Matthias

4. Are they Good or Bad Pharisees?

"Ah, Matthias!" said Ember bar-Shema, the leading Pharisee in Cana. He's surrounded by three others in similar dress: Timon bar-Ishi, Ohel bar-Lad, and Setout the Devout.

They, the Pharisees, dressed in white, with a black robe over it. They have blue tassels and a black head-wear over their back-head. These also have big phylacteries on their foreheads—those small boxes with a bit of the Written Torah on them. So these were the "separated ones". One could only admire the piety portrayed with these garments.

"Ah, Shalom, rabbis!" Matthias answered as he got in contact with them.

"The one from Jotapata with a good mind," now said Ohel bar-Lad. They were now in Ember's house. "How did the funeral of your father go?"

"Oh, Ohel, it went smooth," Matthias replied. "I had Nathan bar-Uzi take part in this funeral also."

Timon started, "Well, you have no more father or mother. But fear not, Matthias. God will take watch over you."

"I know," responded Matthias.

~

Ember, Timon, Ohel, Setout, and Matthias now went to the shopping place. As they go along in these robes, the other people stare at them... and revere them. Then a beggar called their attention. "Please, some money for the unfortunate, who has lost everything!"

The Pharisees stop and turn to the beggar, in messy clothing. The beggar continued, "Oh pious men, would you help me?"

Matthias felt bad for the man. He started to reach for his moneybag when he heard Setout the Devout answer coldly, "God hath punished you for your sin! Do not even speak to the pious—"

Surprised at this attitude, Matthias halted. Then he thought better of it. "Stop that," he said. "How do you know this man has sinned and brought on himself God's displeasure?"

Matthias, the only one of the five who was not a full-member scribe, drew out some charge: 7 bronze protahs and 10 bronze leptons. Well, that's all he could offer: 18.75% of a denarius. He handed over these orange-colored small coins to the poor man. At the same time, Matthias turned to the silenced Pharisees. "Did God Himself tell you why this man has lost everything?"

Some silence on their part.

He turned to the beggar. "Hear not what these men, saintly as they be, say about your personal life. Hear, these are for you. You can get some bread with this."

"Oh, oh thank you, good sir," expressed the man with some tears in his eyes. Matthias felt it: the beggar was reproved, and then Matthias demonstrated grace. As God would have wanted me to do.

The beggar finished by saying, "You're the best of the lot!"

"I... I thank you for that," Matthias formed an answer, "but I do not need that praise." So they walk on—these four Pharisees and Matthias.

"What's that all about, Matthias?" asked Ember.

"I... did what must be done," Matthias answered. "I am surprised at how uncaring you were with that beggar, the poor man."

"Misfortune comes on sinners," Setout the Devout told him. "Those who get crucified are under God's curse. The Zealots trying to get ahead of the Lord's Messiah—huh, they deserve the cross!"

Matthias said nothing for a while, and then said, "And say one of the Pharisees get accused of rebellion? And say the Romans crucify him so that he dies." He paused here. "So an innocent man would fall under God's curse!"

They turned to each other as they heard Matthias' words. Setout said, "Matthias, no 'innocent man' would get crucified. God would ensure such a man wouldn't get crucified, as he did to your Ethan friend years ago. So if a Pharisee gets crucified so that he dies, God is letting that man die for some sin."

Matthias thought deeply about this concept: only the unrighteous would see calamity. He voiced out: "But there's still the duty to help beggars. Does not God command in Haddebkarim (Deuteronomy): Thou shalt open thy hand wide unto thy brothers, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in the land?"

They said nothing. Then Ember, chief of the Pharisees in Cana, said, "You're a fine lad, Matthias. That's admirable about you. But you do not seem to catch on."

What does that mean?

~

Well, now Matthias was at Jotapata again. As he's at the blacksmith's, working on some nails using the anvil and hammer, someone hurried inside. "Sir!" said the man.

Matthias looked at the young man. "Shalom. Do you want something from me?"

"No, I come as a messenger!" gasped the man.

Now Matthias quit what he was doing. "So tell away."

"I've only heard of this recently," said the man with a Judean accent. "I was only there a few days."

Matthias waited patiently as the man gasped out of the intense running he was doing.

"Well, a new preacher!" he said. "And he's getting plenty of attention!"

Matthias nodded as he heard this. "Ah, so he's authorized by the Jerusalem authorities?"

"No sir," he told Matthias. "He is not."

Matthias said, "Oh, so of course, he'd get attention. Well, messenger, what's his name? His message?"

"He's... a certain John bar-Zacharias," the man replied. "He preaches by the Jordan River south of here."

What? Matthias now asked, "Not at the synagogues?"

"No, that's odd," the messenger said. "He preaches repentance from sin, saying all has become formalism and that there must be a revival before the Messiah comes. And he submerges the Jews under the River."

"Hold it, please," Matthias voiced out as he walked toward him, not being untimely; Matthias was just being calm. "Repentance," he said under his breath as he nodded. "At least some are starting to see the cycle of formalism in... well, yes." And Matthias put his right hand over the spare anvil. "Revival," he repeated.

He turned his gaze at the man. "Does he say he is some prophet of God?"

The messenger said, "A forerunner of the Messiah."

"Ah," Matthias said, "Elijah comes before the Messiah. I see." Then he noticed something, in the relation between this John's work and between the prophecy in Malachi. "This John fellow does sound like the prophet Elijah to me. Oh, rest assured, young man, I will go out to see him. I will." Next, the nail maker asked, "Have you told anyone else here?"

"Yes, to some," he stated.

"Some?" Matthias quickly questioned. "You have to tell everyone here in Jotapata! Don't you realize what's afoot? The long-awaited Messiah!"

The messenger now hurried out of the shop. Matthias grinned as he watched the young man go out through the streets of Jotapata, as far as Matthias could see. Yes, everybody needs to know! John bar-Zacharias, I'll be coming to you, to see what all this is about, thought Matthias.