Chapter
Eleven
WHEN the excitable populace streamed before Jesus through Jerusalem's city gates, Martha and Mary decided to return to Bethany. They pushed though the crowd to Jesus, so they could take their leave and bid him their farewells.
The Master was still surrounded by a multitude of people and all of his disciples, but it seemed to Martha that he sat on the ass's colt all alone as if no one were near. He was, as he had been throughout the journey, quiet and pensive. With the exception of his lamentations back on the crest of the road, he spoke to no one. As she came face to face with Jesus, Martha saw that the marks of the tears he had wept remained on his cheeks and his beard glistened with wetness. His skin was grayed, even in the bright sunshine, and Martha's nature, instinctively quick with herbs and medical remedies, rose within her. Desperately she wanted to get him inside a shelter and give him some herbal tea, but because of the crowd, she only blurted out, "Master, it is not safe for you to stay here in the city. When you have finished in the temple, will you spend the night in Bethany?"
He nodded silently at her and then, not attracting anyone's attention but hers, he placed one finger across his lips so she would know it was to be kept a secret.
With that the women pushed through some men, spotted the head of Andrew above the others, with Lazarus close by, nodded and called their shaloms to both of them before setting off for home.
When they reached Bethany, the women entered their courtyard and sank down wearily on a marble bench to rest a few
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moments. They were covered with dust on the outside and filled with an uneasy sadness inside.
"Are you not going to prepare a supper for them when they come tonight?" Mary asked, surprised that Martha had sat so long without a move toward the cooking area.
"No," Martha answered. "I think Jesus and the disciples will not stay here tonight with us but in the grove-garden. Too many people know of his love for us, and, who knows, someone, out to help with Caiaphas's arrest order, might be watching our gate right now. I will send Aaron down to the grove before sundown tonight to see if Jesus and the others are there. If they have not eaten, then I'll take care of it. At least by tomorrow morning I shall take food down there, but for now I'm weary, and you must be too. Let's wash and eat something."
"Yes," Mary said, her voice strained and overtired. She gave Martha a helping hand up, and, together, they entered the house, relieved that the long exacting day was ending. Later Aaron reported no sight of Jesus; so Martha retired to her pallet without knowing that late night Jesus and the men stole quietly into the grove-garden.
Martha rose early Monday morning before the sun started over the first hill. By the time she filled a large basket with wheat cakes, figs, and raisins, Mary joined her, and they both went down to the grove-garden. They could see it was too late. Everyone was gone, and only the matted-down grass gave evidence of their overnight bivouac.
Martha chuckled softly and said to Mary, "They cheated me out of serving them this time, but I shall make up for it tonight. In fact, I think I'll set Aaron and Jude in there," she said as she pointed to a bush thick with foliage, "to watch for them."
The next few days for Martha were quiet, and aside from the preparations for the Paschal Supper she was making, nothing was unusual. Jesus, Lazarus, and all the disciples continued to return every night to Bethany, and whether it was privately in her house or secretively down at the grove, the guests were served well.
Martha was delighted to be doing what came so easily to her, but she was so busy preparing the daily food for thirteen guests
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plus her family and servants, that she hardly had time to listen to daily happenings.
Eagerly Lazarus tried to tell her about Jesus as he rushed about from the table to the ovens, but she only got bits and pieces. Lazarus related that Jesus healed blind and lame people in the temple and told many parables and stories of real life. He said Jesus also called the scribes and Pharisees some terrible names, including hypocrite and snakes, but, most surprising, some members of the Sanhedrin actually believed in him. Lazarus had said this last part in a breathless kind of wonder.
Martha heard Lazarus just as she was leaving the cooking area, and over her shoulder she called to him, "See, Jesus really is who he said he is!" Then she disappeared through the outer door with a large basin of wastewater in her hands.
Only once, very early one morning, in their hurried talks Martha noticed Lazarus had grown still, and surprisingly he was not busily giving his report. Martha stopped stirring Naomi's corn porridge and knelt down beside Lazarus, who was sitting on a stool. Looking up at him she wordlessly asked what troubled him.
"I'm sorry, Martha. I did not intend to withdraw or be such poor company. It is just that I am very perplexed by some of yesterday's happenings. It was something Jesus said." Lazarus talked slowly and in such low tones that Martha had to concentrate to hear his words.
"We were sitting around him on the slopes of the Mount of Olives when Jesus, in a voice calm with certainty, told us he would be sacrificed on the very day the lamb would be slain for the Paschal feast."
"Oh, well," said Martha easily, "you know all of us love poetic speech, and Jesus is a master at parables, stories, and even riddles; so perhaps he did not mean actually sacrificed but meant the offering of himself in dedicated service as the high priest of the temple."
"No. He meant slain and sacrificed." Both Lazarus and Martha looked up to see who made the statement with such authority, and Mary stood before them in the doorway.
