Why a Lamb?

That's it? That is Jonathan's connection to this man on the cross? Didn't he even hear Jesus teach or see him perform a miracle?

Actually, no. When Jesus came to Jericho a year or two later and converted that notorious tax collector Zacchaeus, Jonathan had been away in search of ungrazed fields for his flock.

So what kind of tenuous connection is this?

Not tenuous at all. Persistent, obsessive, perhaps -- anything but tenuous -- because the vivid image of Jesus' face and those very strange words, "Lamb of God," had burned indelibly into Jonathan's heart.

What does "Lamb of God" mean? he wondered. Next chance he got, he asked the rabbi.

"What is the Lamb of God, Rabbi?"

The old man gestured for him to sit down in the shade outside the Jericho synagogue that hot afternoon. Then the old rabbi eased his tired body onto a stool next to the doorway.