“This can’t be happening,” Mary rasped. “This can’t be happening . . .” She tried to keep pace with him, pushing her way through the throng that lined the street. She wanted her son to know she was there, that she loved him, that she would not turn away. “Jesus!” she cried out again and again, knowing he would hear her voice.
They took him outside the walls of Jerusalem to a place called Golgotha, near the main highway for all to see. The hill was in the shape of a human skull. Another man had shouldered Jesus’ cross and was shoved aside after dropping it on the ground. A Roman guard gripped Jesus’ shoulder and flung him to the ground. Another leaned down and offered him something to drink, but Jesus turned his face away. Two guards stripped off his garment and cast it aside. They took him by the arms and jerked him on the cross, lashing his arms tightly to the beams with leather straps.
One of the other two men who were being executed was screaming as a guard drove nails through his wrists. “I don’t want to die!” the other cried. “I don’t want to . . .” He fought the guards, struggling violently and screaming as he was nailed to his cross.
Shaking, Mary moved through the crowd to the front, for those around her were less eager now to draw close. Her heart fluttered like a trapped bird as she saw a Roman guard raise a hammer in the air and bring it down. Jesus’ body arched as he cried out, his feet drawing up. Sobbing, she fell to her knees. Three more times the guard hammered the nail through Jesus’ palm, and each time, Mary’s body jerked at the sound of her son’s cries. Then the guard stepped over Jesus to secure his other hand while another hammered a spike through his feet.
Ropes and pulleys were used to raise the cross. Mary felt faint as she heard the hard thunk as it dropped into the hole. Pieces of wood were hammered in to wedge the cross into place and then the ropes yanked free. Every movement etched the agony deeper into her son’s face.
And Mary would not take her eyes away from him. She clasped her hands. Oh, Lord, you will come now and save him. You won’t let him die. He’s your Son. He’s the Anointed One. He’s our Messiah!
A Roman guard leaned a ladder against Jesus’ cross and climbed up to hang a sign that said, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Immediately, the leading priests began shouting angrily, “Take it down! He’s not our king! He’s a false prophet!”
“It hangs by order of Pontius Pilate,” a Roman guard said, drawing his sword when several men started up the hill toward the cross. They backed down.
The great mass of people turned to walk away, heads down. But many remained to gloat. Some hurled abuse at Jesus, wagging their heads. “So! You can destroy the Temple and build it again in three days, can you? Well then, if you are the Son of God, save yourself and come down from the cross!”
“He saved others, but he can’t save himself!” someone shouted mockingly.
“So he is the king of Israel, is he?” a priest called out. “Let him come down from the cross, and we will believe in him!” He shoved his hands into his priestly garb and stared, his face hard.
Mary shuddered at the laughter, her mother’s anger so fierce she would have killed them herself if she had possessed the power. And then she looked into her son’s eyes and felt the anger fall away, and confusion and sorrow fill her up to the brim as though she were a vial of tears that mourners wore around their necks.
Even one of the men crucified with Jesus cast insults.
Trembling in agony, Mary could not tear her eyes from her son. The crucified thieves were arguing with one another, and then one looked at Jesus, pleading with him. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”
Jesus looked at him and smiled. “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Mary wept silently, tears streaming hot down her cheeks. She wanted to cry out in anger against those who had done this to her son. Oh, God, why? Why?
The soldiers divided Jesus’ garments among them, and hunkered down to cast lots for the tunic she had woven for her son.
A murmur of fear went through the crowd still gathered as darkness fell over the land.
“My God,” Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Mary covered her face, her body shaking with heart-wrenching sobs as her heart cried out the same question. Why? Why? All his life, Jesus had fought and triumphed over sin. She had seen him fight the battles and win. And now, during her people’s most important celebration, her son’s blood was being spilled like that of the Passover lamb.
“This man is calling for Elijah,” a bystander said.
Someone ran up the hill with a sponge dripping with sour wine. He held it up on a reed so that Jesus could drink.
“Let’s see whether Elijah will come and take him down!” someone sneered.
Dark clouds swirled angrily overhead and the wind came up. The sun was obscured.
“Mary,” came a quiet, tentative voice. When she looked up, she saw John, the young son of Zebedee, standing nearby. “Mary,” he said again and came close, putting his arm around her. As she buried her head in his shoulder, he whispered brokenly, “I’m sorry.” He drew in a sobbing breath as she put her arms around him. She could not condemn him for running away when she had remained so long separated from her son.
John looked up at Jesus, tears streaming down his face, his chest heaving.
“Woman,” Jesus said, looking at her, “he is your son.” His gaze moved to John, his face softening even in his agony. “She is your mother.”
Mary understood that she was being entrusted to John’s care rather than that of her other sons and daughters. When John put his arm around her, she turned her face into his chest and wept harder.
“Father,” Jesus said, and Mary looked up again, hoping to see the Lord himself come down to take Jesus from the cross. “Father, forgive these people, because they don’t know what they are doing.” She saw him heaving for breath, his body sinking lower. “It is finished!” he said, his chest rising and falling. “Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands!” Having said this, his breath came out in one last, long breath, and his body relaxed.
