THE YOUNG CHRISTIAN IN ROME
by
Louis Lopez
© 2023 by Louis Lopez.
All rights reserved. It is allowed to reproduce and distribute copies of this book PROVIDED that (1) full credit is given to the author Louis Lopez, (2) it is copied exactly as found here without any alterations to the wording and (3) no more than $20 is charged for each copy.
It had been almost two years since Mark had become obsessed with traveling back to the time of Jesus, and it was a request that was in his prayers every night. He firmly believed what the Bible said, "With God, nothing is impossible." He knew God approved of his motives for going back. For one thing, he wanted to see for himself what life was like then. He also wanted to share with everyone living in that time what was going on almost 2,000 years later. He wanted to tell them how successful Christianity had been and how much many later Christians appreciated the efforts of the early Christians. Mark had been an avid student of the Bible for many years and was well-acquainted with the events and personages in it. He felt as if he knew some of the people personally since he knew so much of what they had said and written. He was confident that he would be able to fit right in even though he was from a distant time.
He was aware that there could be some problem on account of his only being 12 years old. He knew children before the late 1800's had not been given much attention, but he also felt that the Christians of the 1st century would be very loving and open to whatever he had to say even if he was just a young boy.
Mark prayed to God several times a day just to ask to be transported back to the 1st century. He concentrated hard as he prayed, believing that deep concentration gave him a better chance to be heard by God. One afternoon he came home after school and as was his custom, he kneeled down by his bed and offered a prayer on his favorite wish, wrinkling his brow as he concentrated hard.
After he had prayed for five minutes, he felt a strong cool wind sweep through the room and then he felt as if he were being lifted up through the room by the wind. He opened his eyes and saw complete darkness for several seconds. It was as if he had never opened his eyes from his prayer. Then suddenly he was standing completely still and the air was totally calm. He kept his eyes wide open, and while it remained dark, he started to see light filtering into his vision.
He saw many candles coming into focus. They were scattered all around and some were very near to him. He then started making out the people who were holding them. As his vision became clearer, he could see there were many people perhaps more than a hundred standing close together and looking in one direction. They were surrounding one man who was standing on what looked like a small wooden platform. There were large torches placed around the man. They were all standing in what looked like a very large, dark room. As his vision cleared more, Mark realized that it was more like a cave that they were in. He found himself standing among people but toward the back of the crowd and away from the man speaking. They were listening very intently to the speaker and apparently hadn't even noticed Mark. They just kept staring at the man talking. Even as Mark looked around and stared at people close to him, it didn't distract them.
The man seemed to be speaking in Greek or Latin, and at first Mark didn't understand, but gradually just as the light had become brighter, he started to understand it. He was amazed. A miracle, he thought, and then he realized he was apparently participating in an even greater miracle.
The man was talking about Moses and the exodus from Egypt, but Mark became anxious for the man to finish. The man was tall, about fifty, with long hair, about half of it gray. He wore a white toga with a black sash along his right side that had a braided border of gold thread. Mark was especially fidgety because he wanted to announce to everyone where he was from and tell them some of the wonderful things that had happened between their time and his. He planned to run up to the front of the audience and announce himself, but he wanted to wait until the man stopped giving his sermon. As he waited, he realized that the cave he thought he was in was the catacombs, long passages under the streets of Rome in which Christians gathered to worship. Finally after what seemed almost an hour, the man finished and the people started to sing a hymn. As they sang, Mark worked his way through the crowd to the front, even having to push his way through some people.
As soon as the hymn had finished, he yelled out as he faced the preacher, "I've come back from another time to tell what's been happening. I live in the year 1996, and I've been praying to the Lord to let me come back to your time to see what it's like." There was a murmur that ran through the crowd as Mark looked at the preacher staring at him with a skeptical frown. Mark immediately realized that he would arouse suspicion and would have to do some work in convincing people.
"See? Look at these clothes," he said as he lifted his right leg and pinched the blue jean material of his pants. An "aaaaah" came from the people.
