'Are there any among you who are ill?'
A short story about two of the 72 whom Jesus separated from the rest
Today’s reflection is a short story navigating God’s gift of healing for the 72:
Their first encounter engaged them in conversation with a hefty but friendly man and his two hearty boys. The boys spoke rapidly, telling Isidore and Atlan that they were stonemasons. Their necks were thick and their hands large. “Are there any among you who are ill?” Isidore asked the man.
A tale for Holy Saturday - “And Jesus said it was so …”
Isidore stood at the back of the crowd with his friend and brother-in-law, Atlan, listening to Jesus give the group its assignments. While the others shuffled about and murmured, Isidore stood still and watched the engaging holy man. He caught Jesus periodically looking at him as he spoke, which wasn’t difficult. Isidore towered a foot above everyone else.
At 30 years old, he had already experienced two careers. Isidore labored in the fields from the beginning when he was 12, eating, growing, and building upon his already massive frame. He was thought to be slow of mind because his movements were careful and his speech deliberate. However, his pondering manner and lumbering movements hid the assured man who eventually built a successful, thriving business. In a few short years, he and his wife, Naomi, gathered an extended family reliant upon Isidore's doggedness. Their eventual clan of mixed races and cast-offs took on all available work, lived out faithfulness to God, and the land.
For eight years, Isidore single-handedly restored an abandoned copper foundry in the Arabah Valley, a vestige of Solomon’s old slave camps. He returned it to a bustling enterprise that employed a dozen craftsmen and a legion of workers. His copper creations ranged from plates sold at festivals for the wealthy to copper and iron mixed to form farming and construction tools.
For two months, Isidore and his friend Atlan followed Jesus from afar. They journeyed from Isidore's smelting lands below Mount Horab with wares to sell. All had sold, and they wandered into the throngs that followed Jesus.
Their families had arrived only recently to join them for the Jewish feasts. Atlan has set up camp for their families in comfortable tents outside Jerusalem with the rest of the pilgrim visitors.
Isidore and Atlan were the last two men recruited by Jesus for a special calling to go out to the countryside. They hesitantly joined after 70 men had already been assigned to far-flung destinations. Jesus' convincing manner swayed their dithering doubts.
"You will be filled with the Spirit," he told Isidore and Atlan. They felt a distinct tingle through their arms where Jesus touched them. Jesus told them this would be their only duty for him, and they could return to their families when they came back. The task seemed simple. Announce the coming Kingdom to one small village where Jesus would visit following a complete trek around the Sea of Galilee. From this village, Jesus would return to Jerusalem.
Isidore told Atlan they should bring the empty cart and the older steeds. Isidore and Atlan would walk beside the two retired war horses. It would be an easy journey and provide a sleeping cot for the men. The horses’ days were numbered, and Isidore and Atlan wanted to spend time with the animals.
Atlan had rescued the geldings from slaughter by Roman stable hands — meat for the slaves. The battle injuries suffered by the animals required patience and care, which Atlan had. The two men fulfilled Jesus' desire that they walk and not ride, so they ambled beside the grateful old horses.
The village of Nain, their destination, lies West, below the Sea of Galilee. That’s where Jesus sent them. They arrived in three days.
Their first encounter engaged them in conversation with a hefty but friendly man and his two hearty boys. The boys spoke rapidly, telling Isidore and Atlan that they were stonemasons. Their necks were thick and their hands large.
“You in need of mason work?” the man asked. His body leaned to the right. His left side appeared partially paralyzed.
Atlant shook his head no.
“Are there any among you who are ill?” Isidore asked the man.
Atlan smiled at Isadore. He liked the question. It was a good way to start, since they weren’t there to hire anyone.
The man and the two boys looked at each other for a moment. The question had thrown them off.
“My dad’s left arm doesn't work,” the bigger boy said. "That side pains him, though he never complains." Isidore saw that the man’s left wrist was tied to his lower leg. The arm remained straight down, his fist clenched around the fashioned cinch. Isidore reached for the fella’s shoulder, squeezed it a bit, repeating the squeezing as he went to the elbow, and the wrist, and then gently released the cinch.
“It seems fine,” Isidore said, his huge hand sliding down the injured man's left arm again, squeezing as he went. The man lightly lifted his left hand straight up into the air, something he hadn’t been able to do in years, and remarked in agreement. “So it does! Well, I’ll be.”
Atlan looked at Isidore with wide eyes, shocked at the simple solution to the man's problem. “I think it was just out of its socket,” Isidore shrugged.
The man looked from his arm to Isidore several times while his boys inspected their father's fixed appendage. “You must join us for supper!” the man said loudly, moving his left arm over and over, with surprising ease, confused at its quick repair. He turned and led the two strangers to his house.
“I’ve got a lispth,” the younger boy, a full-sized fellow, shouted. He stood still, waiting for Isadore. Atlan and Isidore returned to him while the father and other son watched. Atlan looked at the boy’s upper cleft lip, poorly hidden beneath a patchy moustache. Isidore reached for the boy's mouth and rubbed it with his thumb.
“You got something on there,” Isadore said. He removed and tossed away what looked like a large dead wasp. The cleft immediately healed over.
They all turned back toward the house, satisfied that the wasp had been removed. However, no one noticed that the boy's lip and upper teeth had been completely repaired. The boy remained where he was, pulling at his lip.
“What the heck?” he said as everyone walked away.
Noises and commotion came from the stone home as they approached. The old man walked in first, and the rest followed, except for the younger boy who was still back at the road inspecting every inch of his face, and periodically jumping up and down.
“Who are these two?” shouted an annoyed woman as Atlan and Isidore entered the house. Isidore ducked under the entrance and stood fully upright, and the woman stepped back, aghast at his size.
