One
day, long ago, in a place far away, a boy named Yeshua went out to
play. He ran to the center of the town to see if he could join some
other boys in a game.
“You’re too little to throw rocks with
us,” said the boys who aimed stones at the broken urns in the garbage
ravine at the edge of town. “Go away!”
Just when Yeshua was born, the king killed all the
baby boys in Israel. Fortune-tellers from the East had told Herod that
one of them would grow up to take over his throne. Yeshua’s family had
escaped to Egypt with Yeshua during that time, returning only after
terrible king Herod was dead. So now, as Yeshua ran through the
narrow, dusty streets of Nazareth, the people of the town stared at him
in silence.
“You’re too young to roll hoops with us,” said the boys he met in front of the potter’s workshop. “Go away!”
The
potter, his hands spattered with wet clay, saw tears running down
Yeshua’s cheeks. “I’m sorry they were so mean to you, Yeshua,” said
Ezra. “You must be lonely. You are the only boy in town who is your
age. But remember this, when people reject you or hurt you. God made
you out of a lump of clay and breathed life into you. That life is
forever, and nobody can take it away from you, even if they break your
clay. Always remember who you are: the breath of God that is eternal.
Here, sit next to me. I’ll give you some clay and you can make
yourself a friend out of it.”
Yeshua
wiped the tears from his eyes, and quietly sat down on the ground with
the lump of clay. He looked at it for a while. He thought about what
Ezra had said.
Dipping his hand in a basin of water to keep the clay wet, as Ezra had taught him, he slowly, carefully worked.
“Here, Ezra,” said Yeshua. “Do you like it?”
“Oh!
What a beautiful bird! Is this your new friend? What beautiful
feathers you have marked into the clay! And what is this hole in his
beak?” asked Ezra.
“That’s so he can breathe,” said Yeshua. “So he can be alive.”
Ezra
laughed. “That’s wonderful! Now you wash up and go home, and come
back tomorrow. I’m going to fire your bird in the oven to make it
hard. Tomorrow you can pick it up and take it with you!”
Yeshua thanked him and walked home, feeling happy inside.
The
next day, he went to the shop of Ezra the potter. The bird was on a
rough wooden plank near the potting wheel. It was hard and smooth and
beautiful. “Do you like it?” asked Ezra.
Yeshua smiled as he
stroked it and held it close to his chest. “Oh yes, I like it!” he
said, looking into Ezra’s eyes with grateful joy.
And then
Yeshua put his lips around the beak of the clay bird. “You’re going to make it breathe?” Ezra laughed. Yeshua nodded
and blew into the clay bird, and it made a whistling sound.
Ezra’s
jaw dropped as he saw the tail of the bird twitch once, then twice.
Where marks on clay once had been, real feathers spread out and
fluttered. Yeshua held the bird in his hand as it came to life, its
clay eyes giving way to bright, glistening ones; its beak moving as it
sang. Ezra backed up, terrified. “No, no, it can’t be!” he muttered.
The
bird flew up and around Yeshua’s head a few times, singing beautifully,
and then returned to perch on his hand. “Be free,” said Yeshua. “And
always remember who you are!” The bird rose up and circled his head
over and over, chirping wildly, and then flew away.
Ezra was
shaking with fear as Yeshua came up to him and reached for his hand.
“Don’t be afraid!” he said. “Thank you, Ezra. You made me feel better
yesterday. You reminded me of who I really am. And you helped me find
a friend!” Ezra blubbered a response as Yeshua ran down the twisting
street.
When Yeshua was a young man, he went to the Jordan
River to be baptized. His cousin, John, did a ceremony of washing
people clean of their mistakes and failures, so they could feel closer
to God. Yeshua wanted to be as close to God as he possibly could get.
John was surprised when he saw his cousin standing in the line
by the river, waiting to be baptized. John wondered if Yeshua had ever
made a mistake or had any failures. Why would he need to be washed
clean? But Yeshua had his reasons, and wanted John to do the
ceremony. And as soon as John poured the water over Yeshua’s head,
standing in the middle of the river, the bird appeared over them.
Yeshua looked up and saw it. “My friend! You’ve returned!” And the
bird circled his head, over and over, chirping excitedly. Yeshua put
out his hand and the bird landed on it. The bird chirped, and Yeshua
spoke to it in return. As their conversation continued, John fell on
his knees in the river, and as the water rushed around him, he prayed
that he could be as close to God as was his cousin Yeshua.
After
a while, as the people waiting by the river stared in amazement, Yeshua
said goodbye to the bird and it flew out of his hand.
The
bird had told him to go to the desert and wait. So that’s what Yeshua
did. Above the river was a desolate land of dry-washes and rocky
canyons. Into one of the canyons Yeshua walked, and up the side of a
ridge he climbed, until he found a flat spot with a view of the valley
below. And there he sat.
In the middle of the day, he sweated
in the hot sun. In the middle of the night, he shivered in the cold
wind. He was hungry and thirsty. Over and over and over again, a
question repeated itself in his mind: “Who am I?”
Strange,
frightening dreams came to him. Or were they real? One night, a voice
whispered to him: “I know who you are! You’re a sorcerer. You can
make a clay bird fly. So you can make these stones into bread! Prove
me right! You can do it!” Yeshua stared at the rocks around him, and
in his hunger he wanted more than anything to turn them into loaves of
bread. “No!” he yelled aloud into the desert emptiness, his voice
echoing. “No! I am not a sorcerer! I’m here for another reason!”
