Short Stories

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John awakened later than usual because he had spent considerable time the previous night ensuring that Jesus' mother Mary made it to the home of some relatives in Emmaus. Though she would soon be coming to live with him as per Jesusf directive from the cross, right now she wanted to be with family, which was probably best for both of them. John had been overwhelmed carrying both her grief and his own, and the walk back to his home in Jerusalem had been particularly hard, especially since he had to pass the place of the crucifixion.



He discovers that Peter has slept little and looks it. In between moments of fitful sleep, Peter has been replaying the events of the previous morning in his mind and kicking himself mentally as he does so. Why hadnft he spoken in Jesus' defense? How could he have said that he did not even know Jesus? Grief, guilt, and regret grip him like a vise.



As Peter wallowed in the depths of his own failures and John thought over the implications of what had happened the day before, they both wondered what had become of the rest of their band.



Matthew, the most practical of Jesusf disciples, had spent the evening at the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. It somehow seemed providential that he had ended up here because as the events of Friday unfolded he found himself considering what he had been doing for the past three years. He had never been one to make an unwise investment of money or time and he now wondered.



This morning, Lazarus had gently roused him from sleep and informed him that breakfast was waiting. As the cobwebs cleared and he realized that Friday had not been a horrible dream, his concerns about his time with Jesus returned. Had it all been a terrible waste?



As Lazarus returned with a washbasin, Matthew saw a living example of the wisdom of investing in Jesus. This man certainly harbored no regrets. Suddenly images from the past few years leaped to mind. He remembered a blind man whom Jesus had instructed to wash in the pool of Siloam. Matthew had led the man to the pool and caught the look of amazement on the manfs face when his sight returned and he realized that he was seeing his own reflection in the pool. The man reached down, touched the water, disturbing the reflection, and laughed like a child. Yes, there was more than enough evidence that any time spent with Jesus had not been time misused.



Reflecting on his own time spent with the Master, he marveled at the changes in his own life. There was a time when Peter would have had nothing to do with him, a tax collector who profited off his own brothers in service to the Romans oppressors. Now Peter regarded him with the same affection he displayed toward his own brother Andrew. Yes, the past few years had not been a waste of his time. But what to do now? Could their movement continue without Jesus? He was not merely a prophet with a good message that others could readily transmit in His absence. He indeed was the message.



As he consoled himself with bittersweet memories, a lingering thought nagged at him. If the Son of God was subject to death, then it remained a reality for him as well, in spite of Jesusf claims that no one who believed in Him would ever die. The questions he had not asked of Lazarus a week earlier were suddenly important again. What had Sheol been like? Did it bear any resemblance to life as they knew it? What was the temperament of the people who inhabited Sheol?



Lazarus took his time in answering the first two but the answer to the third merely raised more questions. He had looked at Matthew, smiled slightly, nodded his head and said, "They seemed to carry an attitude of expectation." Beyond this, he had refused to elaborate.



Thomas had returned late in the evening to the home where they had celebrated Passover the previous night. The woman of the house had lit the oil lamps that would burn until sunset the following evening in accordance with the necessities of the observance of Shabbat, and had prepared a meal should any of Jesusf disciples return there following the events of Friday. He stayed long enough to eat something but when the discussion turned to recent events, he excused himself. He was not yet ready to talk about things that had shaken him to the core emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually.



As he wandered the streets of Jerusalem, he remembered with surprising clarity Jesusf words during the Passover meal. He spoke words of comfort, urging them not to be afraid, encouraging them to trust Him. But He had done so in a most perturbing way. He said that He was leaving, which was in no way encouraging, and insisted that they knew the way so that they could one day be with Him.



Thomas had mustered the nerve to ask what the rest all felt and inquired not only where Jesus was going but also asked for directions. Jesusf reply, which had spoken such peace to him last night, now sounded hollow and empty.



"I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."



From this, Thomas had reasoned that Jesus was then going to the Father and that if they knew Jesus, they knew the way to the Father. But after Friday the Way seemed permanently cut off, blocked by an obstruction as seemingly immovable as death. The Truth had been made out to be a lie. And the Life had succumbed to its alternative.



"It shouldnft be like this," Thomas thought. He had died between two thieves on a Roman cross. This was the death of a sinner, not the death of a prophet, though the orchestration of His death had been in a fashion similar to that of other prophets in the past. It was small comfort that His death was predicated not on Him being a blasphemer as the priests had insisted, but as being a rebel and subversive, a usurper and pretender, something the Romans understood well and would punish with swift severity.



He fell asleep next to the entryway to Johnfs home sometime after midnight. He woke several times during the night and once was surprised to find himself covered by a cloak that he recognized as belonging to Peter.



He awoke for the day when the first beams of sunlight broke the top of a distant hill. As he regained his bearings, he heard Peter speaking from within the house.



"I canft tell what has become of most of the others, but Thomas is just outside," Peter said and opened the door.



As they ate an early meal, Thomas found himself again rethinking things. When he thought of Jesus resting in Josephfs grave, dishonored and decaying, a frightening implication became clear to him and that thought frightened him more than the thought of the Jews coming for them once the Sabbath ended.



John placed a hand on his shoulder and asked, "Thomas, what is in your heart that shows so clearly on your face?"



"It's just that nothing about any of this feels right. A man who could feed a multitude with the contents of a childfs lunch basket, heal the sick, give sight to the blind, and even raise the dead should not have ended life as a failure. And that can be the only description for it. You donft usher in Godfs reign in the affairs of humanity by dying. But the thing that frightens me is this: wherein did the failure lie? Did Jesus fail His Father in some way that resulted in His death or did the Father, in allowing His death to happen, somehow fail Jesus? Either way, if Jesus failed or if His Father failed, what hope can there be for any of us?"



