Scroll II
CHAPTER XV
Abishag

Just what it was that awakened him each morning well before daylight, Jesus was not sure.

He was not unhappy about it. These were the best hours of the day, times to meet with his Father. On this morning, he rolled over on his pallet and stared at the wall. He thought of the events of the previous day. He thought of big Nathan, not with resentment, but with compassion and disappointment that somehow, he had not been able to reach him. What a disciple he would make! With that thought in mind, Jesus stood and stretched.

Quietly, so as not to disturb anyone, he wandered out into the courtyard of Peter's home and into the cramped streets of Capharnaum. A dog barked, came trotting up to him and received a scratch behind the ears for its trouble. Jesus smiled at the wagging tail and felt a strange comfort as the dog licked his hand and thought, Best thing I ever did! Thoughts like these came with recurring frequency. They disturbed him. The paradox of his God-humanness had become a source of continuing distraction. He could never, it seemed, quite get used to it.

For the past year since his baptism, several of us had tagged along with Jesus but we had yet to draw together into a unit, a cadre of men devoted to our leader and to each other. Jesus realized he needed others in his work, not only to effect the labor of his purpose, but also however lame or ineffective we may prove to be, he had to teach us his way. He had to open our minds to the Father. He sensed, perhaps after the events in Nazareth, he knew that his time was short. He had to find others and teach them to carry on his work.

His thoughts wandered from these things and back again, occasionally being distracted by the dog trotting about as he strolled. The stars overhead glistened in the morning chill. At length, he found himself standing at the foot of a pier which led out into the lake a hundred feet or so. There were several such piers along the waterfront of Capharnaum. Fishing boats were tied along both sides bobbing in the gentle waves lapping the shores. Men were beginning to attend the boats even now before the night sky gave way to approaching dawn. In the distance, Jesus recognized the forms of Peter and Andrew. He smiled. He hadn't needed to be concerned about disturbing their sleep back at the house.

There were only a couple of boats tied to the pier where Jesus stood. No one had yet arrived to employ them in the day's fishing. With the dog loping along at his side, Jesus walked out to the end of the pier and sat down, removed his sandals from his feet and felt the cool water embrace them. And there he became quiet with the hush of daybreak. Father, let your Spirit come. As the words escaped from his mind, a tingling, burning sensation crept over his skin causing the hairs on his neck to prickle. His thoughts mingled with his eternal roots. From the clear cistern of his Father's Presence, he drank deeply and long. Waves lapped gently at the pilings. The sky turned into an array of color. Jesus felt something touch his feet. He looked down to see small fish playing around his toes beneath the surface of the water. The consummate peace in his heart caused his eyes to fill with glad tears. He was his Father's Son, nothing could change that; a delicious moment of spiritual ecstasy. He was loath to release it. He held out his hands, palms turned upward. The dog, lying next to him, whined. Jesus laughed out loud.

αθω

His reverie disturbed by the clump of fishermen's feet on the pier. The day had begun. The village waterfront stretched almost 1000 feet along the shores of Galilee. There were many fishermen, many boats. Peter and Andrew had moved to this place from their native Bethsaida precisely because the fish were more plentiful in the northwest corner of the lake. If there was a "fishing hole" in Galilee, Capharnaum was it. The village itself was just that, a 'village' of perhaps 1500 souls about three miles from the place where the headwaters of the Jordan River emptied into the lake. Yet, it enjoyed the privileges of being a border town along the main imperial highway leading to Damascus. The village controlled a much larger portion of the north shore than just its dockings and moorings; stretching from the great spring on the west, later to be named Et-Tabgha, to the Jordan on the east, a distance of almost five miles.

The sun peeked over the rim of the eastern hills, turning the lake into a bowl of shimmering gold. Silhouettes of fishermen casting nets in the shallows created the impression that they were harvesting precious metal instead of fish. Jesus stood from his position at the end of the pier, slipped his wet feet into his sandals and turned to go, his new friend, the dog, following close by. Stepping around and through the fishermen, he reached the foot of the pier. One of the men catching his eye, smiled after the dog. "Poor critter," he remarked, "its owner drowned a few months ago in a storm and his widow can't afford to care for it. We all feed it from time to time, but it just runs the streets. Sweet dog, it is."

He watched the dog run instantly to the nearest patch of grass and squat. A female! thought the Son of God. Perhaps I shall give her a name. He thought about that. He tried and rejected several names. She was a lovely animal, soft dark eyes, a coat of long, black hair generously splotched around the shoulders and face with white, that also ran down the length of one leg. She looked to be a working dog similar to the ones often used by shepherds to work their sheep. After several moments of considering, he thought of a name, . . . Abishag! I will call her--Abishag!

So it was that this abandoned, neglected animal was named after the beautiful maiden sought out to keep King David warm in his old age; the woman who later became the wife of King Solomon.

That settled, Jesus turned to walk among the things that are common among fishing waterfronts anywhere in the world, the smell of dead fish, scattered coils of rope, piles of net and cork. Abishag trotted happily along, sniffing about and occasionally chasing a scurrying rat.

He had not gone far when he encountered Simon in whose home he had spent the night. Simon, whom he had named Peter, and his brother, Andrew, were busy with their nets, casting them into the lake and hauling in their load of denizens. It would be, it seemed, a profitable day. Good men, Jesus thought. Faithful, hard-working men. They would make superb disciples. More than that, they would be my apostles--the carriers of my message to the world! It is just such men as these to whom my work should be entrusted. They are salty, rugged and colorful; the best in all the earth.

In a moment, they saw Jesus watching them. Leaving their nets for a moment of greeting, they approached. They both sensed something was different about him, a commanding air, a compelling presence. What did they feel? Who knows the hearts of men or how they respond to omnipotent, unrelenting love!? Jesus opened his mouth to speak. The words were plain, simple and straightforward: "Stay with me, Peter." His gaze turned to his brother. "Stay with me, Andrew, and I will make you both fishers of men." While both men had spent considerable time with Jesus to this point, they were aware of something, they knew not what, something different; something that compelled them.

Their nets lay in the water, held afloat by small corks. They took no thought of the nets or the fish they might contain, and they went with Jesus. Other fishermen would claim their nets. Other fishermen looked on as their friends in labor left behind all they had ever known. They never looked back. Neither, apparently, did Abishag.

As he walked the waterfront with Peter and Andrew, he observed the two brothers, James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They were in a boat with their father preparing their nets. He well knew these men. As had Peter and Andrew, these two men had also been with him often during the past year. When Jesus called them, they, too, left their boat and their father and went with their new Lord into the village. Zebedee, his eyes following the departure of his sons, remained behind, pained and speechless.