They knew his love not by the written word of an apostle or the spoken word of a preacher, but by Jesus’ hand on their shoulder, or the thrill of his healing touch freeing them of a disease, along with his ever-present peace that filled them to overflowing.
We Called Him Yeshua is the story of Jesus as told from the perspective of these people—the ill and diseased, the deaf and blind, the worried and frightened, the overwhelmed and depressed—people who were in some ways just like you and me. And where we may know Jesus by his divinity, those who will tell this story knew him by his humanity. Their stories will show you both the Son of God, and the son of man.
As Anna, one of the lead characters, puts it: “It may be hard to feel close to the divine, but it’s easy to feel close to the human.”
Over the next several weeks, I’ll be posting chapters from my soon-to-be-published novel, We Called Him Yeshua. I’ll keep doing this until it’s released around the middle of March, 2020. Today I give you the first chapter…
It is Finished
Smoke from distant campfires drifted up the hill. Anna crept closer, the evening sun throwing her shadow along the path and onto his legs, his body hidden behind a boulder, his feet bare and splattered with dried blood. I hoped Anna wouldn’t see the rest of him, his throat slit, abdomen split open.
A raven glided down, flapped to a stop, and perched on the boulder, watching Anna inch closer. With knees trembling, eyes watering, and jaw quivering, she rested her hand on the boulder, trying to steady herself. The raven watched. Then, she leaned around the boulder and looked down. I could almost see the terror writhe inside her, constricting the tendons in her neck, contorting her face, overpowering her as fast as an avalanche roaring down a hill.
I feared for Anna—could she cope with more death? Could she survive mine?
(read the rest of Chapter 1 on my cjpenn.com website)
