the second day, and the third
As Mary wakes up Saturday morning, reality sets in too fast. Flashbacks to the flogging, the cross, the mutilated body of Jesus lifeless. She closes her eyes again - what is the point of living? She didn't want to wake up to this, she didn't want to wake up at all.
She doesn't know how to get up from her mat. Her mind is flying in a thousand directions but never arriving, and simultaneously frozen solid.
How long has she even been lying here awake? A minute? An hour? She doesn't know.
Is her mat wet with tears or sweat? She doesn't know.
Why is the sun shining? Jesus is dead.
She pulls herself up, dresses herself, goes about the tasks of the morning. It feels too routine. Everything should be different. Time should have stopped. Birds should not be chirping, people should not be mulling about outside their homes, enjoying their Sabbath rest. But... still she moves about, slowly and gently, walking as if around pieces of broken pottery.
She doesn't want to see anyone. What will they say? What will they do?
She doesn't want to be alone.
She joins the disciples in the upper room. There is bread and fruit on the corner of the table - someone must have brought it for them. She wonders who, but the thought falls away unanswered. Unimportant. The rest of the table is just as they had left it, remains of the Passover meal. There is a basin of water in the corner, a towel folded over the edge. Just as they had left it. How can it look just as it had when Jesus was there, and yet... him not be there? How can nothing have changed when everything has changed?
"When Jesus was there;" had she just thought of him in past tense?
She can almost feel him. This is where he is supposed to be. This group, what is it without him? They are together because of him. What? How can he not be here?
Everything in her mind says that he just stepped outside for a moment, saw someone through the window that needed him, took one of the disciples and went for a walk.
Philip is in the corner, staring at the small bunch of grapes in his hand, not eating. Some of the men are still asleep by the wall. Perhaps asleep, perhaps simply unable to get up. Several others glance at her when she enters, murmur some kind of greeting, nod, offer a smile that is incongruent with their eyes.
Mary slides down the wall, sitting without wanting to disturb. John comes and sits by her. There is still blood on his tunic from the body he had held after it had been taken down from the cross. She cannot see it anymore as her eyes fill with tears. She turns her face away from John, but hears his rattling, broken sigh. She looks back at the tears making tiny rivers down his face.
John. Her mind flashes back to Golgotha - as the hammer fell to pin Jesus' arms to the cross, she had turned her face away in horror and terror. At the sickening sound of iron on iron, she had seen only John's face, the veins all over his temples merging with the sweat and tears as he screamed and could not breathe, his arms wrapped around Jesus' mother, both unable to let go.
"Didn't he tell us he was going to be killed?!" Philip suddenly asks. "Why didn't we stop it? Why didn't we stay out of Jerusalem?"
Mary flinches at the words. Killed. How can he say it? Maybe because he wasn't there. Only she and John and Jesus' mother were.
No one answers. No one knows. No one remembers what they were thinking before. Nothing seems right anymore.
She wants to fix everything. But there is nothing. Nothing to do but properly anoint and wrap his body tomorrow, after the Sabbath.
His body. One moment it had been alive. Agonizing. Writhing. Screaming to God. Oh God - Mary tries to get her mind away from it. What was more terrifying - the living agony, or the stillness? The body... the same one that she had sat and talked with on Thursday. She would never forget how she stared at it lying in the tomb. No breaths. Ah - She doesn't want to think about it anymore. Get out of this mind -
Andrew comes away from the window and sits on the floor by the food. He begins to eat. Levi joins him. Mary watches.
After a minute she realizes she is hungry.
She doesn't move. It's too hard.
Has she even breathed lately?
Footsteps on the stairs. Peter enters and surveys the room. He sees Mary and John and falls on his knees in front of them. His face is dirty, his eyes swollen - Mary can tell he did not sleep last night. That would be the second night without sleep, except the bit stolen and regretted in Gethsemane.
"Please," he says, his face to the floor, breathing hard between words, "please, tell me what happened. I have to know." He falls forward, his hands on the wooden floor, holding himself up as he begins to sob.
Mary puts a hand on his shoulder. Andrew comes over, his eyes red and lip shaking at the sight of his brother in agony. No one is sleeping anymore. They come closer, those that are left. Judas is gone; where is he? Thomas is gone too; where is he?
No one has asked Mary or John for the details of the day before. How do you ask? Is it better to not know?
It's getting hot. Mary gets up and goes to the window to block the beating sun. She loses her train of thought. Like her mind has just gone dark. Nothing.
The window.
How do you close a window?
Does she need to push it out or in?
She's done it a thousand times.
But... where is her mind?
She blinks and shakes her soul.
She closes the window.
