Johann Quisumbing

An Adventure Story of Yeshua bar Yosef by JQuisumbing

“Hello, cousin.”

Yohanen looked up surprised and then started to laugh. 

“How did you know where I would be?” he asked. Yeshua smiled and eyes peered up. “Ah, of course.  I should have guessed. Come, come. Sit by me and put your feet in the stream. It is refreshing for sore feet.”

“Where are your followers?” Yeshua asked as he too put his feet into the stream.

“They’re by the Jordan River waiting for me. I needed to be alone for a day or so. So, I followed the Jabbok¹ up to here. As you can see, no traffic.”

Yeshua looked around and had a strange feeling that this area looked familiar. Yohanan observed his facial expression. 

“What is it, cousin? Have you been here before?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.” He pointed up the river. “Do you see how the stream bends?”

“Yes”

“On the other side of that, there used to be a large tree right on the bank.”

“Mmmm… I don’t recall ever seeing any large tree by this river. Probably up higher in the hills.”  

“Oh, you are correct, Yohanen. That tree fell back during the exile.”

“Ba.. back during the…” He was staring at him perplexed and wide-eyed. “How… how…?”

“Well, it’s an odd sensation. On one hand, I have never been here but yet, on the other, I get these recollections.”

“What do you… ah… recall?” Yohanen whispered. 

“Brace yourself, cousin. Just on the other side of that bend, I spent the whole night wrestling with a man. It was a good tussle and he would not let up even when I asked him to let go.” 

“Wait, wait! Please… please, Yeshua, don’t tell me that you dis… dislocated his…”

“Yes, I dislocated his hip!”

Yohanen started to shake in fear, but before he could get up, Yeshua placed his hand on the shoulder to keep him seated. 

“Don’t get up and start bowing to me. As long as I am in this world, I am a man and am still your cousin.” 

After a long while of silence, Yohanen asked, “What’s it like… ah… remembering everything… all ages past? I mean, I just can’t imagine.”

“Well, originally, I am unable to remember everything and all at one time. As I said earlier, I am a man. It is my Father in Heaven who helps me remember when He wills it.”

“How about tomorrow? …or next week? …even next year?”

“Only if He wills? Now, my turn. Fill me in, cousin. My imma had told me everything of how the Angel of the Lord appeared to your father and she also told me of when she was there when you were born. But we only had a few snatches of what happened after that.

Yohanen sighed a little bit. “Well, my imma passed when I was still very young. A year after that, my abba, Zecharias, took me away from our home village of Carem² into the wilds west of the village. We stayed close to a tiny Essene³ community of about 20 people. My abba felt that he alone should teach me the Torah, but it was on my bar mitzvah that my abba passed. The Essenes tried to raise me but I ended up living like a hermit. However, I never felt like I was alone, I mean, deep inside.

“You know, I wanted to look for you. My abba told me about you from what was related to him by your imma. I knew you were up in Galilee somewhere. But the Holy One who dwells in me prevented me from seeking you out. He had impressed upon me that I would know you when the right time came. So, I waited and learned from among the Essenic rabbis until last year. I was guided to go to the Jordan River and when I arrived at Jericho, I had a vision that I would know you by the Holy Spirit coming down you like a dove. Then I started to preach by the river. And now… you are here, and…”

“And you are wondering where do you go from here?”

“Yes. I thought I would go where you would go. After you went off into the wilderness, I was about to track where you went, but the same resistance that did not let me seek you out in Galilee, prevented me from following you. Yeshua, I am ready to follow you wherever you go. Our people are expecting to be free and I want to be there with you.”

“Yohanen, my dear cousin, what do the Spirit want you to do at this very moment?” 

Yohanen was about to say ‘to follow’ but then his expression became sad and he bowed his head. 

“The Lord Adonai still has work for you, cousin.” 

“Well… I heard that Antipas will leave his fortress at Machaerus and spend the fall at his palace in Sepphoris.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“I have a follower in his court and I hear that Antipas is quite curious about me. His friends, who call themselves Herodians, told him of my encounter with some of Jerusalem’s finest. They came by the river and I called them…”

“…brood of vipers.” 

“Ah, so you heard.”

“I was across the river, amongst the reeds. Your voice carried across to where I was hiding.”

“They were not happy,” Yohanen said amused. “Anyway, this delighted the Herodians somewhat especially when many in the Sanhedrin were whispering disapprovingly of Antipas’ illegal marriage to his brother’s wife.⁴ He thinks that I may be a potential ally to him because of my sway with the people. Funny thing, though, I am of the same mind with those pompous leaders and teachers of the law, at least, concerning this unlawful marriage anyway.”

“What do you intend, Yohanen?”

“I will stay camped where the Jabbok feeds the Jordan River. Sooner or later, our illustrious Herod Antipas will find me here then maybe I could lead him to repentance.”

Then, Yeshua felt sadness when he looked toward Yohanen’s pleased face. 

Footnotes: [1] The Jabbok is a small river that fed into the Jordan River from the East which was Perean Territory; [2] Carem is a Judean village about 5 miles west from Jerusalem; [3] The Essenes were a mystic Jewish sect during the Second Temple period that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE; [4] Herod Antipas divorced his wife (Phasaelis, daughter of King Aretas of Nabataea) and unlawfully took Herodias, the wife of his brother Herod Philip I

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