Easter Sunday

She followed the crowd. Why are they shouting like this? He hasn’t done anything! Well, no, that’s not true. He’s done so much. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.

The doctors had been no help; they hadn’t known what was wrong. I knew behind their whispers that people said I must have done something wrong, but it wasn’t like that. I didn’t know if I had done anything. All I knew was that I was ill and that they said I was dying. Then he came to my town.

My mother had helped me out to see what all the noise was about. We’d heard rumours. Then there he was with a big crowd around him, walking down the street. The crowd was noisy. We held back in the doorway and watched, but as they came level with our home, he stopped and turned towards us. He obviously said something to those with him, for they stood aside as he came across to us.

There was nothing special in what he did, and yet everything. He just smiled at us and said, “Hullo.” I found myself just gaping at him with tears running down my face; I don’t know why. Somehow… somehow, it was as if he knew, knew all about me, and still loved me…. He reached out and gently placed his hand on my head and almost whispered, “Be healed.” And then he was gone and we both stood there weeping and I was well. Yes, I know it sounds too simple, but I was. I was completely well. I can’t explain it, but I’m alive and well – because of him. So why are they treating him like this?

The soldiers are so brutal. They’re making him carry a large wooden cross. Why? Surely they can’t be……. They push at him and snarl at him. He falls. Oh why? They drag a man unwillingly from the crowd to carry the cross. They pick Jesus up and I see his face. There is blood all over it. There’s a crown made with long thorns that’s been pushed on his head, now askew, but the wounds from the thorns mean the blood runs down over his face. He can hardly stand, and then I see his back, or rather what is left of it. I am sick in the street. The crowd moves on and I stand there in shock. Why are they doing this to him? What has he done to deserve this? I remember the look as he stood before me. Here was utter goodness; it was that which broke my heart then – and now.

The crowd has gone. I am alone in the street. I must go. I must follow him. I must see where they are taking him. I follow the sounds down the street. Where is this all going, on this Friday?

I took a wrong turning. I found myself alone in the back streets of Jerusalem. Here there was silence. But then across the city came two stretched-out screams, just two. I eventually found my way to one of the gates of the city and there across the valley I saw three crosses being erected, three horrible symbols of man’s inhumanity to man. Even from this distance I could see he was one of the men being crucified. Why? What had he done except be good! I slumped down against the city wall and watched. The hours passed and eventually I saw them take the bodies away. It is over. I am past weeping. I am angry, no I am furious! Why? Why did they have to do this to him?

Two days later, when I woke on Sunday morning, something was different. No one else in the place where I was staying was awake yet, and so I quietly made my way outside. Something had happened! What was it? I still had that awful ache inside, but something was different.

I wandered down the street. There was hardly anyone else around. A woman scuttled by laughing and crying, but I hardly noticed. I came to one of the city gates and looked out over the graveyard area. I heard a sound of panting and two men dashed past me. Now it was my turn to be hardly noticed. I watched as they ran down through the olive groves to the grave areas. What a terrible place this is. Death hangs over it condemning all of us.

“I’m not there,” a gentle voice came from behind me. I started and turned and gasped. Again I found myself just gaping at him with tears running down my face. It was him. No, it can’t be. “It is,” he said reading my thoughts. “But why,” I sobbed, “why did it happen… and how are you alive?” Words were meaningless. I just sobbed.

“It’s all right,” he gently replied, “it will all become clear. The most important thing is that I’m here, so you can go home now and live and tell your family and friends what you have seen.”

“But they won’t believe me,” I sobbed.

“Not at first, but many will eventually. You’ll never be the same again now you know I’m alive. Go now.”

“But when will I see you again?” I managed.

He smiled, “When you come home.” Then he was gone, and I was never alone again.

Saturday

Today has been a day of silence. It is as if the city has sunk in its shame. It is the Sabbath, the day of rest, but we aren’t resting. We are in anguish and turmoil. I sat listening to some of the others earlier, silent for most of the time but every now and then breaking out in self-justification, all that is except Peter and Judas.  Judas, of course, is dead. There were one or two, “How could he?” comments but mostly we all feel so bad about ourselves that none of us feels like pointing a finger. Peter has just disappeared. I think the guilt of his actually denying the Master has almost destroyed him, but I want to say to him that we’re all the same. In one way or another, we all denied the Master.

It may be that it’s because it is the Sabbath, but the city seems strangely quiet. When we’ve looked out, there seem few people around even though there are hundreds of thousand here for the Feast. I think the events of the past week have been so contrasting that there is a feeling of anticlimax. A week ago Jesus was being welcomed into the city like a conquering king. A week later the king is dead. A week ago our hopes and dreams of freedom from the Romans carried us away. Today those hopes and dreams are dead.

Our women sit around red-eyed and every now and then further sounds of sobs are heard. The men are mostly silent, just sitting there, too afraid to go out, but too fearful to look at each other. A week ago anything was possible; now nothing is possible. There is no future. What will we all do? Who cares!