She joins John again. Everyone is waiting to hear, but ashamed to ask. Afraid to ask. Desperate to ask.
They take deep breaths. They'll have to step out of their hearts for this, leave the emotions for an hour if they want to talk straight about anything. They begin.
The day wears on. Sober. Always sober, but there are reprieves. The owner of the room comes up to console, bringing his toddler. James loves children and pulls the child into his lap to sing a song about Israel's deliverance from Egypt while the child claps and sings along. The rest listen and smile, soaking in the comfort of the familiar words and tune. Salome comes and brings a fresh tunic for John and more food, adding to the unfinished bread and grapes from the morning. Maybe someone will eat it eventually. They are all hungry, as hungry as one can be without an appetite.
The sun sets. The Sabbath is over. Mary goes home with Salome.
How has another day already passed?
This isn't supposed to happen.
Wait, no, this isn't real, is it?!
This can't happen.
It did.
No, no, did it?!
Maybe it was all a dream?
Maybe she'll wake up?
Now?
She and Salome arrive home. She still hasn't woken up. There is still a scratch on her hand from the coil of thorns she had tried to gently to take off his head as they laid him in the tomb yesterday. Yesterday.
Salome has children that are already asleep. She'll have to tend them in the morning. But she has collected the needed spices for Jesus' body. Mary's body tenses, her stomach goes in knots as she sees the spices gathered on the table.
No, this can't be real. Those spices are for dead people. Jesus, dead?
The flashes of the dead body scatter through her mind again; she shakes them away, or tries. But she'll go back tomorrow.
She lies down, wondering if she'll even be able to sleep; wondering, but not worried. Does it even matter?
She tries to picture blackness. Just nothing. No images. Just go to sleep.
He'd known this would happen, something like this. He told them he'd be killed. They hadn't believed him. But surely... this wasn't the plan. What went wrong?
He said, "Don't be afraid." But his presence had been the opposite of fear. And now he is gone. She cannot help but be afraid. He hadn't known what he was talking about.
He said, "Trust in me." But you can't trust someone who is dead.
Dead?!
She sleeps.
Dead.
It was her fading and her waking thought. Why does it never stop? Can she just turn off for a few minutes? Just put it on hold? She's not ready for yet another day of this.
It is still dark, the children are still sleeping, Salome is gathering up the spices and linens.
Oh, life will be so long. Every day like this? Will every day be a fog?
They start off toward the tomb, just outside the city. Mary carries the lamp, Salome the spices. They pass the upper room where the men are asleep. She sees the flicker of a candle and wonders who is awake. Hopefully Peter slept tonight.
They are close to the tomb. "Wait, Mary," Salome speaks softly, "How will we get into the tomb? The stone is covering the entrance."
"Oh..." The two walk slowly, unsure of the next step. How had they not thought this far? Mary knows. She can't think at all.
They keep walking. No answer.
She doesn't want to see Jesus again.
She has seen dead bodies before. But this one is Jesus.
She will go into the tomb because someone must. The least they can do is bury him well. She will anoint him.
She's done it before. Slowly in her mind she treasures the memory of when she had so dearly wanted to lavish Jesus with extravagant love. She had been overwhelmed by his kindness, convinced that he was God in the flesh. She had taken her most valuable possession, monetarily, and poured it on him. He had said something about anointing for burial, but she hadn't really considered that he might mean it.
How did he know?
How could he be dead?
They turn the corner and duck beneath the branches of the trees outside the tomb.
"Well?" Salome asks, gently again.
"Wait, look!"
The blackness of the inside of the tomb was gaping toward them in the early morning dawn; the entrance stone rolled off to the side. Oh no - what had happened? Mary feels her throat tighten, unprepared for any more heartbreak. She runs into the tomb before she can think anything else.
It is empty.
No - where is his body?
His precious body?
Stolen?
By who?
The Romans?
The religious leaders?
Why?
He was dead!
Why? Why? Why?
Mary leaves the lamp, leaves Salome, and runs.
Run. She must get Peter and John.
Run. What? Why?!
Run.
Through the door. Into the house. Up the stairs.
"Peter!" She whispers loudly, out of breath. He is awake, sitting by the candle, staring at the door, eyes wide. John is next to him, awoken by the feet coming up the stairs. Peter scrambles to his feet.
"They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they've put him!"
"What?!" John responds, on his feet. They rush to the door; Mary steps aside to let them pass as they run to the tomb. She runs after them.
She can't think and run at the same time. Not about this. Just get there.
Where is he?!
No, please no. Just leave him be. Let us anoint him and bury it all in peace.
She stumbles to the tomb; Salome is gone. Peter and John are inside, stepping back out as she arrives.
