He Who Returned. Martin FieberЧитать онлайн книгу.
that I am not allowed to tell more now.”
Now Samuel was becoming a little more upset, for this damned Jesus brought his temper to a rolling boil again.
“You speak with God?”
“Well you do that too, don’t you?”
“Yes, but to me he truly speaks. After all I am the rabbi.” Samuel was enraged, but could barely hold himself back “How do you suppose you know that he is talking to?”
“God told me something earlier, yet I do not want to repeat it now, since it only concerns you.”
“As you know, Jesus, we are in a synagogue. God, your Lord is at home here. I don’t believe that it would be good to keep secrets to yourself here.” Samuel stomped on the ground with his right foot. The way this guy always kept challenging him! But today he would not relent. Today Jesus finally had to realize who has the boss here.
“That is fine by me, but I don’t know if you will like it, honorable rabbi.” Samuel saw, that Jesus’ expression had a certain strength, but not for long.
“Jesus, I order you to tell all of us right now what your God, or more likely some demon has to tell us.” Samuel’s earlier good mood had evaporated.
“Very well Rabbi, I simply did not want to get ahead of you. But how …“
“Out with it already.”
“As you wish. God told me earlier“, Jesus spoke with a very earnest voice, “that you have a very strong faith, like few others.”
“But everyone in this village knows that, Jesus.” Samuel was a bit surprised because God had told him something very similar. But this lout was probably only trying to get on the good side of the rabbi of the village. Well, that trick was not going to work on old Samuel, boy.
“And, what else?”
“Furthermore he told you that you would be travelling into a distant land in the near future and that you are to spread the teachings of the Lord in a large Greek town called Ephesus. Furthermore he said that you should be watchful.”
Samuel stood in front of the children with mouth wide open and had no idea what to say next. He felt as if the Lord had personally given him a slap in the face. That was unbelievable! How could this Jesus know the words that God had directed to him personally? How could that be? He probably truly was in contact with demons. And demons were after all not dumb. One had to watch out for this boy! And besides in a moment the whole village would know that he, Samuel, would be leaving the village in the near future.
“I think that is enough for today. Let us just pray quickly. May God watch over us and keep all demons far from us. May it ever be thus in Nazareth.”
∞
Today things were very loud in the alleys of Nazareth’s. Simeon and his friends had a new favorite game: Romans against zealots. The Romans got wooden javelins, the zealots their wooden swords. And since weapons had always fascinated humanity in its history, from the day on which this game was first played on they became the favorite toys of the boys. And thus the following of gang-leader Simeon grew more and more. Naturally Simeon always played the leader of the zealots, who waited in a hide-out for the roman patrol and then attacked it. If the zealots rushed them, then things could get dangerous, for from this day on brutality became the trademark of Simeon. If he had a sword in his hands, he often turned into a berserker.
Joshua had been sitting in his rooms the past hours doing his writing exercises as his father had told him to. He thought to himself that he was making good progress. But soon he did not feel like continuing and went out to look for Rachel. But first he saw ten to twenty figures jumping out of the bushes and attacking a group of roughly the same size. And then all he heard was continuous shouting. “Charge! Simeon, take out the Centurion.”
“I was going to do that anyway, Amos. And by the way: I am the only one who gives orders around here.”
“Ouch, that hurt, dumb-ass.”
“Well duh.. we are fighting here and not playing children’s games like ‚Jacob and the Lord’ anymore.”
“Hit. You’re dead.”
“Nonsense, I hit you first.”
“That isn’t possible, my spear’s longer.”
Joshua watched these scenes with disgust, for he was not a friend of violence. He headed up the alley in the direction toward Sepphoris and soon enough spotted Rachel and her girl friends there. And as expected Jesus was sitting there with them and playing flute, which the girls danced to. Joshua sat down next to Jesus and watched the girls hopping about in circle. He smiled at Jesus. After a while Jesus stopped playing and the girls greeted Joshua.
“Doesn’t Jesus play beautifully?”, Rachel asked Joshua.
“Very nicely. Where did you get the flute from, Jesus?”
“I carved it for myself a while ago. You know I love carving things out of wood. The olive trees of Galilee or something very special.”
“Jesus, how did you know what God had told me father while praying? How were you able to know that?”
“Sometimes I hear a very insistent voice, when it is important. I can not ignore it and even remember days later what the voice said. That is just the way it is. I am not sure why either. My Egyptian teacher merely told me that is was important for me to listen to this voice and to say things when the voice asks me to. And I know that the voice comes from God. Where should it come from otherwise?”
“Like my father said, from a demon?”
“What do you think a demon is, Joshua?”
“An evil spirit that does not want anything that is good.”
“Do you really believe that I would listen to an evil spirit?”
“Why are you so sure that you can distinguish the different voices? How doe you want to know for a fact what is a demon and what is God, our Lord?”
“God is my father, just as he is yours. Don’t you know that a father only wants the best for his son at all times?”
“Jesus, sometimes I am not sure about that. On the one hand yes, on the other hand I ask myself if a father is not sometimes also allowed to hurt his son.”
“Yes, I know, that must hurt you very much to think about when you wanted to defend me.”
“Almost forgotten. But I could not always tell the difference.”
Suddenly both of the boys saw Simeon and his friends running toward them. All Joshua heard was that Simeon shouted “Charge! I will take out the blue-eyed one. And you, Amos, take out the scar face“, that the girls hid themselves behind Jesus and that he advanced one step towards the roughly twenty charging boys. Then Jesus made a graceful motion with his hand that tossed something invisible on the approaching horde.
“In the name of God, leave them, ye demons.” The words of Jesus were loud and clear. A moment later the boys stopped, looked at each other, muttered this and that, and slowly walked back along the path which they had just run up.
“Now what was that, Jesus?”
“Joshua, remember how I told you about the grotesque faces that I always see. Just a moment ago, there were hundreds if dark figures all about those children. I merely spoke a prayer.”
“How do you know that God heard the prayer and we were not saved by a demon?”
“Joshua, do you think that a demon could chase away another demon? Only the light has that ability. Never forget that! It will one day be very important for you. For you too will be journeying to a large city. And there are many more of that kind there, believe me.”
Joshua gave Jesus a big wondering glance, shook his head and went home a little confused. That had really been enough for today.