Page 28 of Unveiled Tamar’s Story (Mysteries & Wonders of the Bible #1)

Hannah nodded as she held out a hand to her. “You had better change your clothes first.” She flashed a dimpled grin. “I do not have silk to offer you, but you can wear my pink set.”

Tamar changed her clothes, brushed her hair, washed her face, and felt more awake and rejuvenated than she had any business feeling after two nights on the floor of a tomb.

Before leaving, she checked the scroll that she still had with her to be sure she remembered where Bithnia lived, and then she set out, confident in where she was going, even as questions and phrases swirled through her head.

He was dead, but now He lives.

My sins were black as pitch, so how do I now feel white as snow?

He made a way to the Father—how do I follow Him?

Jerusalem was a different city from the one she’d seen yesterday. The streets were bustling again, full of chatter and movement and life. It seemed that every street she turned down was not only filled with people, but that those people were talking about the Teacher who’d been crucified.

So many of the men talking wore dark expressions, fear and sorrow underscoring the snippets of words she caught. “If we can now be handed over to Rome and executed for disagreeing with the Sadducees on the resurrection, then I hate to see what Judea will become,” one said.

A street over, another was musing, “We only made the pilgrimage this year to see the Teacher. We had hoped he would heal Abba. But we arrived not only to be gouged by the temple inspectors—which we expected—but to learn that they had turned Him over to Rome out of jealousy.”

“And broke the law concerning witnesses to do it,” another replied.

Tamar skirted them, at once wanting to shout what she knew and knowing she couldn’t. She didn’t dare. But she tucked away all she heard.

At last she arrived at the neighborhood where Bithnia lived.

Here she saw no temple guards lurking, so she walked boldly to the front door and knocked on it.

A woman around her age answered, her features proclaiming that she was related to Bithnia, perhaps her mother.

She smiled a welcome and ushered Tamar inside before even asking who she was.

The moment she said her name, the woman’s eyes went wide and she reached for Tamar’s hands.

“I am so glad you found us! Bithnia was worried for you.”

Tamar squeezed the woman’s hand. “And I for her. She mentioned yesterday that she feared your family would be arrested. I saw no guards though.”

The woman acknowledged both aspects with a tilt of her head.

“Only I and the younger children have stayed here. Bithnia is with her brother and father and the other disciples, in the upper room of our cousin’s home.

You can find her there if you like. Or I can simply assure her that you are well, if you prefer. ”

She didn’t have to ask whose disciples Bithnia was with, not now. Yesterday, the thought of joining them, the risk of being caught with them, would have made her grateful for the easy refusal Bithnia’s mother had provided for her. But this morning, everything was different.

She wanted to be among these people. She wanted to observe how they prayed to God, she wanted to witness the fellowship. Did they know yet what had happened at the tomb that morning? She hoped so. She felt inadequate to carry such news.

“I will join them, if you can direct me.”

“Of course.”

A moment later, Tamar was on the street again, though this time her journey was short.

The home in question was only a two-minute walk away, and as Bithnia’s mother had promised, she knew it when she saw it.

It was large, and it had an exterior staircase leading up to a rooftop that had been enclosed for gatherings.

Her heart pounded from nerves rather than exertion by the time she reached the top and knocked. Would they even let her in?

Her knock was answered quickly, though the stranger’s face regarded her with suspicion, even after she murmured, “I am looking for Bithnia. Her mother sent me here.”

His lips flattened. “I will send her out. Wait below.”

Disappointment settled on her shoulders. She wanted to see Bithnia, yes. But only now did she realize that she’d also wanted to experience a gathering of Jesus’s followers.

“Tamar?”

She jolted at the familiar voice, her eyes going wide when a far more familiar face moved into view behind the stranger’s. “Levi?”

Her cousin elbowed the first man aside and opened the door wide, a joyful smile on his face. “All my searching for you, and you find me !” He gestured her inside, pulling her into a quick embrace.

She hugged him back, but she felt as though she’d been stung by a torpedo fish. Not paralyzed as she’d been that morning, but her limbs weren’t responding as they should. They felt distant, as if on strings controlled by a puppeteer. “Levi, what are you doing here?”

Her cousin pulled away, somehow sheepish when he regarded her, yet anything but when he shifted his gaze toward the assembly gathered here.

She looked beyond him for the first time, her mouth falling open in shock when she saw the number of people swarming this large upper room.

She’d expected the eleven primary disciples, perhaps the women who had been at the tomb that morning, their families.

Twenty, perhaps as many as forty people.

Bithnia had mentioned the seventy who had been sent out, among whom her brother was numbered, so perhaps even that many.

But there were well over a hundred people here, perhaps closer to two hundred.

The space was big enough to welcome them all without it feeling overly crowded, but this was no gathering of strangers, surely, with each standing to himself.

People stood or sat in clusters, some talking quietly, others praying.

Just looking at them made her aware of the holy feel of the place, as if hope and sorrow mingled here.

She found herself searching the crowd for the women whose faces she’d never even seen, listening for their voices.

Would she know them? If she told these people what she’d heard that morning, the light she’d seen, the encounter with God that she’d had in her own heart and mind last night, would they believe her or dismiss her?

“These are the followers of Jesus,” she said softly, moving her eyes back to her cousin. “ You are a follower of Jesus. Why did you never say so?”

Levi wet his lips. “Abba forbade me to speak of it with anyone in the family. Hannah knows, of course, and is always eager to hear more. And…”

She raised her brows. “And?”

“One of your brothers follows Him too.”

The floor might as well have dropped out from under her.

But rather than send her plummeting, it left her floating.

“What? Which one?” How had he kept it a secret from the rest of the family?

But then she remembered the conversation they’d had about Lazarus being raised from the dead.

She remembered Moshe’s disbelief, Jeremiah’s dark predictions—and the way Simon had refused to say a word.

“Simon,” she said even as Levi said the same.

His eyes twinkled. “You noticed?”

“I did not realize I had. But yes.” She scanned the room again. “Is he here?”

Levi shook his head. “He left at first light with his friend Cleopas. I think he intends to stay a few days with him at his home in Emmaus. He will be sorry he left though. They had scarcely gone when some of the women came with the oddest story.”

If her heart had sunk when she realized her brother wasn’t here, it lifted again now. Those women must be the ones she’d heard at the tomb. Their odd story must be the one she’d witnessed too.

Levi offered no more explanation for it, and she could hardly blame him for that.

As far as he knew, she’d never made a decision to follow Jesus.

She’d heard that one sermon, yes, along with the whole family.

She, along with most of them, had welcomed Him into the city a week ago.

But then the bickering had begun at home, and she’d found herself taking the side of Moshe, who insisted they would pay the price if they aligned themselves with a heretic.

He’d forbade any of them from having anything more to do with the Teacher, and as the head of the family, all were expected to obey.

Simon clearly hadn’t. Perhaps that was why he’d left Jerusalem with Cleopas.

Honestly, she’d seen little of her youngest brother in the last two years.

He was the most gregarious of her brothers, so was the one who traveled through the region representing the family’s wares.

She wondered now what friends he had made as he traveled.

How many times he had heard the Teacher speak.

What lessons he had learned and then had kept to himself when Moshe forbade him to talk about them.

She wished he’d spoken when he was home. Even as she doubted that she’d have understood.

“Tamar?” Bithnia slipped in beside them, looking curiously between her and Levi.

Tamar smiled and motioned to him. “My cousin. It seems my brother is among the group too.”

Her young friend’s eyes lit. “I did not realize.”

Tamar’s smile grew. “Neither did I. But I am glad to learn it.”