Jesus of Nazareth, Boy and Man: A Novel of the Lost Years

Chapter 1. Jesus in the Courtyard

Every year his parents took him to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration, so Jesus was very familiar with the Temple. Or, rather, he was accustomed to sitting in the outer great court, where the common people collected for their worship—and for more profane purposes. The inner courts and the Holy of Holies, where God Himself was said to dwell, were forbidden to the public. All had, however, heard the reports of what the Temple interior was like. An enormous ornate altar received burnt offerings, while a bathing pool of staggering dimension served the priests’ purification, and inside the Holy of Holies polished gold abounded.

Though some might view such indulgences with an eye to their material utility or lack of it, the 12-year-old Jesus understood that the intention of the architecture and the gilding was symbolic in nature. And though he accepted such an ideal on the level at which it was intended, he also knew that not a handful in all of Jerusalem, no, in all of Palestine, could see through the veil of these trappings to the inner reality.

Perhaps King Solomon, at whose mandate the original Temple had been built, knew what such plans were about.

Jesus had some insight into all this because he had pondered upon similar matters for a large portion of his decade-plus (so far) of life. Because Jesus knew God and was well aware that the ornamentation of the Temple walls had no relevance to the all-encompassing spirit that had created man. This focus on the decorative arts had puzzled him at first, until he had come to see that beyond heart and mind, man had only the material with which to express his overflowing love and gratitude for God.

The lavish inner life of the Temple must point out to the priests the greatness of Him who it was they served. Or so Solomon might have originally hoped. Jesus, who had witnessed the behavior of the priests and had read their souls, wasn’t so sure. Seemingly some had decided that the priceless decorations celebrated them and their own stature in this land. But Jesus knew he must bless them and let God alone judge.

Crouching down to listen to today’s debates on this and that, Jesus smiled at such a thought; no matter how astute his observation might be, the idea of any priest taking on such airs was too silly to entertain.

Ah, the boy smiles, said one of the men Jesus knew to be a regular. Jesus had sat here and listened many times before. The boy smiled again. What do you know, youngster, that makes you smile?

I want to ask you about the Kingdom of Heaven, said Jesus on impulse, responding to the debate the philosophers here engaged in today. How is it you say that the Kingdom of God separates the good man from the evil, and that God casts out the wicked into a pit?

Jesus knew a great deal about their thinking from the several years of wondering how he differed from the others. He wasn’t like them in the way he saw the world, a realization that had come to him slowly over time after numerous shocks at perceiving this divergence. And lately he had felt as if he wanted to explain his views. Felt driven to explain who God was in relation to man and what that implied about man’s responsibilities to God and the world.

The truth, a simple truth, was very clear to the boy, and he wanted to lay his understanding before the Israelites for their betterment. Life wasn’t easy, either in Jerusalem or in Nazareth where his family lived, and he saw how the people struggled.

The rabbi Jesus had addressed, in turn, smiled as if the boy must be joking with him. Isn’t it obvious that the Lord, Jehovah, will accept the good into His Kingdom and cast out the wicked? For so the books of our Torah and the Prophets have always said.

Then I must ask who created all men, responded Jesus in the type of rhetorical exchange that those here customarily employed.

YHWH and only YHWH is the Creator, answered the man, speaking not the name of God: For to say the incommunicable Name would be not merely irreverent, but truly impossible, according to the wise. Yes, impossible, for who could name Him beyond all naming? Only the plants and animals of the material world were given to men to call by their name. God himself could be referred to, but could not be named.

Jesus was pleased with the rabbi’s answer, and he replied, So does not YHWH tell us in Isaiah, `For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great compassion will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid My face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have compassion on thee, saith YHWH thy Redeemer.’

And this is said in Numbers, retorted the learned elder now more hotly. `But if the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit; then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord.

