SAUL & ESROM CHAPTER NINETEEN - Page 3

This remark brought Saul suddenly to his feet again. Standing directly in front of Esrom, he said, "For a time, Esrom, I hated the man Jesus. Then I faced mingled emotions of hating him as a deceiver and pitying him for deceiving himself, in thinking he is the Chosen One. Now, I hate him doubly for the way he is affecting you, and your own mind is beginning to . . . How can you imagine such a thing? You say, 'choosing to die,' and now . . . now you say, 'choosing to live again?'"

"It is not my suggestion, Saul."

"Then whose is it? For it is madness, pure madness."

Esrom lowered his voice to almost a whisper, as he rose to meet Saul's gaze. With his eyes focused intently on Saul's, he said, "It is His. It is what He said."

Saul stepped back as though startled, and wondered if he had heard Esrom correctly. "You are telling me that he . . . he actually said he chooses to die, and that he will rise again? Did you hear him say that?"

"No, Saul. Peter told me he said it. Peter told me personally, Saul, that when they were on their way to Jerusalem this week, Jesus took them aside, and explained to them what was in store. He said to them, 'We go to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him to the gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify; and the third day he shall rise again.'"

"And Peter's reaction?" Saul asked.

"He was shocked, and greatly opposed such a suggestion," Esrom replied.

"Did Peter tell you that in person?"

"Yes, in person, Saul. He has had a great struggle over it. He said, 'I turned on Jesus and began to rebuke him, and Jesus just looked on me sympathetically and said, You only look on things as men see them. You do not understand the things of God.'"

At this point, Saul dropped into his chair, buried his head in his hands, and sat motionless for a moment. Then he slowly raised his head, and said, "And you believe this man Jesus can choose death, and then choose to live again? No man can do that!"

"You have said it; no man. Jesus himself has been saying that over and over, almost each time he teaches, 'I do nothing of myself,' he says. He said, 'My father loves me because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No man takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.'"
"'I have the power?' and at the same time, 'I can do nothing?' How can he say such things, Esrom?"

"Believe him, Saul. He has demonstrated his power countless times in Israel; at the home of Jairus; and again, in Nain, when the mourners were bearing the dead body of the widow's son in the coffin; and just a few minutes walk from here, in Bethany, at the tomb of Lazarus. Believe him."

"I know what they say happened, Esrom."

"Then you are saying that the ruler of the synagogue at Capernaum was lying when he told us that Jesus raised his daughter. And the crowd that saw the widow's son raised from the dead was lying? And those that saw the stone rolled from the tomb where Lazarus had been for four days were lying? Are you saying they were all lying?"

"Worse! They are all deceived, Esrom, deceived I say. If they think this man is the Messiah, they are deceived. If he cannot save himself from death, he is not anymore than you or I."

"But, Saul, supposing he chooses to die and rise again to prove he is greater than death, would that not be greater than--?"

"--Stop this nonsense, Esrom, Stop!"

"No, Saul, I will not stop until I finish. And if it is the last thing you hear me say, I will finish it. It is what Jesus meant when Herod Antipas was threatening to kill him. He said, 'I will remain until I finish the cause and the purpose I came to fulfill.' Saul, I made the last sin offering of my life at the Temple today. I will make no more because Jesus came to offer himself a sin offering for all, so that thousands of sacrificial lambs would no longer be needed, and to conquer death by choosing to die, be buried, and after three days, to rise again. Look at me, Saul. Don't bury your head in your hands, and don't stop your ears to what I am saying. Listen to me, and answer me. Look back on history, either sacred or secular. Did any king, including Solomon with all his wealth, or David with all his might, have power over death? We can walk from this room where we are speaking, and in a few minutes be at David's tomb. David prophesied, saying that 'God would not leave his soul in Hell.' But David had no power to enter the grave and step from it to fulfill his prophecy.'

