Chapter Seventeen
C
apharnaum. The trek down the mountain to the city had taken the remainder of the day. The light of torches and candles emanated from inside the homes as well as from the boats along the waterfront as they prepared for the next mornings fishing. The noises of the city a familiar cacophony to all who lived and worked there. It was home. For the most part, it represented for them the security of hearthside and table, bedside and labor.
Not much longer, now. The thought tortured the mind of the thinker. He was a soldier, an officer, a centurion, a captain of one hundred. He had seen death dozens of time. Roman rule cared not at all for its conquered. While he had never served in actual combat, he had nonetheless presided over the deaths of How many now? Fourteen? Fifteen? Guerilla monkeys, the hopelessly ill-trained zealots of the Jewish resistance. But this slave, this servant, this . . . this friend had taught him otherwise. He was closer to me than a brother. Flavius had already begun to think of him as gone.
He had freed Jonathan seven years ago. Freed him because he had served him faithfully and well for the previous seven. Freed him, because he had become more than a slave. He had become a friend. But Jonathan would have none of it. “I cannot leave you, Flavius Marque,” he had said. “You have become an elder brother even if you are a Roman gentile.” The soldier smiled at the memory. He remembered something else, “You are my family, now,” the freed slave had said. The words gave him pain at this time as he watched the last breaths seep from the lungs of his friend. He knelt beside the bed. “God of the Jews,” he prayed silently. “If you are there, if you are real, save this man. Save my friend, my brother,” he laid his head on the sick man’s feverish arm. “O Adonai, or whatever it is they call you, please!”
“Captain, the healer has returned.” Adoniram ben Hadad spoke softly so as not to disturb the soldier’s grief. Adoniram was a respected member of the synagogue, an elder. He had been present when Jesus had cast the demons from the man in the synagogue earlier. Flavius had been there, too.
“The healer?”
“Jesus of Nazareth. The man who delivered that sorry soul from the demonic sickness. You remember, in the synagogue.”
“Yes. I do remember. He has returned? He is here?”
“He has entered the city from teaching in the countryside.”
Flavius could hardly believe what he heard. The man who had impressed him more than all others was within reach. He only knew that Jesus possessed remarkable powers and that he spoke of God as his Father — everyone’s Father. He was reminded again, of how close he had come to embracing the Jewish faith. Somehow, it made more sense to him than the absurd pantheon of gods the Romans had invented. This God of the Jews was not “invented,” of that he was quite sure. And this Jesus of Nazareth seemed to know him well. Perhaps he could save . . ?
“Please, Rabbi. Go. Fetch him. Beg him to come.”
Adoniram smiled imperceptibly. There were only a few like him. Elders and Rabbis of the synagogue who realized that this young carpenter’s son may be the One they hoped for. At least, if he were not, he was surely a prophet of the Old Covenant stature. Not all of the elders of the Jews were intransigent legalists. Some were compassionate and followed Jesus. The others? They were all either old men caught up in the cobwebs of rabbinic haranguing or young firebrands bent on destroying the undestroyable — Rome.
He found Jesus at the home of Peter and Andrew where he stayed while in Capharnaum. He presented the centurion’s case, “This man deserves to have you come and heal his beloved servant because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.” Adoniram clearly understood the jewishness of Jesus. He knew that he was not only racially a Jew, but that he believed the fathers and the prophets, Abraham, Moses, and Isaiah, yet he need not have argued so eloquently. Jesus never refused a cry for help, “deserving” or no.
He said simply, “I will go and heal him.”
Not far from the house, Jesus met some of the centurion’s friends. “Master,” they said to him, “Flavius Marque sent us with a message for you.”
“Yes?”
“The captain told us to tell you not to trouble yourself. He said he does not deserve to have you come under his roof.”
“What?”
The man speaking glanced at the others as if seeking support before continuing. “He said, and I quote, ‘I do not even consider myself worthy to come to him. But if he would just say the word, my servant will be healed.’ He said to tell you that ‘You are a man of authority as I am. When I tell a soldier under me, ‘Go,’ he goes; or to another, ‘Come,’ he comes; and as I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it, so you may but speak the word and it shall be done.’”
Jesus was astonished. The man was a combat officer. He knew command. He was not Jewish. He wasn’t even religious. Yet he believed! Then Jesus said to the friends of the centurion, “Then go! It will be done just as he believed it would.” The servant was healed instantly.
Jesus turned and spoke to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in the whole of this country with faith like this. Many will come from the corners of the earth, and will seek to take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But these ‘subjects of the kingdom’ will be thrown outside into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
As I sit here by the candle, thinking about this event and his words, I can’t help but be amazed at how the rejection of those in spiritual leadership must have hurt him. And when it is placed alongside the simple faith of men who by rights should have no faith at all, it made the rejection seem even more repugnant. “Gnashing teeth,” indeed.