“What in good God is that you’ve brought in?” she shouted at her husband, pointing an arthritic finger at Isidore. She moved in jerky motions. Like a prize fighter sizing up an opponent, she jutted her chin at Isidore and scowled.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Isidore said in his low, slow voice.
Atlan remembered what Jesus had told them to say.
“Oh, and peace to this household,” Atlan said a little too loudly.
Isidore watched the woman’s fearful antics. He smiled at her as Atlan spoke. The anger left her. Her brash, frightened demeanor abated. Even her clothing seemed to settle down. She smiled back at Isidore, relief replacing her anxiety. Her husband’s jaw dropped wide open at his wife's transformation.
Two young girls ran wildly into the room, skirts flying, angry shouts flung at each other, and hands swirling. They crashed awkwardly into Isidore. Isidore reached out with both his hands and lightly grabbed each girl before they tumbled to the floor. He set them carefully down, kneeling as he did, and their bodies relaxed as they stared into his face.
“No harm done,” Isidore said, with a broad, happy smile. He thought of his children back home and patted the girls on their arms.
The room had gone fully quiet. A calm filled the house, something that had not been there since the walls had been built.
“He fixed my lip, papa!” the younger boy shouted as he burst into the house.
Atlan looked at his friend, watching the quick turn of the tide in the household’s demeanor and inhabitants. “Isidore, are you doing this?” he asked, loud enough for all to hear.
“Doing what?” Isidore asked, clearly confused by the question, his dreamy thoughts still on his family.
“Why are you here?” the older of the two young men who had walked in with them asked. Isidore and Atlan paused for a minute.
"The Spirit is with you," Atlan said quietly. He said it again and he looked into the eyes of everyone in the household. “We’re here to announce the coming of the Kingdom. Jesus sent us,” he added.
“The Kingdom of God is at hand for you,” Isidore added, still on his knees, the girls holding onto one of his arms.
“Oh,” the woman said, strangely understanding what they said. The old man went to his wife’s side, whispering to her with questions. She inspected his left arm, amazed at how he easily moved it around her back. "Ooohhh!" she said, over and over.
They ate a noon meal there, reclining at the table, and were invited to stay in a room near the stable. Atlan inspected their animals and found that he could brush away mange and remove sore spots by simply touching them.
The next day, leaving their cart and horses with their host family, they visited many on the outskirts of Nain. They found that the pattern of healing and removing demons was repeated everywhere they went.
“This is fantastic, Isidore,” Atlan said.
Isidore told people many stories about Jesus that he had seen in just his few short weeks with him—healings, removing demons, and teachings from the Torah.
“You are right, Atlan,” Isidore said after they had healed a young boy who could not stop yelling at people. He was hiding in a cave behind his mother’s house. When they left him, the boy was talking calmly to his mother while she combed out his hair.
“This is what Jesus sent us to do,” Isidore said. “He’ll be coming here soon. Everyone will be so eager to see him.”
They decided it was time to return to Jesus a few days later. They traded the two aging horses for a single healthy horse. The old animals were happy in a farmer's field, whose wife they had restored from a constant depression. They left Nain and returned to gather with the other men, north of Jerusalem, where they had left Jesus. On the trek back, they heard many similar stories to their adventures, but were shocked by recurring tales of men being attacked and verbally abused. Others were forcibly chased out of their town. Jesus had said this might happen.
No one had a complete success story like Isidore and Atlan. Near their family, they left the traded horse and reported to Jesus.
“We were not prepared for the kind of receptions the others had,” Isidore said to Atlan. “Our visit didn’t include any danger.”
“I don’t know how I would handle such a thing,” Atlan responded.
"Jesus purposely sent us there for that reason, Atlan," Isidore concluded. He remembered that Jesus said this was all he'd ask of them, and then told them they would return to their families.
The two stood outside the group, apart, much like they had initially been standing when they joined up. Jesus nodded to Isidore and Atlan to come to him. He held Atlan, forehead to forehead, then did the same with Isadore. “Thank you,” he said, reminding them they could return home. He would spend more time with the other men, but they could go. Jesus waved to them as he escorted the 70 others to a hillside. Isidore turned and walked away. Atlan went with him.
They returned to their families. A pall of dread overcame them on the walk to the tents where the clan camped. They spoke in somber voices, revisiting Jesus’ words that he would suffer harm from the elders and chief priests, and that even the scribes would join in. Eventually, Jesus said he would be killed.
Isidore and Atlan were not to be part of it.
They gathered their families, short of finishing the feast days, not explaining their early departure to their loved ones, who obediently left Jerusalem and headed back to the Arabah Valley.
Some time later, they heard that Jesus was crucified. Roman travelers described the day's events, and the darkness that came when he died, a sure sign that Jesus' mission had failed. The disciples, they were told, had dispersed and were thought to be no more.
A month passed, and Isidore and Atlan found that they still had their healing power, a gift they knew had come from the Holy Spirit of Jesus. They murmured that the Kingdom was coming whenever they touched an animal or soothed the throats or sore hands of their family and employees—out of deference, out of respect, because they didn't want to lose their gifts.
On a clear night, at the end of a smoky day's work, Atlan shared with Isidore an unbelievable rumor he had heard from one of their distributors who had recently been to Jerusalem. "He said that Jesus had risen from the dead, and that he'd seen him," Atlan said, staring into the sky. "He ate with Jesus. Just a few days ago, he said Jesus left them rising into the clouds."
They discussed whether it could be true.
“The Kingdom of God is at hand for you,” Atlan murmured in silence between them.
They looked at each other, then stood and made rounds, attending to their animalså and mending their bodies. They retired to their families, held and hugged them, adding a new phrase to their healing touches.
"Jesus said it is so ..."