Losing Jesus

Easter is by far my favorite holiday. Christmas makes me fairly sentimental, but I can never get through Easter without getting unbelievably emotional. I can't even think about Mary Magdalene in the garden that morning without tears in my eyes and chills up my spine. My kids keep finding me with tears pooling in my eyes, because I just cannot handle thinking about the Resurrection and its impact on those who loved my Jesus. But before the resurrection is always this terrible day. A day that breaks my heart for those same people, Jesus's friends who in a few days would be joyous, but were now having their hope stripped away from them. 

Poor Mary Magdalene. Poor, faithful Mary. 

I imagine her at the foot of the cross, down in the angry crowd, reaching out, wishing there was something she could do. Watching the man who had seen her, heard her, redeemed her... Watching him die. She stayed as long as she could, watching every painful blow to her friend, getting as close as she could, wanting to reach out and offer a comforting touch, but being kept out of reach. She must have been distraught, sickened by his suffering and yet still hoping for a miracle, waiting for him to take charge, to turn this horror into joy as he had for so many others. 

She continued to hope for such a miracle until darkness fell. The very earth shook and broke at the immense paradox that had just occurred - creation destroying creator. 

And Mary of Magdala quivered. Aghast. Afraid. Alone. 

She heard them say that he was no longer breathing and her hope for a miracle faded.

She watched them remove the badly broken body of her beloved friend. Saw the men carry the body off. Many of the others had gone, but she remained. She followed, stumbling, numb, to the tomb. She watched his body placed on the stone. She focused on it, unblinking as the stone was rolled in front of the grave, hiding his body from her view. But she did not move. She sat and stared as if the stone was not there. The image of his broken body lying on the cold stone was indelibly inked on her mind and she could not move. 

She stayed as others slowly drifted away. She no longer cried. Her sadness was for him and his suffering, now she was simply lost and did not know what to do. So she sat at the tomb, like a dog who could not return home without its owner.

She waited. Waited for some sort of purpose. She had been nothing, rejected by everyone, tortured by demons of all kinds. Then Jesus. He had brought restoration and respect. Respect that, as a woman, she had never been offered, even before the demons. He had made her a new person, given her a life with meaning, and she had leapt into it with such beautiful vigor. She had been the poster child for redemption. But now... Now what was she? With Jesus gone, would the demons return? What would she do? Who would she be? Did she even care to live without him? 

She could not face any of those questions as she stared at the tomb. Eventually soldiers were posted there and she was told she must leave. She should have been home long ago as the Sabbath had started. But she did not want to go. Home was no sanctuary. Once there she felt like she was in a dream, watching herself act out her own life. She simply laid on her bedding, unable to move, unable to sleep, remembering her life before him and not wanting to wake to a world without him. 

(Read Part 2 here)

I asked my five year-old son,
"Are the red spots on the bunny his whiskers?"
"No, they're his tears."