We sit there and unsuccessfully try not to let the images of the past two days run again and again through our minds. I keep hearing the baying of the crowd madly egged on by the fanatical hatred of the so-called religious authorities. I hear the screams of the thieves as they are nailed to wood. I see the silence of my Master as they set his body in the most terrible of execution processes that mankind has ever devised. His silence was awful. From his lips had come such wonderful words of wisdom and of life over these past three years, but now they are silent. He was like a lamb being led to the slaughter. I hear the jeering of the crowds that had turned against him, and I remember my own silence, and I weep.

Somewhere out there in the grave area outside Jerusalem, in a new tomb is a cold, lifeless body of one who had been so warm and so full of life that it overflowed to all those who came to him. But now the life has gone. Now there is no hope. We are a condemned human race! What awful things will God do to us for this two day’s work? Yes, I know, most of the world hasn’t a clue what has happened but if they had been here, they’d have been the same; we’re all the same. We may like to kid ourselves that we are better than the next person, but these two days have laid that lie to rest. Instead of receiving this light and rejoicing in the wonder of the days that we were privileged to be part of, we snuffed out the light. We prefer darkness to light for the light shows us up for who we really are. On this awful Saturday we sit in silence and try not to think – but we do.

Good Friday

There are four more dead bodies in Jerusalem tonight.
It has been a most terrible of days. I really don’t want to write this, and yet something in me insists I confess it and record it. The world has changed. It will never be the same again. We have failed him and it has all gone wrong.

There is one side of me that wishes I had never met him; these past three years have been too wonderful. If I told you some of the things we’ve witnessed Jesus doing, you wouldn’t believe me. I can understand that. When we first started travelling with him, for the first week my mind was struggling with what we were seeing. My eyes saw it but my mind screamed, “This can’t be happening!” When a blind man sees, that is wonderful. When a cripple walks, that is amazing, but when you stand next to a leper with his revolting skin and before your eyes you see the skin changing and becoming perfect again, I tell you, at that point you are struggling. And it was three years like that!

It was also three years in a classroom of life. Day in, day out, we were being challenged as to who we were, about God, about life, with the Master preaching powerfully to the crowds and then quietly explaining to us. It was amazing. I can’t even remember what I used to be like. We are different people today because of him.

But then we came to Jerusalem for the Passover. We’d been before but this time it was different. It seemed like the Master was completely unafraid of the religious authorities and taught and healed right on their doorstep outside the Temple. It did seem provocative, but when you’ve been with a man for three years who is so totally in control of life itself, you don’t care. But we should have cared.

We’ve hardly slept these past forty eight hours. Last night was terrible, but not so bad as today. We’d had the Passover meal and the Master had suggested that we go over to Gethsemane to pray together. It was while we were there that a band of soldiers, led by Judas of all people, came and arrested him. We couldn’t believe it. Peter lashed out but the Master stopped him and gave himself to the soldiers. Yes, I think that is the right way to describe what happened – he gave himself to them. If he hadn’t wanted to go, I’m sure he needn’t have gone.

They took him to Caiaphas’ palace and some of us hung around in the shadows outside waiting for his release. Surely he wouldn’t let them hold him. The hours passed and eventually at daylight an armed procession came out and headed for Pilate’s residence. We followed at a distance. There was much arguing with Pilate but eventually he gave way to their demands. They were going to crucify him! They wanted him executed and that weak minded, half witted governor just washed his hands of the whole thing and said go and do it. So the soldiers took him and thrashed him. By the time they finished with him he could hardly stand. Then they took him outside the city to where there execute criminals and alongside two criminals they nailed him to a cross.

I’m sorry, I’m so sickened by it that I can’t describe it to you – perhaps later. He hung there for hours between the two thieves, in agony with life ebbing away. Then eventually, about the middle of the afternoon, it was like he had had enough and cried out, “It is finished!” and then he just hung there – he had gone. He was dead. Like everything else, it seemed like he was in total control. Then they took down the bodies – three dead bodies. I said four? Yes, that’s right; we’ve just heard that Judas has killed himself. He obviously couldn’t live with the awfulness of what he had done, betraying the master into their hands last night.

I’m sorry if I’m sounding somewhat hard and cold as I’m telling you all this but I think I’m probably in a state of shock; we all are. It’s crazy! It’s stark, staring mad! If you’d seen and heard what we’ve seen and heard for these last three years, you would know that this was the most wonderful person who has ever walked on this earth! He was utterly good! There is no way that he deserved to die; this was a complete travesty of justice – and we just let it happen! There’s a part of me that wants to follow Judas’ example. The religious authorities demanded it, our civic leaders went along with it, the crowd cried for it and the Romans did it – and we did nothing! There’s not an innocent person in this city tonight.

