From the National Review, back in 1987:
And he said unto them, Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there
shall a man meet you, bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house
where he entereth in.
And ye shall say unto the goodman of
the house, The Master saith unto thee, Where is the guest chamber, where I shall
eat the passover with my disciples? And he shall show you a large upper room
furnished: there make ready.
—Luke 22: 10–12
There is a strange agency at work here. The Scripture
might be haunted. That pitcher-bearer. This goodman. They spook me. Who are
they, what special order of grace do they belong to? And, elsewhere, those men
who surrender the colt “whereon yet never man sat.” Nameless, equivocal shapes.
“Hey,” they shout, “why loose ye the colt?” The Lord has need of it, His
disciples explain. Oh, well. In that case. Why didn’t you say so? Take our
expensive animal. And has their free will been taken also? It is as if a casual,
weird cast of accomplices inhabited Jerusalem. Men or suchlike who know, often
better than fumbling Peter or over-literal Thomas, just how to ornament the
Passion.
Were they perhaps made of some angelic
stuff? I don’t think so: it is the Lord’s habit, thank God, to enlist men
wherever convenient. He has an economical disposition. And Man was, after all,
what this grand enterprise had been about from the first. But how then did
Jesus, so to speak, make His room reservation in advance? Were these men
sensitized by dreams? Did the Holy Spirit, foraging like a quartermaster
sergeant, requisition their possessions through sign and vision? It is possible.
The Lord had been known to trouble sleep. “And being warned of God in a
dream . . . ” Was there fitfulness before the Passover?
Again, I think not. God prefers, when He can, to conserve terrestrial order.
He has a dramatic instinct. And His own peculiar unities. The Passion is as
naturalistic as frail wrist tissue shredded by a spike. Jesus could ferment
water. He could infinitely divide the loaf and the fish. But here He had need of
a furnished apartment. His colt might have come about providentially, as
Abraham’s ram came about, caught in some thicket. But God wanted a known colt:
one that had memorable references in Jerusalem. It was His purpose to leave a
clear and historical track behind — evidence that might stand up in court. The
presence of transcendent power among modest instruments is more persuasive than
any bullying miracle could be.
I suppose it this way, then. That these — pitcher-bearer and goodman and
colt-owner, these first acolytes of the Eucharist — were men given sudden and
heightened perception. An abrupt seeing Into. Spirit came upon them as Jesus
came upon Matthew sitting at the receipt of custom: “Follow me. And he arose,
and followed Him.” Simply that.
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Please. We are so habituated to reason and a precious carefulness that
Christ’s people seem, well, irresponsible. But grace is first the law-breaker.
It can be brutal: “Let the dead bury their dead.” Brutal and rash and unfair.
Because there is no ground whatever for believing that these were righteous men.
They didn’t earn their cameo roles in the Passion through good work. I suspect
they were chosen rather for an
openness to potential. They were, above
all, ready men.
Simon of Cyrene, recruited by grace and some Roman to lug Jesus’ cross, is my
paradigm in this. He had, it would seem, no previous experience for the work. No
moral credentials that we hear about. Just a man “who passed by, coming out of
the country.” To trade, to sightsee, to window-shop: another tourist in the Big
Fig. And, all at once, he is absorbed by that rubbernecking mob. Elbow to the
front — what have we here? And it’s you, yes you. Bozo, pack that wood. We know
nothing about Simon, except that his children, Rufus and Alexander, became
Christians. On Good Friday, Simon was what we all are, a passerby. And
shanghaied by the Holy Spirit. I take comfort in this thought, whose life
otherwise does not much recommend itself to God. That I may be granted, through
His fierce randomness and my mere availability, a walk-on moment of
redemption.
On Good Friday, Simon was what we all are, a
passerby.
Return to the Passion now. Imagine, say, a man in his workshop room alone.
For best effect, I’d fancy him preoccupied: revising some device of his craft,
in thought, whatever. Suppose it hot and ordinary out. Then, all of one rush, as
weather can change, there should be an importance in the air. Let that cheap
pitcher interpose itself across his attention here. For this instant it should
have more
pitcherness. The way common objects astound and please when
we are full of joy. This is, you know, not his regular time to fetch water in.
But the thought of “pitcher,” the very surprising idea that
it can hold
water, contains aptness and fascination for him. It has been
infused by grace. And he rises at a call — not from God as such, nor
from any impending event — but to honor the perfect nature of one created thing.
There is elevation all around.
Returning from the well he happens upon two men. After that, unaware, they
will become a procession of three.
It is not through war and celebrity that God has most advanced His will. It
Is through the commonplace: room, colt, manger, fisherman — thunderous Easter,
atrocity and miracle, are prepared for in them. Open a window. Pick up anything.
Inhale. These are moments and incidents without moral import except for this:
that reverence and special shining can inhere. We are admonished to be alert.
And certainly we have lost just that measure of openness and heightening and
expectation. This is, I suspect, what those shadowy men are about. If they
didn’t know, they felt, felt at some proper instant, that even in the filling of
a pitcher one might lead great strangers to magnificence.
— D. Keith Mano was a TV screenwriter and author
of ten books, including Take Five, the recipient of the 1987 Literary
Lion award, and a columnist at National
Review magazine for 17
years.
