Traveler’s Tale — First Book: Discoverings

A sudden clarity, a streak of insight made his eyes snap open. “Abba, you do not mean…” his mind stopped him from completing the question. Yet, it was too late. A terrible sweetness had settled into Yeshua as subtle as a deep breath. He began to know. The revelation was coming into him and he was passively listening as if he were a three-year-old harkening to his father’s instructions, except there were no words, no sentences, and no complete thoughts. It was rather a knowing that instantly transformed every blood vessel in his body. "This is My Beloved Son …" The words from the day of the immersion. On that morning, Yeshua had understood that Son meant only his calling to be a prophet of Israel. He was willing to wear that mantle but what was coming into him now was a burden he felt completely unworthy to bear and terrified even to consider. His mind finally gave voice to it. He summoned all his strength. “Abba, am I -- could You have chosen -- me?” Yeshua blinked up into the vacant sky, which stared back at him with twinkling indifference. One raindrop hit his forehead and startled him because he could see no cloud above him. A few other drops plopped around him but not another touched his body and then there were no more. Yeshua finally saw the filmy traces of a small dark cloud above. He squinted up at the sky with a questioning stare. “You anoint me?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper, “And the earth as well?” A breeze brushed the desert floor. Yeshua thought it was the intonation of a natural psalm and he felt as if his body was the center of some kind of ritual, as if he were the sacred axis of all things in that moment. He could hear a low, then a high vibration that was beautiful and exciting. The tones went into Yeshua’s body and he could feel the singing sounds move upward and downward. The music of the angels! The vibrations engulfed Yeshua, swamped him like a small boat battling a storm at sea. He felt them press upon him, push against his skin and pulsate through every fiber of his being. With his whole body, Yeshua heard the harmonics of an ephemeral and celestial music. “BARUCH HABA B’SHEM ADONAI!” Blessed is he who comes in the name of Adonai! The voices were startlingly clear, as if human voices singing, thousands of them. It was both exquisite and deafening. Yeshua sat up and reflexively covered his ears. Then all sounds stopped as suddenly as they began. All that remained was the night’s silence. He filled his lungs and turned his face to heaven. “WHO AM I?” Yeshua shouted. No answer came, not even a breeze to rustle the leaves of a squat shrub next to him. Absolute stillness. Yeshua waited. Silence. All Nature held a breath. He continued to keep vigil in silence as the night wore on and the moon rose, bathing him in light. His troubled thoughts abated as the comfort of the patient moon kept him company. Peace came to rest in him and Yeshua’s mind no longer yearned for the Father. As the moon drifted directly overhead catching him in its silvery beam, a small bit of pure white down descended slowly and came to rest on the back of his right hand, in the small valley created by two prominent veins. He stared at it. “What young bird is out here in this harsh place?” As he looked, the inescapable truth settled into him and tears filled his eyes. Whose am I? He wiped his runny nose with his dirty sleeve smudging his lips with mucus and sand. “I am the son of David the shepherd of Bethlehem, David the King!” he said hoarsely. He brushed the tears also marking his cheeks with tracks of moistened dust. “I am the son of Miryam of Nasrath!” he said. He hung his head and coughed hard as if he had to force the next words from his lungs. “I am … Abba, why? I am not worthy!” he said. He could not utter it and then, a force came into him, a powerful energy filled his body as if all the light from the stars and moon above entered through the crown of his head. “I am the One like a Human Being, the Anointed of Adonai, the Beloved of Abba,” he said and then with newfound certainty, Yeshua inhaled deeply, pausing before he pronounced the words that would change him and with him, change the whole world. Forever. “I am the Son, the Holy One of Elohim. He who is to come into the world and save His Children.” He coughed phlegm into the dirt, eyes reddened and leaking precious water. “Hear me, O, Israel!” he shouted as he turned to the west. “I-AM is One!” The night air was suddenly fragrant with the subtle scent of flowers, and there was a crack of thunder from the cloudless sky. Then the resonance of all tones pierced the moonlit silence with a strange, new harmony, as if to sing, simply and forever: “Alleluia!”