"Take all of the world's greatest leaders, if you will, Hammurabi of Babylon, and his words that speak of his fear of death. Look at Alexander, called the Great. How did he act when his friend Hephaestian died? He got off his throne and took off his crown with the horns he wore as an impersonator of Zeus Ammon. He cut off his hair, lay for hours on the corpse, refused for days to eat food. He sent to the Oracle of Ammon to inquire if he could be permitted to worship Hephaestian as a god. Then he slew a whole tribe as a sacrifice to Hephaestian's ghost. '

"And what did Alexander receive from Aristotle, his teacher? In his writing, On Coming to Be and Passing Away, he apparently left little hope or faith for his pupil Alexander to have in the time of death. Of course, Aristotle, as you know, studied with Plato. And Plato longed for some knowledge of the gods, and to know more about immortality. In what he calls the Realms of Pure Form, he speaks of the soul leaving the body, contemplating forms, and bye-and-bye, he doesn't say how long, the soul may be reincarnated in another form, and return with a dim recollection of the 'real' forms, and yearns for it. It is little wonder that Plato, an expositor of Socrates, had nothing better to offer man in a life beyond this temporal one. Socrates aspired, as he said, to be a gadfly in Hades.'

Recall the writings of Plato. Do you not sense in The Phaedo his pleading for a knowledge of immortality? But he admits in The Apology he has none. As one who sought to expound the philosophies of Socrates, he had little more to build on than the clever arguments of one who could ridicule all answers of others, and offer none of his own. As you search the pages of history, and examine all that the world called wise and powerful, the philosophers of Greece and Rome, do any demonstrate power beyond the grave? Has one Egyptian mummy ever risen up to speak again? Did the Caesars and the Persian kings, or Alexander the Great, conquer death?'

"Many speak with disdain of the man Jesus, because of his lowly birth. Must your Messiah be one with a crown like Solomon's, who assessed all of his wealth and said 'he hated it because he would leave it?' Or like his father David, who compared the rich and famous to 'beasts that perish and like sheep are laid in the grave.'"

Esrom paused, watching Saul, not sure he was listening with an open mind. "I am not saying anything new to you, Saul. You have a very keen mind, and a knowledge of history. When I married your sister, I felt that we were close in our ties of friendship. Now we are divided over this man Jesus, and you say he is a deceiver, and I say he is of God. Saul, my brother, I do not want to sound as though I am more righteous, but I have tried to listen to Jesus and weigh his words with his deeds. This is what he said over and over. A man is known by the fruits of his life. And to those who said he was a deceiver, he said, examine my works, the fruits of my life. Thousands of our people have done this. The many hundreds he has healed and blessed, testify to his life and message. Can you say you have honestly done this, Saul? Isaiah spoke of those who shut their eyes so they could not see, and their ears so they could not understand. Is it possible, Saul, that when you came to Jerusalem with your parents over twenty years ago, and Nicodemus as a guest in the home of your Aunt Hulda told of the boy Jesus from Nazareth astounding the doctors in the Temple, winning Gamaliel's praise, that even then you decided you did not like him?"

Saul had been silently listening for several minutes. Now he was roused to speak. "What makes you think I was prejudiced against Jesus from my youth?"

"Do you really want me to say what I think?" asked Esrom.

"I believe you are doing that quite well without my permission," replied Saul dryly. "By all means, proceed."

"If you won't be offended, I will tell you, Saul. One word, 'jealousy.' It is jealousy, Saul. You didn't want this boy from Nazareth, about your own age, to confound the elders. You had dreamed of winning that kind of attention when you arrived here from Tarsus. You wanted to turn the heads of the Sanhedrin, and impress all of Jerusalem. It was too much for your ambitious young nature to accept a learned man like Nicodemus praising this young uneducated carpenter's boy from Nazareth who had mesmerized the Temple rulers and talked of doing his father's business. He was obviously not talking about using a saw and hammer."

LATER, ESROM RELATED his conversation to Miriam. "Perhaps I should not have suggested that it could be jealousy that prejudiced him against Jesus. That comment was perhaps too strong for his proud nature to accept. He tried to hide it but his face flushed with anger, and in a voice full of agitation, he stood to his feet, and said, Enough, Esrom! I have heard enough! You can have your Messiah who claims to conquer death. I will keep looking for a Messiah that can subdue with a sword!"