The Making of the Lamb (8 page)

Creta, over the horizon to the north, had several harbors offering safe havens, but they were all on the northern shore of that island. The sheer cliff faces along the long southern shore might as well be wolf fangs, ready to tear apart any craft unlucky enough to find that shore on the lee in a storm. No, there would be no making for land; they would have to keep their distance, so he commanded the helmsman to adjust the course away from that danger and gybe the sail. They would sail west as rapidly as possible, hopefully fast enough to get beyond the danger of the island to the north before any storm hit.

What strange events had led to the detour to Salamis, the port for Cyprus. It almost seemed that Nehemiah’s longtime friend had smuggled Jesus out of Galilee. Joseph was always a man of honor who paid his bills on time without raising spurious questions or quibbling with feigned excuses or protestations of bad fortune. Nehemiah’s father had spoken well of the family when they first met as young men both learning their respective trades. It was no surprise to Nehemiah when he heard that the Romans had granted Joseph the Arimathean the honor of full citizenship, usually reserved to residents of Italia, and then the title of
noblis decurio.
But while Joseph made many friends in high places, he nurtured his friendships with the less fortunate as well.

The crack of the yardarm against the mast interrupted the captain’s reverie. The gybe maneuver required the helmsman to turn the stern of the ship through the wind. The men had to slacken the bracing stays on the new leeward side to free the yardarm to swing back while the windward stays were tightened to support the mast. The timing was critical; in heavy wind, an unsupported mast could snap in an instant. Nehemiah was pleased that the hands stayed alert to keep the rig under control. He adjusted his balance as the ship heeled to the other side, and his thoughts returned to what Joseph was doing with the boy.

The business with the nephew was certainly strange.
Why would Joseph, of all people, set himself against the temple authorities?
When he had the chance, Nehemiah went to synagogues in the isolated Jewish communities scattered around the Mediterranean, but that was the extent of his piety. Joseph, on the other hand, was devout in adhering to all the inconvenient strictures of Jewish law.

Why is the boy such a concern? An edict of detention, evidently from King Herod Antipas himself!

Jesus seemed so harmless, just a skinny waif. Nehemiah had first seen him playing with other children on a dock as Nehemiah’s ship sailed into Salamis to pick him up. He had seen the stronger boys push Jesus into the water, but the boy quickly emerged laughing. He had seemed so much like an even younger child, jumping across the docks and waving exuberantly to greet Joseph and Daniel once he spied them in the approaching ship.

Nehemiah felt a slight pull on his cloak. At first he thought it was just the wind, but there it was again. Nehemiah turned to find the boy himself tugging gently.

“Shalom,” the boy uttered once he saw he had the captain’s attention. “And peace in the Lord!”

The greeting sounded a bit pretentious coming from a youth, but Jesus’s warm smile dispelled that thought quickly. “Shalom,” Nehemiah replied. “What brings you up on deck?”

“I felt a change in the weather and the course of the ship.”

The lad is indeed observant.
Nehemiah explained how he had altered course to avoid the danger of the lee shore to the north with the threat of a storm coming.

“But the storm will come from the south,” Jesus responded. “We cannot get past the island in time. We should be heading even further away from it as fast as we can.”

Nehemiah looked at the boy dubiously. How could he possibly know such things? Passengers often expressed curiosity about the ways of the seas and the workings of his ship, but not even Joseph had ever presumed to offer him advice on the running of it. Wordlessly, he started to walk away. But after a few steps he turned to look back. Something about the boy piqued his curiosity. The merry look in his eyes gave him the appearance of utter childlike innocence. Yet at the same time, he bore a haunting look that betrayed an unnerving sense of confidence in his perception.

“Be at peace, Captain. My Father will protect this ship,” said Jesus.

No, the boy is not being impudent. He attaches himself to the Arimathean because he is away from his own father. He expects Joseph to look after him as his own father would. He must idolize the father he left at home, and now he thinks that Joseph must have some strange power from his father to protect everyone.

Unable to think of anything to say to help the boy, the captain smiled kindly and went about his business.

Within hours, clouds filled the sky, descended, and became an angry dark gray. While the clouds came in from the east, a freak wind hit the ship from the south, just as Jesus had predicted. The waves broke around them. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way; the southerly wind always filled in gradually.

The unexpectedly wild wind rose up before they had a chance to reef the sail. At least initially, Nehemiah had no choice but to run with it even though it took the ship racing towards the dangerous shore to the north. With full sail, turning at all into the powerful wind was no option; a broadside blow of wind and quickly mounting wave would certainly capsize the vessel to its more immediate destruction.

Nehemiah ordered his two hands to climb the rigging and reef the sail. He watched the two men get up there, stand on the footropes, and strain trying to no avail to pull in the cloth against the force of the wind.

“Can we go up and help?” Daniel was already drenched from the spray. He clutched the rail to hold himself upright on the swaying deck. Jesus was in a similar state right behind him.

Nehemiah weighed his options. With the helmsman needed to help him control the steering oar, there was no one else left except Joseph. None of them knew the ways of the sea, but the boys stood a better chance than the older and heavier man did. “Make sure you hold on for your life; there’s no turning back if you fall in. Stay as close to the mast as you can.”

“No!” shouted Joseph as he clumsily worked his way toward them.

“I have no choice. We are all doomed if we don’t get that sail reefed.” Nehemiah took one hand off the steering oar for a split second and pointed to the rigging. “Go!” he shouted to the boys.

Nehemiah felt for his friend, but the steering oar took all his attention. He caught only glimpses of the boys making their way across the swaying deck and then gingerly up the rigging. Pulling together, the four now on the yardarm slowly managed to pull in the middle section of the cracking sail. With less pressure on the steering oar, Nehemiah soon was able to pay more attention to them. At first it went well as they shifted left to bring in that portion of the sail, but with the sail still not reefed to the right, the rig was now unbalanced, and the ship began to sway even more. The captain and helmsman had to struggle harder to control the ship’s course. Nehemiah’s muscles quivered at the strain.

He stole another glance, but that was all it took to see the mistake. The experienced men should have stepped behind and around the boys, but instead they were all moving in unison along the yardarm to the right to reef the last section. Jesus would be out the farthest with Daniel alongside him, just as the unbalanced yardarm would be swinging through the air most wildly. Even on deck, the experienced captain had difficulty holding on to the steering oar as the deck rose and fell. It had to be far worse up above. He tried shouting but was soon choking on bitter seawater. The mounting wind swallowed his words anyway.

“Look,” the captain barely heard Joseph shout.

“God help him,” Nehemiah muttered when he took a chance to see. Jesus had lost his footing and was holding on with his hands to a single line as the yardarm pulled him through the air over the water. Daniel managed to pull the younger boy up to reach the footrope with his feet. The men finally stepped around the boys and moved to the outside. All too slowly, they were able to reef the last section that they had dropped while the boys were struggling just to hold on.

With the sail reefed, Nehemiah turned his attention to the battle for sea room from the dangerous shore. He turned the boat up into the wind as much as he dared. Even with the sail fully reefed, there was too much force on the rig to bring the ship fully broadside to it. Beyond that, the ship would slip downwind even more when heeled over on its side. The more the ship turned up into the wind, the more Nehemiah was blinded and choked by windblown seawater. He steered mostly by the sound of the creaking planks; as they sounded louder he knew he had to ease the strain on the ship and its rig by bearing away downwind. The two hands relieved the exhausted helmsman on the steering oar, but even though Nehemiah was equally exhausted, he remained there to guide them as they fought for every yard of sea room. Inevitably, the raging wind and sea carried them along to the north; turning the boat into the wind as much as they could only slowed their approaching doom.

Hour by hour the devilish wind continued to blow. Drenched and tired to the core, the crew fought on. Late in the afternoon, the ragged coast appeared through the crashing waves and mist—but then Nehemiah saw something that gave him hope. A rocky promontory jutted out from the shore and curved around to their right. They had just enough sea room that they might make it around the point. If they succeeded, the point of land would shelter them from the raging sea and wind, but there was no more time or distance to lose.

“Gybe-Ho—Now!” Nehemiah shouted and grabbed the steering oar to steer the stern through the wind and put the ship on a course to take them around the point if they were lucky, or else onto the rocks even faster.

