Easter-ish

This is from the view of the fictitious Rachel, Mary's best friend from childhood.

I had purposely stayed at the back of the crowd in order to avoid seeing Jesus. Watching them lay him there on the wood, seeing them drive the stakes into his hands—the hands I had seen and touched and held before—it would be too difficult.

            Mary’s lot was far worse, however, and she had surely kept as close to him as she could.

            I stared at the ground as I pressed through the alleyways, pardoning myself past the people milling about in the morning air. They didn’t realize that their Lord was dying right now, just outside the city. My swallows came more frequently as I tried to keep the sobs from spilling out of my chest.

            One broke free when I came to a crossroads. The dirt before me still bore an inch-deep scar all along the path through the alley and around the corner. His cross.

            I crouched to the ground and held my face in my hands. The people stepped on the fringes of my dress, stepped right on the cross-made furrow with their filthy sandaled feet. My Lord, I cried within my heart. My Lord, my God.

I came upon the hill sooner than I wanted to. A good deal of men were ringing the crucifixion site, their laughing echoed by that of the Romans. Some of the soldiers had tucked parts of torn cloth into their helmets, which they held casually against their sides. One was complaining to the others that the braided thorns had torn right through his thumbs; they chuckled and said he’d better be more careful next time.

            Their scorn sickened me, and I hurried to get somewhere where their voices were at least muffled and I could at least pretend that I didn’t know what they were talking about.

            Unfortunately, that meant I had to get closer to the trinity of crosses. I spotted Mary and Mary Magdalene, and my feet stopped moving. I had to look, look up now and see him in more than the periphery before I reached them. I tucked my chin near my chest and peered up.

            His skin was torn in too many places to count. Grains of blood strung themselves from his hands and feet, seeming to spring from the iron stakes themselves. A shudder resounded in my ribcage to see the skin in his limbs creased from the pressure of the metal spikes. The crown of thorns atop his head likewise dripped onto his nose, giving him beaded scarlet tears.

            His body looked so thin, his ribs so stark, exposed this way. His legs strained painfully against the nails so he could catch a breath—then crumpled beneath him, sending trembles under his skin from head to toe.

            My feet shuffled a few steps closer, closer, closer, until I could fall beneath him and release the groans that expressed every emotion mingled in my soul. I clenched my eyes closed for half a minute, then opened them to see his feet before me. They still bore the dust from the roads he’d walked in town that morning.

            I pushed myself to my feet and wiped my eyes, staring into his face. His chest paused in its shallow breath and he looked back at me. The matted hair drew curtains around his face, around our moment, and in his eyes I saw love.

            He broke his gaze to lift himself again for air, and I moved toward Mary. She did not look at me, but fell into my arms when I touched her elbow. Mary Magdalene cupped her hands around my shoulders and leaned into me, letting her tears slide slowly down my neck.

            We waited in the mourning quiet of our own minds, held up only by each other, for many moments. My thoughts turned to the time when I had first met this man, my Savior, when he was just a babe.

            I could remember that day with exactness—the feel of his little body against mine; of his hair beneath my fingers; of the fresh and pure spirit he carried. That spirit had never left him. And now, over thirty years later, I could hardly believe that he hung above me in the punishment of those lowest and most hated.

            A gasp caught in my throat and Mary Magdalene stroked my hair. How can they do this to the Savior of the world?

           

“Father.”

            We three split apart at the sound of his voice, clear, but squeezed with effort. Behind his crowned head and all above us we could see the clouds boiling and cracking as they rolled in from the horizon.

            “Into thy hands,” he lifted himself for a breath, “I commend my spirit.”

            And loosening the air from his lungs, Jesus closed his eyes and fell against the cross. A sob broke from my lips and tears clouded my vision.

            “A God has died,” a man near us murmured.

            Mary stepped forward to cradle and kiss the feet of her son, her tears echoed by the drops of rain that began to fall into the dry earth. Mary Magdalene clasped her hands and sunk to the ground, whispering, “Now he is free.” And I looked up at the man I’d known—peripherally, maybe, but nevertheless known—and understood that indeed, only his body lay limp against the wood. The world had lost the spirit of its Lord, its God, its Christ.

It had been three days since the crucifixion of Jesus, and Mary still lay in bed.

            She told me again and again that she was only tired, fatigued by a mother’s grief, and that she would be well again soon. Her fever told me otherwise.

            Mary Magdalene and I tipped cups of slow water onto her tongue, fed her bread and vegetable broth, and prayed with her at least every hour. Her daughters also brought food and faces feigning cheerfulness. The light seemed to have seeped out of our lives all at once with the death of the Only Begotten.

            I held my chin in my hands and watched the Savior’s mother sleep while Mary was at the tomb. She had left early, before sunrise, her eyes rimmed with red but piercing in their firmness. “It’s a new week now,” she’d whispered. “I must go.”

            Now I stared into the shadows of Mary’s home, watching the darkness grow thinner as morning came on stronger. Would Mary lift out of her bed of sickness and sorrow today? Oh Lord, let it be today, I prayed fervently. Her prostrate body, so pale, mirrored that of her son in his burial clothes and made me ache inside. So I looked away.

I pressed my face into my hands and sighed. A quarter of an hour passed. Half an hour. I only thought and listened to Mary’s soft breathing. I hardly even noticed the sunlight peeking over the windowsill and pressing against the burlap curtains. Fatigue and sorrow reigned too heavy in my mind.

            Suddenly, the door flew open and light shattered the darkness. My head snapped up and Mary stirred awake. It was Mary Magdalene, breathing hard, in the doorway.

            “Mary?”

            “He lives!” Her face shone with light and tears. “He lives, I saw him. He came to me at the tomb.”

            I gasped as my heart billowed within me and my hands clasped together. Prayers leapt from my mind to heaven: Lord, I thank Thee! He’s alive again! He lives!

            Mary sat up in her bed and stared. “How can this be?” she whispered.

            Mary Magdalene stepped closer, her lips brimming with a beam so bright it outshone the morning rays.

            “His body was gone when we came to the tomb; the linens lay there, still and empty, and I sat by the opening, the stone rolled away and everything quiet. Then two men appeared. They—they sat at the head and foot of his place, the place he’d been laid, and told me…” She took a breath to slow herself and went on. “They asked me why I was weeping. I told them that I sought Jesus.”

            Tears started down both of their faces in steady rivulets.

            “Then I heard another voice.”

Jesus’ mother closed her dripping eyes and covered her mouth with her hands. “My memory said it was his voice—but it couldn’t have been. So I took him as the gardener, and asked where he had taken Jesus. Then he said my name.”

They cried harder.

“I knew it was him. He wore the most glorious white clothing. He was smiling. He bid me not touch him, but I could see the marks in his hands. I knew it was him. I knew it was true.”

Silence bound us up as we pondered what this was, what this meant. I couldn’t think of anything at all besides the image of Jesus in white clothes, smiling—smiling—and alive. So I began to sing. Mary joined in, standing from her bed and looking radiant and red-cheeked; then Mary Magdalene added in her harmonies, until we finished the tune. Then they started smiling. Then they began, softly, to laugh. We laughed and cried with relief and joy and the knowledge that there was once again something to laugh for in the world—because he lived.