Yeshua in the Desert

Douglas Reeves
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 1.

The desert is a treacherous place; to get lost there is to court disaster. The heat can be

unbearable; the sand blows in the unforgiving wind, when there is any wind at all. The heat

leeches the moisture from your body. Thoughts turn sour, like old goat’s milk.

Yeshua-bar-Joseph, leader of a small band of ascetic Jews, was aware of the risks of the

desert. He had spent years in a monastery, learning the ways of God, and of the desert. To learn

one was to learn the other. In many ways, Jehovah was a desert God, and the desert, a God unto

itself.

The little band of preachers and hangers-on were encamped around a spring that arose in

a cave, and flowed a few miles to the Jordan, away to the west. They weren’t far from the place

where John, called “the Baptist”, had proclaimed Yeshua and his mission. John was gone now; his

head with its unbroken eyes cast away by the very evil which had cried out for it.

Yeshua lived in the spring-cave, refreshing himself every morning, and often in the

evening as well. Others came to take the waters with him, and he would speak. The morning

sermon was the only real ritual observed here. The rest of the day, leaving Yeshua to his thoughts,

the majority of the little band talked about the future, when the Kingdom of God would descend

and drive the gentiles from the land.

Occasionally, Yeshua would feel the need to be alone. Solitude was hard to come by

when others looked to you for constant guidance. Some days he would be overcome with the

weight of the responsibility he carried, and wished it would all go away. He knew this was wrong.

He and the others were doing the will of God. So, realizing he needed to clear his head, he would

leave the others behind, and go deeper into the desert. His desert God would steady him, and he

could return, his strength renewed.

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 On once such morning, after the daily talk, he grabbed and hunk of bread and a skin of

water and headed out. He travelled for a couple of hours, then sat down and ate the bread and

some of the water. By this time, it was heating up, and he began to look for a shady outcropping

under which to do his praying and meditation.

Suddenly, a particularly heavy gust of wind came up and knocked him to the ground. It

blew for quite some time. Sudden storms weren’t unusual here, but the ground was relatively flat,

and there was usually some small warning.

Finally, the wind died down, and he was able to stand and brush himself off. He was

sandblasted. His skin was bleeding in myriad little places from the fine grains of sand and dirt

carried by the wind, and he felt as if his throat were caked with the stuff. He looked around for

the water skin to alleviate his thirst. He found it torn open and half-buried. Not a drop of liquid

remained. He very nearly cursed.

Yeshua decided the best thing to do would be to head back to the camp. He turned in the

direction he thought was the way he’d come, then stopped. Was this the way to go? He couldn’t

remember. The wind had scattered his brains, too, Yeshua thought.

Rather than stand in one place and definitely die of thirst, Yeshua picked a direction and

resumed walking. He still couldn’t clear his head enough to pick out the proper path. He tried

using the sun as his guide, as he often had, but somehow, even in this relatively early morning,

when the sun wasn’t near zenith, he couldn’t manage to do it.

Still, he kept moving. He walked for some time. Hours passed. The sun rose to its peak,

and began to descend, and Yeshua remained lost. Finally, as the sun had completed half of its

downward journey, Yeshua saw a small encampment in the distance. There was one person there,

wrapped in a cloak, a small fire already burning.

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 Yeshua called out to the stranger, but there was no reaction. He approached anyway, his

legs growing weaker, and his throat drier with every step. By the time he reached the little camp,

he was exhausted. He tried to speak, but darkness closed in on him, instead.

2.

Yeshua woke to the smell of something cooking. He was still thirsty, but not nearly so

much as before. He sat up. He was a little dizzy, but he was able to maintain something of an

upright posture.

It was dark now, but a warm fire burned nearby, and he was covered with a somewhat

tattered and thinning blanket. For all of that, it was little worse than his own. He could not

complain, and it did provide some protection from the biting desert cold.

Seated opposite him, across the fire, was a dark-skinned, exceeding thin little man. He

was bald of pate, clear-eyed and smiling. The light from the flickering fire cast weird shadows on

his face. The face seemed to shift slightly, as if changing its shape a little as a shadow passed over

it, then the light would return, and he would be the same little man. Once Yeshua thought he

caught a face he knew in all the roiling changes. The little man’s smile widened.

“You again?” Yeshua asked.

“Oh, indeed,” the smiling little man said. “Nothing in the rules says I can’t come back for

another try. Besides, I saved your life.”

“That sandstorm was your doing, Satan,” Yeshua said.

“Ah, so it was,” Satan chuckled. He reached into the fire and pulled out the charred

remains of some sort of desert-dwelling creature. He began ferociously gnawing at it. It put

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Yeshua in mind of the packs of feral dogs he’d seen on the outskirts of every town he’d ever

visited.

“What do you want, Devil?” he asked.

“Now, Little Messiah, try to be more polite,” admonished the Prince of Darkness through

spraying bits of food. “You know how I hate that term. It’s so derogatory.”

“Can we get to the point?”

Satan sighed. “Oh very well,” he said as he finished off the last of the charred bits of

flesh and cast the skeleton away.

“Here’s how it is, Morning Star,” Satan was suddenly more menacing than before. He

was still that same scrawny little man, but he seemed somehow bigger. His voice had changed its

pitch slightly, and it was full of hate and evil. “I defeated you once before, though you don’t

remember. You know the story, your limited human brain will allow you that much. But in those

days, you were so much more than you are now.”

Satan gestured toward Jesus in a dismissive way. “You were not confined to this bag of

meat-encased bones. You knew the potential and the majesty of the universe. You knew that so

much more could be done with it, that your Master was squandering it with His little human

games.

“Well,” he continued, “I made a mistake the last time we met in this desert. I didn’t take

into account how much this human form had infested your mind. Humans love to suffer, they

love to live in poverty, they revel in their simplicity. Their little minds regard that sort of thing as

holy, right, good.” Satan snorted derisively.

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 “I’ll not try to be subtle with you,” he went on. “You no longer have the capacity. You’ve

been corrupted by this ape-form you and your God love so. Instead, I will give you what you

crave.”

Satan smiled. “You wish you could go back to your little life, making furniture for

peasants. I can give you that. Jehovah gave me dominion here when you… Well, when you didn’t

seem to want it.”

“I don’t understand you,” Yeshua said. It wasn’t necessarily true. He had often longed for

the simpler life of making furniture with his foster-father. Many times in the monastery, he had

contemplated leaving, and returning to the family business. Even now, when he had gathered his

people about him, and was doing the work his Father had set him, he wished to return to old

Joseph’s work-bench.

“Oh, I think you do,” cackled the old man. “Lying is one of those things you aren’t

supposed to do, Yeshua.”

“Go away and leave me alone,” Yeshua replied.

“You can have that simple life back,” Satan wheedled. “I have the power to do that. Only

I. You know this. I can erase all memory of the last two-and-a-half years, and all will be as it was.

You will be a carpenter again, your disciples will be fishermen, your poor deluded followers will

simply return to their old lives, better off. I can give you back your past.

“Think about it,” Satan finished.

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 3.

Jesus woke as the sun was peeking over the eastern mountains. He lay on a large, flat

rock, looking up at a clear blue sky. The Devil’s words were still in his head. He could return to

Nazor, marry, raise children and teach them his trade.

He wanted to pray, but couldn’t make himself do it. What he really wanted was to ask for

God’s permission. He struggled. He knew what the right path was, but why should he do it? What

would he accomplish? Would all suffering finally cease? God did not promise that. He promised

salvation, but what was that? What could that mean in a lifetime of pain, especially to the

messenger? They would kill the messenger. He knew this.

He again asked the question he’d been asking since the beginning, since the day he stole

away to the monastery without telling even his poor mother: Why me? Why should it be me, and

not another? Surely, even now, I’ve exceeded all expectations. I have created a community of the

faithful. They all await salvation. This is good. Now, send another to provide it. Not me! I’ve

done enough.

But, even as these thoughts came to him, he heard another voice in his head, also: There

is no one else. You were chosen, and none other. This is your fate, your purpose for which God

put you here.

“Do you not feel ashamed?” came a familiar voice.

Yeshua sat up. A few feet away sat the old man. In the bright sun, his skin seemed redder,

as if sunburned. But it suited him, and he seemed quite comfortable. He was perched upon a

small rock, picking at his toenails.

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 “Pride, Yeshua,” he said, simply. “What if I’m lying and you aren’t really the Morning

Star. What if God is just using you as a decoy? What if he has me fooled, too? How would you

know? Isn’t it so prideful of you to think that no one can do what you?”

“Stop trying to confuse me!” Yeshua shouted.

Satan laughed. “Oh my dear, ancient friend, you are already confused. You have no idea

of what to do, or whether you have done the right things. You have no real idea of where you are

going, save that you know you will die in the end.”

Yeshua stood and was suddenly dizzy. He turned his back on the Devil, and began

walking away.

“You can’t escape me, Morning Star.” Satan called after him. “You will never be free of

me!”

In ten minutes of walking, Yeshua found himself in familiar surroundings. The area about

the campsite was coming back in to focus for him. He was near; he could even hear the voices of

his people.

One last thought entered his head, and he knew from whence it came: “You will think of

these things from now until they do you in. You know that. This is my world, Morning Star. I

always win.”

4.

The sound of trickling water echoed through the cave as the little stream began the

journey to the Jordan. A small group of the newly baptized sat upon the floor, shivering and

gazing up at the frail little man speaking to them. For reasons none of them could have explained,

they were rapt, compelled to listen to him.

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 Yeshua said, “Know what is before you, and that which is hidden shall be revealed.”

As he said it, he felt his heart echoing the looks of dawning understanding falling across

the faces of a small number of these new believers. These, he thought, who are before me hold

what is has been hidden from me. It is in these hearts, where I dwell, whether my Father or the

Enemy likes it or not.

“A sower,” he went on, “came forth, filled his hands, and cast. A few seeds fell upon the

road, where birds came down and devoured them. Others fell among thorns, where they choked,

or were eaten by worms. Still others fell upon good ground, where they could bring forth good

fruit.”

I have done my best to sow the good fruit among these. There will never be an end to

suffering, only those who can bring a little peace in hard times. Let me be one of these, whatever

the consequences, whatever the desires of those greater than myself.

“There is light in a man of light, who brings light to the world. If he does not give light,

there is only darkness.”

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