Mary stared in disbelief, her heart breaking, her mouth open in silent denial. “No. No.”
John held her tightly.
The earth shook and people scattered. The Roman officer who was handling the executions looked up at Jesus. “Truly, this was the Son of God!”
“It’s over, Mother,” John said in a choked voice. “Come away from this place.”
“No. I won’t leave him.”
“Then I will stay with you.”
Soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man and then the second. Their screams were brief and then they gasped for breath, dying within minutes because they could no longer hold their bodies up enough to fill their lungs with air.
“This one is already dead.”
“Better to make sure.” The guard raised his spear and pierced Jesus’ side. Blood and water spilled out. “He’s dead.” They hammered out the wedges and let the cross fall. As they yanked the nails from his feet and hands, Mary approached.
One of the guards straightened, the hammer in his hand. “What do you want?”
“My son . . . my son . . .”
Grimacing, the man stepped away, going to help take down another cross.
Mary fell down on her knees at Jesus’ side and lifted his head into her lap. It began to rain, and she stroked the droplets over his face. Shifting, she sat and gathered her son closer, until the upper half of his body was in her lap, and she rocked him as she had as a child. “No,” she whispered, kissing his brow. “God said you will save us from our sins. . . .” She gently pushed his hair back and kissed him again. She cupped his cheek and ran her hand down his arm and placed it on his chest, praying to feel a faint heartbeat. There was nothing. As she held him close, rocking and rocking, she felt the warmth of his body go out of him until he was cold.
And then she knew. Her son was dead.
> Raising her head, she wailed in sorrow and then screamed out the despair of all humanity. The Messiah was dead, the world left in bondage.
All around Mary danced unseen beings, gloating and prancing in pride while their master laughed and laughed.
Didn’t I tell you I would kill him? The earth is mine now, and all that is on it. I have won! Behold my power. Behold! I have won!
* * *
Mary sat on the muddy hillside, carefully removed the crown of thorns, and held her son’s head against her chest. The rain came down in sheets, drenching her. “Mary,” John said, his voice gentle. “Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus are here.”
“Who?” she said dully, looking up at two finely garbed men standing at a respectful distance. They looked like the wealthy men who were members of the Sanhedrin. Mary put her hand against Jesus’ cold face as though to protect him from them.
John knelt down and looked into her face with compassion. “Joseph has been given permission by Pilate to take your son’s body and bury him.”
Bury him? Mary stroked Jesus’ cold face. John put his hand over hers, and she looked up at him. His face was etched in grief. “Mother, it will be Sabbath soon. He needs a proper resting place.” She looked away at the gray sky and at the small groups of people still standing around. The bodies of the two thieves had already been taken away. If she didn’t give up her son now, nothing could be done for another day. “Joseph of Arimathea has offered his own tomb.”
She looked down at Jesus. The rain had washed away the blood, leaving his face white as the marble in the Temple. Leaning down, she kissed his brow as she had when he was a baby sleeping. His hair smelled of perfume. “Take him,” she whispered and spread her hands.
Nicodemus lifted him enough so that Joseph could wrap Jesus’ body in a clean linen cloth. Mary sat in the mud, watching. John put his arms around her and lifted her. “Come, Mother,” he said tenderly. “I’ll take you home with me now.”
“Where is the tomb?”
“In a garden not far from here. Joseph said it’s hewn from the rock. It’s a beautiful place with olive trees and a cistern. Jesus will rest in peace there.”
Several women came to meet them, weeping and embracing Mary. She felt so numb, so bereft of any emotion. She didn’t know what to say to them. As John led her away, she saw her sons standing together. They looked at her in shame and grief. She saw in their eyes that they expected her to reject them as they had rejected Jesus. “Oh,” she said, the tears coming hard again. She went to them, weeping and embracing each one, kissing them.
“Come with us,” John said to them, taking the place Jesus had assigned to him beside Mary. “I have a house in the city.”
As they walked away together, Mary looked back in sorrow as two men she didn’t know carried her son to a borrowed tomb.
* * *
Mary and her companions joined the disciples in an upper room. Most were too ashamed to look at Mary, for they had all run away and left Jesus. The women were not among them.
“The Magdalene and the other Mary are sitting near the tomb, waiting for the Sabbath to pass,” someone said.
“Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus have already anointed Jesus’ body with a hundred litras of myrrh and aloes and wrapped him in linen.”
“We should all get out of the city.”
“He’s right. The Romans will be looking for us.”
“Why would they bother looking for us?” Peter said, his face anguished. “We’re no threat to anyone. It’s finished. Jesus is dead.” He thrust his face in his hands and wept.
“It’s not over,” Mary said quietly. How could it be over? God had told her Jesus would save his people, that Jesus was the Messiah. She believed him. So how could this be the end?
The men all looked at her in pity and then looked away.
“It’s not over,” she said again.
“Mother,” John said gently, putting his arm around her.