"She is right," Lazarus said, over Martha's rising protest.
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"But surely you don't think that this coming Thursday, the night of our Passover feast, Jesus will be ...." Martha gasped and clamped a hand over her mouth.
She dared not tell them that she had harbored the lovely secret hope that Jesus and his men would eat the Paschal Supper with them. We are his family, she had said to herself. The feast is a family festival. He has no family living in the vicinity of Jerusalem; so we will be his temporary mother, father, brothers, and sisters. Besides, he cannot sacrifice himself. It would ruin the memorial feast of the birth of our nation — not to mention my dinner, she thought bleakly.
"Jesus is going to die," Mary interrupted Martha's thoughts, "I do not, for one moment, understand why, or how, or even in what manner. But ever since the dinner at Simon's house, I have known. When I looked at Jesus that night I could not see him clearly, for he was wrapped entirely in grave clothes, and a burial napkin covered his head and face.
"So that is why you left the banquet to fetch your alabaster box of ointments."
"Yes, my sister." Mary answered.
Martha stood up, and taking off her apron, she said sternly to Mary, "Please serve the porridge and bread to everyone who has not eaten this morning, Mary. I must clear my head." She grabbed a dark blue veil from off a wall peg, and deftly throwing it over her head and shoulders, she hurried out the back entrance.
Martha walked with her head down to discourage anyone from speaking to her, and she moved quickly over the cobblestone streets of the village. She was so completely absorbed in her own thoughts that she didn't see anyone. In fact, it was only when she reached the outskirts of Bethany and was padding silently down the dirt path, that she realized exactly where she was.
Her feet had taken her through a small, tree-lined pass in the hills, and stretching out in front of her were the beautiful low hills and valleys she had loved all her life, as her father had before her.
She was enmeshed in the sight of sheep and lambs nibbling on
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the fresh green hillsides when suddenly she saw, nestled down in one valley, three men sitting under the trees. She recognized Jesus immediately.
"Aha! So this is where he goes when he vanishes from our midst." Martha was delighted to have found out his secret. Often she had wondered where he went or what he did when he left her house. Sometimes he went with just two or three of his men, but once or twice it was alone. Seeing this valley in the brilliance of its glorious springtime, she could readily understand his choice.
From where she stood, she identified the two men with Jesus as being Peter and John. They were talking in earnest with the Master, and as yet, they were unaware of her presence.
Martha looked away from the three men to the weeping willow trees behind them. Their boughs bent low and formed a leafy screen of privacy. Off to the east a few paces, water babbled and tumbled in the newly filled brook.
Oh, Master, she thought to herself, seeing you here in these hills tells me you must hate the noisy, dirty cities where the refuse and garbage is flung into the streets and where men and scavenger pariah dogs jostle each other continuously in overcrowded bazaars and thoroughfares. No wonder you love Bethany so much. Here is a place where you can talk with the Father in heaven. Martha silently blessed God's name. Then her thoughts continued eloquently. Here too, dear Master, under the curtains of the willow trees, far from the disturbing sights and sounds of the city, you can sit on the pillows of grass, smell the fragrance of the field lilies, listen to the playful bleating of the lambs, and watch the splendor of a sunrise or a sunset.
The whole peaceful scene reinforced a decision she had made so deliberately. Martha strode down the hill toward them. She decided that she would risk their displeasure at her knowing their sequestered hiding place and interrupt them. Whether she should or should not speak her mind was an issue she flung into the spring winds.
With her head held high and in great spirits, spurred on by the beauty of the scenery, Martha marched down the valley to where they sat.
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Noisily she greeted them. "Shalom, Master and friends." She took advantage of the fact that they responded warmly to her and plopped herself down next to Jesus. Everyone, even Peter, fell silent as if she had interrupted a secret meeting, and no one spoke.
Martha was all prepared to launch into the issues at hand, but as usual, the moment she looked directly at Jesus, every word was removed from her mouth. Her abruptness melted, and then the stillness of the others caught up with her. For several long moments she just sat quietly. Finally, after swallowing hard, a very subdued Martha asked quietly, "Master, may I speak with you a moment about the Passover?"
Nodding yes, Jesus answered, "Of course, Martha. You may always speak your mind with me." And finding her voice again, she began, "Everyone in all of Israel is thinking about the feast. It will be a glorious Passover festival. I feel it in my bones. Master, it is as if spring and the renewal of life all around us is serving as an omen of good tiding." Then, glancing at two lambs a few paces away dancing around their mother, she continued, "I have all but the lamb prepared for the Paschal Supper. The herbs, haroseth paste, unleavened bread, and wine are all ready, and with my whole heart I hope it is your desire to celebrate Passover with us here in Bethany." She searched his face and hoped he would be direct with his answer.
He was. But it was so blunt it stopped her breathing for a moment.