John desperately wanted to speak some words of reassurance, but as Thomas, overwhelmed by the implication of the words he had just spoken, walked out the door to be alone with his thoughts, John felt the weight of Thomasf words on his own heart as well and knew that the tone had been set for the rest of the day.



Elsewhere in Jerusalem, a man named Chuza discussed recent events with his wife Joanna. Because he is the administrator of Herod Antipasf financial affairs, he makes an exceptional living, to the point that his wife had been able to literally follow Jesus around Israel during His ministry years and served as part of the support crew for the Masterfs team. Chuza shared his wifefs sorrow regarding Jesus and suggested that she do what she can for him now. To that end, she and some of the other women who had followed Jesus skirted the regulations governing activity on the Sabbath and spend their Sabbath gathering the necessities required to anoint His body.



Their busyness on a day dedicated to rest was born out of love and dedication to their friend and expressed the spirit of one of Emily Dickinsonfs poems eighteen hundred years before it was written:




The bustle in a house

The morning after death

Is solemnest of industries

Enacted upon earth -

The sweeping up the heart

And putting love away

We shall not want to use again

Until eternity.



For the disciples, including disciples such as Joanna, Susannah, the Marys and Lazarus, this day was, in the words of Emily Dickinson, the morning after death. They thought it was the end of the world, for that is what it felt like.



When a death comes suddenly, and surely, the quick succession of events that led to His death stunned the disciples, there is often little suffering, and we tend to be grateful for that. But when it comes suddenly, we also do not have time to prepare, to get ourselves ready, to steel our nerves; we do not have an opportunity to sum everything up, to say our "goodbye" s and our "thank you" s, maybe even our "Ifm sorry" s. That leaves a strange mixture of gratitude and frustration, Peter feeling the frustration more keenly than the others. If only he could have done things differently, asked for forgiveness. In addition, when the suffering is as intense and drawn out as Jesusf had been, there enters in a degree of anger as well.



As that first Holy Saturday ended, another emotion entered the mix: fear. During Shabbat, the disciples could live in relative calm knowing that there would likely be no action taken against them by the Jewish authorities until the first day of the week. But as the Sabbath drew to a close, the possibility that they might come under the scrutiny of the same determined group that arranged Jesusf execution was being considered to varying degrees by each of His followers.



Back at John's house, Peter moved to bar the doors and fasten shut windows a few minutes after sundown. This would not stop the temple guard or Roman soldiers, but it might slow them to the point that an escape might be effected should the need arise.



Sleep again proved elusive and every sound in the night roused some member of the household. But shortly before sunrise, everyone was awakened by an incessant rattling of the gate. Peter reasoned that soldiers would have made quick work of the lock and been in the house almost immediately, so he cautiously unlatched a shutter and peered outside.



No torches, no swords, no soldiers. There was no one at the gate but Mary so he and John went down to let her in. What could she possibly want so early in the morning, they both wondered.



As soon as the gate was unlatched, Mary grasped Johnfs cloak at the shoulders and said, "John, theyfve moved Him sometime in the night and none of us knows what theyfve done with Him."



"What do you mean, Mary?" Peter asked, not certain he correctly understood her words.



Through tears, she choked out that someone had rolled away the stone at the mouth of the tomb and that Jesusf body was missing.



They looked at each other briefly and then broke into a run. About a stone throwfs distance from the tomb Peter found an uneven place in the pavement and rolled his ankle negotiating a turn. John stopped short at the sound of Peterfs expression of pain and Peter looked up long enough to wave John on.



"Get to the tomb," he said and reached down to nurse painful muscles.



John stooped low, stepped inside the tomb, and then moved to the side to allow as much light as possible in. The winding sheet that had been wrapped around Jesusf body was still wrapped but was now empty, collapsed like a chrysalis that no longer contained the caterpillar-turned-butterfly.



"What do you make of this?" he asked Peter who by now had limped his way into the tomb.



"Itfs certainly strange. How did they remove the body without disturbing the grave clothes?"



Johnfs smile was unnerving. He read the look on Johnfs face as evidence that a miracle of some sort had happened. However, Peter was unwilling to accept that conclusion at this point. Such speculation would ask him to ignore what he had seen with his own eyes on Friday. Though he had not stood with John and the others that witnessed Jesus' death, he had been there, had seen the crucifixion and ultimately His death. In the midst of Johnfs growing excitement, he simply turned to go.



Part of his lack of willingness to consider the possibility John saw was what it would mean in light of his denial of knowing Jesus. Back at the house, a wave of guilt washed over him. The promises he made at the Passover celebration returned to haunt him. His bold claim that he would never deny his Master and friend just added to the shame he was feeling and he knew that if Johnfs assessment was correct there would be no way that things could ever be the same.



Suddenly the air took on the feel of a breeze that blows just prior to a thunderstorm, filled with an unseen energy. The room was thick with a clean, fresh scent that Peter found invigorating. As he marveled at the unsullied quality of the room, he noticed that the shadows of the chairs and table had disappeared. He passed one hand over the other and discovered that he could not cast a shadow. The light seemed to be coming from everywhere.



From behind him, the last voice he expected to hear spoke his name...


Have you ever shared a similar experience, i.e. going from abject despair to the heights of joy? Can you imagine Peterfs reaction when he turned to see Who spoke his name?



We experience Good Friday in light of Easter, but the disciples had no such perspective. They saw it as the end, nothing more. They had no holy expectations, no plans to invoke the traditional "He is risen/He is risen indeed" salutation. As an experiment, try to look at the events of Holy Week this year without looking forward to the triumph of Easter. Try to share the despair, taste the sorrow of Saturday, and then with the disciples experience the unexpected joy of Easter Sunday, remembering that we should be living in this joy daily, for we share in the same Resurrection.

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