Free The Gospel of the Twin by Ron Cooper Page B

out for death but instead shall endure to rejoice over the grave of the slain seven-headed beast.” His followers wept and cheered at these stark, frenzied words and believed him anointed by the Lord to bring about a revolution. John said nothing to deny that belief. In his speeches, he would tell the people that they were unworthy to do the Lord’s work, and they would cry to him, “Make us clean!” Each month the lines grew longer, forming long before sundown, with those waiting to have him submerge them in the river.
    At night, as we sat around the fire with him and a few of his closest followers, he would tell of a great transformation that the Lord would soon initiate.
    â€œThe world will change,” John said to us. “The Pure Ones have scriptures that tell of this, and I have seen visions of it myself. But the Pure Ones were satisfied, like most of our people, to sit and wait. That is why I left them, for I am trying to prepare us to take charge as the Lord gives us the signs.”
    â€œHow will the signs come?” I asked.
    â€œThey come each day,” he said. “You and Jesus and Judas—you are signs.”
    â€œWe’ve heard this before,” said Judas. “Many have claimed that the Lord will appoint a leader, and some have claimed to be such saviors. Each has proved false, and most have paid with their lives. The Romans charge them with sedition and nail them to trees so that we can watch them die in agony. We must prepare in secrecy and choose our compatriots with care.”
    â€œYou speak as if you’re fearful, Judas,” said John.
    â€œI fear only that you’re walking the wrong path—one that leads us nowhere,” Judas said.
    â€œJudas may sound rather sharp,” Andrew said, “yet I think, John, maybe you should give us a clearer idea of how and when the revolution will occur.”
    â€œLook about you!” John said. “You’ve seen the numbers grow. Already we have two thousand, and more arrive each day. They all want the same as you. Soon they will be joined by another ten thousand, and we must prepare them all.”
    â€œI have spoken with some here who are brave and ready, in the same manner as I,” said Judas.
    â€œWe know well your readiness, Judas,” Jesus said, “but perhaps the path we walk is wide enough for both you and John.”
    I was sure that Jesus did not understand the differences between those two. John was waiting for the Lord, in a flaming, cloud-borne chariot, to lead armored angels in battle against a demon throng while an anointed general led us in a parallel campaign against the Romans here below. Judas had no such heavenly illusions and was unwilling to wait on a God he believed had forgotten us.
    I thought they were both misguided, although I agreed more with Judas. But Jesus saw only their fervor. I struggled to abide his habit of seeing only the best in people, sometimes ascribing to them a clarity of purpose and sincerity that they hardly possessed. I constantly worried that he would be exploited by some charlatan he thought a friend.
    Verse Three
    â€œYour brother’s notion that John and I can walk a path together is foolish,” Judas said to me the next evening after another day of John’s sermons. Earlier that day, he had asked me to take a walk with him to discuss an “urgent matter.” Now he pointed back toward the camp, where dozens of fires were already lit. “All those people there―are they on the same path? They’re willing to follow John even if the path leads off a cliff. They have no direction, and what’s worse, neither does he.”
    We stopped and, for a minute or longer, I watched the campfires brighten in the twilight and thought of their various metaphors. The light of knowledge in the darkness of ignorance. Portable hearths for the homeless. John’s cosmic Sons of Light amid the Sons of Darkness. I knew that