Sacred Scrolls; Chapter 29

 

Sacred Scrolls; Chapter 29

© 2021 by Amber Wright

ANOTHER TROPHY

Here comes trouble, Junia nearly groaned the thought aloud but stopped herself. Nicolas would no doubt have a retort which she did not wish to hear on that fine, sunny afternoon. The day was too nice for that.

“Nobody.” Judith frowned at her brother. “Why didn’t you come through the front door like guests always do?”

“Because I’m family.” Nicolas gave her a twisted grin. “And because I wanted to hear what juicy gossip you two were saying—so I can repeat it.”

“Shame on you, Nicolas!” Judith shook her first finger at him and went back out to the patio. “Buns on their way,” she threw back to them.

Nicolas pulled out a reed-woven chair and sat down at the head, crossing his arms. “I’m the boss here when Rufus isn’t here.”

“No, you’re not.” Judith placed the bowl of hot buns on the table and seated herself. “I am, but you can ask the blessing.”

After Nicolas had said “Amen”, he looked over at Junia with quizzical brown eyes. “So…I’ve heard you’re in love. Are you?”

At that sudden statement, Junia choked on her milk. She gasped for air. Finally, she caught her breath and gave him a frown, biting into her feathery light bun. “You almost killed me there, Nicolas!”

“Then I better warn Demetrius not to mention anything about love to you.” He found this funny. “Otherwise, you’ll have another panic attack.”

“Panic attack?” Junia felt her bun pause midair between her fingers. “That was no such thing. You just startled me when you said that.” She took another bite of bread, “This bun is really good, Judith.”

Nicolas began eating his food.

“Now Nicolas, what about yourself—if you seem to know so much about love? Have you declared your love to Tiria yet or,” here she snorted out a laugh, “has she asked you to marry her yet?”

Nicolas’ face turned red as he choked on his milk. After a few strangled moments, his face cooled and his tongue began. “Why in creation are you sticking Tiria onto me? Just because she comes to talk to me doesn’t mean I like her. So there!”

“Easy boy!” Junia laughed, shaking her head. “I didn’t mean to rile you like that. I was only teasing you back.”

“Besides,” Nicolas had a half-injured air, “I don’t have to marry Tiria if I don’t want to. I can have any girl I want if I set my mind to it.”

Judith looked at her brother with an incredulous stare. She pinched a piece from her bun and put it into her mouth, looking amused.

“We aren’t vain, are we, Nicolas?” Junia took a cube of cheese.

“Girls!” Nicolas stuffed his mouth with cooked fish and eyed both of them through furrowed brows. “I don’t think I’ll get married at all if all girls are like you two!”

Junia and Judith shared a laugh. Nicolas only dug at his food fiercely as if he meant poking his food for emphasis.

“Well, you know for one thing,” Junia said casually as lunch was almost finished. “Tiria isn’t a bit like me.”

“Oh, Tiria!” Nicolas rolled his eyes exasperatedly. “There you go again, flapping that big jaw of yours.”

“Nicolas!” Judith gave her brother a stern look.

Immediately, Nicolas mumbled. “Sorry, Junia.”

“That’s alright.” Junia said between her mouth full of fish. “Sorry myself, then.”

Nicolas grinned good-naturedly again, and Junia heard Judith take a deep breath. She inwardly smiled. Just like old times…

~

Junia was returning home from Judith’s house when she spotted a hooded man sitting slumped on the street beside their gate. She stopped, bit onto her bottom lip, wondered what to do. I’ll have to pass that man really close to walk to my house. Who is he? A murderer? A vagabond? She forced herself to breathe calmly. No trace of fear, Junia. She felt her heart beat rapidly, unsteadily. One, two…breathe, she commanded her constricting throat.

Junia was about to make that dash for the gate and rush into the house when the hooded man moved and made a moaning sort of noise. She froze, teeth rattling as she let out a horrified gasp. The man’s brown robe meant…the band. And Demetrius was no longer their captain. What would happen to her now? She felt her throat tighten.

The man started to sit upright, looked up at her, spoke in a voice hoarse, slow, weak. “Junia?”

Junia—the man knows me? How? Her heart crashed to a halt. “W-who a-are you?”

“Marcus.” He tried to clear his throat. “Will you…help…me? I…been stabbed.”

The effort of his words seemed to drain his entire energy for when his last word ended, he slumped over onto the street floor. When he slumped over, his left arm fell from his lap a bleeding mess. Her stomach convulsed with vomit, rising to the tip of her throat in a burning indigestion. Her swallow was thick, acidly.

Junia steadied herself for one short moment; then, she rushed past the bleeding stranger in a whirl. “Meh’tehr! Pah’tehr! Andronika! Quick!”

~

Marcus opened his eyes and tried to remember what had happened. He had been on a “mission”, a man pulled out a knife and his arm began to bleed. He started running to where he knew Junia lived. The rest was gone from him.

Total blackness.

Now his eyes opened to a brightly lit room where faces hovered above him and voices juggled through his fevered head. A girl's voice spoke.

“Marcus?”

He tried to clear his foggy mind as the voice speaking to him seemed strangely familiar. Her distinctive face stood out. Large dark eyes, petite features and silky brown hair lining a creased forehead.

“Marcus?” the voice repeated, familiar, comforting, welcoming.

His eyes snapped open. “Andronika!”

“Yes, it’s me.” Andronika put another cool rag on his forehead. “You saved me from a watery grave. Now it’s my turn to save you by God’s grace.”

“How long…have I…been here?” He took a few shaky breaths to regain his air.

“This is the third day.” Andronika spoke with a catch in her voice. “We almost lost you several times but you pulled through somehow. God had a plan for you, Marcus, to live…that’s why. The same way He had a plan for me to live.”

“A plan?” This was new. The mere thought excited him.

“Don’t exhaust yourself.” Andronika quieted him. “You’re still quite weak. I’ll explain to you later about the plan.”

“Don’t forget.” Marcus closed his eyes again, drifting into a haze-like slumber.

~

Soon Marcus’ strength returned enough for him to sit up on his couch and the first thing he said was, “You promised to tell me about the plan, about why I didn’t die yet.”

“I’ll try to explain.” Andronika sat on a reed-woven chair beside Junia who was changing the bandage on his arm.

Junia gently washed Marcus’ stab wound and wrapped it again with a fresh bandage as Andronika related to him her experience of coming back to Christ. How her close call of death made her realize just what she was: nothing without God, hopeless, afraid.

“And you, Marcus, were my angel in the form of flesh.” Andronika concluded with a grateful smile. “God was using you—even then.”

“Can God use me now?” Marcus looked up at her with deeply moved eyes. “Even me—a thief, a murderer?”

“Even you—a thief, a murderer, Marcus.” Andronika reassured him. “He took me—even me—so low and degraded. It’s not what we are but what He is. His own blood bought us eternally. We can’t undo Calvary no matter how hard people try.”

“Calvary?” Marcus asked slowly. “What’s Calvary?”

“Calvary was where Jesus died to pay the debt we couldn’t pay,” Andronika began and told him the story of the cross, His pain and His resurrection on Easter Morning.

As she finishing, Marcus had this look of awe on his pale, peaked face.

“We were the debtors but He paid the fee simply,” here Andronika gulped, “because He loved us. We didn’t deserve it. All we can do now is accept His pardon.”

Junia listened, feeling the Story more vividly being told from another.

“How can I begin?” Marcus stared confusedly from Andronika to Junia, inexperienced in beginning this New Road. “Where can I begin?”

“All it takes is a prayer,” Junia told the eager young man who wanted to begin a life that God could use, “and your faith will carry you through.”

“We begin at the crossroads,” Andronika smiled, happily, “where our road meets God’s. Just leave your own road and take God’s road. Start at His first signpost, Calvary’s cross. That’s where Jesus died to take our sins so we could be free.”

“Free?” Marcus echoed. “How I wanted to be free for so long but never knew how.”

“Now’s your time, Marcus.” Junia said quietly. “God has had this plan for you even before the world began—because when He was forming all creation, you were in His mind. I was. Andronika was. My parents were. All of us were—all of God’s children.”

“And to think,” Marcus looked thoughtful, “I never even knew it all these years—that God was only a hand-length away. All I’ve got to do is take His hand, right—to begin?”

“Right.” Junia smiled at the thoroughness of his thinking, something that even some church people had a hard time doing. “The Road is so simple—and yet, many of the wise in this world miss It completely.”

Marcus was silent, listening.

“It’s because they don’t look for It as they ought. Like when Jesus was born, they looked for Him in a perfumed palace wearing a royal robe—but they found Him in a stinking stable wearing dirty swaddling clothes.”

“But the wise men found Him,” Andronika put in reflectively, “for they followed the Star. They found Him because they wanted to find Him. That’s a problem today.” She cringed, looking regretful. “Too many of us don’t want to find Him because it makes us pretty crazy. We can’t party like we want. We can’t live bad like we want. The New Road doesn’t have any of that—but It’s got something better. Freedom.”

“It feels just like a bird, flying high above everything that stinks.” Junia added thoughtfully, “Marcus, that’s what real Christianity is.”

“That’s what I’ve been looking for.” Marcus' words came out slowly. “God must love me…to give me this hope. This joy of being free at last. I can’t wait to begin. How about now?”

The girls nodded.

And Marcus bowed his head. The girls followed. He prayed simply and just like he was talking to a friend. When they opened their eyes, Marcus had an expression of newness on his face.

“I’m free.” His face glowed. “I’m really free!”

“I know,” Andronika smiled with a trickle of tears lining her face.

Junia smiled at them both and her heart sang with a bursting song inside her. She knew what it was like to be freed within. And as she listened to her own heart thumping inside her, happily, steadily, she thanked God for the trophies of His grace. Today, she had witnessed another miracle of His grace. Marcus, another thief from the mountains.

When she looked over at the couch where Marcus sat, she thanked God. He was beginning the New Road—the Road she walked on. The Road that led to the summit of the highest Mountain, God’s Kingdom. There before her…there was that trophy for His Name.

Junia found herself exhaling slowly, relieved, realizing the victory Elder John had said would come by the labor of prayer was arriving. Already, God’s perfect Plan was unfolding. Reward was near. The time to dance had come. Despite the whip of Satan that had been lashed upon the condemned and the so-called unsavable of the city, the labor of prayer had won out.

“I was lost but now I’m found,” Marcus was saying as Junia broke out of her reverie. He looked up at Andronika with peace-filled eyes. “I was as a dead man—but now I live!”

Andronika nodded with a half smile, half tears. “My dead heart now lives. Hope sprang forth and God rose me from my sin.” She sniffed, “I was a dead harlot but now I live.” She sounded so grateful. “I live.”

“When Jesus Christ rose on Easter Morning,” Junia swallowed fiercely to keep her emotions from erupting, “He not only rose to His life but for our life. We died with Him. We rose with Him. And we live because He lives.”

Junia then fell silent. The words were spoken. The heart was full. Grace had taken its place. Pardon had set them free. Now they were alive…forever.

Again Junia thanked God. Through the darkest night, His light had filled her path. Their paths. His light had broken their chains of doubt, opened the prison door—forever. And now, His grace had won another victory. Another trophy.

A Few Greek Words:

Fil'os: friend

Meh'tehr: mother

Pah'tehr: father

Adher'fi: sister

Adher'fos: brother