"I come from the United States of America." As soon as he said that he realized that having to explain it would cause more problems than it would solve. He tried to explain that America was a new land that would be discovered in the far future but saw a number of confused faces so he changed the subject and talked about the Saucony 400 running shoes he was wearing and the black Pittsburgh Steelers sweat shirt he had on. Again he met with difficulty explaining the Pittsburgh Steelers. He seemed to strike a better chord when he showed his watch and explained how it worked. The watch was passed around for people to see. The people asked Mark where in Rome he was living, and he realized he had no place to live. The preacher said someone in the group would be glad to give him a place to live. It was clear that the congregation was believing what Mark was claiming. One of the members asked him if Latin was the language used in America. Mark noticed for the first time that he had been speaking Latin as fluently as if it had been English. He told them what was happening.
"It's a miracle," someone exclaimed and many others agreed. A murmur went up anew in the congregation. After more than thirty minutes of talking to Mark, the people started to leave. Mark talked to the leader as others gathered around to ask more questions.
A man who introduced himself as Flavius told Mark that his family would be glad to have him stay at their house. His wife and son and daughter, both around 20, were next to him smiling. Portia, the daughter, was very pretty and reminded Mark of Deborah Kerr in Quo Vadis? He was glad to go with them and expressed his gratitude. They seemed sincere and caring, and for that matter, so did everyone else in the group. They all acted very concerned about each other's well-being, and talked very fondly to each other. Of course, the people back in Mark's congregation in the U.S. were also friendly, but it seemed these people were even more so while at the same time being genuine. It was just as Mark had read it had been in the days of the early Christians.
Flavius' home was a small, older house as could be seen by some of the broken tile on the floor and the wooden front door with a crack on the right side. This didn't surprise Mark because he knew that most of the early Christians had been poor and that in fact most people of the time were poor especially by modern standards. Flavius and his son took Mark to work with them in the morning. They told him they would teach him to be a good shipbuilder like them, and in the evening Flavius and Portia would teach him what he needed to be educated. That evening they prepared a big meal, but Mark found much of it strange looking and strange tasting. He stayed with the raw tomatoes and the apples and pears. Luckily the family understood that he wasn't used to their cuisine.
Mark enjoyed learning how to build a ship although what he was forced to do was boring and repetitive. He was put to saw large planks of wood but he enjoyed it. It was much better than sitting at a desk in school all day. He never heard of any other 12-year-old this lucky. He still had to study. That came late in the day with Flavius watching over him as he read stories from scrolls. It wasn't easy to concentrate after being so tired from a long day of work, but it was clear that Flavius wasn't about to put up with any nonsense so he pushed himself to keep going. In the evening Flavius' family also tried to sit down to learn about Christianity. They studied some traditional Jewish scriptures that had been translated into Latin. It turned out that Mark knew much more about Jewish and Christian history and doctrine since they were only recent converts. Flavius was uncomfortable with this at first, but it became apparent that Mark was telling the truth. Flavius suggested to Japhet, the leader of their church group, to let Mark answer questions from the congregation during a service. The leader agreed to do it, figuring that people would be able to easily trip Mark up with their questions.
At the next service Mark was uncomfortable in talking much about the moral teachings of the Bible and was more willing to simply retell some of the stories found in it. He told them about Jonah and the whale, about Abraham and the near sacrifice of his son Isaac, and about Daniel in the lion's den. They had not heard any of these stories before and most of them liked them. There were some who doubted what Mark was saying. They pointed out that the people shouldn't be so trusting of a young boy. They were more skeptical when Mark told them certain events that were going to take place in the future.
Mark told them that Paul of Tarsus would come to Rome in the future but that he would eventually be imprisoned by the Romans, and it was believed that he might even be killed in Rome. He also told them that they would receive a letter from Paul explaining the teachings of Jesus and that epistle would become a book in the Christian Bible and be considered God's word. A murmur went up in the congregation when he stated this. One man asked, "How can that be? How can a simple letter be made a part of God's word? That can't be right."
