Dear readers,

I was honored to receive first place in the Fiction Short Story category of this year’s Cascade Writing Contest, sponsored by the Cascade Christian Writers organization. Since the piece is not published anywhere and I entered the contest simply for the fun of participating, I am sharing the story below. For my fellow writers who may be interested in entering next year’s contest or learning more about CCW, here’s their website: https://cascadechristianwriters.org/

And here’s the story:

I don’t regret what I said the day Jesus decided to go to Bethany and see about Lazarus. None of us thought he should be going so near Jerusalem. Some of us whispered of conspiracies and the jealousy of the powerful; others outright confronted Jesus and said he was being reckless. But Jesus had made up his mind. We could see it in the set of his jaw, in the determined gleam in his eyes. And I wasn’t going to let him go by himself.

It was like Peter had said that one time— “Where else would we go?”

So I figured I was speaking for the whole group when I said, as we set out on the road, “Let’s go then, and die with him.”

And for some reason, everyone burst out laughing when I said that. I knew they agreed with me, but apparently, I had a tone in my voice. They quoted me in an exaggeratedly morose voice: “Let’s go diieee with him.” I think we were all scared, so the others were compensating by laughing about something that wasn’t funny. I glared at them and marched ahead, and that just made them laugh more.

Jesus jogged up to me and smiled. “Thanks, Thomas.” He gripped my arm. “I appreciate you.”

I scowled—there was no point in hiding how I felt. “We don’t think you should be going anywhere near Jerusalem.”

“I know,” he said.

“But—” I sighed. “If you’re going, then I’m going with you. We all are, as you can see.” I turned around and gestured at the rest of the disciples, who were still laughing and cutting up.

Jesus waved at them, then turned back to me and grinned. “I’m very thankful,” he said. “For all of you.”

Jesus was always saying things like that.

He turned out to be right about everything, of course. It turned out that Lazarus had already been dead for days when we got to Bethany. You could smell the body through the stone covering the grave. But Jesus just walked up to the tomb and told the man to come out. And he did.

This offended some powerful people among the religious elite, since only God is supposed to be able to do that sort of thing, and they started plotting to kill Jesus. (So we were also not wrong about the whole Jerusalem thing, I just want to point out.) Jesus slipped off to this little middle-of-nowhere town called Ephraim—with us tagging along, as usual—and evaded his enemies. At least for a while.

***

Trying to stop Jesus from going to Jerusalem was like trying to stop the flow of the Jordan River with your own hands. So we found ourselves back in Jerusalem for Passover. The twelve of us celebrated the feast in an upper room of a stranger’s house, which gave us a bit of privacy even though Jesus was the most famous man in town at this point. That was the night he washed our feet, which is probably the strangest and most meaningful thing that has ever happened to me, including everything that happened afterward.

Jesus talked a lot that night. For hours after the meal, he talked to us about his Father, about the Helper (a shadowy figure to us at that point), about love, joy, peace, death—everything, it felt like. He kept talking about how he was going to go away. He said he was coming back for us, but I didn’t want to let him out of my sight.

At one point he said, “You know the way to where I am going.”

But I just didn’t see how that could be true. So I blurted out, “How can we know the way if we don’t even know where you’re going?”

Then Jesus looked at me, and there was a smile on his lips but sadness in his eyes. This is what he said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

It’s a philosophical marvel, that statement, a brilliant and succinct summary of Jesus’ identity. John showed me later that he’d written it down immediately, word for word, on a little piece of pottery he was carrying around in his pocket.

But this is what I heard—what I felt Jesus saying to me: “Thomas, I know you want to know all the details. I know you want a map. But I just want you to follow me.”

And there was nothing I could say to that. Because, of course, Jesus is the map—and the road, and the companion who walks beside you along the road. But I’m getting ahead of my story.

***

Jesus died the next day. And even though he had warned us, done everything he could to prepare us, we were devastated. We all just ran away. What were we supposed to do, without him there to show us?

I went and stayed with my twin brother for a few days. He thought I was crazy for following Jesus, but he didn’t say that, this time; he just let me be quiet and think.

Then I went back and found the other disciples. They were all in an uproar, claiming they’d seen Jesus alive. And I don’t know why, if it was my brother’s influence or just because it hurt too much to hope. But I convinced myself that they were making it up. They kept arguing with me, but I wasn’t having it.

“Fine,” I said. I was mad. “You show him to me. I want to see where they hammered the nails in his hands. I want to stick my finger in the holes. I want to see where they drove the sword in his side.”

“But Thomas,” Andrew said, “we don’t know where he went.”

And that struck me right in the chest. Jesus had promised we would know where he was going. He’d said he was going to show us the way. But the map was gone, and I was utterly lost.

I breathed out and shook my head. “Then I don’t believe you.” And I walked out of the room and slammed the door.

***

I came back, of course. These were my friends. But I didn’t have to participate in their nonsense. I sat in the corner, and I tried to harden my heart.

We stayed in that house for days, afraid the Sanhedrin were out to get us after what happened with Jesus. People kept trickling in and telling us stories of encounters with Jesus. Cleopas and his wife said they’d walked with Jesus for three hours on the road to their house in Emmaus, sat down and started having dinner with him—all before they realized who it was. Then right after he revealed himself to them, he disappeared.

I was still angry, but I missed Jesus. I tried to picture him walking into the room, but it was always very clearly just my imagination.