The boy Jesus glowed with a mysterious essence that had permeated his core from birth, and he again quoted the prophet Isaiah, `I have seen his ways, and will heal him; I will lead him also, and requite with comforts him and his mourners. Peace, peace, to him that is far off and to him that is near, saith YHWH that createth the fruit of the lips; and I will heal him.’

Surely those who listened to the boy in the Temple courtyard, he believed, must now better understand God, their Father, who was Absolute Love. For he felt that intensity of love flush through him until he nearly swooned with the ecstasy of such a deep emotion. Clearly, the Lord God loved and cared for all His children, just as the parents of Jesus—Maryam and Joseph—cared for the boy himself.

But Jesus saw that while he nearly passed away from a delight in the Lord, the others had retained their ordinary state of mind and were only too glad to continue on, subsisting on words alone and not the fulsome nourishment of the spirit.

Chapter 2. At Work in Sepphoris

Jesus and his father, Joseph, and brother James had gotten up before the sun and walked during the relative cool of the morning to their work in Sepphoris, the capital of Herod Antipas—the son of Herod the First, and the king who now ruled the Galilee. As the men walked, they could see their destination, an elegant city on top of a tall hill. Sepphoris, not at all far from where Jesus and his family made their home in Nazareth, happened to be the birthplace of Maryam, the mother of Jesus, who had lived here as a girl.

More than a decade before, upon the death of Herod the First, Jewish rebels had risen up, had invaded Herod’s palace in Sepphoris and stolen arms to use in challenging the Romans and their rule. They were soon overcome by the Syrian governor, Publius Quinctilius Varus, and three legions of his Roman soldiers. The city had been burned; at least two thousand Jews had been crucified; and many Jewish residents had been sold as slaves.

Jesus, just a baby and then a toddler, had been in Egypt with his parents during this period, and only upon their return did they learn that the grandparents of Jesus, his mother’s parents, had been killed during the fighting.

Now Jesus, Joseph, and James were employed here, helping to build a Roman-style villa for a wealthy Jewish olive merchant doing business with the Romans. The town, on a steep ridge overlooking the valley floor, offered magnificent views. Sculpting the stone portico of the house they worked on, the man and two boys when they paused to wipe away their sweat could see straight down to the silver-green olive groves and nearby flocks of sheep.

They say that Herod Antipas is going to seize the fields around Sepphoris from the farmers, then rent those same farmers back their fields, said James. He fitted one stone onto another, after which he shaded his eyes and looked further up the hill toward the Roman fortress. Herod the Great— he began, but was abruptly cut off by his brother.

We don’t call Herod `great,’ objected Jesus. He killed his own wife and several of his sons. And so many others. To think that a man who claimed to be a pious Jew, though only a half-Jew, had committed these murders. The Law was clear. Why would any man go against the Law? Then a thought struck him. Herod had been frightened. He had been afraid of other men because he hadn’t trusted in the Lord. He thought only the destruction of life could guarantee his safety. A sad lot.

And we don’t gossip, added Joseph. He began to recite the story of how God had created the world, a story the boys knew very well and could read from the scrolls of the Torah in Hebrew. `In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good...’

Jesus went to where the foreman stood chatting with the owner of the house and fetched a stack of weighty, chiseled stone.

Don’t drop those, boy, called out the home owner in Greek. Those stones are expensive.

Jesus, nearly grunting with the effort of his task, tried to smile. He’d learned early on both not to break anything where he worked and to try to maintain a pleasant demeanor with their bosses.

He returned to Joseph and James, repeating the Greek words to himself. He enjoyed learning, and many Jews these days spoke Greek as well as Aramaic. Naturally, he knew some Latin, too, and certainly the Hebrew of the Mikra—the entirety of the Jewish scriptures: the Torah, Prophets, and the Ketuvim—the remaining 11 books. Jesus had listened to these all his life, and had learned to read from the scrolls as well.

Early enough in the day to hurry home for the Sabbath, the three family members set their workplace aright and cleaned off their tools to carry with them. Around them, the other workers on the site, good Jews most of them, did the same.

They lined up in front of the foreman to be paid. Jesus and James received their own, lesser wages into their hands, and then Joseph and his sons took the stone path down to the lower market where they parted from one another in order to shop. Jesus bought grapes for his mother and olive paste, while James chose figs and pomegranates. Joseph discerned the freshness of the fish caught in the Sea of Galilee and the equally close-by Mediterranean.

The shoppers then met at their usual spot and walked home among the other craftsmen and laborers, all in a festive mood.

As they hastened back to Nazareth and other neighboring villages, whether Joseph liked it or not, a hubbub of idle chatter arose. The Jewish workers vented various degrees of long-held spleen, spite toward the house of Herod—not considered the rightful Jewish rulers—and against the Roman conquerors who took a heavy toll in taxes. They spoke of the Zealots who would overthrow the Roman rule.

These were common themes heard day and night throughout the Galilee, and elsewhere, Jesus supposed. All men, indeed, wanted to be free, but where did freedom spring from, really? From the Kingdom of God. Jesus certainly knew this to be true.

Shabbat stirred a feeling of spiritual excitement in the young man. Always aware of God’s presence all times of the day and night, he nonetheless felt a special happiness on their day of rest. This was the time of week he could spend many hours with his attention fixed solely on his Father in spirit. The world of the material would fade into the background and he might luxuriate in the exultant awareness of the I Am.

Thank you, Father, he whispered, and Joseph cast a sideways glance at him.

At home, Maryam and the girls greeted the three workers warmly and took their purchases to fix the dinner with an eye on the sun, which moved steadily lower in the sky. The males washed at the cistern outside.

If we ever have a time without work, we could make our own mikvah, suggested James, referring to the type of ritual bath that those wealthy Jews in Sepphoris installed for their personal use.

Joseph smiled, as did Jesus. Money in and of itself was unimportant, but money doled out in the furtherance of worship was a proper expenditure. And one must eat and care for the body, of course—though God always seemed to provide such for the willing hand and humble heart.

That was a mystery also, wasn’t it? A heart that gave way to God’s movement in the world could receive just the same as the one who’d turned muscle to the plow. The old widow who remembered YHWH wouldn’t be forgotten, but he who had the strength to labor must give that to YHWH with the identical sense of devotion.

All work performed was done for God, to earn God’s favor. God rewarded the worker, or not, according to His Compassionate Will.

Such thoughts remained not just in the mind of the young man, but ran through his veins and bubbled through his organs. God was, as He had announced Himself to Moses, the Ehyeh asher ehyeh—the I am that I am, the I shall be that I shall be.

Jesus washed outside a bit then went in the house to put on clean clothing, so he’d be ready while his mother lit the candles to say the prayers. What a refreshment. The words of the prayer already coursed through his thoughts and a pure love of the Father gushed along with them.

Chapter 3. Shabbat

The family spent the morning in synagogue. Maryam and the girls settled on a bench in the back with the women, and the men sat in the men’s section. Joseph took a turn at reading from the book of Exodus in the carefully unwrapped Torah—though of course he might have recited all five books of the Pentateuch without stopping, from memory alone. Joseph claimed descent from King David himself, as did Maryam’s side of the family. But Jesus wondered. Were they not all descendants of the same God and, as Jews, all from David and Solomon?

After the morning service, during the break for a cold meal of foodstuffs that had been set out on the table the day before—before sundown—Jesus backed away from his family. They were familiar enough with his habits, but Maryam said, Won’t you just eat before you go wandering?

Jesus showed his mother the kerchief he carried, wrapped around a piece of bread. The smile he gave her was a mischievous one.

Be careful, she told him in a tone of voice that acknowledged she would never be able to make him obey. He dashed off.

He had so little time on his own to discover and study everything around him, the wonders of this land they lived in, the people, the animals, all things that grew, the caverns, the rocks... and of course he needed time to be on his own and to pray and ponder without interruption.

