You are precious

MANILA, Philippines - I will never cry enough tears or whisper enough prayers in a thousand lifetimes to repay his love.

Rahab the innkeeper. Harlot. Prostitute. Traitor to her own people. Traitor to her own gods.

Tessa Afshar weaves in Pearl in the Sand a terrifically moving tale about a woman with a tainted past and how she found love and redemption. It is terrific in the sense that it is wonderful and frightening: a Canaanite woman living in the impregnable fortress that is mighty Jericho demonstrates more faith in the God of the Hebrews than most Israelites who have witnessed the miracles of His might and wonder firsthand.

Little is known about the historical Rahab apart from the few brief accounts of her in the Bible; however, the brevity of these accounts when contrasted by their existence only serves to echo the greatness of this woman’s faith.

As a prostitute, by all rights she should have been stoned to death according to the law. Yet she is recorded as one of Jesus’ ancestors in the Book of Matthew — a great honor for a woman to be included in a genealogy that is traced agnatically; a wonder for a foreigner with originally no ties to Israel; a mystery for a sinner with such a shady background. The author of the Book of Hebrews and James, son of Alphaeus, in his epistle both used Rahab as an example, even a hero, of faith while not forgetting to mention that she was a prostitute. Her past tarnished by selling her body for the pleasures of men, her present filled with struggles as she and her family assimilated into Israelite society, and her future buried mostly by the silence of history and the sands of time are explored by Afshar — with masterful scholarship and beautiful insight — in this work of historical fiction set in the Near East roughly 3,500 years ago.

How the Perfection of Beauty ever found something beautiful in a creature as wretched as I am I will never know; though my own ugliness surely repulses him, I cannot help but long for him and hope beyond hope that I might stay and live the rest of my days outside his gates. That alone would have been enough.

Tessa Afshar was born in Iran and lived there until her early teens before studying in England and finally settling in the US. The author’s background combined with the story’s premise were more than enough to tell me that this was a book I would treasure always.

I was born in Tarlac, Tarlac, 12 days after Mt. Pinatubo erupted, and migrated to Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, when I was 10 months old before moving to Manila while finishing med school at UP-PGH.  I picked up my copy of this book Christmastime last year. I read it in almost one sitting while I was on 24-hour duty at the PGH OR complex. My blockmate took a picture of me in a scrub suit, scrub cap, and a face mask, sitting on an unused stretcher and not particularly eager to find a patient to induce under general anesthesia or a sub-arachnoid block.

I was feeling homesick. I hadn’t been back to Jeddah for a few years. The book definitely gave me a small taste of home with its desert scenery and hearty servings of beards, robes, veils, tents, lamb, and spices.

The battle scenes and the scenes where God showed His awesome power were written both with careful attention to detail and creative execution using different points of view and switching among different characters. The same techniques were used throughout the book to keep the story suspenseful and interesting. It was a pleasant surprise when the author decided to include a sizeable chunk of “History of Medicine” to show how the Israelite soldiers recovered from their wars.

It was quite amusing to see my old college lectures come to life as Rahab nursed her future husband, Salmone, using honey and cloth bandages. Those scenes were also relevant to my present experiences in the hospital at the time: Salmone suffering from a purulent stab wound that penetrated his liver and subsequently being jaundiced for the next few weeks of his recovery. Zuph, the doctor, teaching Rahab and Salmone’s sister, Miriam, about aseptic technique using date wine and frankincense. A stubborn bantay shouting at the nurses (Rahab and Miriam) because she wanted to feed her sick husband solid foods when he was on a strictly liquid diet.

Yet, He found me. I wept in joy and shame as I kissed the dirt he stood upon, but he lifted my head and kissed my lips tenderly first, then passionately, ravenously, stealing my breath away. But I was unclean! I was broken! I was soiled, tainted, blemished! He read--no, he knew my thoughts. “Oh, my beautiful, beautiful bride! My beloved! I see you for who you truly are and you are beautiful! You are mine!”

The cultural and medical experiences surely delight me. But at the heart of this novel is a love story, one that I can claim as much my own as Rahab and Salmone did. I admit to having a penchant for characters with questionable origins, broken by their own choices or by circumstances beyond them. “Redeeming the Villain” is one of the themes I often ponder on, whether the villain is aware of his own villainy or not, and if he is, whether he is ashamed of it or not. It is because in the depths of our hearts, I know that I am just as depraved as any criminal; Rahab, Salmone, and I are all villains against God.

Although I can find more in common with the upstanding and righteous Salmone, and in my childhood I was closer to him in character (self-righteous, proud, and judgmental), tears fall freely every time I read how God must have demonstrated His love and foreshadowed the love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ in the love of Salmone and Rahab; I am reminded of how He loves and treasures someone as broken as Rahab — someone as broken as me. Both Salmone’s and Rahab’s love for each other was imperfect and insufficient in the light of God’s love, and ultimately husband and wife discover that it is God’s love for them, working through them and changing them, that lead them to their Happy Beginning.

Rahab the innkeeper. Woman of faith. Ancestor of Jesus Christ. His daughter. His Bride.

You are a pearl of great price, a treasure beyond measure.

THIS WEEK’S WINNER

JC Tayag is currently taking time off before serving the “last year of his sentence” at the Philippine General Hospital as a medical intern. He has been mistaken for many different nationalities, but assures you that he is a Filipino by blood and by citizenship. He claims that he is, “Western by education, Eastern by tradition, and Middle/Near Eastern by orientation.” He is a direct entrant to the UP College of Medicine’s seven-year INTARMED program, which leads directly to a Doctorate in Medicine.