Until he actually walked into the room. Straight through a locked door, as a matter of fact. But he wasn’t a ghost; he was Jesus, with the scruffy beard and the calloused hands and everything. “Peace be with you,” he said. And then he said my name.

I stood up, and everybody turned around and stared at me. I felt the way I had on the road to Bethany, like I was the odd one out. Jesus held up his hands. “You said you wanted to see the scars.”

I didn’t move. “Thomas,” Jesus said. “Stop trying to make yourself doubt.” Then he looked at me the same way he had when he’d said that thing about the map.

And I couldn’t help it. I believed him. And then I did everything at once—I grabbed his hands. I touched the scars. I cried. I hugged him. I shouted, “My Lord and my God!” I saw him and believed. And although Jesus went off on his own again that night, I would see him one more time before he went back to his Father.

***

The sun was just starting to rise over the Sea of Tiberias. An orange glow crossed by thin dark clouds. The air was still chilly.

Some of us had gone fishing overnight. It had been Peter’s idea; he’d said he wanted to do something with his hands.

“But we’re not fishermen anymore,” Andrew had pointed out.

“What are we, then?” Peter had argued. That had silenced Andrew. “Besides, we’re not going to sell them,” Peter had said. “I just want to do something.”

Not all of us were trained as fishermen, but those who were gave us things to do, to keep us busy. We sat in the boat all night, quiet in the dark, as if the past week had drained all the stories out of us.

As the sun began to rise, we headed back to shore. A silhouette of a man was standing there. I shivered. He called out: “I guess you guys didn’t catch any fish?”

I thought I recognized the man’s voice, but I didn’t want to say it. I glanced at the others.

“No,” Peter called out. He didn’t sound irritated, just tired.

The man called back: “Let down your net on the right side of the boat. I think you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

Someone gasped. I saw John smile and nod. “Do it,” said Peter. And of course, we did. I hadn’t been there three years ago, the first time this had happened, but I’d heard the story dozens of times.

Immediately, the net was full of fish. This was not a surprise—again we all knew what to expect—but it still took my breath away. I paused to gasp some air into my lungs. “Grab the net!” James hollered. I did. But even with all of us pulling, we couldn’t get the net into the boat.

“Drag it in,” said Peter. “I’m going to talk to Jesus.” He took off his coat and jumped into the chilly water.

The orange glow was spreading up from the horizon. James and John got us into the little boat so we could pull the net into shore without having to weigh anchor. My job was to hold onto the net for dear life.

When we got to shore, there was a small coal fire with bread toasting over it. Just when I realized I was hungry, the man raised his head from the deep consultation he had been in with Peter and smiled. It was unmistakably Jesus. There was a moment when I forgot he had been dead a week before. I remembered when he pushed his hair off his forehead and I saw the ugly scar in his hand. “I’m making breakfast for us,” he said. “Hand me a couple of those fish.”

I grabbed two of the fish from the teeming pile. They were cold, and a ray of sun shone off their silver scales. I placed them in Jesus’ hands, which were warm from the fire. “Thank you,” he said, looking in my eyes, and it sounded like a blessing. I didn’t know what to say, and Peter looked eager to continue their talk, so I turned back toward the net.

“We should count these,” I said.

“Why?” Nathanael frowned. “We’re not going to sell them.”

“Someone will want to record the number.” I gestured toward the others. At least two of them had been writing down their experiences with Jesus. I was just trying to make sense of it all in my head.

“Is the number important?” Nathanael looked at the net. It was just a small one, not a big commercial net like I’d seen some of the fancier-looking fleets have. But it was bursting, a multitude of fish now glowing with the fire of the mostly risen sun.

I shrugged, already spreading out a canvas for them to dry. “Anything might be important.”

So we counted them. As Peter remained in hushed conversation with Jesus, who listened carefully as he turned the fish over the fire, as James and John mended a net just on the edge of their discussion, as Andrew walked the beach alone, picking up driftwood for the fire, Nathanael helped me count the fish. There were 153.

The sun had fully risen when Jesus said, “Breakfast is ready.” He broke the bread and passed it around. He winced when he burned his fingers on the fish as he divided it up. The skin of the fish was salty and crispy and the flesh flaky. And I didn’t know if it was because God had cooked this fish or because Jesus of Nazareth just had a lot of practice preparing food in the open air, but it was perhaps the best fish I had ever eaten. The bread, too, was perfect—soft on the inside with a faint char on the outside—and this surprised me not at all.

Jesus looked out to sea, toward the sun in its strength. Then he looked back to us, casting his gaze around the circle, where we all sat licking our fingers. “Remember,” he said. “You are the light of the world. You are the salt of the earth. You are the fishers of men.” He smiled. “But you are shepherds now, too. As I just told Peter, I am sending you to feed my sheep.”

Peter ducked his head and gave a grin that looked uncharacteristically shy. I thought about how Jesus had called himself the good shepherd. Now he was asking us to be the same.

And then Jesus looked at me. “I’m going to prepare a place for you,” he said.

I smiled. “I won’t lose the map.”

“You won’t,” he agreed.

***

Those are just a few examples of the things Jesus said and did—the ones that stuck with me the most. John said that if you tried to write down everything Jesus did, the whole world wouldn’t be able to hold the books, and while I’m not sure how to picture that, practically speaking, I think I understand what he’s getting at.        

Jesus went back to be with his Father shortly after that morning on the beach, but he’s never left me or forsaken me. And I’m still following the map.