Read Online The Gospel of the Twin by Ron Cooper - Free Book Online Page B

to hide, either as fugitives or scheming radicals, but none escaped Roman eyes. Soldiers passed through often, making sure to be seen.
    â€œThis is not good,” I said. “Whatever John is doing, he will be seen as one of these militants.”
    â€œHe is a militant,” said Judas. “Is that not why we are here?”
    Jesus smiled. “Judas, my beloved cousin, John is not interested in bloodshed. Neither are we.”
    Mary stroked Judas’ forehead. “Listen to Jesus, my love, and cool your anger.”
    â€œDo not worry about him, Mary,” said Jesus. “His blood is hot, but his heart is larger than he will admit.”
    Far south along the Jordan, we came to a place where two or three hundred sat by the river, listening to a gaunt man who shouted from atop a crude wooden platform. He accentuated every third or fourth sentence by ending with “ha!” or “unk!” and foamed at the mouth like a possessed dog. I hoped this spastic lunatic, dressed in rags that barely covered him, with hair matted like a forest goat’s, was not John. Besides, the audience seemed too small to account for the attention John was receiving.
    â€œRejoice, my people!” he shouted, pointing at us as we neared the front of the crowd. “These are good men from Nazareth, these three out of tens of thousands, who have much to teach us.” I knew then that this crazed man was John, and I wondered what would happen next.
    A man near us said, “I’ve heard that nothing good comes from Nazareth.”
    Judas scowled, but Jesus said, “You speak truly, my friend. Why do you think we left?”
    The man laughed. “I have also heard that nothing good comes from anywhere else in the Galilee,” he said, “so we share the same fate.”
    He was a fisherman named Andrew. We spoke with him for some time, and he told us that John had a way of providing hope to his listeners, more by his intensity than by anything in particular that he said. Andrew was in John’s inner circle and smart enough not to be a mere follower.
    Verse Four
    For two months, we lived as outcasts with John and his straggly assembly. In the mornings, some would try to catch fish while others pulled up reeds with bulbous roots that tasted like grainy radishes. Jesus and I built a proper platform from which John could deliver his sermons.
    He would start at midday and preach for hours about how we were in another form of captivity, this one worse than what our ancestors had faced under the Egyptians, the Babylonians, and the Greeks. He would call for God’s wrath to bring about a great apocalyptic cataclysm. When I witnessed his ferocious speeches, his knotted hair jerking, spit flying from his lips, his bare feet stomping the rough stage, I could almost believe him.
    When the sky was clear, we slept on the ground. If rain threatened, we huddled together like sheep under oiled sheets draped over ropes. These people were lost in their own homeland, aching to feel that they belonged, and looking to John to give them shelter. Some seemed lost in their own bodies, having no sense of identity, no belief that their lives were unfolding in meaningful stories, and hoped that John was a magician who would draw out the life hidden within them just as a conjurer draws out birds from his cloak.
    Others wanted John to call down a legion of angels with flaming swords to slaughter the Romans and the Judeans as well. Still others had no idea what had lured them to this jagged edge of a crumbling world. But as each day passed without such miracles, I expected them all to lose their enchantment with him and stumble off to seek another promise-maker. It never happened.
    Once a month, at night during the full moon, John would lead the group into the water and baptize newcomers. Some—those who must have thought themselves incurably soiled—would jump into the line to be dunked each time he offered.
    Mary said