me and if He is, angry at me, what was it for?”
The next day I finally made it to the temple and when I got there the others were all excited about what happened yesterday. The teacher caused such a commotion that the whole temple was in an uproar. They said that they could hear angry voices filtering through the courts and could only wonder what it was all about. Later they were told that this teacher, mild-mannered that he always appeared to be, made a whip and tore into the money changers booths knocking them over and spilling all their money all over the place. He started whipping them and the animal sellers and totally trashed the concession area, animals and birds were running and flying all over the place. He was heard to say “My Fathers house is a house of prayer and you have turned it into a den of thieves.” “I bet the priests loved that!” I conjectured. That is when I thought about those words.
Where have I heard someone say something similar to these words? Oh yes, it was that kid who was here all those years ago, he said to his parents, “Didn’t you know I would be in my Father’s house doing His business?” “Could this healing teacher be that same kid all grown up?” What a marvelous coincidence that would be if it were true.
I hoped and prayed that he would come back and pass through this gate so I could see him, but other than that, all I had to look forward to was the fact that I was still a lame beggar in hopes that the crowds would be large as they usually were during a celebration like the feast of Passover.
Chapter Six
Well, he didn’t come through this gate and that is the sad part. It was the day before the Passover Sabbath when I was brought into the temple. I expected it to be a lucrative day for us as there would be thousands of people in the city celebrating. As always on the occasions when a feast was being observed those of us here fared quite well even to the point of having enough left over to save some of it for the lean times.
That day, I wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary to happen other than to receive a generous amount of coin but when I got there, I noticed that the usual crowds weren’t there. “Where is everybody?” The only people who were coming in were foreigners who weren’t familiar with the custom of alms giving so the coins dropping into our bowls were slim indeed.
A temple guard who appeared to be on duty controlling what was supposed to be a large crowd came walking through. We called him over and asked him what was going on and why there was no crowd. “All of them are over congregating in front of Anthony’s fortress.” “Why!” We said in unison. “It seems that the healing teacher has gotten on the wrong side of the priests. “Well, ripping into their concessions and cutting into their profits the way he did the other day most likely would do it.” The guard continued on. “They arrested the teacher last night in some garden that he frequented. One of his followers, Judas from Kerioth I believe was his name, he was paid thirty pieces of silver to betray him to our temple guard and the priests in such a way so as not to create a disturbance. I wasn’t there when he was arrested but I was there when this Judas was paid off.”
“Why was he arrested at night, after all, he has been here daily even though I wasn’t, why didn’t they arrest him then?” “Too many people support him, in fact, the people who do support him are not in the crowd over there, they are still home in bed. That bunch that would normally be over here now, going through the motions of worshipping God are over there giving their backing to the priests. The governor, Pontius Pilate is presiding over a trial under a new set of charges. Last night he was charged with blasphemy, today, he is being charged with treason against the Roman government. Now, the priests and that handpicked crowd are calling for him to be crucified.” They changed the charge because they knew that Pilate would care less if the priests made all this fuss about some religious law. What they needed was a charge that would get Pilot to give him the death penalty.
“The crazy thing is, last night after the temple police caught up with him and after Judas pointed him out to them, one of the arresting officers had his ear cut off by one of the teacher’s men. Do you know what this teacher did? He reached down and picked up his ear and put it back on him and it healed right up as if it never happened. Can you believe that? I talked to him this morning and he can’t believe it either. I saw that he still had blood all over his neck and uniform when I talked to him.” Even after the teacher showed mercy to the men who were arresting him they still showed no pity for him. They bound him up and hauled him off to the high priests’ palace where all the Sanhedrin had gathered and put him on a trial that lasted all night. Now, I’m no lawyer but everyone knows that even holding a trial at night is illegal so after putting him through all that, they just now took him over to appear before Pilate.”
“I can’t believe that I am hearing this! I have waited for three years for this man to show up and when he finally shows up here at the temple and now that I am here, he is being condemned to die on a Roman cross? My morale just sank to a new low. “Well that’s it, I am doubly cursed. I have been lame from birth and have been begging to stay alive all these years and the man who could do something about it and heal me is now out of reach! I have managed to miss him for the last three years each time he has been here, yes I am doubly cursed!”
After hearing all that, I sat there that morning in absolute despair. All I could think about now was facing the rest of my life in this corner of the temple next to a gate called beautiful with my hand up holding a beat up piece of pottery and shouting out, “Alms for the lame!” What a life to look forward to. I was so despondent that I wasn’t even thinking about the healing teacher from Nazareth and what agony he must be going through at that very moment. I had never seen a crucifixion before but I knew that they were pretty gruesome. Those Romans had reduced suffering down to a fine science. On a hill just outside the city, I knew that it was precisely what was being carried out but I wasn’t thinking much about that as I was thinking more about my own misery.
Around noon that day, things began to get eerie. The sky got dark, I mean as dark as night. Temple employees had to go around and relight all the torches so people could see to move around. All the normal activity ceased as the people stood around wondering about this strange phenomenon and what it portended. No one had seen anything like it including myself. That in itself was strange because sacrifices would be going on all day just to keep up but because of the darkness, all of that came to a screeching halt.
About three o’clock that afternoon, there was an earthquake that shook this temple to its foundation. People were running around screaming and crying like it was the end of the world. To have the pavement move under us was just like someone shaking out a rug, it was frightening, to say the least. And when it was all over a silence fell over all of us. Then we heard a temple servant come running through the courtyard screaming “The curtain! The curtain has been torn, torn from the top down and has been thrown open!”
We all knew from scripture that only the high priest could enter the holiest place and bring the blood from the sacrifice through that curtain but where was that priest now? Upon a hill outside the city watching an innocent man that he helped condemn die on a Roman cross. What irony!
Then the thought hit me and at the time I don’t even know why it entered my head. “The High priest, as crooked and cruel as he was didn’t even realize that he was actually presiding over a sacrifice!”
“Well, that’s it!” I told myself again. “I might as well face it! I will be here for the rest of my life with my hand out! I spent the rest of that day in misery and to end it all on a down note, none of us had coins placed in our coffers to show for it. My friends came by later and took me home and as they walked along carrying me we discussed the day’s events. We could hear in the background the shofar being blown from the temple announcing the coming of the Sabbath.
“We have to hurry before some Pharisee catches us and accuses us of working on the Sabbath!” One of my friends said.
“It’s alright for them to kill an innocent man the day before the Sabbath but we better not desecrate the Sabbath!” “I don’t think that we will be caught by any of them, they are still up on the hill watching a crucifixion!”
Check back on Easter Sunday, April 21st for remainder of “Alms for the Lame.”
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Mark E. Pearson was born and raised in Kansas City, Mo. In 1970 he moved to Michigan where he met and married the girl of his dreams, Mary Lou Davis, together they have two sons. He attended Briercrest Bible Institute in Saskatchewan, Canada, and later received his associate’s degree in business from St. Clair Community College. He was a bookkeeper and worked in retail sales for 30 years and has spent the last fifteen years as a Jeweler at Coughlin’s Jewelers in St Clair, MI. He is a voracious reader of history and as a result of being an avid reader he began to write short stories and articles for editorial columns and magazines on current events and comparing and relating past events to current happenings.