He headed out into the wilderness. If he could do nothing but travel around, that would be a dream come true. But how he loved Adonai, the Lord, and would do whatever the Lord wanted him to.

Once far enough outside their sleepy village, Jesus followed a snake about his business, until he spotted a herd of ibex abroad. Lucky ibex, that I’m not a hunter, he told the grazing animals who looked up at him suspiciously, ready to run. Neither will I take your horns, nor spin you into cloaks.

Thus assured perhaps, they went back to their browsing. Jesus walked on.

A while later, deep in conversation with his Lord, he came back to the material world at the bleating of some sheep and he looked around for the shepherd.

There the child was with his long staff to drive off all predators, not an easy job for a boy younger than Jesus was. Leopards lived out in this region—Jesus had seen them—along with hyenas—animals that would as soon attack a slender shepherd as his sheep. Jesus asked his Father for the boy’s protection. Of course the Lord would protect the boy without a petition for Him to do so, but the asking could never go awry for either Jesus or the boy.

Jesus made a friendly gesture toward the youngster, then ferried on. He supposed the other young man would like to talk since he must rarely have any company other than his sheep. Yet Jesus himself seldom had the time to be on his own in a family of nine—five brothers and two sisters, and their parents. Not to mention six long days a week he must spend working. But work was good.

The knowledge of which Adam and Eve had eaten might have been that they needed to contribute through their labor to God’s world. Children must grow up. They couldn’t have stayed in their Father’s paradise forever.

Or could they have? Surely a deeper knowledge was to be eaten of, rather than the ordinary message that one must labor in order to receive.

Finding a niche at the foot of the sand-colored cliffs, Jesus sat and tried to let himself forget his daily concerns. That was the approach that allowed him to delve more deeply into the questions he asked.

Jesus felt that the answers were there, right there, and that his Father would give them to him. Life in Palestine was as God had made it and the only way for Jesus to find his way was to look to God. In fact, finding his way wasn’t the issue, but finding the way of his Father was. Jesus might enjoy himself, earn a living, have a family, and die. But he felt driven by YHWH to something else.

Chapter 4. In Prayer

Jesus stayed where he was and began to pray. For all the scripture he had learned directly from the books of the Torah, prayer was something he’d had to ask God to teach him directly. And he prayed knowing that God always answered his prayers, but not always at once or in the way Jesus might expect.

My Father. I love you. I’m bursting with love. Let me serve you as you would have me serve. What shall I do? Let me do your work here in Palestine. Let me lead your people into your heart, if that’s your will for me. Show me somehow what I must do. Tell me. Direct me. You burn here in my heart. I will serve you in any way you ask. Just ask.

Jesus meant, ask clearly. He knew he must do something with his life to serve. But what?

He felt that his heart must be joined with the heart of his Father, although he knew the heart of God was too big and too grand to be inside his own body and his chest. Still, he felt a single heart beating and he believed that heart was not solely his alone.

He remained in that state for a while, a state in which his awareness had cleared of any clouds of the everyday. He saw through any confusion that told him he was man made of clay. He was man, made of spirit. His Father was spirit and his own lineage was of spirit only.

The day was beautiful. His being was in perfect order. But Jesus still didn’t know what mission God had set him here for. All in good time. All in good time. Even now at 13, he apparently was still not ready to do as God might want. Prepare me, Father

And Jesus felt that God did prepare him as he sat there. That revelations were poured into him as time stood still and though his mind seemed empty of all content. Had someone tapped him on the shoulder and brought him back to the ordinary world at that moment, he could not have said where he had just been. Places exist that are not the usual places of human habitation, places for which man has no words.

After a while, he finally emerged from that state, though the feeling of quiet and peace that pervaded him remained. He sat and watched the landscape, the owl that perched upon a branch of a low-lying bramble, two sons of Ishmael on camels riding slowly across the sward of land in front of Jesus.

Then Jesus realized that the sun had sunk and threatened