Devil's Island (21 page)

But all of the important women had litters, and plenty of slaves to serve as porters. Naomi decided on the spot that her days of walking across town were over. She deserved to travel in a style commensurate with her wealth and position in society, and by Jupiter, she would—starting tomorrow.

By the time Naomi reached the crest of Mount Koressos, the sun was sinking behind her. Torches were already lit at the entrance to the family mausoleum, she noticed.

They must be having Mother's funeral.
The thought stopped her. She hated funerals and had already thought about death entirely too much that day. But in spite of her reluctance, she found herself walking toward the mausoleum rather than entering the villa.

She stood just inside the entrance, not wanting to be observed by the mourners. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the cave-like tomb, she could make out three figures standing in front of the bier. Abraham had his arm around Peter, who was sniffling and trying to stifle a sob, his hand over his mouth. Quintus had his hands raised. As he spoke, Naomi recognized the quotation; it was from a letter the apostle Paul had written while living in Ephesus many years before. John had read the same verses at Crispin's funeral.

“‘Listen,'” Quintus recited, “‘I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”'”

Hollow words,
Naomi told herself.
They're not true. Not true!
But her heart ached as she heard her father's broken voice join Quintus's.

“‘Where, O death, is your victory?'” they said in unison. “‘Where, O death, is your sting?'”

Unable to listen any longer, Naomi turned and ran toward the villa. She knew where the sting of death was. It was in her heart.

17

WITH JACOB IN THE LEAD, the three of them marched single file back through the cave's narrow passage and then went outdoors to watch the sunset as they ate their meal, such as it was. Rebecca spread her blanket on the ground and told John, “Use your blanket as a seat cushion. You'll be more comfortable.” She held his loaf of bread and the crude walking stick while the Apostle sat down.

When the others had sat down beside him, John bowed his head and blessed the food. “Lord, You taught us to pray, ‘Give us this day our daily bread.' We thank You now for this bread. May it be to our bodies as a sumptuous meal in the finest home, for wherever we are, You make Your home with us.”

“Amen,” Jacob and Rebecca said in unison.

It did not take long to eat their individual loaves of bread, and although it by no means filled him up, it was enough to stop Jacob's empty stomach from rumbling.

Rebecca brushed the crumbs from her stained tunic and asked, “Apostle, why did God allow this to happen? Why did He allow my mother to die? He could have stopped it, surely He could have.” Her mouth trembled as she spoke. “I've always tried to be good, and I don't understand it.”

“Pain is as personal and as inevitable as death, Rebecca. It comes to the young, the old, the learned, the ignorant, the rich, and the poor.” John leaned back against the rock at the opening of the cave. “Suffering comes to
every
believer sooner or later. No one permanently evades it.”

“But what is the purpose of it?” Jacob asked. “And how do we endure it?”

“Things always happen for a reason,” John said. “It may be a part of God's plan for us that we can't see at the moment, but in time—or in eternity—it will become clear to us. Suffering need not be a wild, meaningless spasm of fate; if surrendered, it can become the most creative and redemptive force in life.”

Jacob shook his head. “It's difficult to see anything creative or redemptive in this cruel place.” As they had landed, he had noted the long leather whips carried by the prison guards. He knew they wouldn't hesitate to use them at the least infraction of the rules, and he dreaded the horror the next morning would bring.

“Our faith does not explain or remove suffering,” John continued, his eyes on the camp below. “Faith does provide the inner resources for living through it, above it, and beyond it. We will suffer on Devil's Island for our faith in Jesus Christ, but God's grace will be sufficient for the journey.”

He paused for a moment and then asked, “Do you remember the story of Joseph?”

Jacob and Rebecca nodded.

“Think about it,” the Apostle said. “When Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery, he could not possibly understand that God was sending him into Egypt to prepare the world for famine. While there, Joseph was falsely accused of rape and sent to prison, but the Lord was with him. Eventually, when his brothers came to Egypt to buy grain to sustain their lives, Joseph understood why God had allowed him to be sold into slavery almost twenty years earlier. It had been part of God's long-range plan, a plan that Joseph could never have imagined. God not only spared Joseph's immediate family, He raised up a nation of millions out of a family of seventy-six people who had been saved because Joseph suffered unjustly as a slave.

“God may allow us to suffer on Devil's Island for a long-range plan none of us can see today. Perhaps He will do something through us on this island that will bless His church forever.”

John spoke with such a quiet conviction that it was hard not to believe him. Jacob knew he would be pondering the story of Joseph in the days ahead and praying for God's purpose to be revealed. He would also pray, he admitted to himself, for their suffering to end sooner than Joseph's had. Jacob couldn't imagine twenty days on Devil's Island, let alone twenty years.

“You promised us a story about Jesus,” Rebecca reminded the Apostle. “About how you met the Master by the sea.”

John gazed out over the water, a distant look in his eye. To their left, the dying rays of the sun cast an orange glow on the horizon. “About this time every evening my brother James and I would be preparing to cast off from the shore in one of our family's fishing boats. We worked for our father, Zebedee, and we were partners with Simon Peter and Andrew.”

“Wait a minute,” Jacob said. “You fished at night?”

“The best fishing on the Sea of Galilee happened at night. We would take two boats with lanterns on the bow and fish along the bank. When we saw the water churning with fish, chasing the minnows in a feeding frenzy, we would jump out with our nets and seine toward the shore, trapping the fish against the bank. I remember this one time . . .” John paused to laugh at the memory. “It was not long after we first met Jesus, and we thought He must have been crazy.”

“Why would you think the Lord was crazy?” Rebecca asked.

