Ashes and Stone

Roaming the Sandwich Library’s Saturday-morning, used-book sale, I found a copy of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan.  For $2 how could I go wrong?  Besides, the author’s name, Aslan, reminded me of the lion in C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: the Chronicles of Narnia with Jesus being symbolized by the lion.  

Always interested in his life and times and knowing this 2013 book was a #1 New York Times Bestseller, I read Aslan’s provocative point-of-view.   What happened in Jesus’ world experienced by Mary, Joseph, and the Jewish people, especially in Nazareth, and then when Jesus was growing up?  We all know we’re influenced and formed by our times (think of the Cold War) be they good or bad, and in Jesus’ case they were quite bad.

Aslan describes life in first century Palestine and for me highlights what I only learned after becoming a Catholic in 1994 – the history of Sepphoris.   Whoever heard of Sepphoris that sounds more like a disease than a city?  And, a city it was, not a poor village like Nazareth, that was less than a day’s walk from this capital city of Galilee (about 5 miles and the distance from Christ the King to New Seabury).  Sepphoris was sophisticated, urban, and one of the largest and most affluent cities in Galilee making it a major hub of culture and commerce.

But Sepphoris was a smoldering heap of ashes and stone after Roman soldiers destroyed it.  Aslan calculates Jesus would have been about 10 years-old.  In punishment for rebellion, Roman soldiers burned Sepphoris to the ground; men were slaughtered; women and children auctioned off as slaves; and more than 2,000 Jewish rebels and sympathizers were crucified together!

Soon thereafter Herod Antipas arrived to transform the flattened ruins into an extravagant royal city fit for a king.  Aslan then assumes and speculates that Jesus was a young man and ready to ply his carpentry trade alongside Joseph.  Jesus would have been a peasant boy in a big city and would have known the city’s history of Roman extreme cruelty and oppression, according to Aslan.  If this is what happened, then we can only imagine how this experience formed Jesus, especially after his mentor, John the Baptist, was beheaded by Antipas, the “fox.” 

This is just one example of how Aslan made me more curious about Jesus’ home.   Aslan concluded, “The whole of Galilee was consumed in fire and blood.  Even tiny Nazareth would not have escaped the wrath of Rome.”   I wonder.

With today being Ash Wednesday, when ashes are rubbed onto my forehead, I’ll think of the ashes of Sepphoris and all those who died at the hands of the Romans.  I’ll wonder if Jesus did the same.

Deacon David Pierce