"He's... gone." John is dumbfounded.
"No! How could they!" Peter's anger flares. "Why can't they just leave him alone?! He's dead already!" Peter runs away. She doesn't know where. She hurts for him. He is broken.
John stands silently. Tears run down his face.
"Why?" His face recoils in pain. He walks away.
Mary leans into the stone wall and cries. Sobs. Why has this all happened? Why more? Wasn't it already enough? She weeps in horror at the thought of what may have happened to him. Wasn't it already enough?
The sun is up. Why? The sunshine is a cruel joke.
She sobs.
She can't think.
Just Why? Why? Why?
How long has she been here?
She walks to the entrance, her vision blurred by tears. Startled, she sees two figures inside the tomb, sitting where Jesus' body had laid. When had they come? Had she been weeping so hard she had missed them? Who were they?
"Woman," one of them said, "Why are you weeping?"
What? Who were they?
But their question. She didn't care who they were - what if they had taken the body! Maybe they knew.
"They have taken away my Lord, and I don't know where they have put him!"
Leaves crunch behind her, she turns, another man is standing by her. She looks down, the custom for a woman and an unknown man. She wipes her face, suddenly surrounded by unknown people, only wanting to find the body of her Lord.
"Woman," says the man, "Why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?"
He doesn't know either? Perhaps he is the gardener. Maybe there was a mistake when they had placed Jesus here, and maybe this was the wrong tomb, and so they moved his body elsewhere.
"Sir," she said, humbly and catching her breath, "If you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will take him away!"
Please, God, she prays. I just want him back.
I just want him back.
"Mary."
What?
She looks up.
....
Wha...
"Rabboni?"
He's smiling.
Jesus.
Alive.
Smiling.
She cries aloud. There are no more words. She falls into his arms; he is laughing, even as tears seep out from his eyes as he cradles her. She holds onto him. He's real. How? Never mind how. It's Jesus.
He lifts her gently away from him, still smiling, brushing away her tears as her shock begins to turn to joy.
"Don't cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father." She laughs and cries in the joy of hearing his voice. He smiles. "But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" He brushes her hair behind her ear and nods for her to go. This news can't wait.
She runs again.
Run. Can hardly think.
Run. Can't stop smiling.
Run. Laughing. Shouting.
Through the door. Into the house. Up the stairs.
"I have seen the Lord!"
She doesn't know how to get up from her mat. Her mind is flying in a thousand directions but never arriving, and simultaneously frozen solid.
How long has she even been lying here awake? A minute? An hour? She doesn't know.
Is her mat wet with tears or sweat? She doesn't know.
Why is the sun shining? Jesus is dead.
She pulls herself up, dresses herself, goes about the tasks of the morning. It feels too routine. Everything should be different. Time should have stopped. Birds should not be chirping, people should not be mulling about outside their homes, enjoying their Sabbath rest. But... still she moves about, slowly and gently, walking as if around pieces of broken pottery.
She doesn't want to see anyone. What will they say? What will they do?
She doesn't want to be alone.
She joins the disciples in the upper room. There is bread and fruit on the corner of the table - someone must have brought it for them. She wonders who, but the thought falls away unanswered. Unimportant. The rest of the table is just as they had left it, remains of the Passover meal. There is a basin of water in the corner, a towel folded over the edge. Just as they had left it. How can it look just as it had when Jesus was there, and yet... him not be there? How can nothing have changed when everything has changed?
"When Jesus was there;" had she just thought of him in past tense?
She can almost feel him. This is where he is supposed to be. This group, what is it without him? They are together because of him. What? How can he not be here?
Everything in her mind says that he just stepped outside for a moment, saw someone through the window that needed him, took one of the disciples and went for a walk.
Philip is in the corner, staring at the small bunch of grapes in his hand, not eating. Some of the men are still asleep by the wall. Perhaps asleep, perhaps simply unable to get up. Several others glance at her when she enters, murmur some kind of greeting, nod, offer a smile that is incongruent with their eyes.
Mary slides down the wall, sitting without wanting to disturb. John comes and sits by her. There is still blood on his tunic from the body he had held after it had been taken down from the cross. She cannot see it anymore as her eyes fill with tears. She turns her face away from John, but hears his rattling, broken sigh. She looks back at the tears making tiny rivers down his face.
John. Her mind flashes back to Golgotha - as the hammer fell to pin Jesus' arms to the cross, she had turned her face away in horror and terror. At the sickening sound of iron on iron, she had seen only John's face, the veins all over his temples merging with the sweat and tears as he screamed and could not breathe, his arms wrapped around Jesus' mother, both unable to let go.
"Didn't he tell us he was going to be killed?!" Philip suddenly asks. "Why didn't we stop it? Why didn't we stay out of Jerusalem?"
Mary flinches at the words. Killed. How can he say it? Maybe because he wasn't there. Only she and John and Jesus' mother were.
No one answers. No one knows. No one remembers what they were thinking before. Nothing seems right anymore.
She wants to fix everything. But there is nothing. Nothing to do but properly anoint and wrap his body tomorrow, after the Sabbath.
His body. One moment it had been alive. Agonizing. Writhing. Screaming to God. Oh God - Mary tries to get her mind away from it. What was more terrifying - the living agony, or the stillness? The body... the same one that she had sat and talked with on Thursday. She would never forget how she stared at it lying in the tomb. No breaths. Ah - She doesn't want to think about it anymore. Get out of this mind -
Andrew comes away from the window and sits on the floor by the food. He begins to eat. Levi joins him. Mary watches.
After a minute she realizes she is hungry.
She doesn't move. It's too hard.
Has she even breathed lately?
Footsteps on the stairs. Peter enters and surveys the room. He sees Mary and John and falls on his knees in front of them. His face is dirty, his eyes swollen - Mary can tell he did not sleep last night. That would be the second night without sleep, except the bit stolen and regretted in Gethsemane.
"Please," he says, his face to the floor, breathing hard between words, "please, tell me what happened. I have to know." He falls forward, his hands on the wooden floor, holding himself up as he begins to sob.
Mary puts a hand on his shoulder. Andrew comes over, his eyes red and lip shaking at the sight of his brother in agony. No one is sleeping anymore. They come closer, those that are left. Judas is gone; where is he? Thomas is gone too; where is he?
No one has asked Mary or John for the details of the day before. How do you ask? Is it better to not know?
It's getting hot. Mary gets up and goes to the window to block the beating sun. She loses her train of thought. Like her mind has just gone dark. Nothing.
The window.
How do you close a window?
Does she need to push it out or in?
She's done it a thousand times.
But... where is her mind?
She blinks and shakes her soul.
She closes the window.
She joins John again. Everyone is waiting to hear, but ashamed to ask. Afraid to ask. Desperate to ask.
They take deep breaths. They'll have to step out of their hearts for this, leave the emotions for an hour if they want to talk straight about anything. They begin.
The day wears on. Sober. Always sober, but there are reprieves. The owner of the room comes up to console, bringing his toddler. James loves children and pulls the child into his lap to sing a song about Israel's deliverance from Egypt while the child claps and sings along. The rest listen and smile, soaking in the comfort of the familiar words and tune. Salome comes and brings a fresh tunic for John and more food, adding to the unfinished bread and grapes from the morning. Maybe someone will eat it eventually. They are all hungry, as hungry as one can be without an appetite.
The sun sets. The Sabbath is over. Mary goes home with Salome.
How has another day already passed?
This isn't supposed to happen.
Wait, no, this isn't real, is it?!
This can't happen.
It did.
No, no, did it?!
Maybe it was all a dream?
Maybe she'll wake up?
Now?
She and Salome arrive home. She still hasn't woken up. There is still a scratch on her hand from the coil of thorns she had tried to gently to take off his head as they laid him in the tomb yesterday. Yesterday.
Salome has children that are already asleep. She'll have to tend them in the morning. But she has collected the needed spices for Jesus' body. Mary's body tenses, her stomach goes in knots as she sees the spices gathered on the table.
No, this can't be real. Those spices are for dead people. Jesus, dead?
The flashes of the dead body scatter through her mind again; she shakes them away, or tries. But she'll go back tomorrow.
She lies down, wondering if she'll even be able to sleep; wondering, but not worried. Does it even matter?
She tries to picture blackness. Just nothing. No images. Just go to sleep.
He'd known this would happen, something like this. He told them he'd be killed. They hadn't believed him. But surely... this wasn't the plan. What went wrong?
He said, "Don't be afraid." But his presence had been the opposite of fear. And now he is gone. She cannot help but be afraid. He hadn't known what he was talking about.
He said, "Trust in me." But you can't trust someone who is dead.
Dead?!
She sleeps.
Dead.
It was her fading and her waking thought. Why does it never stop? Can she just turn off for a few minutes? Just put it on hold? She's not ready for yet another day of this.
It is still dark, the children are still sleeping, Salome is gathering up the spices and linens.
Oh, life will be so long. Every day like this? Will every day be a fog?
They start off toward the tomb, just outside the city. Mary carries the lamp, Salome the spices. They pass the upper room where the men are asleep. She sees the flicker of a candle and wonders who is awake. Hopefully Peter slept tonight.
They are close to the tomb. "Wait, Mary," Salome speaks softly, "How will we get into the tomb? The stone is covering the entrance."
"Oh..." The two walk slowly, unsure of the next step. How had they not thought this far? Mary knows. She can't think at all.
They keep walking. No answer.
She doesn't want to see Jesus again.
She has seen dead bodies before. But this one is Jesus.
She will go into the tomb because someone must. The least they can do is bury him well. She will anoint him.
She's done it before. Slowly in her mind she treasures the memory of when she had so dearly wanted to lavish Jesus with extravagant love. She had been overwhelmed by his kindness, convinced that he was God in the flesh. She had taken her most valuable possession, monetarily, and poured it on him. He had said something about anointing for burial, but she hadn't really considered that he might mean it.
How did he know?
How could he be dead?
They turn the corner and duck beneath the branches of the trees outside the tomb.
"Well?" Salome asks, gently again.
"Wait, look!"
The blackness of the inside of the tomb was gaping toward them in the early morning dawn; the entrance stone rolled off to the side. Oh no - what had happened? Mary feels her throat tighten, unprepared for any more heartbreak. She runs into the tomb before she can think anything else.
It is empty.
No - where is his body?
His precious body?
Stolen?
By who?
The Romans?
The religious leaders?
Why?
He was dead!
Why? Why? Why?
Mary leaves the lamp, leaves Salome, and runs.
Run. She must get Peter and John.
Run. What? Why?!
Run.
Through the door. Into the house. Up the stairs.
"Peter!" She whispers loudly, out of breath. He is awake, sitting by the candle, staring at the door, eyes wide. John is next to him, awoken by the feet coming up the stairs. Peter scrambles to his feet.
"They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they've put him!"
"What?!" John responds, on his feet. They rush to the door; Mary steps aside to let them pass as they run to the tomb. She runs after them.
She can't think and run at the same time. Not about this. Just get there.
Where is he?!
No, please no. Just leave him be. Let us anoint him and bury it all in peace.
She stumbles to the tomb; Salome is gone. Peter and John are inside, stepping back out as she arrives.
"He's... gone." John is dumbfounded.
"No! How could they!" Peter's anger flares. "Why can't they just leave him alone?! He's dead already!" Peter runs away. She doesn't know where. She hurts for him. He is broken.
John stands silently. Tears run down his face.
"Why?" His face recoils in pain. He walks away.
Mary leans into the stone wall and cries. Sobs. Why has this all happened? Why more? Wasn't it already enough? She weeps in horror at the thought of what may have happened to him. Wasn't it already enough?
The sun is up. Why? The sunshine is a cruel joke.
She sobs.
She can't think.
Just Why? Why? Why?
How long has she been here?
She walks to the entrance, her vision blurred by tears. Startled, she sees two figures inside the tomb, sitting where Jesus' body had laid. When had they come? Had she been weeping so hard she had missed them? Who were they?
"Woman," one of them said, "Why are you weeping?"
What? Who were they?
But their question. She didn't care who they were - what if they had taken the body! Maybe they knew.
"They have taken away my Lord, and I don't know where they have put him!"
Leaves crunch behind her, she turns, another man is standing by her. She looks down, the custom for a woman and an unknown man. She wipes her face, suddenly surrounded by unknown people, only wanting to find the body of her Lord.
"Woman," says the man, "Why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?"
He doesn't know either? Perhaps he is the gardener. Maybe there was a mistake when they had placed Jesus here, and maybe this was the wrong tomb, and so they moved his body elsewhere.
"Sir," she said, humbly and catching her breath, "If you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will take him away!"
Please, God, she prays. I just want him back.
I just want him back.
"Mary."
What?
She looks up.
....
Wha...
"Rabboni?"
He's smiling.
Jesus.
Alive.
Smiling.
She cries aloud. There are no more words. She falls into his arms; he is laughing, even as tears seep out from his eyes as he cradles her. She holds onto him. He's real. How? Never mind how. It's Jesus.
He lifts her gently away from him, still smiling, brushing away her tears as her shock begins to turn to joy.
"Don't cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father." She laughs and cries in the joy of hearing his voice. He smiles. "But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" He brushes her hair behind her ear and nods for her to go. This news can't wait.
She runs again.
Run. Can hardly think.
Run. Can't stop smiling.
Run. Laughing. Shouting.
Through the door. Into the house. Up the stairs.
"I have seen the Lord!"
Wow! God has gifted you! A wonderful tribute to our Lord; beautifully written, very personal. Keep up the awesome work of writing to glorify Him!
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