The Fisherman (22 page)

The love of God is poured out within us in so many different ways. At the time, walking the streets of Jerusalem that evening, unseeing and now almost unfeeling because of the numbing narcotic of ceaseless pain, the concept of the love of God was to my mind the ultimate absurdity. If ever I thought I had needed the miraculous intervention of a loving God in my own life, it was in that garden as I fought for the release of my King. If ever I knew with absolute and unquestioned certainty that our world desperately, urgently needed the miraculous intervention of a loving God, it was as I stood below that cross, watching Jesus die. And yet, there I was, having just witnessed what I would later come to recognize as the two greatest expressions of the love of God I would ever know yet possessing at the time not a glimmer of that love.

For several hours I wandered the city streets, speaking to no one, recognizing no one, having no longer any place I wanted to go and nothing I wanted to do. I considered returning immediately to Galilee and to my beloved Ruth. But what would I say? Could I share with her my shame? Could I tell her of my repeated denials of my Lord? Could I explain to her how our great march to victory culminated not in Jesus' coronation but rather in his brutal, bloody execution? No, it would be best for me to stay on here for a few more days.

As the piercing agony of the crucifixion gradually dulled into a silent, throbbing fog of pain, I became aware of my fear. How far would the high priest and his cohorts go in their efforts to cleanse their kingdom of the one they hated above all others? Would the Master's blood satisfy their lusts? Or would a dozen bloody crosses serve their purposes better? I must find Andrew and James and John and the others. We needed to discuss what steps should be taken to insure our safety.

I checked out several of our favorite gathering places in the city but found no one. In the end my wanderings took me back to Golgotha. If the others were gathered anywhere, it would be there. I would be safe enough now. The sun would soon be setting, bringing with it the onset of the Passover Sabbath, and even the Jewish leaders' seething hatred would not drive them to risk tarnishing their public image through violation of this sacred day of rest. I wondered too what the Romans would do with Jesus' body.

I arrived back at the hill just in time to see the outlines of two men carefully lifting Jesus' cross from the hole in which it had been placed for the crucifixion. The dead form of the Master still hung from the spikes. I watched as they gently laid it upon the ground and then began the tedious task of removing the spikes from Jesus' hands and feet. At first I thought they must simply be members of the execution guard completing their duties. But the obvious care with which they went about their work soon caused me to change my mind. There was a respect, a gentleness in their manner and actions. They laid the cross on a spotless sheet of white linen. They removed each spike, taking great care not to cause any further mutilation to the Master's body in the process. Then, when the body was finally freed from the wood, they lifted it up and placed it not on the ground but rather on a second clean linen sheet spread out next to the now empty cross. It was obvious these men were not Roman soldiers sent to carry out a duty. These men were disciples of Jesus, engaged in a work of reverent compassion.

I drew close enough to see their faces. One of the men I knew. It was Nicodemus, the man who became a follower and staunch supporter of Jesus after a late-night conversation with him. Nicodemus was a member of the Sanhedrin, the governing religious body of our people, and was among the wealthiest men in the city. The other man was Joseph, originally from Arimathea, a town about twenty-five miles northwest of Jerusalem, in the hill country of Judea. I did not know him at the time, but his clothes identified him as a person of great wealth as well. Nicodemus saw me hovering in the shadows. He did not speak, but his respectful nod in my direction told me he knew who I was and assured me I had nothing to fear. Joseph and Nicodemus wrapped the body of Jesus in the linen cloth and then placed it on a cart standing nearby.

As the two men moved the cart away from the base of the hill and into the streets of the city, I became aware for the first time that I was not the only one watching these proceedings with more than casual interest. As I fell in step behind the body of my Lord, I found myself a member of a procession of at least twenty-five or thirty men and women. Nearly all of the faces were familiar to me, most of them well known. There was Jesus' mother, with John still at her side. There was James and Simon the Zealot. Andrew was in the group, as was Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha. The funeral procession trailed along behind the cart until the two men stopped outside a luxurious home in the best part of the city. They carried the body into a spacious, well-lighted front room and laid it upon a table prepared for the task ahead. Several large rolls of white linen cloth stood beside the table along with what must have been at least a hundred pounds of a paste mixture of myrrh and aloes. The sweet, pungent fragrance of the mixture filled the room as we all filed in to watch the proceedings.

Little conversation passed between those present throughout the next hour as Joseph and Nicodemus prepared Jesus' body for burial. It helped, though, being there with these others who understood. We watched as the body was carefully washed and dried. Then the wrapping process began. At first a single wrapping of the white linen was placed around the entire body from the feet up to the neck. Then a thin layer of the myrrh and aloes mixture was spread over the linen, followed by a second layer of cloth, followed by another layer of the mixture, and then another layer of cloth, and so on until all the myrrh and aloes mixture was used and a thick, firm paste and linen cocoon encased the body. The head was then wrapped tightly in a separate long, unbroken length of linen.

It was getting late when the process was finally complete. The body of Jesus was now considerably heavier, and Joseph and Nicodemus solicited the help of several more hands to move it back out to the cart.

The procession then moved out again, following the cart to a tomb that only the wealthiest could have afforded. It was to have been Joseph's tomb, a vault chiseled out of a solid rock wall with a stone bench inside providing what we assumed would now be the final resting place for our Master. The door of the sepulcher was formed by a massive, round slab of stone, expertly crafted to seal off the entrance once it was rolled into place. It took eight men straining on the slab to finally move it into place.

And so, at last, the world came to an end.

My recollection of the next several days is little more than a dark blur of mingled pain and fear. I stayed close to my fellow disciples. The report of my public denials and desertion was now well known to all of them. To their credit, though, their attitudes toward me seemed to reflect compassion and sorrow rather than condemnation. Perhaps their own sense of defeat and shame at doing nothing themselves to prevent the Master's death kept them from passing too harsh a judgment on me. We all saw the wisdom of staying out of sight as much as possible. Though no further arrests were being made, the possibility was enough to keep us all cowering in the shadows.

The day following the crucifixion, filled with remorse and faced with the consequences of his greed, Judas found a desolate piece of ground outside the city, secured a rope to the branch of an old tree overhanging a thirty-foot embankment, slipped a noose around his neck, and jumped to his death. The rope snapped his neck, the weight of his body then broke the branch on which his rope was tied, and his body, branch, and rope crashed onto the jagged rocks below. His chest and stomach were ripped open in the fall, and those who found his remains gave testimony to the hideous end of the one whose name has now become synonymous with betrayal among the people of God.

The sun was not yet fully risen the first day of the week when I felt John's firm grip on my shoulder, shaking me into consciousness. Morning has never been a good time of day for me, but since the Master's death it was abhorrent beyond measure, bringing with it the obligation to face another sixteen hours of emptiness, fear, shame, and regret. The urgency with which he spoke brought me to a sitting position.

“Simon? Simon! Wake up! Mary's here. She just came back from the tomb, and the stone is rolled away from the door. The guards are gone, and she's afraid somebody has taken his body.”

I got dressed as quickly as I could, and the two of us set off at a brisk pace, heading toward the sepulcher. The first rays of the morning sun were just touching the tallest buildings in the city, promising a glorious day ahead. I will not say I yet had hope. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say I felt within me the hope of a hope. For the first time since the crucifixion, the Spirit of God brought back to my mind the Master's promised resurrection on the third day. We walked on in silence for several minutes, my mind now recalling more and more of Jesus' prophetic words: “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men; and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.” “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and will hand him over to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify him, and on the third day he will be raised up.” “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

The more I thought, the faster I walked. John's mind must have been moving in the same direction, for after several minutes of silence, I glanced over at him and saw a tiny smile creeping across his lips. He saw me looking at him, and for a few seconds we both stopped and stared at each other in silence. Then John's face broke into a broad grin, and he spoke the two words that signaled the start of the best footrace of my life.

“Three days!”

That was all he said. It was all he needed to say. We both took off at a dead run, heading for the tomb. It wasn't a fair race, of course, with me being built more for strength than for speed. John arrived at the door to the open grave a full minute ahead of me. When I finally came puffing and blowing up to his side, though, I could see the pain once again filling his eyes. A single glance into the dimly lit cavern told me why. From where he stood, looking through the door, the linen cocoon in the shape of the Master's feet could be clearly seen still resting on the cold stone bench.

I left John standing at the door and entered the cave. Having come this far, I wanted to make certain Jesus' body was still undisturbed. What I found when I entered that tomb altered the course of my life and the history of the human race forever.

The first thing I noticed was the absence of Jesus' head. The linen cocoon surrounding his body was still stretched out on the stone, but the cloth binding for his head was now folded neatly, sitting by itself at the end of the bench. And where his head should have been there was nothing . . . nothing at all. Then I looked more closely at the cocoon. There was something wrong with it as well. The chest and stomach were sunken in several inches as if some heavy weight had been pressed down, crushing the chest cavity. When the truth of what I was seeing finally surged into my conscious mind, I let out a sort of gasping bellow that drew John to my side. There was no body inside the wrappings! It wasn't just that the head was missing. The entire body was missing, having passed through the layers of binding, leaving the linen wrappings untouched, undisturbed in the form of a hollow shell. With the body removed, the stillmoist linen and paste cocoon had sunken in slightly under its own weight.