Servant Siblings Series:
The whole city gained a Messiah. He lost a brother.
James ben Joseph never believed Jesus was a rebel. Reckless with His words, perhaps, and impossible to reason with, but never a man deserving of a cross.
He traveled to Jerusalem for Passover hoping to persuade his older brother to abandon His dangerous teaching and come home to Nazareth. Instead he watched betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion unfold, and when the moment came to stand beside his own blood, James turned away to protect his family.
Now the city is alive with a claim he cannot allow to spread. They are saying Jesus has risen. Every day the rumor survives brings his mother, his brothers, and his sisters closer to the same fate.
Determined to shield them, James sets out to find whoever is spreading these words. What he uncovers will force a decision that changes everything.
His family is fracturing, and no one is listening to him.
Joseph ben Joseph wants one thing after the crucifixion. He wants his family home in Nazareth, far from the men who killed his brother.
His mother refuses to leave. She has cast her lot with Jesus' followers and will not be moved, even with death hanging over the city. James, who once wanted the very thing Joseph wants, now insists he has seen Jesus alive. And Joseph, who is not the patriarch, has no authority to lead anyone anywhere.
Then one of his siblings goes missing.
Driven by the need to hold together what remains of his family, Joseph begins a dangerous search through a city that has no love for the family of Jesus. The streets are watched, and he is running out of time.
Her Messiah told her to wait. Her betrothed is still waiting for her.
Assia bat Joseph's hope was restored the day her brother walked out of the tomb. Jesus is the Messiah, and He has promised to return and establish His kingdom. She waits with her whole heart.
But the days stretch into weeks, and waiting grows harder. Impatience spreads among the believers and within her own family. Talk of returning home to Nazareth stirs something in Assia she cannot quiet, because a betrothed husband waits for her there, and the wedding she has dreamed of has already been delayed too long.
Jesus told His followers to remain in Jerusalem. Her heart tells her to go.
Will Assia hold to the promise of a returning Messiah, or claim the life she has waited so long to begin?
He revered the teachers of Israel. Then he saw what they were hiding.
Jude ben Joseph was born with a scholar's mind and a laborer's hands. His family needed his work more than his learning, and the dream of becoming a respected Rabbi always stayed just beyond his reach.
He studied anyway.
After his oldest brother's death and miraculous resurrection, Jude begins setting the Scriptures he loves beside the radical teachings of Jesus, and the two fit together in ways he never expected. The more he understands, the more troubling the religious leaders of Jerusalem appear.
Jude has honored these men his entire life. Now he sees the wolves moving quietly among the sheep, and he must weigh the traditions that shaped him against the truth his brother died for.
They murdered the man she loved and called it faithfulness to God.
Lydia bat Joseph dreamed of leaving her family's cramped home and seeing something of the world, but tradition and expectation kept her firmly in her place.
When her oldest brother's teachings and miraculous deeds revealed Him as the Messiah, Lydia traded a life spent on herself for one spent serving others. While caring for new converts in Jerusalem, she fell in love with Stephen, a devoted deacon whose humble spirit and bright eyes captured her heart completely.
They never spoke their vows. The Pharisees stoned Stephen in the open, and no one will ever answer for it.
Left with grief and a fury she does not recognize in herself, will Lydia cling to the forgiveness her brother taught, or abandon her faith to seek justice for the man she loved?
His brother could have freed Israel. He chose a cross instead.
Simon ben Joseph longed to see his dagger stained with Roman blood. When his father died and a houseful of younger siblings needed feeding, his dreams of joining the rebellion gave way to years of relentless labor.
Then his older brother began to preach, crowds began to gather, and Simon allowed himself to hope again. He imagined Jesus at the head of an army, a warrior-king in the line of David, driving Rome out of Israel for good.
Instead, Jesus chose a path of martyrdom.
Frustrated by a sacrifice he cannot understand, Simon joins the Zealots and takes up the fight himself. But the deeper he goes into the struggle for liberation, the more clearly he sees that the peace he wants may demand a price he is not prepared to pay.
The quietest of eight children finally spoke. Rome was listening.
Salome bat Joseph was the youngest of eight, and there was never room left in the conversation for her. She learned to keep the peace by keeping silent.
Raised without a father, she was cared for by her oldest brother, and Jesus was the only fatherly presence she ever knew. When He revealed Himself as the Messiah, Salome followed Him gladly, and under His teaching the quiet girl learned to speak, to advocate for others, and to tell the truth without flinching.
Then the Pharisees send one of their own to hunt down the followers of the Way. Salome could stay silent and stay safe. Instead she speaks against them, and her words carry her straight into a Roman prison.
Will Salome's voice secure her freedom, or seal her doom?