The Last Sermon

The Last Sermon

Iron Bars

 

A defining “CLANG” resounded as the door made of cold iron bars was slammed behind the young man who had just been heartily pushed into the cell by the guard.  His foot slipped on one of the slime coated cobble stones and his knee smashed against another as he fell to the floor.  He was able to break his fall with an outstretched forearm, but the stone practically broke his arm as well.  He lay there in pain wondering about the things that had just happened in the recent hours and what was going to happen to him the next day.  His closest friends had turned against him, the religious leaders, many of whom he knew, had condemned him.  Even strangers who had attended his meetings and sermons seemed now to despise him.

 

            As he lay there on the cold stones, a silence filled the whole dark prison as the guards footsteps faded into the darkness while he walked away.  Yeshua felt more alone than he ever had in his life. “How could this happen?” he thought to himself as more thoughts of the people he knew went through his mind.  “I only taught them to love but they learned to hate and mock.  Did I err in my teaching?  Was there something else I should have said to them?  Did God not hear my prayers in the garden?”   As he lay there pondering all these things, there came a quiet voice in the darkness, but he only heard as a mumbling at first along with his own thoughts.

 

            “I say, what’re you in here for?” the voice now became clearer and Yeshua brought himself to his feet.  He quickly learned to step between the cobbles so as not to slip again and made his way to the iron bars of the door holding them for balance.

 

            “I’m a preacher.” Yeshua said quietly in the direction he thought the voice had come from.

 

            “Ah, then you are just a thief like us!”  The voice returned from the darkness.

 

            “No, I said I am a preacher.  I bring the message of God’s kingdom to the people.”

 

            “I heard what you said.”  The prisoner answered, “You just steal away the hearts or others while I steal their gold.  So that makes both of us thieves the way I see it my friend.  My wife went off to follow one of you ‘preachers’ a couple of years ago, perhaps it was you.”

 

            “Did she want you to stop stealing?”  A third voice called out, now from the other side of Yeshua’s cell.

 

            “That’s exactly what happened” the other prisoner called back a bit louder now, “did you perhaps bump into my wife after she left me?”  He joked.

 

            “No, I have a faithful betrothed who I would soon marry if I was not condemned here with you two.”  The other thief, who was a bit younger than the others, said.

 

            “You are a lucky man to have a faithful bride.”  Yeshua spoke now to the second thief.  Yeshua did not ask what the young man had stolen as he knew that the amount was not as important as the act itself.  “Have you made your peace with God yet, my friend?”  Yeshua asked the young man.

 

            “What good would that do for me?”  The young man asked back.  “Tomorrow we shall all die up on that hill and that will be the end of it.”  He added thinking about the fate he was going to face in the morning.

 

The Torch

 

The three condemned men stopped talking as they saw the approaching torch of the prison cook who was carrying four wooden bowls of soup.  “Here is your dinner men.”  He spoke to the prisoners as a group, “I wish it was a better last meal, but it’s all I am allowed to give you by the law.”

 

“Is this the preacher that you told us about kind cook?”  The young prisoner asked the cook as he came to the opening in the door and accepted  his bowl.

 

“You mean Rabbi Yeshua Ben Yosef, the one whom I told you about the other day?”  The cook asked the young thief as he looked toward the center cell of the three.

 

“I think so said the young thief eagerly taking the bowl from the cook’s hand. “I think this man over here is him.”  He added pointing to Yeshua’s cell.

 

“It is I.”  Yeshua spoke from his cell as the cook approached him and handed him his bowl of soup which Yeshua put down beside himself as the cook began to speak.

 

“My daughter and I were at one of your meetings out at the Oasis last year.”  The cook began speaking calmly to Yeshua.  “She had been possessed by some sort of evil spirit for several years, but when she heard you speak, the spirit left her immediately and she has been healed ever since.  His bride is a friend of my daughter and he will tell you that it is true.”  The cook said casting his eyes towards to the younger thief’s cell.

 

“That is true Rabbi, his daughter is a far better person after listening to you preach than she ever would have been without hearing you.”  The young man said.  “Rebe, that’s my betrothed’s name, told me so herself.  And Rebe has become a changed person since hearing about you from his daughter as well.  She now cares for her old grandmother and teaches small children at the temple school.”

 

“A lot it did for you!”  The other thief scoffed from Yeshua’s other side.

 

“Rebe told me about the Rabbi here, but I decided not to listen.”  The young thief said.  “It was my own fault.  “Hey Rabbi Yeshua, is it too late for me, now that we are all to die tomorrow?”