In the raging tumult, one of the hands did not hear the captain and did not understand what was happening fast enough. The stay needed to support the mast on the new tack was not made fast. As the boat’s stern came through the wind a thundering crack rang out, followed by the crash of the sail and its spar. Now at the mercy of the wind pushing it from behind with a useless steering oar, the stricken vessel tore its way toward the threatening shore.

All aboard—captain, crew, and passengers—stood transfixed as they helplessly awaited their doom—all aboard save one. The voice of a boy came through the storm. Jesus made no effort to shout over the roar of the wind, but his voice rang out clear as a bell. With a look of peace and confidence on his face, he was singing a psalm. In the old melody of King David, he chanted an ancient tune most on deck recognized: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. . .”

A ray of sunshine broke through the clouds and cast its light upon the kneeling figure of Jesus. The clouds parted further, and light enveloped the vessel. Rapidly, the waters calmed.

Cries rang out from all on board. “The Lord be praised!”

Jesus continued to pray, this time in thanksgiving.

Nehemiah turned to Joseph. “Your nephew will be a great prophet.”

Daniel, standing close enough to overhear, said, “No, he is already more than any prophet.” He turned to his father. “There is a divine power and light within him. That is what I saw with my own eyes in Nazareth.”

Joseph shuffled back a step. He looked at his son wide-eyed and guffawed. “Do not presume to compare anyone to Moses, Isaiah, and the other great prophets!” Joseph paused. Little by little, he recovered his composure. “Let us just be grateful that Jesus is a good devout boy and that God heard his prayers.”

The crew managed to erect a piece of the mast and jury-rig a patch of sail to it. Soon they beached the vessel on a small patch of sand. Sage bushes dominated the landscape, and there was nothing suitable from which to fashion a new mast. Nehemiah knew that impressive stands of cedar grew on the eastern end of the island, but that wood was too soft. Nehemiah and Joseph located a blacksmith in a nearby village. Joseph paid him handsomely, and within two days, two iron collars bound the broken mast back into place.

With fresh prayers of thanksgiving, the crew launched the ship back into the sea.

The rest of the voyage passed quickly in fair winds. Within a fortnight, the vessel passed south of the boot of
Italia
. A few days later, they sighted the shore of trans-Alpine Gaul and then the mouth of the River Rhodanus.

With the sails securely stowed away, the donkeys on the towpath pulled Nehemiah’s vessel along the
Fossa Mariana
canal that ran several miles from the sea up to their destination in the port town of Arelate. One of the hands led the donkeys while the helmsman steered. Nehemiah sat with the boys on deck. For once, he did not seem to have anything to do.

“This land seems so wet,” said Jesus. “I vaguely remember Egypt being like this when the Nile flooded, except it was much hotter.”

“It gets even cooler as we go further north,” said Daniel. “Even in summer the sun doesn’t beat down all the time like it does at home. You will see the land get more fertile up ahead. It’s like the Jezreel Valley across all the flat lands and hills in Gaul and Britain. No deserts anywhere.”

“We will be passing some farms, when the land gets a bit more dry and firm,” said Nehemiah. “This swamp is known as the
Camarque
. Some of the farms graze cows and horses on this soggy part, but that’s about it.”

The boys started pointing out the eagles, hawks, and harriers flying through the air. Here and there, they spotted muskrats swimming in the water or making their way across drier patches of earth. “I have never seen such creatures,” Jesus remarked.

Farther along, the swampland turned drier, and farms with lush crops began dotting the landscape. Then the farm plots merged, separated by fences. The yellowish-gray color of the fences seemed unnatural against the fields. Jesus did not say anything about them at first.
It must be a strange color of paint the Romans use in this climate. I never saw the Romans use anything like it back home.

Off in the distance the boys spotted livestock grazing, and they picked out turtles and more creatures swimming and crawling close by. They approached a section of fence close to the waterway. “Whoa!” Jesus suddenly exclaimed. “Did you see that, Daniel? These fences are made of bones.” Jesus spotted a skull in the mud. “They are human bones!”