Thirty-Eight

Matthew finally made his way, after wandering aimlessly in the now naturally darkening afternoon, to the room in which they had eaten the anticipated Passover dinner the night before. Where else was he to go?

It was deep twilight when he entered, and found many, if not all, of the Twelve--or rather, now the Eleven--there, with many others, including Nicodemus and a number of the women. Jesus's mother was there, and so was Mary. Matthew did not dare to go near her at first.

Because of the Sabbath, which began at sundown, some of them had apparently taken Jesus's body down hastily and given him a perfunctory burial in a tomb nearby belonging to Joseph of Arimathea, a nobleman Matthew had met once or twice. Matthew pieced this together from remarks made during a long discussion as to whether or not it was legal to enter the tomb the day after the Sabbath and clean and dress Jesus for a proper burial. Some said that it should not be done, but others, led by Chuza's Joanna, of all people, insisted that, unless there was some explicit provision in the Torah against it, then it most certainly would be done. When Nicodemus began citing rabbis who interpreted the Law, she cut him off with, "Give me none of your 'interpretations!' If you cannot find it in the very words of Moses, then I will hear none of it! Has not the Master himself said that these 'interpretations' have made the Law a prison instead of the joy it was supposed to be? Tell me not what your 'interpreters' think!" Matthew could hardly believe she had this in her.

But all were exhausted, and found places to lie down and sleep the sleep of despair, waking on the Sabbath morning only to face another day of emptiness.

And the cold, raw day passed only because days must; but each hour prolonged itself into an eternity in its own right. After the initial discussions about Jesus's body, the little group in the upper room had lapsed into moody silence, some rising periodically to look out the window, fearful that the authorities would come to put an end to the students as well as the teacher.

John was telling what he knew of the trial, and when he reached the point at which Jesus had been accused of blasphemy, Philip asked, "Why did they not stone him then and there?" and Thomas answered, "Because there would have been a riot. They had to have him executed by Rome for several reasons: first, not to make it appear that they were the ones who did it, or we brave, dauntless, intrepid followers of his would--"

"You ran off as fast as anyone else!" cried Philip.

"I am all too painfully aware of that," he replied. "They had nothing whatever to fear from us, as was so blatantly demonstrated; but they did not know that. Second, they had to discredit him; and stoning would make him look like one of the other prophets, and would certainly not endear them to the people who had heard him denounce them as the descendants of those who had stoned his predecessors. But crucifixion--well, you saw it, and you heard what people were saying. How could anyone respect a person who had been through that? How could anything he said carry any authority after everyone saw him hanging there, stark naked! Pleading for a drop of water! I cannot bear it!"

He paused and took a breath. "You see? It was brilliantly done. The whole council would be in favor of it, because he had shown to their faces that he was a blasphemer--"

"He was not a blasphemer! It was true! He is the Son of God! Still!" cried Philip.

"You believe that, and, in spite of what you think, so do I--I think--I know not. I know nothing now. Pleading for a drink! . . . But you see my point. If even we doubt it because we saw him there, how would anyone else ever be convinced?"

"He will come back! He said he would! How can you doubt?"

"Philip, Philip, do not--it is time to grow up, Philip. You will finish by giving these poor women hysterical illusions. His spirit will return, and when we recover from this ghastly time--if it is ever possible--we, at least, will be able to live by his precepts, and that will return him to life in us. That was what he meant. Did he not pray that we were to be one thing in him, just as he was one thing in the Father? And that he would be in us just as the Father was in him? That is the return to life that he promised. We need conjure up no mad visions of him walking about to compound the horror of what we have been through."

"It is not a mad vision! He will return. You are the ones who are mad! How can you say such things?"

"Philip, he himself said that he was leaving to send us his Spirit from the Father."

"And he said he would come back! He said it!"

"--I cannot bear more of this. I am leaving. --Fear not, Nicodemus, I will not go father than a Sabbath's walk. But I will go mad if I stay here another instant!"

Philip looked at him with a mixture of anger and disdain, but said nothing further. He left.

"I know where he is going," said Nathanael, shaking his head sadly. "I am tempted to go myself."