She would not be silenced. “The angel of the Lord came to me when I was a virgin and said the Holy Spirit would come upon me. He said the power of the Most High would overshadow me. He said I would bear a holy offspring, a son. He said I was to name him Jesus because he would save his people.”
They hung their heads.
“God said Jesus would save his people from their sins,” she said, tears welling again. “God said . . .”
They would not raise their eyes to hers. She knew they thought she was out of her mind with grief, clinging to hope when all seemed hopeless. But when God spoke, he always kept his word. “It can’t be over.” Her voice broke. “I refuse to believe it’s over!” She gulped back a sob. “God . . . promised . . .” Covering her face, she wept.
The men were silent for a few minutes, and then began to talk among themselves again.
“I tell you, we should get out of Jerusalem.”
“Yes, but how do we do it without being seen?”
“What if we are seen?” Peter said in bitter anguish. “What does it matter now? What does anything matter?”
Mary rose. She moved to the back of the upper room, lit a small lamp, and knelt down to pray to the God who had promised that salvation would come through her son Jesus.
* * *
On the morning of the third day, they heard footsteps racing up the stairs. The men moved restlessly, casting frightened looks, not knowing what to do. The door burst open and Mary of Magdalene came in. “I have seen the Lord! He’s alive!” She came excitedly into the center of the room, her face radiant as she laughed and cried with joy, turning and speaking so fast, her words tumbled one over another.
“We went to the tomb with burial spices, and the stone was rolled aside. When we went inside, Jesus wasn’t there.”
“Woman,” Peter said, raising his hands to calm her.
“We went inside the tomb, and there were two men in dazzling robes. We were terrified! They said to us, ‘Why are you looking in a tomb for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He has risen from the dead! Don’t you remember what he told you back in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again the third day?’ And we remembered.” She spread her hands, turning around to look at them all. “You remember, too, don’t you? You talked about it because you didn’t understand.”
Mary stood, her body tingling with the truth of the young woman’s words. “He’s risen.”
“See what you’ve done,” one of the men said to the Magdalene.
“He’s alive, I tell you. I saw him!”
“Saw him? How?”
“I was weeping, and he spoke to me. He said, ‘Why are you crying?’ I thought he had taken the Lord away, and I asked him to tell me where he had put him so I could go and get him. Then he said, ‘Mary!’ I would have known his voice anywhere. And I looked up, and there he was. I clung to him.” She clasped her hands against her chest. “I didn’t want to let go, but he said to stop clinging to him because he had to ascend to his Father, our Lord and God.”
“She’s out of her mind with grief.”
“Mary, you’ve let your imagination run wild. Just because you want Jesus to be alive, doesn’t mean he is alive.”
The Magdalene looked at them in frustration. “How can you not believe? Jesus told you this would happen.”
The disciple John was out the door, Peter on his heels.
“Let them go,” another said dismally.
The Magdalene came to Mary, her eyes searching. “It’s true. He said once that the Son of Man would have to be lifted up on a pole, as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness.”
Mary remembered what had happened in Moses’ time: Because of the people’s sin, the Lord sent poisonous snakes among them, and many of the people were bitten and died. But when the people confessed their sin and asked the Lord to save them, he did. God told Moses to make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to the top of a pole. Whenever those who wer
e bitten looked at the bronze snake, they recovered!
The Magdalene took Mary’s hands. “We were near the Sea of Galilee, and he said God loved the world so much, he was giving his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.” Her fingers tightened. “None of us understood.” Her gaze intensified. “Your son is alive, Mary. He is alive!”
“I believe you.” If only she had been the one to see him for herself.
* * *
Peter and John returned. “It’s true,” John said, his eyes aglow.
Dismissing what John said, the disciples looked to Peter for confirmation.
“His body is gone.”
They didn’t know what to think, still afraid of what might happen to them. They feared death more than they feared God, shutting the doors and locking them because they were so certain the Council would send men to find and take them into custody for questioning.
They were all talking in low, frightened voices when a familiar voice spoke with a hint of good humor.
“Peace be with you.”
Mary’s head came up. Her son was standing among them. The men cried out in fear and fell on their faces. Mary’s other sons stared in amazed terror and covered their heads. A sob caught in her throat as she stood. “Jesus.” She rushed toward him, ready to embrace him as a mother. But when he looked at her, she was struck by the truth of who he was. I Am Who I Am stood before her. The sword of Truth pierced her soul, and she stopped. The son she had borne did not belong to her. Nor did he belong to Israel.
Long ago, the serpent Satan had enticed mankind to distrust and rebel against God, and then held all captive by the fear of death.
Mary looked up into the eyes of her son who was dead and was alive again.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, her heart humbled, she took Jesus’ hands and kissed them as the words of the prophet Isaiah came to her, words Joseph had read aloud to her and their children so many times before: “I would not forget you! I have written your name on my hand.” Now, she saw that Jesus was the Living Word. The full realization pierced her heart. Though she had carried him in her womb, he was God’s Son. He had never been hers to command. Jesus was God’s Son, God’s gift of salvation to Israel. “The Lord has laid on him the guilt and sins of us all.”
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