“I had been as close to Jesus as his shadow ever since he called me from my toll booth. That habit was too much a part of me. Instead of running away I fell to my knees and began crawling through this tall grass, until I could see the many torches and hear angry shouts from a mob so large that I was unable to identify Jesus or Peter or John among them, despite the bright light Then one of the torches separated from the others and began moving through the garden in my direction.”

“What did you do?”

“I turned into a coward, like all the others, and ran through the darkness up the mount. I remember stopping, near the top, to catch my breath, and when I looked down into the moonlit garden I fell to my knees in shame, grieving at my lack of courage. No torch had followed me through the trees. I was alone, and I could see the lights of the arrest party as they headed south outside the city’s wall. Then I heard my name being whispered and I saw Bartholomew. Together we followed the path over the mount and down the slope until we arrived at the home of Martha and Mary in Bethany.”

“And what of the others?”

“Before dawn, all nine—James and the eight of us who had slept through our master’s arrest—had returned alone or in pairs to that home where we had spent so many happy hours with Jesus.”

“After you were all reunited, what did you do?”

The apostle shrugged helplessly. “We knew not what to do. We were stricken with both grief and terror. Martha and Mary and some of the men were weeping. The rest of us sat around in stunned silence. Remember, most of us were not of the city, so that even under the best of conditions Jerusalem intimidated us. To have our rabbi—and Peter and John as well, for all we knew—seized by the authorities was the end of everything. Thomas kept saying he was certain he had seen Roman soldiers among the arresting party, and that possibility added to our terror. Someone, I forget who, wanted to start out immediately for Galilee before we were all arrested, but how could we? How could we abandon Jesus and Peter and John and the women who were still in the city? Yet how could we hide for very long in the house of Martha and Mary when it was common knowledge that they had housed us for the past week?”

“So now all of you were certain that you were fugitives from the law. What did you finally decide to do?”