“That first-the kind word first,” said Jesus, holding out his hand to him and smiling.

“Rabboni, my master,” whispered the son of Jonah, and he stooped and kissed his feet.

TIME IS NOT A FIELD, to be measured in rods, nor a sea, to be measured in miles; it is a heart beat. How long did this betrothal last? Days? Months? Years? Jolly and compassionate, the son of Mary went from village to village with the good word on his lips, from village to village, mountain to mountain, or sometimes by rowboat from one shore of the lake to the other, dressed in white like a bridegroom. And the Earth was his betrothed. As soon as he lifted his foot, the ground he had trodden filled with flowers. When he looked at the trees, they blossomed. The moment he set foot in a fishing boat, a favorable wind puffed out the sail. The people listened to him, and the clay within them turned to wings. The entire time this betrothal lasted, if you lifted a stone you found God underneath, if you knocked at a door, God came out to open it for you, if you looked into the eye of your friend or your enemy, you saw God sitting in the pupil and smiling at you.

The indignant Pharisees shook their heads. “John the Baptist fasts and weeps,” they scolded, glaring at him with leaden eyes, “he threatens, and does not laugh. But you-wherever there is a merry wedding, you’re first and foremost. You eat, drink and laugh with the rest, and the other day at a marriage in Cana you were not ashamed to dance with the young ladies. Who ever heard of a prophet laughing and dancing?”

But he smiled. “Pharisees, my brothers, I am not a prophet; I am a bridegroom.”

“A bridegroom?” the Pharisees howled, going through the motions of tearing their clothes.

“Yes, Pharisees, my brothers, a bridegroom. Forgive me, but I know no other way to describe it to you.”

He would turn to his companions, John, Andrew and Judas, to the peasants and fishermen who abandoned their fields and boats in order to run and hear him, seduced by the sweetness of his face, and to the women, who came with their infants in their arms.

“Rejoice and exult while the bridegroom is still among you,” he would tell them. “The days will also come when you shall be widows and orphans, but place your trust in the Father. Look at the faith of the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap, and yet the Father feeds them. Consider the flowers of the earth. They do not spin or weave, but what king could ever dress in such magnificence? Do not be concerned about your body, what it will eat, what it will drink or wear. Your body was dust and it will return to dust. Let your concern be for the kingdom of heaven and for your immortal soul!”

Judas listened to him and knit his brows. He was not interested in the kingdom of heaven. His great concern was for the kingdom of the earth-and not the whole earth, either, but only the land of Israel, which was made of men and stones, not of prayer and clouds. The Romans-those barbarians, those heathens-the Romans were trampling over this land. First they must be expelled; then we can worry about kingdoms of heaven.

Jesus saw the redbeard’s frown and from the wrinkles which stormed his forehead read his hidden thoughts.

“Heaven and earth are one, Judas, my brother,” he would say, smiling at him; “stone and cloud are one; the kingdom of heaven is not in the air, it is within us, in our hearts. I talk about that, about the heart. Change your heart, and heaven and earth will embrace, Israelites and Romans will embrace, all will become one.”

But the redbeard kept his indignation within him, brooding over it and forcing himself to be patient and wait. He does not know what he’s talking about, he grumbled to himself. He lives in a dream world and hasn’t the slightest idea of what goes on around him. My heart will change only if the world about me changes. Only if the Romans disappear from the land of Israel will I find relief!

One day Zebedee’s younger son turned to Jesus. “Forgive me, Rabbi,” he said, “but I find I don’t love Judas. When I go near him a dark force gushes out of his body, thousands of tiny, tiny needles which wound me; and the other day at dusk I saw a black angel whisper something in his ear. What did he say?”

“I have a foreboding of what he said,” Jesus answered with a sigh.

“What? I’m scared, Rabbi. What did he say?”

“You will learn when the time comes. I myself still do not know exactly.”

“Why do you take him with you, why do you let him follow you night and day? And when you speak to him, why is your voice sweeter than it is when you speak to us?”

“That is how it must be, John, my brother. He has the greater need for love.”

Andrew followed the new teacher, and day by day the world changed for him, grew sweeter. Not the world: his heart! Eating and laughter were no longer sins, the earth became firm underfoot, the sky leaned over it like a father and the day of the Lord was not a day of wrath and conflagration, not the end of the world-it was harvest, vintage, weddings, dancing: the perpetual renewal of the earth’s virginity. Every daybreak was a renascence; each morning God renewed his promise to hold the world in his sacred palm.

As the days went by, Andrew grew calm. He made friends with laughter and food; his pale cheeks reddened. In the evening or at noontime when he stretched out under a tree to eat, or when they were feted in some house by friends, and Jesus, as was his habit, blessed and divided the bread, Andrew’s entrails took this bread and immediately transubstantiated it into love and laughter. He still sighed now and then, however, when he remembered his family and friends.

“What will become of Jonah and Zebedee?” he asked one day, his eyes lost in the distance. The two old men seemed to him at the ends of the earth. “And what about Jacob and Peter? Where are they; in what surroundings are they now suffering?”

“We shall find them all,” Jesus answered with a smile, “and each one of them will find us. Do not be sad, Andrew. The Father’s courtyards are wide; there is room for all.”

One evening Jesus entered Bethsaida. The children took olive branches and palm leaves and ran out to greet him. Doors opened; housewives emerged. Abandoning the housework, they ran behind him to hear the good word. Sons lifted paralyzed parents to their shoulders; grandchildren led blind grandfathers by the hand. Men with bulging muscles dragged along those who were possessed with devils and ran behind him so that he might place his hand on the heads of these maniacs and cure them.

It chanced that this was the day when Thomas the peddler made his rounds of the village. Staggering under his load of spools of thread, combs, women’s wonder-working cosmetics, bronze bracelets and silver earrings, he was tooting his horn and hawking his wares when Jesus saw him. A sudden puff of wind: he was no longer Thomas the cross-eyed merchant. In his hand he held a carpenter’s level. He was surrounded by swarms of people, in some faraway country. Laborers were hauling stones and cement, masons were building a large temple, an imposing edifice with marble columns, and Thomas the master builder ran here and there with his level, checking their work… Jesus blinked, Thomas blinked in return-and suddenly he found himself before him once again, loaded down as before with his wares. His sly crossed eyes danced roguishly.

Jesus placed his hand on the peddler’s head. “Thomas, come with me. I shall load you with other wares: the spices and ornaments of the soul. Your rounds will then take you to the ends of the earth, and you will hawk your new wares and portion them out to men.”

“I’d rather sell these first,” said the shrewd merchant, chuckling, “and then… well, let’s wait and see what happens.” He swelled his shrill voice and began on the spot to hawk his combs, threads and wonder-working cosmetics.