Short Stories

---

Arrested in the Temple


Leaving the lower city for afternoon public sacrifices and prayers, Simon Peter and John, the son of Zebedee, went up to the temple on the summit of the hill. As usual, Peter was intent on getting there without delay—his large head of curly black hair and rounded beard leading the way toward their destination. John’s impetuous friend always seemed to be one step ahead of him.

Once again, they marveled at the temple’s massive walls of radiant granite and its spacious terraces and open archways. Gold covered the sanctuary’s double doors. Above them were carved clusters of grapes and vines as high as a man. Inside the temple stood an altar for incense, a menorah, and a table for twelve loaves of unleavened Sabbath bread, arranged in two rows of six loaves, and frankincense as an offering to God. A double curtain covered the sacred entrance to the temple’s Holy of Holies, a special room the shape of a cube into which no light penetrated.

About twenty years before the Messiah was born, King Herod had started rebuilding the sanctuary and enlarging the outer court, and the temple mount still wasn’t finished. Such an enormous structure, John thought, having lived most of his life in a small village by the Galilee.

With an ego to match his visions of grandeur, the efficient, yet merciless, Herod had transformed the old city into a tourist attraction—using thousand of slave laborers and imposing heavy taxes on the Jews to pay for it. Foreign kings, merchants, and peasants roamed the city’s aqueducts and palaces, or watched athletes compete and gladiators fight as entertainment. People shuffled through the Antonia fortress, where groves of trees, water fountains, and lawns surrounded the pillars and porticos.

Peter and John reached the Huldah gate and started up the steps, noticing a group of dour-looking priests near the Royal portico facing the courtyard. The priests spotted the two disciples. They were members of the Sanhedrin, an assembly of sages who were the final authority on Jewish law.

“Pay no attention to them,” Peter said, eager to arrive at the temple court in time for prayers.

The priests resumed their meeting after the two disciples reached the top of the steps. They went toward the Court of Gentiles and saw non-Jews clutching offerings to be sacrificed at the altar by the priests. That day the court was packed with people who came to worship and learn, or see the sights.

“Remember when our Lord turned over these tables?” Peter recalled, passing cheerless Jews sitting at stalls weighing and exchanging Caesar’s coins for shekels, and selling lambs and birds for temple sacrifice.

Each day’s offering was deposited into chests of the temple treasury. The coins were then transferred to hidden chambers. The vault storing shekels was enormous, because each Jewish man was obligated to pay annual dues of a half-shekel.

“Not much has changed,” John said, observing the busy commerce of the moneychangers as they counted their coins.

Peter and John weaved their way toward the Beautiful Gate that opened into the Court of Women, where women greeted each other but got no closer to the sanctuary and altar. At the gate a weary, dark-faced old man reclined on a mat and begged for money. His torn green tunic revealed two thin, deformed legs.

“Alms, alms for the poor,” the man cried.

The beggar said his friends had carried him to the gate of the temple that morning. Peter went over and said to the man, “Look at us.”

The man complied, probably expecting a gold or silver coin in return for his obedience.

“I have no money, but will give you something much more valuable,” Peter said. “In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, walk!” He pulled up the cripple, whose feet and ankles were now restored. It was an amazing thing to see.

The beggar walked with Peter and John into Solomon’s portico, tagging along the inner side of the eastern wall.

Voices in the crowd called out, “Isn’t that the lame man at the gate?”

“How is be able to walk?”

“It is him!” others shouted.

“Why are you staring at us?” Peter asked. “We didn’t make this man walk . . . it was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

Near the temple John saw the same priests encountered earlier at the steps. With them were other members of the Sanhedrin making their way through the large crowd.

“You acted in ignorance,” Peter said to the crowd. “Repent and turn to God.”

The captain of the temple police strode toward the two disciples with the priests and Sadducees. The people fell back as the delegation came within a few feet of us. John was sure they were going to be arrested. But Peter was determined to finish his speech—-he had something to say no matter what happened. John prayed that Peter thought carefully before the words came tumbling out, especially now.

“Prophets since Samuel have foretold these days, and you are heirs of the covenant,” Peter said. “God told Abraham that all people would be blessed through his offspring.”

The scowling officials were nearly upon the two disciples.

“When God raised up his servant, he sent him to bless you,” Peter went on.

The two were finally surrounded.

“Arrest them!” a Sadducee said, his lips pursed with suppressed fury, wagging his long finger at Peter and John.

The beggar merely watched the scene, clearly not knowing what to make of it, as the guards grabbed the two disciples.

“Come with me,” the captain ordered. He led the Peter and John through the crowd and out of the courtyard. Behind them were the priests and Sadducees, appearing satisfied and elf-important.

“Where are you taking us?” Peter asked the officer.

“Prison.”

At that moment, John was glad Peter didn’t have a sword. John recalled the time Peter impulsively hacked off the temple servant’s ear in Gethsemane trying to defend the Lord when he was arrested.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE