The Prisoner in the Third Cell Read Online Free PDF Page A

for a moment. Pain was in his words. “Tell my brother John:
    â€œAnd blessed is he who is not offended with me.”
    There was another pause. Jesus stood, embraced the three men, and then turned to his disciples. “The hour is very late. It is time we departed here. We must go on to the next village. Please dismiss those waiting outside.”
    John’s three disciples stood, stunned. After a long moment of obvious confusion, they turned and made their departure. The courtyard they crossed was now empty, as were the streets they passed through.
    Tomorrow will hold for Jesus yet another village. For the disciples of John, tomorrow will hold the enigma of this day.
    But what will tomorrow hold for those who were sent home that evening? They all departed without being healed. And John? What will be his response to the strange words of his cousin?

Chapter 13
    The three disciples of John squatted down on the slimy floor of the dungeon that had become John’s home.
    â€œTeacher, we have seen your cousin.”
    â€œDid you ask my question?”
    â€œWe did.”
    â€œAnd his answer?”
    â€œTeacher, the answer is very strange. We do not understand it.”
    John sighed. It was as though he knew this would be Nadab’s response.
    â€œHis reply?”
    â€œTeacher, he said to tell you that the blind and the dumb and the crippled receive sight and hearing and healing. Then he said to tell you that the good news is proclaimed, and received with joy.”
    John turned those words over in his mind very slowly. After several minutes, his brow wrinkled. The prisoner leaned forward and asked, “Is that all?”
    â€œNo, teacher, he said one other thing, and then he dismissed the crowd and bade us farewell. What he said was, ‘Tell John, “And blessed is he who is not offended with me.”’”
    There was a long silence as three men studied the face of John, hoping to glimpse his reaction to these words. But, as always, there was none.
    Finally John queried: “Where was my cousin?”
    â€œIn a village in Galilee, called Nain,” responded Nadab. “There were sick people everywhere; streets, lanes, and alleys were all filled with people wanting to be healed. The place was overrun with suffering souls.”
    â€œWere they being healed?”
    â€œYes, teacher, many were being healed.”
    With those words, John’s interest quickened, his frame straightened. “Did you say, many ?” responded John.
    â€œYes, teacher, many.”
    â€œMany?” asked John again.
    Nadab was puzzled. “Yes, teacher,” he answered again, “ Many were being healed.”
    â€œMany,” repeated John quietly as to himself. Then he leaned forward again. “Many, Nadab? Many, but not all?”
    For a brief instant Nadab was at a loss as to what John was saying. Then his own eyes lit up, revealing the shock of what John was observing. “Yes, teacher, you are right. There were many who were being healed, but not all .”
    â€œ. . . not . . . all.”
    John stared vacantly into space. Had he at last found the answer to the questions which had troubled him so deeply about Jesus? Or had he simply added more questions to his dilemma?
    At that very moment, there was someone else who was struggling with this same dilemma.

Chapter 14
    â€œLeave me,” said Jesus to his companions.
    With those words, Jesus wandered off to a sequestered place to be alone. Never before in all his thirty-one years, nor in all his preexistence in eternity, had he ever longed so intensely to answer the cry and the question of someone struggling to understand the mysterious ways of his God.
    If ever there was a time for him to give a clear answer, if ever there was a person to whom he should speak clearly, surely the time was now and the person, John. If any man ever lived who had a right to have an explanation given to him, that man was his own flesh and