When Jesus Wept by Brock Thoene, Bodie

Peniel said, “but the floors and the nooks and crannies. I’m sorry to overhear your conversation, but then, I was here first.”
    Peniel, blind from birth, was a sweet-natured creature in spite of his disability. The son of a potter, he had a hard life, subsisting by begging for the charity of strangers.
    “Don’t look around,” Peniel added, “but here comes Lord Caiaphas now.”
    He was correct. The sensitive hearing of the blind man had picked out the strident, pompous tones of the high priest before he and his entourage rounded the corner of the Court of Israel and hove into view. Watching them arrive was like being on the docks at Caesarea Maritima when a fleet of galleys maneuvered into port.
    With a nod that barely passed for courtesy toward Nicodemus and a mere curl of the lip toward me, the high priest arrived outside the door to his offices. A swirl of sycophants orbited around him as if they were bits of wood caught in a current and he the drain toward which they were being drawn.
    “Lord Caiaphas,” one of the acolytes said in a fawning manner, “there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.” He waved a perfumed hand toward Peniel and spoke as if the boy were one of the gilded railings and not living at all. “Tell me your opinion. Who sinned—this man or his parents—that he would be so cursed as to be born blind and live such a wretched life?”
    In sonorous syllables reeking of boredom, the high priest replied, “Probably all of them. Many generations of sinners, no doubt. He was utterly conceived in sin and born in sin and no doubt lives that way as well. Still, it’s an uninteresting question, since one thing is absolutely certain.”
    “And that is?”
    “He will never be healed. Never, since time began, has it been recorded that anyone ever opened the eyes of one born blind. See for yourselves that I’m right. All the authorities agree that it is hopeless—the ultimate in divine retribution and an example to us all.”
    With that the high priest and his flotilla swept on into the building. Over his shoulder he addressed Nicodemus: “Nicodemus,don’t be late to the council meeting, or we’ll have to start without you.”
    The door of his chambers banged shut behind him.
    Nicodemus was seething. “Doesn’t he just hope I’ll be late. Because he knows my uncle and I are two of only a handful on the Sanhedrin who don’t automatically support him in all he says and does.” Turning toward the blind boy and stooping low, he said, “That was disgraceful and cruel, Peniel. I’m sorry you had to hear that.”
    Smiling, Peniel replied, “I’ve heard much worse, really. And I am an object lesson, you know. I like to think that when folk come to the Temple to pray, and they see me, that they are reminded of all they have to be thankful for. Besides, once a year Lord Caiaphas sends each of the Nicanor beggars a silver coin.”
    “Once a year …,” Nicodemus sputtered. “Here, boy, are five silver coins, and I regret I have no more with me.”
    “I am going to make a fellowship offering,” I said. “Would you like a haunch of mutton when I come back this way?”
    Peniel’s face beamed. “Very much! Thank you both, very much, kind sirs.”
    “I must leave you,” Nicodemus said to me. “Perhaps I’ll ride out to visit with you one day next week. You should be on the council yourself, you know.”
    “Not me,” I protested. “I have no desire to get involved with politics. It never leads to anything good.”
    “Amen to that,” Peniel concurred. “That’s why I keep my ears open and my mouth shut.”

    I selected the ram for my fellowship offering from the preapproved flocks available for purchase on the Temple Mount.Because I shamelessly used Nicodemus’s name, I was not seriously overcharged, as were all the unsuspecting pilgrims from the Galil and elsewhere.
    The eastern expanse of the Temple plaza was entirely given over to the noise and smell of commerce. Entire