Looking down at his mother Maria’s haunted, tear-stained face, Joshua knew she had seen it too. He noticed it after he had gathered enough strength to raise his head and look over at the man yelling curses at him. It was just beyond the reach of his left hand, weather-worn and aged gray, but still visible. His father’s maker’s mark.
Joe and Joshua worked well together. It was unusual for a father and son to share a business on such good terms. They respected each other, treating each other as men, as equals even though they were father and son. They rarely disagreed about how to run their business or get a job done. Mostly they never talked about those things. Their thoughts on such matters were always naturally aligned, so what one did the other would have done, and what one determined the other would have also decided under similar circumstances.
Joshua had been Joe’s apprentice since he was old enough to walk. As a boy, he just watched, swept up around the shop, stacked lumber, and accompanied his dad when he made deliveries. Over time, Joe let Joshua do more and more. He was a patient teacher, correcting when necessary, which wasn’t often since Joshua was a fast learner. Eventually, Joshua was doing most of the commissioned work: making doors, window frames, tables, and chairs. That freed Joe up to devote his time milling lumber from harvested cedar, pine, and sycamine (Joe’s favorite for furniture work).
Dividing the work this way was fine with Joe. He always preferred the rough toil of milling lumber over the laborious, fine, detailed work of furniture building. This division of labor allowed Joe and Joshua to diversify and expand the business. Their small-town market required only so many doors and windows, but milled lumber was always in demand. There were always buildings and bridges needing good quality beams and boards and Joe had a reputation for quality lumber. Selling milled lumber, as well as finished products, assured a consistent income for the family.
As physically taxing as it was, Joe took pride in his work. When he and Maria moved into town, not long after Joshua’s birth, he started putting his mark on his work. The underside of a chair built by Joe would always have his mark. It wasn’t just the finished work that Joe marked. Beams and boards that came from his shop had his distinctive brand carved in them as well. Though his family had long ceased speaking Hebrew, Joe cherished his Jewish heritage and lineage. When he was deciding how to brand his work, he chose “yud,” the tenth letter in the Hebrew alphabet, as his maker’s mark.
“Yud” was an all-encompassing, and significant symbol for Joe. It was the first letter in Joe’s name. Joshua began with “yud” as well, and Joe routinely preached to his son, “Don’t do work you wouldn’t want your name on!” “Yud” also pointed to his Jewish heritage. He was from the tribe of Judah. The name Jew comes from Judah and they both begin with “yud.” “Yud” came to represent and mean “Jew.” The letter, looking like a flame, spoke of devotion rising to God, and blessing coming down from him. Whenever Joe looked at it, he was reminded of what his favorite Rabbi once told him: “Don’t forget, Joe, every line of the priestly blessing begins with “yud!” His name, his people, his faith – everything important to Joe was embraced in “yud.” “It is,” he told Maria, “the perfect way to mark my work.”
And then one day, having just finished hewing a stack of beams and carving his “yud” carefully into each, Joe sat down to rest. “Growing old hurts,” he thought as the pain coursed down his arm and terminated in his calloused hand with a dull numbness. Sweat rolled down his weathered face. He took a big swipe at it with his right forearm, leaned back against the lumber stack, and closed his eyes, grimacing at the heaviness he felt in his chest. By the time Joshua looked up from the bench where he was working a hand plane across the surface of what would become a table leg, Joe had slumped over awkwardly and died.
After Joe’s death, Joshua kept the business going. Maria and his siblings still depended on the income it produced. Over the next few years, his sisters grew up, got married, and left home. None of his younger brothers seemed interested in taking over the family carpentry business. One-by-one they moved out and began their lives with their own wives and children. They weren’t the only ones with other plans. Joshua had ideas of his own too. With his siblings self-sufficient, Joshua no longer needed to keep the business going. The decision was made to sell everything. Maria could live off the proceeds and Joshua could pursue his own goals.
There was an auction. The saws, hammers, planes, and benches all went to the highest bidder. The stacks of lumber were sold too. When word got out that the remaining supply of Joe’s lumber was being sold off, people came from near and far. Knowing this would be the last of “yud” beams and boards, meant premium prices. The bids came fast and often and soon those with the deepest pockets were loading their cherished “yud” lumber up and headed north, south, east, and west.
Later that evening Joshua sat down on the sawdust strewn floor of the family’s now empty carpentry shop. It was all gone now. A strange silence hung in the air, the thud of the hammer, the rasping of the plane and saw were all now melted into memories. Joe’s deep, steady voice, like the tools themselves, had disappeared into another world as well. But it was time.
Maria came out of the house to check on her son. Walking up behind him, reaching down, and stroking his thick, wavy hair, she asked, “Are you sure?”
“It is what my father would want,” he answered.
Joshua left the next morning. Traveling first to the barren hills of the wilderness to be alone, to pray, to get direction. Later to the towns and cities for the work he knew he was always meant to do.
Several years after Joe had died, Joshua became something of a celebrity. He was a hero among the poor and the forgotten people of his world. His teaching sessions were usually well attended, but he had a habit of offending people too. Rumors spread that he did miracles. But even his family was skeptical about whether that was true. As popular as Joshua was with some groups, he was equally despised by others. The ruling class wished he would go away, but they realized he couldn’t be easily dismissed. Unable to ignore him, unwilling to listen to him, they made plans to rid themselves and the world of him.
A strange alliance of opposition formed. Charges were made. A trial was held. A sentence was passed. And Joshua was executed. Crucifixion was the Roman Empire’s chosen method of execution in those days. A man would be nailed, hands and feet, to wooden beams and then hung in the air. The dying was slow and painful. Eventually, the condemned would suffocate as his lungs filled with fluids and he became too weak to push himself up to take a breath.
This is where Joshua was, being executed on a cross, when he saw it. There, just beyond the reach of his bloody, pierced, left hand, at the end of the beam upon which he hung, was the maker’s mark, a “yud” carefully and proudly carved by his father. And so it was that Joshua died on a cross his father made.
Out of the Miry Blog 