“Yes you are.”

“Surely the true king of Israel has come to bring forth the kingdom,” one woman shouted.

Peter smacked her on the back of the head. “Stop helping.”

By the sheer mass of the crowd we were able to get Joshua out of the Temple and through the streets to Joseph of Arimathea’s house.

Joseph let us in and led us to the upper room, which had a high arched stone ceiling, rich carpets on the floors and walls, piles of cushions, and a long low table for dining. “You’re safe here, but I don’t know for how long. They’ve already called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.”

“But we just left the Temple,” I said. “How?”

“You should have let them take me,” Joshua said.

“The table will be set for the Passover feast of the Essenes,” Joseph said. “Stay here for supper.”

“Celebrate the Passover early? Why?” John asked. “Why celebrate with the Essenes?”

Joseph looked away from Joshua when he answered. “Because at the Essenes’ feast, they don’t kill a lamb.”

We all slept that night in the upper room of Joseph’s house. In the morning Joshua went downstairs. He was gone for a bit, then came back up the stairs.

“They won’t let me leave,” he said.

“They?”

“The apostles. My own apostles won’t let me leave.” He went back to the stairway. “You’re interfering with the will of God!” he shouted down. He turned back to me. “Did you tell them not to let me leave?”

“Me? Yep.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I sent Nathaniel to Simon’s to fetch Maggie. He returned alone. Maggie wouldn’t talk to him, but Martha did. Temple soldiers had been there, Josh.”

“So?”

“What do you mean, so? They were there to arrest you.”

“Let them.”

“Joshua, you don’t have to sacrifice yourself to prove this point. I’ve been thinking about it all night. You can negotiate.”

“With the Lord?”

“Abraham did it. Remember? Over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He starts out getting the Lord to agree to spare the cities if he can find fifty righteous men, but by the end, he talks God down to ten. You can try something like that.”

“That’s not completely the point, Biff.” Here he came over to me, but I found I couldn’t look him in the eye, so I went to one of the large arched windows that looked down on the street. “I’m afraid of this—of what’s going to happen. I can think of a dozen things I’d rather do this week than be sacrificed, but I know that it has to happen. When I told the priests that I would tear the Temple down in three days, I meant that all the corruption, all the pretense, all the ritual of the Temple that keeps men from knowing God would be destroyed. And on the third day, when I come back, everything will be new, and the kingdom of God will be everywhere. I’m coming back, Biff.”

“Yeah, I know, you said that.”

“Well, believe in me.”

“You’re not good at resurrections, Josh. Remember the old woman in Japhia? The soldier in Sepphoris, what did he last? Three minutes?”

“But look at Maggie’s brother Simon. He’s been back from the dead for months now.”

“Yeah, and he smells funny.”

“He does not.”

“No, really, when you get close to him he smells spoiled.”

“How would you know? You won’t get close to him because he used to be a leper.”

“Thaddeus mentioned it the other day. He said, ‘Biff, I believe this Simon Lazarus fellow has spoiled.’”

“Really? Then let’s go ask Thaddeus.”

“He might not remember.”

Joshua went down the steps to a low-ceilinged room with a mosaic floor and small windows cut high in the walls. Joshua’s mother and brother James had joined the apostles. They all sat there against the walls, their faces turned to Joshua like flowers to the sun, waiting for him to say something that would give them hope.

“I’m going to wash your feet,” he said. To Joseph of Arimathea, he said, “I need a basin of water and a sponge.” The tall aristocrat bowed and went off to find a servant.

“What a pleasant surprise,” Mary said.

James the brother rolled his eyes and sighed heavily.

“I’m going out,” I said. I looked at Peter, as if to say, Don’t let him out of your sight. He understood perfectly and nodded.

“Come back for the seder,” Joshua said. “I have some things I have to teach you in the little time I have left.”

There was no one home at Simon’s house. I knocked on the door for a long time, then finally let myself in. There was no evidence of a morning meal, but the mikveh had been used, so I guessed that they had each bathed and then gone to the Temple. I walked the streets of Jerusalem, trying to think of some solution, but everything I had learned seemed useless. As evening fell I made my way back to Joseph’s house, taking the long route so I didn’t have to pass the palace of the high priest.

Joshua was waiting inside, sitting on the steps to the upper room, when I came in. Peter and Andrew sat on either side of him, obviously there to ensure that he didn’t accidentally skip down to the high priest and turn himself in for blasphemy.

“Where have you been?” Joshua said. “I need to wash your feet.”

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a ham in Jerusalem during Passover week?” I said. “I thought it would be nice, you know, some ham on matzo with a little bitter herb.”

“He washed us all,” Peter said. “Of course we had to hold Bart down, but even he’s clean.”

“And as I washed them, they will go out and wash others, by showing them forgiveness.”

“Oh, I get it,” I said. “It’s a parable. Cute. Let’s go eat.”

We all lay around the big table, with Joshua at the head. Joshua’s mother had prepared a traditional Passover supper, with the exception of the lamb. To begin the seder, Nathaniel, who was the youngest, had to ask a question. “Why is this night different from every other night of the year?”

“Bart’s feet are clean?” said Thomas.

“Joseph of Arimathea is picking up the tab?” said Philip.

Nathaniel laughed and shook his head. “No. It’s because other nights we eat bread and matzo, but tonight we only eat matzo. Jeez.” He grinned, probably feeling smart for the first time in his life.

“And why do we only eat the matzo on this night?” asked Nathaniel.

“Skip ahead, Nate,” I said. “We’re all Jews here. Summarize. Unleavened bread because there was no time for it to rise with Pharaoh’s soldiers on our tail, bitter herbs for the bitterness of slavery, God delivered us into the Promised Land, it was swell, let’s eat.”

“Amen,” said everyone.

“That was pathetic,” said Peter.

“Yeah, was it?” I said angrily. “Well, we sit here with the Son of God, waiting for someone to come and take him away and kill him, and none of us is going to do a damn thing about it, including God, so forgive me if I’m not peeing all over myself about having been delivered out of the hands of the Egyptians about a million years ago.”

“You’re forgiven,” said Joshua. Then he stood up. “What I am, is in you all. The Divine Spark, the Holy Ghost, it unites you all. It is the God that is in you all. Do you understand that?”

“Of course God is part of you,” James the brother said, “he’s your father.”

“No, in all of you. Watch, take this bread.” He took a matzo and broke it into pieces. He gave a piece to everyone in the room and took a piece himself. Then he ate it. “Now, the bread is part of me, the bread is me. Now all of you eat it.”

Everybody looked at him.

“EAT IT!” He screamed.

So we ate it. “Now it is part of you, I am part of you. You all share the same part of God. Let’s try again. Hand me that wine.”

And so it went like that, for a couple of hours, and I think that by the time the wine was gone, the apostles actually grasped what Joshua was saying to them. Then the begging started, as each of us pleaded for Joshua to give up the notion that he had to die to save the rest of us.