The Last Shepherd by Wilbur Smith

Author:Wilbur Smith [Smith, Wilbur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Graogonzo
Published: 2019-12-10T16:00:00+00:00

13

To regain his strength, Jesus spent a few days with the Essenes at Qumran on his journey home.

In the wilderness, he had fed his soul rather than his body. After leaving the area of the Dead Sea, he passed Jericho and took the road north on the west side of the Jordan, the traditional route of Jews traveling between Judea and Galilee. Like all people living in the southern part of Judea, Titus said, I had heard of John, the fiery preacher who was baptizing people near Bethany in Perea and of his baptism of Jesus, people reporting about the strange appearance of the dove. I knew the time had come for Jesus to begin his ministry, and so I left my family to follow him.

The harvest had been plentiful with all of the family working along with the day laborers. Titus was shaking a limb on one of the last olive trees that was being harvested, the ripened fruit cascading down onto cloths that had been placed beneath it. His brother, Joel, was shaking another branch, the traditional method of harvesting olives in Palestine.

“God has been good to us this year,” Joel said, laughing, “but we’re both getting a little old for this sort of thing.”

“Speak for yourself, little brother,” Titus replied. “Age is just a state of mind.”

“Tell my body that.”

“We will be finished soon. Then comes the real work of working the presses. I won’t be here for that. It is time for me to follow the Nazarene.” Titus stopped shaking the limb, his work done.

“Marianne and I will miss you, but we know that you have a mission that God has given you. Our two sons and their families are already doing most of the work, so the farm is in good hands, the sheep being well tended. Life has been good to Marianne and me. We have been blessed.”

Titus and Joel began gathering the loose ends of the cloths and piling the olives into bunches. They left olives in the trees for gleaners. The sun was almost setting behind the hill near their home when they paid the day laborers and left the grove, the sons going to their homes and families. It was the first week in October, and all land owners in Palestine were harvesting their crops. Fall was a time for work and a time for dancing. Rains had come early and regularly that year, and the harvests had been huge. Already people were looking forward to the Feast of Tabernacles, which would begin on October 15.

Titus left early the next morning with his shepherd’s coat rolled and slung across a shoulder and his bag filled with fig cakes and bread and fruit. He also carried a water bag slung across his other shoulder. Maybe I should travel like the Essenes, he thought. They carry nothing except their spade.

Instead of taking the main road west of Jerusalem and then the road to Jericho, he went to the Hinnom Valley and then east around Jerusalem to the Kidron Valley.

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