Page 31 of Unveiled Tamar’s Story (Mysteries & Wonders of the Bible #1)

T amar sat beside Bithnia in the upper room, against the back wall.

Levi had left at one point to go home and assure Hannah that he and Tamar had been reunited.

When he returned, he reported that Hannah would have liked to join them here, but the children were in a boisterous mood.

She’d opted instead to take them to play with Tamar’s nieces and nephews at the larger family home, and there to speak with Tamar’s sisters-in-law.

Tamar didn’t know what either of them would say about all this. More, she didn’t know what Moshe and Jeremiah would say. Simon’s stance she could guess at, but he had no wife yet to take their side in the family home, and he’d apparently given no clue as to when he intended to return from Emmaus.

Soon, she hoped. Perhaps tomorrow or the next day. As much as she didn’t want to leave this gathering and the way she felt here among these people, she craved her younger brother’s company. She wanted to tell him that she understood now. That she believed as he did.

The word the women had brought earlier that morning hadn’t been much believed by most, it seemed.

Tamar suspected that it sounded too good to be true.

They must have dismissed it as something they merely wished were true.

But not long after she arrived, two of the Twelve, Peter and young John, had burst into the room, their own words bearing witness to the empty tomb.

Then another woman, one of the voices she’d heard, flew inside, saying she had seen Jesus Himself.

That He had called her by name, had told her to come and tell the disciples that He lived, and that He would go before them into Galilee.

All had been amazed. Well, not all. Another woman had joined them in the upper room in time to hear this testimony from the young beauty she greeted as Magdalene, and Bithnia had whispered that it was Mary, mother of the Lord.

Tamar sat at the opposite end of the large chamber, but even from the distance, she had seen the peace on the woman’s countenance.

“My Son keeps His promises,” she’d said, her voice ringing out over the assembly.

She’d looked out over them all—did she know everyone?

She certainly wouldn’t have recognized Tamar, and yet when her gaze paused for a second on Tamar’s face, she saw only welcome within it.

“Come, my friends. Let us pray for strength for what comes next for us. Jesus did not defeat death so that we could huddle here in this room forever. The time will come when we will need to go forth. We must be prepared for that day.”

Tamar had never prayed in the way that this Mary guided them in doing, beseeching God as Father. In her house, God had been too big, too far, too austere to be Father. To call oneself His child would be to presume too much. They dared only to be children of Abraham.

Yet this woman’s familiar words matched the Lord, the One Tamar had met last night in her dreams. The One who spoke directly to her.

Who revealed to her the sins that darkened her deepest heart and then promised salvation from their consequences, forgiveness for their existence.

She remembered one of the stories Moshe had quoted as a reason to steer clear of Jesus—when a paralytic had been lowered through a roof to be healed, Jesus had first told him, “Your sins are forgiven.” Only when Moshe and his companions questioned His authority had He said also, “Rise and walk.”

The young man had walked—her brother didn’t contest that. But he had balked at the audacity of a man claiming the authority to forgive sins. Only God, he claimed, could do that.

God certainly could. She had felt that forgiveness flowing through her as she wrestled with her own demons last night. But she had offered no sacrifice at the temple for forgiveness. She had followed no prescribed rules to earn it. She had made no offering.

Yet as the light enveloped her that morning, she knew without doubt she was clean. Cleansed. Made pure, made whole. Through God’s power, yes—but not through a sacrifice she made.

He’d made the sacrifice for her. He’d let Jesus be slain. Let Him die. Knowing He would rise again.

As she sat among the believers, she listened to each whispered story in turn. Listened to them agree that this Man, among all men, had never committed a sin. She balked at first too, just as Moshe would have done. How could she not? They had all sinned.

They all could bear witness to each other’s sins.

Her brothers would certainly be the first to point out her imperfections.

The weavers could attest to the times over the years she’d lost her temper when something went wrong, even if it was through no fault of any one individual.

Friends knew she had lied. Just as she knew her parents’ sins, and those of her uncles and aunts, her cousins and siblings and friends.

Yet everyone here who knew Jesus said the same thing.

