An Old Grudge and A New Man

Jacob 7

Jacob 7:24 And it came to pass that many means were devised to reclaim and restore the Lamanites to the knowledge of the truth.

Jacob had a wound. It was like a scab. And Jacob kept scratching and scratching and it kept bleeding and bleeding and bleeding. This wound was Laman and Lemuel.

Jacob had grown up riding the shoulders of Laman and Lemuel and Sam and Nephi. They had taught him to swim in the ocean and dance on the boats and play soccer with a ball of sticks in America. But while Laman and Lemuel would laugh and play with Jacob, they would argue with Nephi. And then sometimes they would fight. And this made Jacob sad and stressed and a little angry. But then the brothers would always say sorry and make up. And the family was whole again and Jacob was happy.

But the fighting got worse. And then one day, no one could say sorry. And eventually, Laman and Lemuel tried to kill Nephi. And that was the end of the family. It broke in half and was never the same again. They moved apart and fought in wars and grew to hate each other. And for what? Jacob wanted to know. All because Laman and Lemuel kept looking back. They thought life was behind them, back in the city of Jerusalem. And God was behind them, back in the law of Moses. And happiness was behind them, back in their childhood home.

Jacob wanted to stand in front of them, look them in the eye, and then give them a little smack. “Jesus is not behind us,” he would say. “He’s in front of us.” Jacob had never known Jerusalem. He had never known Moses or any prophet who wasn’t first a father or a brother. And Jacob hadn’t grown up in a home at all. Jacob grew up walking toward the horizon, looking for land from the sea, setting up and taking down tents and houses. He was always looking, waiting, wanting something better. Something in the future. And through it all, he realized, he was waiting for Jesus.

And so Jacob liked to write because while he was writing, he wasn’t scratching his wound. And he wrote about how Jesus would come hundreds of years from now. And he would be amazing and die to make everything better. And Jacob would read everyone what he wrote about Jesus, and he would feel happy.

But writing and reading and talking about Jesus didn’t make everyone happy. In fact, some people were tired of hearing about something so far in the future that no one alive would ever see it.

And there was one man in particular. His name was Sherem. Sherem tried to schedule a meeting with Jacob and tell him. But Jacob was always too busy writing and reading. And so Sherem talked with everyone else. He told them that Jacob was always dreaming and imagining and prophesying about the future. “And all that means is that he is missing all of this.” Sherem pointed at everything: the hot bulbous sun, the blue sky with two white clouds, the tired workers wiping their foreheads, the new babies sucking their thumbs.

“No one can know the future,” Sherem said. “All we know is the past. We know about God, not because he will come in the future, but because he’s already come. He came to Moses. And he gave us commandments. What more are we waiting for? He’s given us everything we need to be happy already!”

And this made a lot of sense to a lot of people. So many people that Jacob finally agreed to talk with Sherem. And Sherem told Jacob that Jacob was doing the people a disservice. “You spend all your time talking about a Jesus who is going to come in the future. Maybe he will and maybe he won’t. But no one knows the future. So get your head out of the clouds and read the scriptures. You will find everything you are looking for already there.”

This made Jacob very angry. Sherem was just another Laman and Lemuel, stuck in the past. And Jacob was not about to let Laman and Lemuel wreck his family again. “You talk about the scriptures,” Jacob said, “but obviously you don’t understand them. The scriptures aren’t about the past, but about the future. They’re all about Jesus.”

This made Sherem confused. The scriptures seemed to be about a lot of things. They had stories, family histories, rules, short stories, one-liners, turn of phrases, and poems. The one thing it never mentioned was the birth of a man named Jesus. “Okay,” Sherem said. “You must be reading a different book.” Jacob explained, “We are reading the same book, only I read it with the spirit, and you read it with your own small, limited, un-special, understanding. I’ve seen angels. What have you seen?”

“Well that makes sense then,” Sherem said. “If an angel told the rest of us all about your supposed Jesus, then of course we’d believe. So why don’t you send your angel to everyone else?”

“You wouldn’t believe even if an angel blew a horn in your ear,” Jacob said. And Jacob left because he knew Sherem was a lost cause.

But guess what: Jacob was wrong. Angels did come and talk to Sherem. And the spirit filled his soul. And they taught Sherem about Jesus. And Sherem did believe. But the angels were so bright, and the spirit was so powerful, and the knowledge was so great, that Sherem was knocked out cold.

Sherem lay lifeless on the ground for days. And his friends kept him alive by feeding him applesauce. And when he woke up, he knew everything Jacob knew. But over those few days, it was as though he had lived twenty years. And now he was an old man ready to die.

But before he died he wanted to tell everyone what he had learned. And the people gathered around him. And he told them about Jesus. That Jesus was the same God who appeared to Moses. And he was coming again. Jacob was right. A man can know the future. And angels are real. And the scriptures are so much better when you read them with the spirit.

Though people had struggled to believe Jacob, it was much easier to believe Sherem. Because Sherem was like them. He didn’t spend days and days writing and reading and thinking about the future. He wasn’t able to imagine something hundreds of years away because he was so busy with what was now: with doing the dishes, raising his kids, earning a living. But now Sherem understood.

And the people prayed and shouted and said, “We cannot wait for Jesus!” And they all wanted to read all of Jacob’s writings. And they went to Jacob’s door, and knocked, and said, “Teach us about Jesus, please.” And when Jacob asked who had sent them, they said “Sherem.”

“Excuse me?” said Jacob. And the people told Jacob about how Sherem had taught them and blessed them and converted them all to Jesus.

And Jacob was surprised and so happy. And he ran to see Sherem, but Sherem was already dead. And Jacob realized he had made a mistake. He had given up on Sherem. But God had not given up on him. And if God had not given up on Sherem, maybe God had not given up on Laman and Lemuel, either.

And that gave Jacob a big, marvelous, happy idea. And Jacob thought that maybe his wound that had bled for years and years could still be healed. Maybe he didn’t have to wait hundreds of years until Jesus was born. Maybe his brothers would listen like Sherem had listened. Maybe his family could come back together. Maybe Sherem was right about being happy now. Maybe Jesus wasn’t just someone happening in the future. Maybe he was already here.

Joshua is an award-winning writer and director. His recent book, Ali the Iraqi, was published by BCC press. Sarah is a literature and theology doctoral student studying the Book of Job in the twentieth century.

Artwork by Maddie Baker.