The True Miracle

by Donna Poole

Agatha raised herself on her elbow and gagged weakly into the bowl at her side. She heard the curtain to her room push back.

“Please, go away,” she whispered.

Mary and Dorcas heard her, but they did not go away. Dorcas dipped a cloth into cool water and held it to her forehead as Mary gently supported her shoulders until the rest of her breakfast left her body.

Tears ran down Agatha’s cheeks. She’d always been a strong, proud woman, and she didn’t want her friends to see her like this.

“Go, now, please,” she said.

Instead of leaving, they sat on the floor next to her mat.

“Jesus is back here in Capernaum,” Mary said with quiet excitement.

Dorcas nodded. “He can tell you what’s wrong with you, and He can heal you. You know He can.”

“Let us help you get to Jesus,” Mary begged. “You can lean on us.”

Agatha shook her head wearily.

“Just let me die in peace. I know what’s wrong with me. I’ve told you before. My father taught me that three-thousand years ago ancient Egyptians cauterized breast tumors with a tool they called the fire drill. Four-hundred years ago a Greek physician, Hippocrates, called tumors carcinos and carcinoma. And just in the last few decades the Roman physician, Celsus, translated the Greek word into the Roman word ‘cancer.’ I have cancer. It’s all through my body. Just look at me! No one can help me now, not even Yahweh!”

She closed her eyes and threw one thin arm over them. Agatha’s friends did look at her and then at each other with tears in their eyes. In the last year she’d lost a third of her body weight. Her soft snores let them know she was asleep.

“Mary,” Dorcas said, “sometimes I think her Greek father educated her too much for her own good. She has too much learning to have any room for faith.”

Dorcas shook her head. “I don’t think it’s that. I think she’s just too tired to have faith, so we’re going to have to have it for her. If she can’t remember the song of her heart, we can, and we’ll sing it back to her.”

“You speak in riddles. What do you have in mind?”

“Come,” Dorcas whispered, and the two friends tiptoed out of the house. As they walked down the dusty street, they made their plans.

“It might work,” Mary said excitedly. “We’d only need four good sized boys. She weighs barely more than a child.”

***

Agatha cried out in terror and woke from her dream. Let me die in peace I said to my friends, but there is no peace. My sins are like tormenting spirits haunting me waking and sleeping!

“Why did you name me Agatha, Father?” she whispered to his memory. “I am not a good woman. I have no sins of the flesh to confess, but oh these secret sins of the spirit eat at me more than the cancer. The envy, the spite, the selfishness in my heart! If only I could leave my sin behind when I die, I’d gladly die this minute to be free of it! But will it follow me into the great unknown? You taught me so much, Father. Why didn’t you teach me this? I’ve followed all of Mother’s Jewish customs, but were they enough? None of the sacrifices have set me free from myself!”

Agatha turned on her side and sobbed herself back to sleep. She was only semi-conscious when she felt her mat being lifted from the floor. Through tear-swollen eyes she squinted up at four smiling lads.

“Where are you taking me?” she cried in alarm.

“It’s alright,” Mary said, reaching for her hand.

Dorcas took her other hand. “We’re taking you to Jesus.”

“No!” She struggled to sit, but she was too weak. “He cannot help me. Please don’t carry me into the streets like this where people will see me.”

Her friends pulled soft coverings up to her chin and pleaded with their eyes. How could she refuse such love?

Through the streets of Capernaum they went until they came to the house where Jesus was teaching. It was one of the larger homes, able to hold about fifty people crowded closely together, but the crowd had spilled out of the door and stood deep around the windows, a quiet crowd, straining to hear every word of the Master.

“We cannot get through,” one of the lads said. “Shall we go back?”

“No!” Dorcas nodded at the outside staircase. “Carry her to the roof.”

The boys looked apprehensive but obeyed. Even Mary was alarmed.

“Dorcas, what do you have in mind?”

“Do you believe Jesus can heal her?”

“You know I absolutely do!”

“Then get ready to get dirty!”

Dorcas had to promise the boys they wouldn’t get into trouble with their parents, and she would pay for damages, before they agreed to help, but soon six pairs of hands were digging through the mud roof. Mud and debris began falling into peoples’ hair, and the crowd looked up in amazement. Jesus laughed.

As soon as the hole was big enough, two of the boys jumped down, while Mary, Dorcas, and the other two lowered Agatha on her mat. There she lay, in front of Jesus. He looked deep into her eyes.

“Welcome, Agatha. The Greek name meaning ‘good woman.’”

She shook her head, tears running unhindered down her face. Agatha was in the presence of pure goodness and had never felt her own sinfulness more. She groaned, and it wasn’t from the pain of the cancer. She looked away from Jesus. How could sin look at such holiness?

Jesus took her two thin hands in his two strong ones.

“Look at me, my daughter,” He said in a voice of love.

“Your sins are forgiven.”

Agatha could almost see them leave, those heavy condemning spirits, the ghostly chains of sins past, present, and future. She felt so light and free, so full of joy!

Agatha looked up through the hole in the roof at her friends. They were frowning. That is not why they’d brought her to Jesus. They were quite unhappy with this outcome.

Couldn’t they understand? She didn’t care about the cancer in her body anymore. Everyone died sometime. The cancer in her spirit was gone, and that was the true miracle! She was good now with a goodness not her own.

She could hear others in the crowd murmuring, some wearing the robes of the elite Pharisees.

“Who does Jesus think he is? Only God can forgive sins.”

Jesus nodded at Agatha. “Get ready,” He whispered.

Then with a commanding shout He ordered, “So they will know the Son of Man has power of earth to forgive sins, Agatha, good woman, take up your bed, and walk!”

Jesus stretched His hand down and lifted her up. She felt the cancers leaving her body and the strength of youth flowing into her.

“How?” she asked Him in a whisper. “How?”

Now Jesus looked sad. “You’ll know later when you stand at the foot of my cross. Go now. Live your life in joy.”

She’d never known, with all her learning, that holiness was just another word for happiness.

Agatha rolled up her mat and looked up at the roof. How was she going to get back up through that hole?

“You might try going out the door,” Jesus said. And He laughed. She laughed too, and then the whole room was laughing. The crowd parted, making a way for her to get through. People patted her back.

“Go with Yahweh, good woman!” Someone shouted.

That was exactly what she intended to do.