"We shall take the Paschal Supper in Jerusalem," he said simply.
"But ...." She fought for logical persuasive words. "Master, it is not necessary to travel to the city. Bethany has been decided by rabbinical authorities to be well within the limits of Jerusalem.
"Besides, Lazarus, my sister Mary, myself, and your disciples are like family to you." Her voice was almost pleading now. "The Paschal Supper is a family time, and I had so dreamed you would be with us. It seems so feasible..." she ended lamely.
"No, I have other plans," he said evenly.
Martha was utterly shattered. She looked at Peter and John,
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but they offered no help. Peter merely shrugged his shoulders in an I-don't-know-why-either gesture.
Jesus saw her devastation and leaned over and touched her shoulder, "Martha, Martha, I will try and make you understand." His voice was steady and filled with warm compassion.
"When I was a young boy, my parents, kinsfolk, and I made the long trip from Nazareth to Jerusalem. It was my first trip anywhere that I can remember, and my first Paschal feast in the city of David.
"The moment I saw Jerusalem I loathed it, for it was a horrid sight. We approached the gates, and the first thing I saw, lined up on either side of the road, were the scaffolds for those who would be executed. My heart was sickened by the cruelty of it all. Finally we made our way past them and up to the temple. I had been devoutly and thoroughly instructed as to the temple's entire layout, but to see it in its full grandeur filled my being with joy.
"It is my Father's house, Martha. And even then, as a boy, I knew it. The temple, made with white marble and gilded with gold, was bigger and grander and filled with more people than anything I had seen in my whole life.
"It is no wonder that several days later within the confines of that splendid edifice, amid several thousand worshipping pilgrims, I was separated from my parents.
"My mother thought I was with my father, and my father thought I was with my mother. Others took it for granted that I was with our kinsfolk or mingling with the other children.
"In any case, they left Jerusalem without me, and it was not until they halted at the first night's stop in Shechem that they discovered and confirmed my absence."
He smiled over at Martha, but she was too absorbed in trying to make sense of what Jesus' story had to do with his refusal to eat with them to notice.
"Anyway," Jesus ignored her puzzled look and continued, "I had not meant to disobey them or wander off without telling them, but I was strangely drawn to a large group of learned doctors and scribes in the temple. Normally they met in private closed sessions, but because of the Passover, their arguments
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and discussions were held publicly and open for all people in the temple colonnade. They readily accepted me, and I was very much at home with all of them.
"I was able to answer all their inquiries and theological questions. I even enjoyed entering into their debates with them, and it was as easy as if for all my twelve years I had done so.
"Eventually my parents retraced their steps and found me." Jesus now smiled broadly at the memory.
"My mother," he said, shaking his head, "was very vexed with me and told me so! Of course she had good reason, for I was young and the dangers of a city filled with Roman soldiers and overcrowded with people were very great.
"But, Martha, my answer to my mother then, that day at the temple, is the same answer I give to you now about the Paschal Supper — 'Do you not know that I must be about my Father's business?' The supper will be eaten, not in Bethany, but in Jerusalem, for I must do the will of Him that sent me. I must finish His work."
Martha contemplated his words, and slowly her mind, but not her heart, accepted his story and his reason. She wanted to see his face, but could not for the tears which blurred her eyes. Finally, when she spoke, she said, "Master, it seems I've so much to learn. I am grateful for your patience. I shall be available to help in any of the preparations or serving should you need me. I am your servant." Rising, and ignoring the lump in her throat and the terrible ache it was making, she nodded her silent shaloms to them all and climbed the hill to the roadway. Only once she turned around to memorize the scene and then walked quickly home.
It was late that same night, after she had retired to her pallet, that Martha thought she heard something and got up to investigate some noises at the front gate. Lazarus heard it too, and by the time she lit a small torch, both of them saw Peter's and John's face outlined in the darkness.
They hushed their voices, but their words made Martha's heart quicken in wonder.
"We knew today how hurt you were about the feast..." John started to explain, but Peter took over.
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"Jesus sent us to Jerusalem this afternoon with strange but wonderful instructions. We were to watch for a man carrying a pitcher of water." Seeing a look of skepticism on Martha's face, he said, "I know that is highly irregular, Martha — a man carrying a jar of water — but just listen. We were to follow him home and say to the owner of the house, 'Our teacher says for you to show us the guest room where he can eat the Passover meal with his disciples.' "
John interrupted with, "When we saw the man with the pitcher, we walked behind him and had no idea where he was going, but we were surprised and pleased to find he is a servant of Joseph of Arimathea! We were warmly welcomed by Joseph, and his large upper guest chamber stands ready for our feast."
"Joseph sends his greetings," Peter said. "He asked us to remind you of his friendship with your father, Martha. Respectfully he requests that you come and supervise the roasting of the lamb and tend to other details of the food.
"The feast will be a private one for Jesus and us. Even Joseph and his sons have not been included, but Joseph wants every detail to go smoothly. Can you come?" Peter bent close to read her face.
"Oh, blessed be the name of the Lord," she breathed. To be of some use to the Master relieved some of the confusing ache within her throat. "Yes, of course I can come — Mary, too." Then she stopped and questioned, "The lamb — has it been purchased and sacrificed?"
"Yes," Peter answered quietly. "Judas was assigned to buy the lamb yesterday, and today, after we made arrangements with Joseph, we found Judas and took the lamb to the temple.
"After it was offered as sacrifice we laid it on staves, and John and I carried it on our shoulders to Joseph's house. It is flayed, cleansed, and ready for you to roast."
Martha was so excited she could hardly sleep the rest of that night; so in her wakefulness she kept track of all the times the owl outside her latticed window hooted his greeting. Somewhere after the count reached one hundred and thirty she slept.
Mary awakened her while it was still dark, and Martha, surprised to see Mary up and about already, came instantly alert.
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They dressed, ate some wheat cakes, and together with Naomi, Martha placed the specially prepared bowls of haroseth paste in a large carrying basket. She could see Jesus dipping the bitter herbs into the haroseth, and she felt a deep culinary pride. Because she used only the finest nuts, raisins, and apples in it, Martha's haroseth had a fame all its own. Proudly she carried it on the short walk to Jerusalem and Joseph's house.
Both women worked tirelessly all day with Joseph's servant women, and not until all the unleavened bread was baked and the lamb sizzled and roasted on a pomegranate spit did they rest.
Between Peter, John, Joseph's servants, and Martha and Mary, there was nothing more to add and everything stood in completion, awaiting the guests.
In the soft hues of sundown they came, by twos and threes, slipping in the side garden gate. Without attracting any undue attention or calling any greeting they soberly filed up the outside staircase to the upper guest chamber of Joseph's fine house.
Martha and Mary, with two other servant girls, stood partially hidden behind a latticed window. They watched the procession to count men and identify faces.
When Jesus and each disciple was accounted for and present, the servant boys were sent up with the wine for the first cup.
"Master Joseph and I want nothing to spoil this feast," Martha had admonished the servants.
"Mind you, now," Martha said, at the foot of the staircase. "Pour the wine into the cup and then stand outside the doorway until the Master has said the thanksgiving benediction and blessing over it. Then when the foot washing and cleansing is finished, come down immediately, for that will be our signal to begin to serve the Paschal Supper." They solemnly nodded in understanding.
Martha could see and hear it all in her head: the guests lying on plump cushions around two sides and one end of the long, low table; the table itself covered with a fine linen cloth; Joseph's most elegant silver wine chalice in front of Jesus. She imagined his voice as he pronounced, "Blessed art Thou, Jehovah our God, who hast created the fruit of the vine!"
She would have liked to have savored her thoughts longer, but
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she hurried back to the cooking area to supervise the lifting of the lambs from the spit to the platter. She was arranging the roasted meat on a large bronze platter when the servant boys came in, their eyes all wide with excitement.
"How does it go up there?" Martha said as she wiped her hands free of lamb's fat.
"It is fine, Mistress," one boy said. The other said, a little mischievously, "They had a small problem about who would sit where, but they worked it out."
She made no comment to the boys, but thought, Oh, dear, we are always so caught up in disputes over precedence and procedure. I had hoped this meal would have harmony and no conflicts.
"Mistress Martha?"
"Yes?" She looked down into the boy's face.
"He is like us," he said eagerly.
"Who?" Martha asked.
"The Master, Jesus."
A small cough surfaced in her throat, but she quelled it, swallowed, and said, "Why do you say that?"
"Because up there, just now, the Master pulled off his robe, wrapped a large towel around his stomach, filled the copper basin with water, and dressed like us — servants or slaves — he washed and dried everyone's feet!"
"How like him," murmured Mary.
"My son," Martha said, patting his head, "you are very perceptive and you are right. He is very much like you. It's amazing how slowly we older people come to know the truth of that!"
She would have said more, but Master Joseph's round face with its full white beard appeared around the wall corner. He and his sons had taken their supper in a small lower room off the main courtyard. Now, without words his eyes asked her if it were time to serve the Master his meal.
Martha allowed no more delays. The dinner was carried up. The boys held the savory lamb on its platter. Others took the round flat loaves of unleavened bread in a basket, and someone carried the bitter herbs in a wide pottery bowl. Martha brought up the haroseth paste in several bowls, and Mary came up the
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steps last with a tall pottery wine jar. Everyone wordlessly set his burden on the end of the table and withdrew.
Later, as they cleaned up the cooking area and burned the roasting spit in the last of the hot coals, Martha said to Mary, "I think Jesus' prediction of his life's being sacrificed will not come true this night or with this Passover. It goes well up there." She gestured toward the stairway.
Mary agreed. Then, for no particular reason, she turned to look at the staircase and was startled by a figure hurtling himself down as fast as his feet could find the steps. He was muttering under his breath, and all Mary and Martha heard was, "Who told him?" and the words "not a traitor."
Both women caught their breath in surprise when the man lurched past them, opened the courtyard gate, and disappeared, leaving the gate banging noisily in the darkness.
"That was Judas, wasn't it?" Mary asked, uncertainly.
"Yes, I'm sure it was. I wonder what was wrong, and why would anyone leave the feast before it was over?" Martha asked curiously.
"Perhaps he has been stricken with an illness."
"No, I think not," Martha replied, matter-of-factly. "It is hard to know about the heart of Judas, but from the way he came down the stairs, I suspect he is up to no good thing."
For the better part of an hour the women worked silently at their tasks and were caught up in their own thoughts. Finally, Martha took a thoughtful look up the stairs and said, as she washed and dried her hands," I think I should go just to the top stair and listen for a while, lest something has gone amiss. They have been up there so long."
"I'll go with you," Mary added, taking off the apron which girdled her.
The two women left the others and quietly stole up the steps.
By sitting on the very top step and stretching her neck, Martha could see just past the doorway into the guest chamber. In the dim light she could see Jesus and John, who reclined facing her, and what must have been the back of Peter's head and left shoulder.
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"What is happening?" Mary tugged on Martha's dress from her step below.
"They are pretty well through eating. I think the third cup of wine is about to be drunk, but Jesus is talking."
"What does he say?" Mary whispered.
Martha shushed her.
When she did look back down at Mary to answer, Martha's face was wrinkled with frowns.
"I heard what he said, but I do not think I know what he means. He broke apart one of the loaves of bread, and handing a small piece to everyone, he said, 'Take this and eat it. It is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' "
"Did they eat it then?" Mary asked.
"Yes, and then he filled the cup up with wine, and before he passed it to each one, he said something about the cup of wine being a new agreement between God and them. He called it his blood. When they drank it, he said they were to do this, too, in remembrance of him. Then his exact words were, 'For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup you are retelling the message of the Lord's death, that he has died for you. Do this until he comes again.' "
" 'Died for you'?" Mary questioned.
"I'm sure of it," Martha whispered back.
"Then it will be. No matter how we try to prevent it, it will be." Mary sighed and rested her head against the wall.
For some time the two women sat at the top of the stairs — Martha, listening and shaking her head in puzzlement every once in a while; and Mary, head still back, lost in her own thoughts.
"Now he is saying his time has come." Martha's voice broke the stillness of the night.
Mary edged closed and asked, "What else?"
"He called the disciples 'dear, dear children' and then said his time with them is brief before he leaves." Martha paused and then quoted him, saying, " 'And so I am giving a new commandment to you now. I want you to love one another just as much as I have loved you. Your strong love for each other will
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prove to the world that you are my disciples.' "
"But where is he going? Perhaps we can follow, too," Mary said, clutching Martha's arm, with hope.
"Peter just asked that," Martha said. "Jesus told him that he could not come now, but later. I don't think Peter understood why he couldn't follow now, nor do I, but Peter said loudly, 'I am even ready to die for you.' " Martha shook her head in puzzlement.
"What was Jesus' comment?" asked Mary, her head still against the wall.
"Jesus leaned across the table toward him and said sternly, but kindly, 'Die for me? No, Peter. Three times before the cock crows you will deny that you even know me.' "
"No, not Peter! He would not be that cowardly," Mary said firmly as she looked up at Martha.
"Mary," Martha said gently, "from what Jesus says now, I think he really is leaving. Listen."
She pulled Mary up beside her, and crowded together, they heard Jesus say, "Let not your hearts be troubled. You believed in God; now believe in me. There are many rooms there where my Father lives, and I am going to prepare them for your coming. When I have gone and have prepared a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself so that where I am, you also will be. If this weren't so, I would tell you plainly. You know where I am going and how to get there."
A voice spoke out, "No, we don't." Martha thought it was Philip's voice, but Mary corrected her. "It's Thomas," she said, and they listened as he said, "We haven't any idea where you are going; so how can we know the way?"
Jesus told him, "I am the way, yes, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Had you recognized me, you would have known my Father as well. From now on you do know Him; yes, you have seen Him!" There was a pause, and then someone spoke. Mary said, "That's Philip now."
"Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied," he said.
Jesus replied, "How long have I been with you without your knowing me? Don't you even yet know who I am, Philip, even
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after all this time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking to see Him? Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I say are not my own but are from my Father who lives in me. And He does His work through me. Just believe me — that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or else believe it because of the mighty works you have seen me do.
"In solemn truth I tell you, anyone believing in me shall do the same works I have done, and even greater ones, because I am going to be with the Father. You can ask Him for anything, using my name, and I will do it, for this will bring praise to the Father because of what I, the Son, will do for you. Yes, ask anything, using my name, and I will do it!
"If you love me, keep my commandments and obey me. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper to stay with you forever. He is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who leads into all truth. The world at large cannot receive Him, for it isn't looking for Him and doesn't recognize Him. But you do, for He lives with you now and some day shall be in you.
"No, I will not abandon you or leave you as orphans in the storm. I will come to you. In just a little while I will be gone from the world, but I will still be present with you. For I will live again, and you will too. When I come back to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. The one who obeys me is the one who loves me, and because he loves me, my Father will love him. And I will too, and I will reveal myself to him."
Then someone, they could not tell who, said to Jesus, "Lord, why are you going to reveal yourself only to us disciples and not to the world at large?"
Jesus replied, "Because I will only reveal myself to those who love me and obey me. The Father will love them too, and we will come to them and live with them. Anyone who doesn't obey me doesn't love me. And remember, I am not making up this answer to your question! It is the answer given by the Father who sent me. I am telling you these things now while I am still with you. But when the Father sends the Comforter instead of me — and by the Comforter I mean the Holy Spirit — He will teach you much,
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as well as remind you for everything I myself have told you.
"I am leaving you with a gift — peace of mind and heart. And the gift I give isn't fragile like the peace the world gives. So don't let your hearts be troubled or afraid. Remember what I told you: I am going away, but I will come back to you again." Mary heard him clearly and said, "See, Martha, he will come back!" Then they listened as Jesus continued. "If you really love me, you will be very happy for me, for now I can go to the Father, who is greater than I am. I have told you these things before they happen, so that when they do, you will believe in me.
"I don't have much more time to talk to you, for the evil prince of this world approaches. He has no power over me, but I will freely do what the Father requires of me so that the world will know that I love the Father. Come, let's be going."
When Martha and Mary heard Jesus' last words, both women got stiffly to their feet. They climbed down the stairs and heard the men above them raising their voices in the magnificent song of blessing from the second portion of the Hallel. The men's singing was beautiful, but their hearts were filled with sad questions and uncomfortable doubtings.
"Mistress Martha and Mary, do stay the night." Joseph stepped out from behind some trees in the courtyard and met them at the bottom of the stairs. "You have fixed and served a fine Paschal feast, and it would honor me very much if you would accept my hospitality this night." His voice was filled with kindness.
The women smiled but shook their heads no.
"We are grateful for the offer, Master Joseph, but it is best that we head toward Bethany."
"But to go alone is not ..." he began, as Lazarus came into the courtyard and waved his greeting. "Oh, I see you will be well guarded," he said smiling.
Before Jesus and his men descended, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus bid their farewells to Joseph and his servants and walked home.
When Lazarus asked how it had gone, both Martha and Mary answered politely but without enthusiasm or ready understanding
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They knew what they heard Jesus say, but they could not find the words to explain it all, so both women mutely walked away.
"But Jesus is alive and well, even now?" questioned Lazarus.
"Yes, but clearly he told everyone in the room that he would die," Martha said wearily.
"Well," said Lazarus cheerfully, "he is the long-awaited Messiah, and since no harm came to him tonight during the supper, then his prediction about his death and sacrifice must have meant something else. Let us put away our sad faces and downcast eyes to rejoice in this festive time." He walked between Mary and Martha and pulled both women close to his sides as they climbed the hill road. "Have you forgotten so soon this very road and the hosannas of the multitudes last Sunday?"
"No, we have not forgotten, brother. But you were not at Joseph's tonight. Jesus said many strange things. He even gave his men a new commandment and a new practice for Passover. It is all so bewildering..." Martha's voice trailed off as they climbed the road under the full Paschal moon. Spring's chilly night air penetrated their cloaks and tunics; so for the rest of the way they walked quickly and with resignation to the house on the hill.
The entire household slept fitfully and late the next morning, but it was good for them. Their minds and bodies were utterly spent and exhausted.
I shall never repair, thought Martha, as the late-morning sun poured through the latticework and formed a pattern of crisscrossed gold on her pallet and floor.
They spent the whole day of Friday quietly. Lazarus read some scrolls of Scripture for part of the day, and Mary finished the embroidery work on a wall tapestry she was making for Hannah. Martha prepared a large barley and lamb stew and made two useless trips down to the grove-garden to see if Jesus and the others had returned.
It was early the next morning, on the Sabbath, as they were getting ready to attend the synagogue that they heard the loud chattering of a horse's hooves. The galloping tumult brought everyone out to the front door.
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Claudius got off his steaming stallion, handed the reins to Aaron, and roughly drew everyone inside the house. Before they could ask what he was doing, he closed the doors with a savage kind of fierceness and stood before them, a raging tower of anger.
"What is it?" Lazarus asked, clasping Claudius's shoulders and shaking him.
"They have killed him! That's what! They have killed him. Yesterday, after five trials which were a mockery to all justice everywhere in the world, they killed him!"
"Not ..." Mary dared not finish with a name.
"Yes, the very one who brought the Kingdom of God to me in my emptiness. The one who was more alive than anyone I have ever known. The one who was the answer to life's pain. He is dead, gone, and he, Jesus of Nazareth, will be with us no more."
Claudius sank to his knees, bent his head till it touched the floor, and in utter anguish cried, "My Lord, Jesus, I thought you were God. Why did you let us crucify you?"
Martha, Mary, and Lazarus exchanged horrified glances, but it was Martha who found her voice first. She almost screamed, "Crucified? He was brazenly crucified like an irreclaimable criminal? You cannot mean this! Surely it was someone else. Someone who looked like him, but not him. Not Jesus.." Her screaming dissolved to a whisper, and she stumbled over to a couch.
Lazarus reached down, put his arms around Claudius and helped him to his feet.
Directly to Martha, Claudius said with resignation, "No mistake, Martha. It was Jesus. I saw him myself."
The time to go to the synagogue came and went, but nobody in the great main hall moved. Stunned into the blackest kind of silence, they sat down together, each wrapped in the vicious senselessness of it all.
Then Mary spoke, her voice erupting with sobs, as she recalled for them. "The last we heard of him at Joseph's house he was singing with the others. I shall put out of my mind forever how he died, and only remember the song and the sound of his singing."
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Lazarus got up and slowly paced the length of the long room. Then, with both hands behind his back, and in a voice rich with grieving beauty, he quoted aloud Isaiah's words. "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
"Surely he has borne our sicknesses, and carried our sorrows; yet we regarded him as a stricken one, smitten of God and afflicted.
"But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."
Martha's lips moved silently with her brother's, and the familiar memorized words of long ago made believable sense.
"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter and as a sheep before the shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.
"He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the sins of my people was he stricken.
"And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; but he had done no wrong, neither had he spoken an evil word."
At the mention of the significant word grave Martha asked abruptly, "Where was he buried?" She was calmer now, and her thinking was a little more practical and organized than it had been.
"In the tomb Joseph of Arimathea had hewn for himself," Claudius answer dully.
"Was the body properly prepared for burial?" It was a question only Martha would have asked.
"No, I think not — at least, not as thoroughly as you would have done it," said Claudius as he rubbed his forehead. "Jesus died in the afternoon. I was called out of the city, for we had some trouble with rabble-rousers on the Bethlehem road; so I was gone. Mercifully, death came quickly I was told. Joseph said that by the time he obtained legal permission to take the body, it was just a little before sunset. I know Joseph purchased
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a fine piece of linen cloth and that he spread its folds lavishly with a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes which Nicodemus bought, but the preparations were hurried at best. Joseph said the sun was setting and Sabbath was about to begin. So all he and Nicodemus could do was wash the corpse, lay it amid the spices, wrap the head in a white napkin and lay the body quickly but reverently in the tomb. Joseph said nothing more could be done until tomorrow after the Sabbath is passed."
Martha glanced at him in appreciation for even these brief details and then slipped to Mary's side. Both women embraced each other and unashamedly wept in solemn silence.
Martha, as was her way, and because she was older, broke the weeping silence by wiping her sister's face with her skirt. Then she said, with quiet reserve, "Tomorrow, early before the sun rises, you will go with me, and we shall go to his tomb. We will use the ointment from the last of father's boxes — my alabaster box — and assist Joseph in any way we can."
Martha did not extract a promise from Mary nor did she really expect an answer, but she was pleased when Mary instantly responded, "Oh, yes, my sister. We shall both go."
On into the afternoon and late into the night, Claudius reconstructed the unbelievable and hideous chain of events for them, and their hearts were torn and shredded by the telling.
No one slept too well, and after a few hours of restless turning and tossing, Martha got up and dressed long before the dawn. Twice she went to Mary's pallet to wake her but decided against it each time. Finally Mary awoke on her own, and the two women, carrying Martha's alabaster box and other ointments, went off into the darkness down the road to the city.
It was during the darkest time of night, just before the first streaks of daylight, that Martha and Mary hurried to Joseph's house, through some back streets of Jerusalem. Occasionally a dog darted out in front of them, or they heard a baby's wailing, but for the better part of their travel in the city, it was unusually quiet.
They had almost reached Joseph's neighborhood when a sudden commotion in an alley to the left of them exploded into a cry and a scream.
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In the darkness and confusion of the moment both women, badly startled and frightened, clutching their precious ointments, started to run. In the same instant something that felt like a roll of bedding was thrown against Martha's leg which tripped her, and she went sprawling full-length down the street. She rolled over a step, and finally came to rest in a doorway. When Martha caught her breath and handed over her tightly squeezed box of ointments to Mary, she assured her, in the darkness, that she was uninjured. Martha then tried to get up, but the bundle of bedding was twisted up in her tunic.
"There's something caught in my garments," she said to Mary as she tried to unloosen it.
Without warning, the door behind her opened, and in the gleaming light of a freshly lit torch a man glared down at Martha and Mary. He muttered his curses at them and told them to move along.
Embarrassed, Martha said meekly, "Something came out of the alley and tripped me."
Then Martha reached down, lifted her skirt to untangle it, and Mary cried, "Oh, God of our fathers, Martha! It is a child!"
"Not much of one," sneered the man as he peered over Martha's shoulder. "It's best you throw it back in the alley from where it came."
Martha, still sitting on the ground, peeled away the filthy rags which were alive with lice until she got down to the dirtiest, most pitiful human being she had ever seen.
"He must be about two years old, maybe three, but he is so small and thin I cannot tell," she said, examining him. The emaciated boy was barely conscious.
"He smells older than that," the man said, as he held his nose.
"What is the matter with his eyes?" asked Mary, wincing and hardly looking.
Martha turned his head upward to see him, and her mouth filled with sour vomit.
"His eye has been recently cut or burned. I cannot tell which. Perhaps both, but it is his limbs which are the worse."
Sticking out beneath a short, dirty, and blood-crusted tunic shirt were two little badly twisted legs.
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Martha pulled off her veil from her shoulders and carefully wrapped the boy in its softness.
"You aren't going to bother with him, are you?" the old man questioned. "He's nothing but a cripple. He's been abandoned like hundreds of others just like him."
"Martha?" Mary touched her shoulder. "Martha, what are you going to do? We are on an errand of mercy. Have you forgotten?"
Martha shook her head slowly, and in that moment she regained all her composure. She knew exactly what must be done. She bent over, picked up the child in her arms, and then stood straight and tall before Mary and the man.
"Mary, I want you to go on and take care of the matter which brought us here. I will carry this child home, for he needs a lot of attention if he is to survive. You will go on without me."
"Without you?" Mary's face was aghast with wonder. "I cannot do this thing without you. I have never prepared a body, or even helped in these matters before. I cannot."
The man stood holding his torch and listening to the strange conversation, his head bobbing from one woman to the other.
"I know you have never prepared one for burial before, but you can do it. Have you noticed that ever since we looked upon Jesus and believed, our lives, our abilities, our talents all have extended their borders somehow? We are changed. Andrew, Lazarus, you, me, others — we are able to do things we never dreamed possible.
"I want you to go to Joseph's house, ask for directions to the tomb, and then anoint Jesus' flesh with the oils and ointments you carry."
"But his wounds will be more than I can bear," Mary protested.
"You will survive it. The hand of the Lord is upon us. Now, Mary, one of us must go to the tomb, and the other must take care of this half-dead child. Which will you do?"
Mary put her head down and answered softly, "I shall go to the tomb to help the dead, so you can go home to help the living."
Martha smiled, "I know it is asking much of you, my sister,
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but Jesus' presence in our lives has made us all capable of doing many impossible things. We have not only changed but grown because of him. Anointing his body is the least we can do to show our love. There will be others there, I'm sure — maybe even his mother Mary from Nazareth, or Mary Magdalene — but I want you to go. Do this for him in his hour of need as you did for him in preparation at Simon's house not long ago."
They kissed each other's cheeks, and Mary hurried off down the street. The man scratched his beard with his free hand, and genuinely perplexed, said to Martha, "Woman, what have I seen here tonight?"
"Ah, old man," Martha smiled broadly at him, "you've seen love!"
"Love?" He was grinning in a puzzled way.
"Yes, love. You just saw love hurry down the street to fulfill an untried task. And here, in my arms, you see love about to be born. Look well, old man, for love says this child is no longer abandoned! Love says this boy has been found!"
He stood there long after she left him, still scratching his beard and staring after her in the deserted street. "Why should she care about that piece of filth?" he muttered to himself as he closed the door of his house.
Martha was passing the grove-garden as the first pale rays of sun came up, and just before she reached home, the small bundle she held against her breast gave a weak cry.
"It is alright, little one. Don't fear. I'll take good care of you, and between the Lord and me, we will coax life back into these limbs of yours, and your cheeks will glow like the pink of the Rose of Sharon." She hushed him with her soothing words.
How did Jesus say it exactly? she asked herself, a few steps from her gate. Ah, yes. "And so I am giving a new commandment to you now. I want you to love one another just as much as I have loved you."
Somehow remembering his words and holding the small boy came together in her soul as a great healing balm, and slowly there burned a flicker of joy in her heart.
"I shall call you Lazarus," she said to the sleeping boy, "for though you are almost dead, you will live and be well again." online books christian books
