Free The Gospel of the Twin by Ron Cooper Page A

know how Jesus rejects violence. If I agree with you on what we should do, we’ll need a long time to change Jesus.”
    â€œHe may change if something moves him enough—something to make him hate the Romans enough to reject his nonsense about nonviolence.” Judas had a smirk that I had known since childhood. He would get this smirk just before he stole a honey cake or throw a rock at a passing soldier.
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    â€œWe can discuss this later, Thomas. For now, let’s go back to the river. I’ll have John baptize me again just to show him how serious I am.”
    I could tell that Judas was working on a scheme, but I could not imagine then how monstrous it would turn out to be. I returned with him to the river, where John embraced Judas before re-baptizing him.
    Just before his face went under the water, I again saw the smirk on Judas’ face.

Chapter Nine
    Verse One
    Mary said to Judas, “Why have you not married me? Do you not love me?”
    They were relaxing with Jesus, Andrew, and me by the river. The cool season was finally moving in, and we were quite happy just to watch the reeds ripple in the breeze. Bluntness was in Mary’s nature, and she often asked intimate questions as easily as others ask what the hour of day is.
    I was surprised when Judas answered without hesitation. “I love you more than I love the heavens and Earth and all that is within them,” said Judas. “I’d rather spend my life scrubbing the floors of a Roman whorehouse and eating pig bones from their table and know that you once thought of me fondly than live as the King of Persia without your memory. I’d rather haunt the caves of Sheol ten thousand years knowing that you lived and remembered me than sit by the throne of the Lord and be forgotten by you.”
    I had never heard Judas speak with such tenderness. And I thought then that if anyone could temper his militancy, Mary could.
    â€œThen let us marry now,” Mary said. “Is John not a priest?”
    So we went with them to John. He was sitting on the edge of his stage talking casually to a few dozen people seated on the ground before him. I think his subject was the prophet Micah.
    Mary led Judas by the hand, stepping briskly through the seated group. “John, Judas and I want you to marry us.”
    â€œWho am I to marry you?” asked John. “I am not a man of the law.”
    Mary placed her hand upon John’s. “If not you, John, then who?”
    â€œWhy do you seek anyone’s authority?” Jesus said. “Is your love not a strong enough bond on its own? Male and female seek their rest in union. This is the way of the world for all eternity. Bind your spirits as one, and you will become children of the Lord. Come with me.”
    Jesus led Mary and Judas onto the platform. He turned them to face each other, then placed their hands together. Judas and Mary kissed, and then Jesus kissed them both. Jesus began to sing, “We are one with the Lord, and the Lord is one with us.” We all sang together and danced, and we told each other that we were not of the world but of a different kingdom, and that night we believed it.
    â€œYour brother is a born leader,” someone said at my side. I turned to see Andrew smiling at the stage.
    â€œIndeed. But we already have a leader here.”
    â€œPerhaps for now,” Andrew said, and then he joined in on the dance.
    Verse Two
    We continued to live with John for nearly another year. Hundreds more followers came to hear him preach from his platform about “the filth piling up to our necks that no Jordan can wash away, but which can be cleansed only by the flaming hand of God,” and about “the awful clash between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness when the Lord sends us His anointed one whose sword will flash like a blinding star,” and about “the long night of blood when we shall cry