At the Cross ~ Part 4: Mary
The earth trembled beneath Mary’s hands, shaking and cracking, as if mourning the atrocities committed this day. The tears that had dripped steadily for hours now gushed forth in a waterfall. Her heart cleaved open. The bond that had tied Mary to her son since the day she learned of His conception, severed in two. She felt the departure of His spirit from the earth as surely as she had felt it’s entrance.
All at once, the ground grew still. Mary lifted her face. She pulled back her veil and smoothed away the tendrils of hair clinging to her damp cheeks.
All was silent. Deathly silent.
Her son no longer struggled for His next breath… no longer scraped His whip-striped back against the wood to which He was nailed.
He was at rest from His struggle.
Dead.
Gone.
A sob clawed its way up her throat. Mary tore at her hair, sinking back to the dust. The light of her entire world had been snuffed out. Darkness descended, cloaking her in a pall of despair unlike anything she’d felt since Jesus entered her world.
“My son, my son…” she moaned, clutching her chest, barely able to breathe past the pain.
“Mary…” Mary of Magdala wrapped an arm around her shoulders and attempted to lift her.
“No!” Mary shoved away the young woman, though she knew she meant well. “Leave me be!”
“Ima.” It was John’s voice. The beloved friend and disciple to whom Jesus had entrusted her care and called her new son. The only one out of twelve not to desert Him in His time of need.
The disciple’s hand touched her shoulder, but she shoved him away as well. “You are not my son. He is!” Mary surged upward and pointed at the hideous cross through her tears. “That is my son! And they have killed Him! They killed Him. How could they do this?”
Hurt flickered through John’s eyes. He swallowed, nodded. “I know. I know.” Quiet tears traced their way down the former fisherman’s tanned face.
At last, her companions gave her space to grieve, backing away to see to their own mourning.
Mary covered her face with her hands. Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani, had been her son’s anguished cry. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The words of the psalmist and the echo of her own heart’s cry.
“Yahweh, why have You allowed this to befall your Son? I thought you meant for Him to be our Deliverer, as Moses delivered our people from Egypt. This is not how it was supposed to be!”
The past thirty-three years played back through her mind in a rush. Watching with pride as Jesus performed His first public miracle, turning water into wine at their friends’ wedding feast in Cana. Seeing Jesus mature into a man, learning His carpentry craft at her dear Joseph’s side. The relief of seeing His twelve-year old face again after losing Him in Jerusalem. The wonder that had filled her at the sight of the magi presenting their costly gifts to her two-year old boy.
The overwhelming rush of love she had felt after hearing His first cry and holding His tiny body in her arms that night in Bethlehem.
“My son, my son… How could You leave us? How could You let them take You from me?”
A gust of wind pierced through her fingers, drying the tears on her cheeks.
Stand still and see the Salvation of the Lord.
Mary’s breath stopped. The presence of Yahweh raised the hair on her neck as it had the day the angel appeared to her, so long ago. As it had each time she witnessed her son perform a miracle.
The words were what their Adonai had instructed Moses to tell the people when they trembled in fear at the edge of the Red Sea, watching as Pharaoh’s army hurtled towards them. She knew the story, had heard it every year during the retelling of their deliverance from slavery on Pesach. But today, the words struck Mary anew.
Stand still… and see the Salvation of the Lord.
Mary removed her hands from her face and raised to her knees, soaking in the sight of her son’s broken and bloodied body. A memory dredged itself up from the recesses of her mind. A young boy, a wooden lamb. A sacrificial gift pressed into the hand of her newborn babe. Eli, the young son of the innkeeper in Bethlehem, and many prayers whispered for the little boy as she rocked Jesus to sleep.
Behold the Lamb which taketh away the sins of the world.
Mary bowed her head, drawing her veil closer around her face. “Adonai Most High, how could I have been so blind?”
The age-worn face of Simeon, the man who had exclaimed with joy at the sight of her son when they came to the Temple for her purification sacrifice, appeared in her mind. “Lord, now let Your servant depart in peace… For my eyes have seen Your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.”
She had pondered the words for days afterward, trying to make sense of them, and the man’s grave warning of: “Yes, a sword shall pierce through your own soul also.” But she could never quite decide how her son, the Messiah, would become their Savior. The image of her precious babe, and later, that kind and loving man Jesus grew to be, had never matched with the image she and others had always held of the Messiah. And now she knew why. It was all so startlingly clear.
Jesus was their ultimate sacrifice. Like the Passover Lamb, His spotless, sinless body was slain in their place. In her place. The blood flowing down the base of his cross would atone for the sins of all people.
And Simeon’s prediction had been correct. The grief at seeing her son’s blood poured out pierced her deeper than any sword ever could.
Mary clasped her hands against her chest, staring up at Jesus’s face, longing to stroke His bearded cheek one more time. She could almost see His shining eyes, feel His hands gently taking hers and saying, “Ima, do not be afraid. All will be well.”
Mary’s eyes slipped closed, squeezing out fresh tears. She basked in the warmth of the memory of her son’s calming presence. And in that moment, He was not only her beloved child… He was her God. Her Savior.
Peace settled over her like a warm blanket, vanishing all traces of darkness in her spirit. This was not Jesus’ defeat, but His victory. “I will trust You, my Lord and my God. I will stand still and see Your salvation this day, and in those to come. For I am, as ever, your handmaiden.”