tension and sorrow creep into Peniel’s face, and I shivered. He was afraid his own parents would betray him for fear of the Temple authorities.
“We know he’s our son,” Peniel’s father said slowly, as if by stating the obvious he could escape some sort of trap.
Peniel’s mother added, “Yes, he was born blind. But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. How could we know? We weren’t even there, were we?”
If Peniel’s father was a man of few words and less courage, his wife made up for any lack of verbiage while managing to still disown her boy. “Why ask us? He’s of age. He’s a man. Ask him. Go on, ask him. We haven’t done anything wrong.”
Peniel gazed at the floor with the bitter knowledge that his mother and father would not speak up for him. They would sacrifice him to preserve themselves. Nicodemus grasped Peniel by the shoulders and gave him an encouraging squeeze.
Through gritted teeth the prosecutor said, “We … know … the man … who did this … is a sinner.”
He managed to make it sound so vile and hateful that I expected Peniel to also recoil and denounce Jesus.
Instead, he lifted his chin to the light and raised his beautiful, clear, brand-new set of eyes toward heaven. In a voice that rang throughout the chamber and carried even beyond the door to the plaza outside, he declared, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know: I was blind … completely, totally, and utterly blind … and now I see!”
“But how? How did he do this?”
Peniel let a little exasperation creep into his tone when he replied, “I already told you, and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again?” A sly smile played across Peniel’s lips when he added, “Do you want to become his disciples too?”
With that they bundled him toward the exit, all the while heaping abuse on him. They demanded more answers, then howled with rage when he would not admit Jesus was a sinner and a lawbreaker. They offered excuses for their unbelief, growing less and less coherent, while Peniel grew ever more confident and sure of himself.
When argument failed, they returned to the original imprecation, having nothing left to offer: “You were steeped in sin at birth. How dare you lecture us?”
And they threw him out.2
“Let’s go after him,” Nicodemus urged, “and see that no harm comes to him. He and his grace-filled faith are worth more than all the rest of these pious imposters put together.”
Sometime later I learned that Jesus went looking for Peniel and found him. Peniel, the man born blind, became one of the most fervent disciples of Jesus of Nazareth and a living witness to the reality of his power. Because of his love for stories, the former beggar of Nicanor Gate became Peniel the scribe, recording the deeds of the one who gave him sight.
Part Three
Then the LORD was jealous for his land
and took pity on his people….
The trees are bearing their fruit;
the fig tree and the vine yield their riches….
I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten.
JOEL 2:18, 22B, 25A
Chapter 17
The beheading of John the Baptizer was proof that Herod Antipas feared his wife more than he feared God. Like Ahab and Jezebel, the two brought judgment on the land just as John had warned. It was a difficult year for the righteous and the unrighteous together.
First, news of the approaching plague came in the heat of high summer. A hard-riding messenger was sent to us from our sister Mary in Magdala. Covered with the dust of his journey, he arrived before sunrise. His horse was lathered and near collapse.
“Open the gates! I bring urgent news from the Galil! Call Master Lazarus!”
I was already awake when Martha knocked on the door of my bedchamber. “Brother! A rider comes from Mary! Bad news, I fear!”
I dressed quickly and hurried to the courtyard.
Martha was beside the fountain. “Perhaps Mary is ill.”
A single locust buzzed into the courtyard and fell to the stone floor at Martha’s feet. She gasped and jumped to the side. I glanced into the fountain and scooped out three dead insects. The largest was half the size of my index finger.
I examined them in my palm. “For several days our vineyard workers have been killing locusts. Frying them for supper.
A delicacy. This time of year there are always a few stray locusts from