Tonight we are condemned. We followed him, our lives were transformed by him, many of us were healed by him, and we experienced life as never before. Yet the authorities were challenged by him and afraid of him and so arrested him, tried him, mocked him, scourged him, crucified him and killed him – and we did nothing! At no point did we intervene. We were too scared for our own lives, and the light that shone has gone out. What was odd, was that he didn’t intervene and stop it at any point, for I’m sure he could have done! It is indeed a dark night; it was a dark day. I’m sorry, I can’t say anything more.

Maundy Thursday

Why do I feel that something awful is about to happen?

We have come into the city every day this week and the Master has taught in the area around the Temple, and that’s been great. Its great, white stone walls towered over us, a building built by a tyrant to glorify himself, taken over by the religious establishment to glorify Judaism, despite the rule of Rome. It is truly an amazing building and the Master has been continuing to do amazing things.

And yet it has been an uneasy week. When we arrived last Sunday the Master made straight for the Temple and we thought he would bring an offering but instead he managed to upset the Chief Priest and his men by overturning all the tables and releasing all the animals that are part of the Temple provision for the sacrifices. There was total pandemonium on that day and his anger was unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. It was probably only that which cowed the authorities and allowed him to get away with it, that and his popularity with the crowds.

That’s been the strange thing about this week; he has been becoming more and more popular with the crowds and more and more hated by the religious establishment here in the city. As he has taught and as he has healed people, the crowds have gathered and listened and cheered and then gone away and gossiped. The word on the street has been that he is getting ready to stage a coup to overthrow the Romans, but he hasn’t told us, and why he didn’t do it on Sunday when the crowds welcomed him like a conquering king, I don’t know. I’m told that the priests hate him because he is so unconventional and they fear he will upset the Romans who let them get on administering the ceremonial aspects of our law here in the home of our people. The Romans may be here, but it is still our home and the traditions of the centuries are still worked out here.

Of course we’re all here for the Passover and that in itself worries the authorities. Why? Because it is the remembrance of how our people were originally set free from slavery, about how God set us free from the oppressor in Egypt. Every year the Romans get very edgy, wondering if, as we celebrate the Passover, some zealot will stir the people to rise up against them and claim our freedom again. Perhaps it will be the Master who will do that but, as I said, he hasn’t said anything about that to us, and no one has had the courage to ask him about it.

The religious authorities do all they can to make it a formal, solemn feast, to keep control and prevent anyone stepping out of line to threaten their religious presence. I think that is it really; they are using religion to subdue the people and reassure the Romans, so that nothing threatens the ongoing working of the Temple. It is there, it was said of old, that God would come to meet with us, although His glory has never been seen in this building built by Herod. Indeed it’s been hundreds of years since He spoke prophetically to us – that is until John came and, of course, then the Master appeared three years ago.

But I can’t shake it off, this feeling of doom.  We all met this evening to share the Passover meal together – which was great – but the Master kept saying things that were not clear. I mean, I know his teaching is often enigmatic, leaving us puzzling over just what he meant, but it seemed that tonight he was doing it more than ever. I don’t know why but we’d hardly settled down when he took a towel and bowl of water and insisted on washing our feet. It seemed an odd way to start a celebration. And then when we sat down to eat he took the bread, prayed and broke it and said, “This is my body.”  His body? How can the bread be his body? His body was there in front of us, talking to us. And then when the wine came round again, he said, “This is my blood poured out for you.” I may be appearing a bit dim, but I’m sure I wasn’t the only one around the table wondering what he was on about.

If that wasn’t bad enough, he seemed to go into depressing mode and started talking about one of us betraying him. Why? Why ever would we want to do that, and how? What was that about? Peter put his big feet in it and declared he would never let the Master down, but the Master only looked at him sadly, and very quietly said that Peter would deny him three times before next morning came. Peter was devastated, I can tell you. The Master went on to teach for a long time and I just felt there was an unusual urgency behind everything he was saying. I don’t know what it was. It just seemed like he felt he had to pour out a whole load of stuff he felt we needed to know, but I really don’t know why we should need it now.

Yes, I know I said I’ve got this feeling of doom hanging over us this evening, but it’s crazy really because the Master is more popular today than he’s ever been. There are many saying they believe he is the coming Messiah and the vast majority of the crowds here for the feast are just waiting for him to proclaim himself. We’re on the edge of something wonderful, so I really don’t know why I’m feeling like I am.  I mean we could be on the edge of a tremendous revolution and the world may never be the same after this weekend – if the Master makes his move. Everything he does thrills the crowds. We’re just ripe to take on the Romans. They may be armed but we outnumber them fifty to one. They haven’t got a hope. When our people rise up there’s no stopping them, so it looks like there could be a whole new day coming.

We’re just clearing up at the moment. The Master says he wants us to go across to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray, but something’s not right. I can’t put my finger on it, but something feels bad. But that’s crazy because the Master is in control; he always is. He won’t let anything bad happen, I know that. I’ve watched him these past three years, and he always knows what is going on. It’s just that… well, I don’t know…. there’s something…..