Mark also advised everyone to leave Rome before emperors would actively persecute Christians, even throwing them to the lions to eat in the gladiatorial arena. Nero would be accused of setting fire to Rome and then blaming it on the Christians. People murmured over this prediction, not knowing what to think. After the meeting most of the people were friendly and thanked Mark for all the information.
Several weeks went by and Mark continued happily in his daily routine. He started to miss his family in 1996 but tried not to think about it. He didn't think his parents were worried about where he was because they knew how much he had wanted to come back in time. He figured now that he had a mission that he had been sent on and he had to follow through even if it wasn't very clear what was God's intent. Then one Saturday--it happened to be the year 57 A.D.--at a service Japhet announced that a long letter had come from Paul and that it explained many of the Christian doctrines. Cries of joy and amazement went through the group and one man got up spontaneously and said, "See, we should have never doubted Mark. It was just as he said it would be." None of the previous skeptics said anything.
At the next meeting Mark was asked to answer more questions. More people came than ever before now that word had gotten out that he had predicted the epistle of Paul. Several questions were asked until one man finally asked a question that everyone immediately realized should have been asked long before.
"The most important thing we should want to know," the man said, "is when is Jesus coming back?"
"I don't know. We can never know when he is going to come back," Mark replied calmly.
"That's true, but he has to be coming back soon. When does he come back?" the man pressed.
"He still hasn't come back in 1996. I mean, the last I knew when I left he hadn't come back, and that hasn't been but a few weeks."
"Are you trying to tell us that in whatever year you said you're from," another man intervened, "about 2,000 years from now, he still hasn't come back for us?"
"Yes, that's true," Mark replied calmly.
"That's blasphemy," another man yelled as people started talking, with some even yelling.
"That proves what I've been saying all along," another one exclaimed, "this boy has been lying all along and taking us for fools. That just can't be."
Japhet now commented. "Boy, you should be ashamed to commit blasphemy. We all know very well that God wouldn't let us suffer for very long. We are his people. It's true that we don't know when Jesus will return, but we know that God will send him back before very long. We can't let you tell these lies."
"It's ridiculous," a big man yelled as he jumped onto the speaker's platform. "We can't let this young tyke say these things and get away with it. We should crucify him. Help me tie him up while we decide what to do with him." Four other men immediately jumped onto the platform to help the first one tie Mark up with long rags they had lying around for cleaning the platform.
As they started doing this, Mark kept yelling, "But it's the truth, it's the truth." Then one of the men stuffed part of a rag into his mouth. The congregation should discuss for a week on what should be done with Mark. Two of the men who had tied him returned with two long, cut tree stumps to be used if the decision was to crucify him as punishment. The boy was to tied to the tree stumps until their next meeting a week from then at which time they would make the final decision. Meanwhile Flavius and his family were assigned to bring him only bread and water in the catacombs where he would remain in the damp darkness.
During the following week, Mark did not go hungry or thirsty because his adoptive family was very diligent in bringing his bread and water, but the bread got very boring and it was cold in the passageways. Portia was kind to him and told him she would untie him, except that the members and perhaps even the Lord would be very mad at her. So she couldn't. Mark understood. After four days Mark's wrists and legs became very tired and sore from not being able to move. He fantasized about Portia; she was so beautiful. And he prayed and prayed and prayed for God to take him back to 1996. He asked forgiveness if he had sinned for wanting to come to this time in history. Perhaps the Lord was punishing him for his wickedness in wanting to live in another time.
The leaders of the congregation met several nights at the house of Japhet to discuss the fate of Mark. They finally agreed on a merciful outcome. At the next service, it was announced that he would be allowed to stay with Flavius if he agreed never to utter any more blasphemy, and if he did, he would be permanently banished from the congregation. When he was untied, his legs very weak and he had to be helped to walk for several steps. Mark accepted the terms. He knew he had no other choice except to keep praying to be transported back.
THE END