 

“Is it too late to hear about God’s forgiveness?”  Rabbi Yeshua questioned back.  “It is never too late to change your heart my friend, God has more patience than any man or woman.  As long as you have ears to hear, or any of your other senses, it is never too late.”

 

All the while, a fourth prisoner similarly named Yeshua with the surname Bar-Abbas sat quietly in his cell and never spoke a word.

 

Right there in the prison with the two thieves and the cook standing there holding the torch, Yeshua Ben Josef the young Rabbi from Natzeret began to tell His last story.

 

The Journey

 

“A young man set off on a journey one time to seek the truth about God.”  Yeshua began.  “He travelled far from home in a direction towards a place where an old man had told him about, when he was just a boy.  The journey was hard, and several times the young man thought he might give up and just go home where his father would take care of him as he always had in the years past.”

           

Along the way, he came across an old lady who gave him cool water to drink. “Look for God over there on the other side of that mountain,” she said while pointing to a distant peak almost invisible in the haze.  The young man set off towards the mountain and after several days he reached the peak and there on the other side he met some people who lived there.   They lived in caves carved into the side of the mountain and came down from the caves by lowering ladders which were pulled up at night for safety.  These people were devout religious people, men and women, who studied the ancient texts daily and said prayers constantly. 

 

“Is this the place where I will find God?” the young man asked several of the inhabitants of the caves after they had let down their ladders and come down to meet him.

 

“We have heard that God lives down by the sea,” one of the older cave dwellers said.  “If you follow the river all the way to its mouth you will surely find Him there.”

 

So the young man said goodbye to his new friends and set off on another journey down the river.  In a few days, he came across a beautiful temple with golden spires reaching towards the heavens and a golden roof that glistened in the sunlight and people walking around who wore white robes girdled with golden braided belts but no shoes lest they trample one of God’s creatures.”

 

“Is this where God lives? The young man asked one of the white robed people, a young girl with a silk cloth covering her head.”

 

“We have built this temple for God to dwell in,” the young girl answered, “but I have never seen Him here.” she added, and then said… “The priest has told us that God will not come and live here until we are pure enough, but lives some distance away towards the setting sun, it is several days journey.

 

So he set off again but met a blind fisherman after three days walk along the coast.  “God is everywhere” the fisherman told the young man.  “The truth is that God is in the mountains, and in the temples that men build.  He is in the sea that you can see in front of you and in the very air that you and I and all people breathe.”

 

The young man spent the rest of the day learning from the old fisherman and then set off towards home.  When he got home he began to teach others the truth he had learned and that God was not in a particular place or with a particular group of people, but that God was the very life within us.  Each of us could have everlasting life if we could just believe what the young man taught us of all that he had learned about God.

 

“There is nothing that people can do to have God come and dwell in their mountains or temples,” Yeshua said to the young thief, “but if you believe in his message He will forgive you of your sins and come and live within your heart immediately.

 

The young thief then said to the Rabbi, “I believe in you Rabbi Yeshua, I want God to dwell in me and I am not afraid to die.”

 

The other thief heard the story and would think about it until he was about to die the next day, asking for forgiveness at the last moment.  The fourth criminal Yeshua Bar-Abbas who was the only one not crucified on the following day never, spoke a word.  More important than that, he never heard a word of the story that the man, with the same name as his, had told.

 

 

Reviews

[J.M. Barrett]

As a believer, I enjoyed this story very much.

“I only taught them to love but they learned to hate and mock."
This is the essence of human nature. I loved this sentence because it so perfectly describes our ability to "hear" yet our inconsistencies.

“You are a lucky man to have a faithful bride.”
I like the undertone of this. Whether it was intentional or not. I almost feel as if Yeshua is stating His disappointment with His adulterous bride (the church) in a subtle way.

"Yeshua did not ask what the young man had stolen as he knew that the amount was not as important as the act itself."
Another one of my favorite sentences within this story. I feel like you accurately portrayed the heart and nature of Jesus.

Wonderful dialogue within this piece. It is accurate, realistic, and true to it's time period.

I enjoyed the characters within the story. I liked how lesser known biblical characters seem to have the spotlight (aka the cook and the thieves).

You established a great "story-telling" tone in The Journey.

'There is nothing that people can do to have God come and dwell in their mountains or temples,” Yeshua said to the young thief, “but if you believe in his message He will forgive you of your sins and come and live within your heart immediately."'

Wonderful message.
Wonderful story.

[ettorney]

Hmmm. Thought provoking. Telling Jesus tale like this makes His story approachable and readable. I enjoyed it. One question. I don't understand the reference to the other Yeshua. What was his purpose in the story?

[Norma M Sutton]

I could feel the dark dank air and see pictures of what was happening.

[Gandré]

you are right. I liked this a lot.