He rarely acted in the expected way, He frequently did things they couldn’t understand…

but never had He sinned. The Father, they said, was always His first priority.

He was perfect. A lamb without blemish, young John had said.

Worthy to be slain on their behalf. The One capable of taking away the sins of the world, of any who would look upon Him.

“Like the bronze serpent Moses was told to make in the wilderness,” John said. “Any who looked upon it could be healed of the serpents’ bites. But they had to look . They had to come. They had to have the faith to accept the salvation. It is the same for us, with our Lord Jesus.”

Tamar let the words seep into her soul, closing her eyes to better absorb them.

They fit so well with her realizations of the night and the morning.

She hadn’t just been stained with sin, bitten by its poison—she’d been clinging to it.

Clinging to her determination to earn righteousness.

To serve God how she wanted, to protect Him.

How had she ever thought that even possible? How had she ever dared to think that she, sinful human that she was, could protect God’s holiness?

He in His mercy had known that. He had torn down the divide. He’d done it through this sacrifice, lifted up before His children. His own Son.

At some point, someone passed around some bread and dried fish, and she ate a few bites without really tasting it. Bithnia studied her face as she ate her own bread. “You look anxious.”

Tamar drew in a long breath. “I ought to get home soon. I need to talk to my brothers and their wives.”

Her young friend frowned. “What will they say?”

The very question plaguing her. If she told them what she’d experienced, would they believe her?

Did it matter?

She let that question roll around her tongue along with the bite she chewed.

It did, in that it could affect her life from now on.

“I do not know. If Moshe, my eldest brother, gets into one of his stubborn moods, he could tell me I am not welcome under the family roof anymore if I insist on following Jesus. He could tell Simon the same.”

“Where would you go? To Levi’s?”

Tamar could only shrug. She’d never had to give such a question a moment’s thought. Until now, she had no real fear of angering her siblings—first because she had no argument with them, but second because she was one of the few women in the city who earned a wage sufficient to live on.

That was uncertain now too. Even thinking about it made the peace she’d felt draw a few steps away.

She grasped at it, willing it back. Pushing thoughts of her work aside. But then looking at them again, because she couldn’t just ignore it. Tomorrow, her brothers would meet with Caiaphas to discuss the charges against her. Not thinking about it today would help nothing.

Bithnia leaned closer until their shoulders touched. “I am sorry. I did not mean to upset you.”

Tamar drew in a long breath and turned the piece of bread in her fingers this way and that.

“It is hardly your fault. I am only thinking about my position. I have worked so hard to earn it. I am not guilty of what Caiaphas is blaming me for. And yet when I think those thoughts…” She splayed her free hand over her chest. “I do not know what to do.”

Bithnia nodded. “I know you have been wronged in this, and I have no specific advice. But it brings to mind one of Jesus’s teachings.

That we are to forgive as we want to be forgiven.

” She looked over, her brown eyes deep with something Tamar was only beginning to recognize as a faith more profound than any she’d known before.

“He told us to pray for our enemies also.”

A pang coursed through Tamar’s chest. Such advice went against her every instinct. She had warred between fighting back or flying to safety—but never had she considered forgiving Caiaphas or praying for him.

“What was the Lord’s instruction?” Tamar asked quietly.

Bithnia smiled. “He told one of His disciples that if someone continues to sin against us, we are to continue to forgive—even up to seventy times seven.”

Tamar lowered the piece of bread to her lap.

“He told us to love our enemies. To pray for those who hurt us. Not to pray that they stop for our own sakes but to pray for them . For their souls. For their salvation.”

Tamar closed her eyes again. “This is a hard teaching.”

“It is. But Jesus did it. He let Himself be crucified, to suffer and die. At any moment, He could have chosen to stop it. But instead, He paid the ultimate penalty for sin. For our sin. Like the Pesach lamb.”

As prayers rose around her, Tamar pondered how she could obey those lessons. Could she truly forgive Caiaphas and those who had made her life so difficult these last few days? She bowed her head as realization of her own self-centeredness washed over her.