“You
are an all-powerful king,” whispered the voice on another night. “Look
out over the valley, and the lands beyond. It’s all yours! I know who
you are. The only boy who survived King Herod’s murders! You are the
king of Israel! You have the power of life and death over all the
people of this land.” Yeshua trembled, tempted to believe it. “No!
No! I am not the new King Herod!”
A week later, the
voice whispered again, even more insistently: “You are the all-mighty
one! Jump down into the canyon below you. You’ll land on your feet!
Prove me right! You’re a superhero!” And Yeshua stared down into the
deep, stony canyon, and shrieked “No! No! I have a higher purpose
than working wonders!”
And after forty days and forty nights,
the bird appeared. It fluttered over his head, trying to get his
attention. He was so exhausted, body and soul, that he didn’t notice
it at first. He put out his hand and instead of landing on it, the
bird dropped a date into it. The bird flew down to the palm grove in
the valley far below, and brought back another one for Yeshua, and kept
delivering dates to him until he was strong enough to stand up. “Thank
you!” he cried out to the bird when it had brought him the last date.
“Now I know who I am.”
Yeshua
walked back over the mountains to the populated side of the country.
He became a rabbi and wandered from town to town, teaching and
healing. One day, he led a large group of people to a hillside and
gave them lessons about how to get closer to God and kinder to each
other. Suddenly the bird flew to him, circled his head over and over,
chirping loudly. The crowd was amazed. He reached into his pouch and
pulled out some crumbs of bread and put them in on his palm and offered
them to the bird, which landed on his hand and ate them. “Look at the
birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and
yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Therefore I tell you, do not
worry about your life!” He lifted up his hand and the bird flew away.
As
the people were leaving, Yeshua saw that Ezra was in the crowd. They
embraced. “I’ve never forgotten your kindness to me that day when I
was a little boy,” said Yeshua. “You were there to help me when I
needed a friend.”
“The
clay bird visited you today, didn’t it?” said Ezra. “I recognized
it. I hope the bird reminds you of who you really are.”
“It does, dear Ezra, it does!” said Yeshua, embracing him again.
Yeshua
had many followers who wanted to join him in being close to God and
being compassionate to each other. But others were jealous of his
fame. They were afraid he might become too powerful and deprive them
of their wealth and influence. So they decided to kill him. They
bribed one of his friends to betray him, and they caught him and took
him away to be beaten and then crucified.
Ezra was there,
standing behind the crowds that watched what was happening to Yeshua,
hoping and praying that somehow his life could be spared. When he
looked toward the cross, he saw the the bird flying frantically around
Yeshua, chirping. Ezra saw that it flew to a date tree and brought
fruit for Yeshua, who didn’t have the strength to eat it. But when
Yeshua saw his friend, the bird, he remembered again who he was. He
got up just enough strength to utter these words: “Forgive them!”
After
the soldiers took Yeshua down and carried him away from the cross, and
the crowds walked away, Ezra went up to the cross to see if the bird
was still there. There was only silence. No fluttering of wings, no
singing. But there, at the bottom of the cross, was the clay bird that
Yeshua had made so many years before.
Ezra picked it up,
whispered a prayer, and then blew into its beak. It made a whistling
sound. He held it out in hope that it would come alive and fly away,
but there it remained, smooth and hard, in the palm of his hand.
Fifty-three
days later, Yeshua’s friends held a secret meeting in Jerusalem, and
Ezra attended, carrying the clay bird with him. The room was packed
with people who were talking all at once. Some were crying, some were
arguing. “Who are we, now that Yeshua is gone?” The noise got louder
until Ezra elbowed his way to the middle of the room and lifted the
clay bird to his lips and blew into its beak. The loud whistle brought
the whole crowd to silence. Ezra blew into the clay bird again, and
again, and again.
And then, suddenly, a flock of birds flew into
the room, swirling around Ezra as he blew into the clay bird. Everyone
watched in amazement as the flapping of the birds’ wings stirred the
air like wind.
And when Ezra stopped blowing, the birds flew out the windows and away.
Ezra
told the story of how Yeshua had made the clay bird come alive. He
told them how he found the clay bird at the foot of the cross. And
when he was finished, he said, “Now you know who you are. You are clay
birds that Yeshua has brought to new life. You are the friends he
needed, the friends he created. So go, be free, serve each other and
serve everyone you meet, and stay as close to God as you can!”
NOTE:
This story is based on myths about Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew) that appear
in the Bible and in other traditions. The Koran (Surahs 3 and 5) says
that Jesus (Isa) made a clay bird and then brought it to life. The
Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a non-canonical early Christian document,
says that, at age 5, Jesus made twelve sparrows out of clay, clapped
his hands, and they flew away. In Matthew 3, a dove alighted on Jesus
when he was baptized by John in the Jordan, and in Matthew 4, “angels
came and waited on him (Jesus)” at the end of his forty day temptation
in the wilderness. Matthew 6 includes the part of Jesus’ sermon on the
Mount about looking at the birds of the air. In Acts 2, the followers
of Jesus gathered for the celebration of Pentecost after Jesus’ death
and resurrection, and “suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the
rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were
sitting.”
Several years ago, my friend Jim
Garrison, an artist, retired high school teacher, and lay teacher of
meditation, taught me to recite Psalm 46:10 in a special way. I
silently repeated it as I stood in front of the trees: