All the way back to Jerusalem, I tell Michael and Francis about the books of the New Testament and how they fulfill the prophecies set out in the Old Testament. Michael continues to ask me questions about salvation through Christ, and is excited to watch the tomb and see Christ risen. Francis remains silent.
I ask Martha to find a strategic spot where we’ll be able observe the tomb without being seen. She picks a perfect spot on a low rise where Michael and Francis won’t be able to see where I was concealed in the rocks the first time around, and interfere - in any way - with the timeline. More importantly, she picks the exact spot where I saw someone carrying a body, and where I collected a blood sample that turned out to be human. We’re in the perfect spot to know the truth of what I saw.
We agree to meet here at midnight, and part ways.
“Aren’t we taking a big chance by letting them out of our sight?” Martha asks when they’re gone. “What if they disappear and make a mess of time?”
“You take a chance every time you allow someone to make a choice. Giving mankind free will was a heck of a chance on God’s part; but one person who chooses to believe is still more valuable to Him than millions who are forced against their will. They’ll be here tonight.”
****
Martha and I arrive at the spot just after midnight. The night is very dark, but we can see the torches the Temple guards are using, as they stand watch at the tomb. Four hours later, Michael and Francis still have not arrived.
“I was afraid of this,” Martha says.
“They may just be in the wrong spot.”
“Actually, I’ve spent all night trying to convince Francis to come,” Michael says from behind us.
“I’m glad you made it,” I reply.
“Tell me what the Gospels say is going to happen.”
I spend the next half hour explaining what the Gospels say, and answering his many questions, as we watch the tomb.
“Story time’s over,” I hear Francis say from behind me, followed by a sharp pain on the side of my head.
When I regain a groggy awareness of what’s happening, I can feel a knife pressed against my throat.
“Find them and hand them over, or he dies right now,” I hear Francis commanding Martha.
Martha is rummaging through my pack.
“Here. Take them and go.”
I feel the knife release from my neck and hear the sound of Francis backing away, followed by the sound of him checking the clips in each gun, then chambering rounds.
“Take this one, Michael,” he says.
“You’re going to miss it,” I say.
“Oh, good, you’re awake,” Francis replies. “Both of you - get your backs against that rock.”
He makes us sit with our backs to the tomb.
“You’re going to miss it.”
As if someone was listening for my cue, Michael and Francis’ faces are bathed in a soft white light that’s getting steadily brighter. They’re no longer looking at us, so Martha starts to shift her weight to attack. Either one of us could disarm Francis. I think about the feel and power of having his gun in my hand and realize it’s a false comfort. I put my hand onto hers and shake my head.
On this night of nights, my comfort will come from the Lord alone - not a gun in my hands.
“Michael. What’s happening?” I ask.
“It’s an angel. He’s as bright as a torch and he’s heading for the tomb. Now he’s rolling back the stone with one hand and the guards are all fainting. It’s all just like you said.”
“Francis? Now what do you think?”
His face is lit up, but you can almost see his heart go dark.
“I don’t care. I don’t care if angels are real, and I don’t care if Jesus is the Son of God. I’m killing you, and I’m going home and I’m getting the money. I’m going to have a big house, and women, and drugs. Lots of women and drugs.”
He points the gun at my head.
“Those things are only temporary. Losing your soul is forever,” I say.
“Yeah, well, that’s my choice.”
“It always is.”
“Goodbye, Cephas.”
I hear the safety click off.
Everything I saw the first time I was here now makes sense. What I mistook as a crack of thunder was a gunshot, and the blood on the ground that I sopped up and took back must be my own. It was my body that I watched Michael throw over his shoulder and carry off - not Christ’s. It was a lot of blood, but I could have survived it. The fact that there was only one pool of blood must mean Martha survives, as least for a while. As I stare my own death in the face, I’m comforted in knowing the blood did not come from Christ. He died and rose again. I smile at the thought.
The bright flash and loud boom of the gun shock the calm of the night. I feel no pain, so I wonder if I’m already dead. I must not be quite dead yet, because I can still feel the rock against my back, so I open my eyes.
Francis is dead on the ground in front of me, with a bullet through his head. Michael is standing over him with a smoking gun in his hand. He drops the gun and sinks to his knees, with his face in his hands.
“It’s too late for me, it’s too late for me,” he says.
I move to him and start shaking him.
“Look, Michael. Look at the tomb!”
We all look at the tomb. The angel is sitting above it and pure white light is pouring out of the entrance.
“We’re all broken, Michael, but nothing is beyond His power to heal - not even death itself.”
I see a figure emerge from the tomb and look up at the angel, but in an instant they both disappear, and we’re plunged back into complete darkness, except for the guard’s torches.
We pass the next few minutes in silence, until we hear a guard trying to wake up his fainted comrades. One enters the tomb, but re-emerges just a moment later. We can see his hands gesticulating about the absence of a body, and within seconds they’re all running towards the city.
“We need to leave,” I say. “We can’t be here when the Pharisees come.”
Martha secures the two guns in my pack.
“What about Francis?” Michael asks. “We can’t just leave him here.”
Michael is right. Francis wasn’t a believer, but we’re still obligated to give him some form of burial. Besides, even a dead body has the potential to change the timeline. While Michael heaves Francis over his shoulder, I take one last look at the tomb. There are three women with jars making their way towards the entrance.
“Sorry, Cephas,” I whisper at the spot where the former me is watching us. “You’re going to have to live with a little doubt for a while.”
****
The poor are often buried in public graveyards that are little more than slit trenches, so we decide to take Francis to one that I spotted near Golgotha. We cover his head so there’ll be no questions about the strange wound that killed him, and I run ahead to make the arrangements, while Michael carries him. The man who digs the trenches will let us bury Francis for five bronze coins. I pay him, and he shows me a spot next to a recently covered grave, where an older woman is kneeling and crying.
When Michael and Martha arrive, the old woman gives us room to work, but otherwise pays us little notice. She looks up occasionally when we speak in English, but continues to cry just the same.
“You knew him best. Do you want to say anything?” I ask Michael when we’re done.
“Just that I’m sorry.”
We’re all looking at the ground in silence, when the old woman speaks.
“Was that your brother?”
“No. I just met him yesterday.” I say.
“This is my son, my only child.”
She pats the ground where her son now lies.
“I wish he’d had a friend like you. Maybe he’d have had a better life.”
“I’m sorry for your loss. How did he die?”
“The Romans hung him on a cross two days ago,” she replies and I feel chilled.
“He was hung next to the one called Christ?”
“Yes.”
She sobs, and I swallow hard.
“Was he hung to the left or the right of Christ?”
I take a deep breath, not wanting to know the answer.
“On the left.”
As she says it, I exhale.
“You knew my son.”
“I met him once. I begged him to turn his back on evil and repent to God, but he laughed at me. The one we just laid beside him was the same way. It was the undoing of them both.”
She slowly and unsteadily rises to her feet, like she’s suffering great pain in her joints, and embraces me.
“Since the mother of that one is not here; I’ll speak for us both - and for all mothers. Don’t give up trying. Some of our sons may be willing to listen to you, and make a different choice.”
****
Martha and I return to our room among the Romans and I pay the stable men to let Michael sleep on the hay. He doesn’t speak their language, but it turns out he enjoys helping them with the horses. Every afternoon, Martha and I meet Michael for prayer and Bible study, which I do from memory. When we hear that many of the remaining eleven apostles have left for Galilee, I insist that Martha and Michael must come to Galilee to see Christ risen. I buy a horse for Michael and we set out to follow the footsteps of my past-self, who is only a few hours ahead of us.
When we’re between Bethany and Jericho, I notice Michael staring up into the hills, towards the cave with the arena.
“I won’t show you the cave.”
He jumps at the sound of my voice, then looks at me.
“You knew. You knew all along,” Michael says.
“Knew what?” Martha asks.
“That there may still be a way home,” Michael says.
“How?” Martha asks. “We blew the time machine to bits and we can’t get pulled back during the Traveler’s Initiative, without creating a paradox.”
“There’s another time machine,” I say. “They built a smaller prototype machine. I saw it when I was training at NASA. It was how Michael and Francis were supposed to get home.”
“Then let’s go!”
Martha’s excitement pains me, because I know I’m going to have to crush it.
“Tell her the bad news, Michael.”
He gets a disturbed look on his face, that I already know the plan before he says it aloud.
“We had one transport time. We were supposed to kill Cephas the day after the crucifixion, and today we would have sent the forged note saying he was going to Galilee. Our transport time was going to be at noon tomorrow.”
“So let’s be in the cage at noon tomorrow,” Martha says.
“There’s no point,” Michael says. “There was another note in the envelope with the forged note Cephas ripped. It explained the assassination plan, including how to get us home. After we killed Cephas, we were supposed to send that note, along with the one with the hidden message to Christians.”
“But isn’t that a paradox too?” Martha asks. “You never sent the note, so the assassination plan should never have been set in motion. None of us should even be here.”
“It would be a paradox,” I say, “except that I went to the arena cave the day after the crucifixion and sent Henry the plan. I set it all in motion.”
“You ordered your own assassination?” Michael asks.
“Apparently the assassination was my idea from the beginning. The note was in my left-handed handwriting to disguise it. Sending it was the only way to avoid the paradox.”
“Since you sent the note, why can’t we be in the cage at noon tomorrow?” Martha asks. “It shouldn’t change the timeline because we’d get pulled back after the Traveler’s Initiative is over. All the loops would be closed.”
“I’m sorry. I thought the same thing, but we can’t allow Henry to pull any of us back and learn why the assassination failed. The future with the truth told is too important to risk.”
Martha closes her eyes and sighs.
“And the only way to protect the truth is for us to stay here. I wish you’d never gotten my hopes up. I’d come to terms with the time machine being destroyed and living out my life here.”
She prods her horse into a trot so she can be alone.
I’m sorry too, Martha. Sometimes it seems like I can solve any puzzle set in front of me, but the reality is that I’m the master of none. God alone must be the master of time and this must all play out according to His timeline, not ours.
****
We reach the Sea of Galilee a few days later and set up a camp in the hills, out of sight of where the apostles are camping and fishing. Each day near dawn, we sneak down to the shore and watch. When we reach the shore on the fifth night, the apostles are all in a boat a few hundred meters off shore.
“This is the day,” I say to Martha and Michael.
The boat has lanterns on the front and back, which bob up and down as the boat rocks in the gentle waves. We’re all focused on the lights, when out of the corner of my eye, a figure appears out of nowhere. I hear a man’s voice say: “Friends, have you caught any fish?” and the apostles in the boat say: “No.”
“Throw out your net on the right-hand side of the boat and you’ll get plenty of fish!” instructs the man on the shore. I hear the splash of the net, and soon after the sounds of happy men straining at a net full of fish.
“It is the Lord!” exclaims one of the men in the boat, and we see someone dive overboard and swim to shore. Once again, there’s no doubt that it’s Jesus standing among them. Just like last time, it takes every bit of willpower I have to not join their fire and eat breakfast with them. Again, I want to put my fingers on the scars on His wrists and side, but I know I can’t.
As if in answer to my thoughts, Michael asks, “Can we go talk to Him? Can we touch His scars?”
“You don’t need to touch Him in order to believe,” I reply.
We move to a spot above where my past-self will soon conceal himself in the bushes, and wait. Right on schedule, we see me hide just fifty meters in front of us. I can’t help but look over my shoulder to see if a future version of me is hiding even further up the hill, watching us all. I’m relieved when I can’t see anyone, and hope it’s a sign this will be my last journey through time.
When I look back towards the shore, I can see Jesus is looking at me, Martha and Michael in our hiding place and laughing at us, as he walks with Simon Peter.
Jesus stops not far from where my past-self is hidden and bids Simon Peter to sit with his back towards us all.
“Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He asks Simon Peter.
“Yes, Lord. You know I love you,” replies Simon Peter.
Again, I find myself saying the words along with Simon Peter, just as I know my past-self is doing in his hiding spot.
“Then feed my lambs,” Jesus says.
“Simon son of John, do you love me?” Jesus repeats the question.
“Yes, Lord. You know I love you,” say Simon Peter and I a second time.
“Then take care of my sheep,” Jesus commands.
“Simon son of John, do you love me?” Jesus asks a third time. Simon Peter is distressed that the question has been asked again.
“Lord, you know everything. You know I love you,” replies Simon Peter, with his head bowed down.
There’s no mistaking His intent as Jesus looks up from Simon Peter and instead looks the former me straight in the eyes.
“Then feed my sheep,” He says to both of us.
Jesus places His hand on Simon Peter’s shoulder, then bids him to stand and they walk further down the shore. As Simon Peter stands, Jesus looks at me, Martha, and Michael one last time and grins.
Beside me, Martha exhales like she’s been holding her breath the entire time.
“It’s just like you described,” Michael says. “He told you to feed His sheep. He really did.”
“That’s right, Michael, and you’re going to help me. But there’s something we all need to do first, and I hope Simon Peter will help us.”