Joseph made his way from Bethlehem
to Nazareth flying on the wings of future. Those days were bad times for free
riders moving on from town to town. But life was so hard for lots of people,
and they had to jump on the road to earn their money working here and there.
Carpenters were among them.
Those nomads used to meet on the
road, walk their way together and help each other against those who made their
living killing in the wilderness every free rider they found. Joseph knew about
them nomads, and as he wasn’t in a real hurry he loved to sit by the fire with
them and hear their stories.
His road companions found Joseph
very helpful the night out there in the wilderness. Joseph travelled in the
company of three Assyrian dogs each one as big as a lion. Those three Assyrian
dogs were a present from his godfather's friends.
Joseph’s godfather was Simeon, a
"Babylonian" living in Jerusalem whose family kept relations with the people
and family his father left behind. From time to time Simeon’s Babylonian relatives
came to Israel to pay the holy taxes in the name of the Jews from the other
side of the Jordan River. One day they brought with them three little puppets
in their homeland called "king’s lions" because the Assyrian kings
used those kind of dogs to go out and hunt lions; they were a present for
Joseph, "son of King David". And Joseph
raised them with the whole lot of love their big bodies deserved. And soon they
reached the size of a lion and to see Joseph walking his dogs was a magnificent
show. To magnify the picture his godfather gave him another present, a Spaniard
horse, black as a night and smart as a creature born to be one thing with its
master. On those days that Joseph felt lonely and missed his future wife he
used to jump on his horse, called his assyrian dogs
and went out for a ride untill his nerves cooled down.
And a third present got Joseph from
the Babylonian relatives of his godfather. A sword! Yes, a sword named Goliath.
They said nothing the day they gave it to him. They bowed down before him and
went away. Goliath was the biggest sword a man could see those days. Joseph
never needed to take Goliath for a walk, but in this journey to Nazareth he
did. His road companions could fall sleep and share sweet dreams, the strangest
carpenter they had never met around was there to watch their backs.
Yeah, while somewhere about the
Samarian wilderness Joseph stared at the logs on fire, there was a young man in
Nazareth Town looking at the stars with eyes full of dreams. His name was
Cleophas.
Cleophas was around eighteen years
old or so when Joseph came into town. At that age Jewish parents used to put a
pressure on their children to get married. But Cleophas got not a father who
could sit by his side and talk to him about the pleasure and delights of a man in love. His
father died when Cleophas was a baby.
Thanks to the Lord his elder sister
had been like a father for him. She had refused marriage to devote all her
heart and soul to her little brother. She never said so, but he knew so well
his sister Mary! he had no doubt about it, she had sacrificed the
pleasure and delights of a woman in love for the sake of her sisters and him,
Cleophas. Only God knew how much he loved his beloved sister Mary!
This next morning we are talking
about Cleophas woke up early. In fact his soul was up before his body got out
of bed. He kissed his mother and sister, had his breakfast and went out to see
the daylight. After a while he heard a noise coming from the south. That’s a
donkey- he said. Another sound came to his ears. And that’s a horse- he said
again.
From his home on the hill he saw the
kids in town running to meet the stranger. He wasn’t going running after them,
but when horse, donkey and stranger broke through he could not stop his soul
moving to meet the man.
He was an impressive rider in the
company of the most impressive dogs he had ever seen. The kids stopped as they
got close to the rider. Cleophas moved on in front of Joseph. Joseph smiled, looked
at the lad straight in the eyes, reached Cleophas and from his horse spoke
these words:
"You know the landlord?" -asked
Joseph pointing Cleophas´ house.
"Follow me" -answered
Cleophas to the stranger.
Joseph shot his arm to the lad.
Cleophas used to ride horses and took the arm of the rider. Joseph raised the
lad and Cleophas found himself sited on the back of the most wonderful horse he
had never seen.
As one mysterious force had suddenly
touched the animal, Joseph’s horses raised its front legs and spell its joy in
the tongue of the horses.