Both stared up at him and Quintus felt as if they were on one side, and he, the enemy on the other. Quintus pinched the bridge of his nose. “I will do all I can to get you out of here.” It was the best he could promise. “It’s the least I can do to repay you for what you’ve done.”
“My God worked here tonight.” Valentine tilted his head back against the wall. “But I will not refuse your help.”
“God.” Quintus repeated the word as if it were foreign. And it might as well have been.God.Singular. Strange. “You were about to tell us about your god. About the service he’s done.”
Valentine started at the beginning, with a creation story Quintus had never heard. Where a god created a perfect world and put a man and woman in charge of it, with a single command not to eat of one tree.
Quintus saw where that was heading.
“They unleashed evil into the world, which separated them from a perfect and holy God. No impurity can stand before Him. He cast them out of the garden forever.”
“But it was the god’s fault.” Iris shook her head, protesting. “If he hadn’t made a forbidden tree, all would be well.”
Quintus nodded at her observation. The gods were usually blundering things.
“God created people for relationship—with each other and with Him.” Valentine shifted and winced but kept on. “Love that has no will of its own is not love at all; it’s servitude—worse, it’s slavery.”
Iris visibly shuddered. Quintus knew she was thinking about the tribune, about their soon-to-be fate if they didn’t get out of the city.
He took her cold hand. “Get on to the great service he’s done.”
Valentine scratched behind his ear. “The penalty for their disobedience was death. Physical death in this world and a death of the soul which permanently separated their spirits from God. That separation passed to their children as well. The only way they could once again rekindle any sort of relationship with God was to obey the laws He gave them.”
“All the best stories are about mortals beating the gods at their own games.” Quintus gestured for Valentine to continue. “Who did it?”
Valentine shook his head. “There is none righteous, not even one. Whoever keeps all the laws and breaks just one of them is still as guilty as the one who breaks them all. The laws were given to show us that there is nothing we can do to earn our way back into God’s good graces.”
“So we are doomed?” Iris’s whisper did not mask the despair in her tone.
“Yes.” Valentine gave a nod. “But not completely.” His voice lowered as if about to reveal a great secret. Quintus leaned forward, realizing he was finally about to hear the answer to the question that had nagged at him since he’d been to the seer.
“At just the right moment, God sent His only Son, born of a virgin, born under the laws He’d given, in order to redeem everyone, so that all might receive the right to be called children of God. That right is for everyone who believes on His name.”
Iris squinted up at Quintus, who tilted his head.
Valentine explained. “The penalty for sin is death, but God sentHis Son, Jesus, to die in our place so we wouldn’t have to. All we have to do is believe that He is our Savior, and we are washed clean before God.”
Quintus leaned back on his heels, turning it over in his mind. So much about this god didn’t make sense. Yet there was power here. Unlike anything he’d seen before. Though the man chained before him faced torture or death, he was calm and eager to speak of his god. So what was it? What was it that made even women and children walk bravely into arenas, singing until wild dogs tore out their throats? Why didn’t the high cost keep them from this dangerous god? Any other sect would have been squashed at the first imprisonment of their leaders. The first martyrs. But for the Christians, persecution was fuel to a flame.
Why?
He’d always wondered. Until tonight. Until he’d seen what their god could do. Other gods held empty promises, but this one... Valentine spoke the truth. Quintus knew it suddenly, beyond doubt. He saw himself mired deep, sinking in the quicksand of his efforts to earn the gods’ favor. His efforts of piety, of offerings and incense only served to thrash him more deeply in the sludge. He felt in that moment that the Christian God, thisJesus, held out a hand toward him. Beckoning.Come,He said.Take My hand, offered for you, and follow Me.
Quintus’s doubts cleared like the banks of the spring-flooded Tiber. “I cannot deny the power of your God.” He spoke in a hoarse whisper. “I have searched for years looking for what only your God can offer. I—I don’t know what—What do I need to do?”
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”
“I believe.” Iris spoke without hesitation and Valentine’s gaze shifted to her. His lips parted. Shocked.
Wet glimmers streaked her cheeks as Iris’s lips wobbled into a smile. “I believe.” She laughed, and Quintus had never before seen such a radiance of joy on her face.
He reached out to take his daughter’s hand but in his mind saw himself straining from the muck, reaching for the hand of God.
“Me too.” His admission was choked by the flood of peace that rolled over him. It smoothed the tension in his belly, the worries in his mind, like a wave on trampled sand. “I believe.”
The lantern hanging from the ceiling flickered violently and dimmed, oil burning low.
Valentine’s eyes closed and he tilted his head back. “Praise be to God.” He breathed the words, then looked at them once more, serious. “I will not mislead either of you. There is a high cost to following Jesus. It will not make your life easier or safer, especially now. But God promises never to leave you alone, and during your troubles, you will find His overpowering peace.”
