I held out my arms to him as we stood in front of our home. He backed away.
“...Father, remember how we visited together at Qumran? Remember that old long-bladed saw, how I repaired its handle three times?
“Mama gave you that shirt at the Feast of Lights...”
He turned and walked away, trembling.
ÿ
When I was staying at the home of Gehazi, after preaching in the synagogue, after healing, Barabbas appeared. Jamnia is his village and he entered the house of Gehazi without knocking. A great tall hulk, he loomed over me; then he knelt and begged me to accept him.
Dressed in goat’s skin, his face and beard wild, he seemed ill, perhaps deranged. I tried to calm him, to reason with him.
“I should have been crucified,” he repeated in a hoarse voice.
For a long while we remained together, talking, praying, hoping.
ÿ