Faith | Echoes of Jesus.
Echoes of Jesus resound in our modern world.
In the Leper Messiah, Jesus like David was a man of great compassion, his figure looms large!
A few years ago in the hallway of a Mexican resort, I passed a French man in the hallway. He must have seen the title of my unfinished book, The Leper Messiah.
“Are you reading about Jesus?” the man asked.
“No, David – I’m writing a book about David,” I replied.
“Ah, but don’t forget that Jesus healed ten lepers but only one thanked him,” he said as he moved away.
It was the moment I realized the title of my book would mean different things to different people.
The title, like the book, is a prism through which each reader will see something different.
Excerpt from The Leper Messiah:
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The lepers appeared on the mountain path, each holding a lantern with heads bowed low.
Ten robed men stood in a single file, all of them stricken with the plague, stumps for hands, and little flesh remained on their faces.
“Are you for Egypt?” Nitzevet brought David in front of her and put her hands on his shoulders.
The leader stood back from her.
“Please let us pass”. He bowed lower.
The others stood silently, pulling their camel haired robes around them against the cold mountain air.
The echo of Jesus grows louder as we move through the book. It starts with a stranger in a strange land!
In the Leper Messiah, Grail, the prince who comes from the west on a pilgrimage, retraces the steps his beloved grandfather took years before.
The dawn is breaking and David is in his war tent surround by his generals. At breakfast, David and his men are twelve and with the stranger, the company makes thirteen.
Excerpt from the Leper Messiah:
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“So let the player’s play,” Samuel whispered as he arranged his robes and disappeared into a corner.
Inside the massive tent, a fire burned, and twelve bearded men sat a large wooden table, with David at the end.
Grail recognizes him instantly as the one who had accompanied Sauls’ death march on the road.
“See what brilliance surrounds him,” Samuel said to his quiet disciple.
David cut an apple, and as his gaze turned to the blond stranger at his table, the knife slipped and drop of dark blood dripped into a beautiful blue goblet adorned with an inscription.
The inscription read: “There shall step forth a sea out of Jacob and the Messiah shall rise out of Israel and shall smite the corners of Moab and break down the sons of Seth.”
Samuel watched intently, his followers gasped but the old prophet smiled with pure joy. He quickly reached for the sapphire goblet and it disappeared into the shadows.
At first glance, we wonder how important is Davids’ “First breakfast”!
Can we compare it to the “Last Supper”?
Whose blood have we been searching for down through the ages?
The faithful understand that through Davids’ son Nathan, and down to Joseph, that Jesus has Davids’ blood flowing through his veins.
Except from the Leper Messiah:
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“You have brought something special to these poor men,” Mira said.
“I have,” Arlemay said.
He grabbed a fishing net and began to mend it. His hands worked expertly as if he had been a fisherman for years.
“I’ve never done this before,” he laughed wildly.
“What have you brought?”
“A better day, a better understanding of how to live.”
He spread his arms upward and called to the heavens, “I will gather the men from the village for you and they will follow your path, my Rose.”
For days and nights, he fixed the fishing nets down by the Sea of Galilee.
Jesus understood that compassion is a gift to be shared by all.
Is compassion our saving grace?
Robert