“Oh, I was a hotheaded teenager—about your age,” he told Rebecca, “and you couldn't tell me anything I didn't already know. One day Jesus came out to the shores of the Galilee, where we were cleaning and mending our nets after fishing unsuccessfully all night. A crowd had followed Jesus, and there were so many people they couldn't all hear Him. So He got in one of our boats and asked Simon to put out a little way from the shore. Then Jesus sat down in the boat and taught the people. We listened while we worked on our nets.

“After He had finished teaching the people, He told us, ‘Launch out into the deep water, and let down your nets for a catch.'

“When He said that, we looked at each other like He'd had a heat stroke. It was broad daylight. If there was one thing we knew about fishing on the Galilee, it was that you didn't fish in the daylight, and you certainly didn't fish in deep water.

“Simon Peter muttered under his breath, ‘Jesus is a carpenter. What does He know about fishing?'” John chuckled and shook his head. “That Simon, what a mouth he had.”

“Did the Lord hear him say that?” Rebecca's jaw had dropped.

“I don't know,” John replied. “But Simon thought about it a minute and then said, ‘Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught a thing. But because You say so, I'll do it.'

“We rowed farther away from the shore and let down the nets, thinking it was futile, yet not wanting to offend this young new rabbi. What a scene—I'll never forget it. It was as if the fish fought each other to jump into our nets. Before we knew it, the nets were full to the point of breaking, and we signaled for the others to bring the second boat out from the shore. We filled their nets with fish as well, and when we hauled the nets into the boats, the load was so heavy, I thought we might sink before we got back to the shore.

“We were rejoicing over the great catch, and then Jesus said something I'll never forget. He looked at us with eyes that pierced into our innermost beings. ‘Follow Me,' He said, ‘and I will make you fishers of men.'”

John shrugged as he summed up their reaction to the invitation. “There didn't seem to be anything else to do. So we left our nets and followed Him. We became His disciples full-time, and soon there were twelve of us.”

Daylight was fading rapidly but none of them moved to enter the cave. It was the only time during that long, horrible day that Jacob had felt a moment of peace, and he didn't want it to end. “What was your favorite miracle?” he asked John. “What moment of all moments did you most enjoy?”

John picked up his new walking stick and set it across his lap, twirling the stick as he thought for a moment. “It was another night on the Sea of Galilee,” he said. “The time He came walking out of the darkness on the raging sea. I remember it like it happened last night.”

“Please tell us,” Rebecca urged. She leaned forward and placed a hand on the Apostle's arm. “I could listen to you talk about Jesus all night.”

With bony fingers, John reached over and patted Rebecca's hand lightly. “You remind me so much of your mother,” he said gently. “When she was about your age, she was so eager to hear the old stories. She would sit at my table and make me tell stories until I was hoarse. And so beautiful, she was. Just like you.”

Tears welled up in Rebecca's eyes at the mention of her mother.

“That's where she met your father, you know. At my house. They would sit, one on either side of me, just like we're sitting now, and Elizabeth would beg me to tell a story, then Abraham would pepper me with questions. He was a new believer then.”

Hearing about his mother and father stirred both sorrow and anger in Jacob, and he couldn't bear to listen to John's ramblings about his parents. “I thought you were going to tell us about the time Jesus walked on water,” he said roughly.

“Oh, yes, I was.” John laughed softly. “You'll have to forgive me. At my age, my mind tends to wander.”

Suddenly two rats ran across their blanket toward the mouth of the cave, and with surprising speed John jabbed furiously at them with his walking stick. He managed to strike the tail of one rat against the rock, but the glancing blow was not enough to stop him. The animal simply squealed and streaked into the cave.

Rebecca had jumped up at the first sight of the rats. Now she screamed, “They went inside! Two rats just ran into our cave!”

“Two worthless, unwanted visitors,” John said. “The first one I'll name Domitian
,
and the second I'll call Damian. I'll get them both someday.” He exploded with laughter. “Your day of judgment is coming, Domitian. Yours too, Damian,” he called into the darkness of the cave. “Don't get too comfortable in our house.”

He reached up for Rebecca's hand. “Sit back down, child. I'll tell one more story and then we'll retire for the evening.”

As daylight turned to deep shadow, the wind whirred around the rocks and stirred up the dust at their feet. Rebecca drew her cloak around her. “Do you want to go inside?” Jacob asked.

“Not yet.” She shook her head, and Jacob wondered if she was simply prolonging the moment before they would have to lie on the damp floor of the cave and worry about Domitian and Damian crawling over them—
How like John to name the rats,
he thought— or whether, like him, she just wanted to stare into the distant sea in the direction of home. Soon darkness would completely obliterate their mountaintop view.

John stroked his scraggly white beard. “Where was I?” he asked Jacob.

“The Sea of Galilee,” Jacob answered. “The night Jesus appeared in the storm.”

“You've heard me tell this one before.”

“Not fully. But you've referred to it in sermons, and it's in Matthew's Gospel. I want to hear your firsthand account now.”

“All right,” he said. “That day Jesus had fed five thousand men, plus their wives and children—but that's another story. After that momentous miracle, He told us to get in the boat and go to the other side of the sea, saying that He would meet us on the opposite shore later. Then He sent the multitude away.”

“Why did He do that?” Rebecca probed.

“To keep them from following us. You have to remember that everyone He touched got well, and He cast out demons with a word. So huge crowds began to follow Him, wanting to see signs and wonders.

“The twelve of us got in the boat while the Master went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. It was about midafternoon when we shoved off from the shore and hoisted the sail. At sundown we were in the middle of the sea, when suddenly a vicious wind came roaring down the Jordan Valley. The mountains formed a perfect wind tunnel for any breeze blowing in the upper Galilee, and that tunnel emptied onto the sea. I lived my youth around that sea, and I've seen it as smooth as glass one minute and a terrifying tempest the next.