Matthew remembered that Thomas had introduced himself to him as a drunk who no longer drank. He knew where he had gone also, and was also tempted to join him.

But it was Philip who had to be right. To say that Jesus "returned to life" because his students kept the spirit of his teaching was absurd. If he did not come back to life, then the reaction that both Nathanael and Thomas had predicted would be inevitable. Any Judean would be shocked and horrified to be asked to think of a disgraced criminal, and one who had so been defiled was to be listened to, followed, and imitated. It was completely absurd. Unless he was indeed God, and proved it by bringing himself back to life on the third day as he predicted.

Matthew could almost not make himself believe that it would actually happen, because life is not known for having a happy ending; but he clung to the hope desperately, simply because there was nothing else. The more he thought of it, however, remembering what he had seen, the more hopeless it seemed. He lapsed into a dazed state without thought.

After a long while, Matthew found the courage to go over and sit beside Mary. He did not really expect anything, but he could not prevent himself from wondering. He sat beside her for a long while in silence, though it was obvious, he supposed, that he wanted to speak to her. She seemed to notice something odd, and Matthew realized that she was wondering where David was. Matthew had not thought of him until this moment. She looked a question at him and, instead of answering what he assumed she was thinking, he said, "I see you came here instead of going with the others."

"Yes," she said.

"I am surprised that Martha is not here."

"Lazarus pulled her after him. I--" She stopped. "He was not near enough to hold me, and--" She stopped again, looking at the floor.

"Did you find him?" he asked gently. She suddenly looked up, hearing something that he could not conceal in his voice. She had realized that he knew.

"Yes," was all she said.

"I was certain you would seek him." He in his own turn paused, and then said, "Tell me, did he cast you aside?"

"No," she said, looking again into his kindly face, in which he tried to conceal what he really felt and did not dare to hope. "No, he would not have done that. I am sure that I could have--but it is of no consequence now." The expression turned to puzzlement, and she said, "You see," she began, and found she could not say it directly to him. She looked once more at the floor. "You see," she repeated, "he hanged himself. I was too late."

He was silent. After a time, she looked up at him again, half expecting, evidently, to find triumph in his eyes, but it was not so. But he could not look at her with mere friendly sympathy. He could not contain the feeling that she was at last free of Judas, and might--but he could not even think it to himself. Then he spoke, trying desperately to keep a tone of gentle sympathy, "Now that I think of it, I suppose that is what he would have done," he said. There was no point in admitting that he had also seen him, probably before she did.

"A priest I know," he went on, "who is secretly one of us, told me that last night shortly after the Master--" He paused to recover the ability to speak. "That he came to the Temple raving like a madman that he had sinned in betraying innocent blood, and flung a number of coins into it and rushed off." He had forgotten this, in his excitement and worry, until this moment.

She kept looking into Matthew's face as he spoke, and suddenly, he saw that she read what was in his heart. She must have had much practice in seeing into what a man was feeling. Her face suddenly turned scarlet, and she looked away, and he in turn felt his cheeks flame.

But what could he do? He had made no declaration; it was his existence which spoke, and he could not change that. He almost realized what her reply was to be, from the shame she seemed to feel. But she could not be anything other than what she was, either.

She finally said, "So he did repent, then. If only--Well, it matters little now, I suppose." And then, choosing her words carefully, she went on, "Except that he will forever be a part of me. No matter what he did, no matter that he lives no more, I somehow belong to him. What happened is--It is for the best, for me, I suppose; but I will be only half a person as long as I live--not that I ever was much of one at any time."

He was grateful that she put it so gently, but it was a rejection nonetheless. He made no reply for a long time, and then managed to say, "I understand. I do not share your--affection--for him, but I understand."

He saw the despair in her face--despair that was the mirror of his own. Total, complete, unmitigated despair. She said, "You seem to."

"Oh yes," he answered. And, then, to tell her that he understood what she was saying, he added, "At least, I know what it is to have a love that never can fulfill itself." he stared off into the distance somewhere out the window, and then he continued, unable to keep a certain bitterness from his tone, "In my case, it is to love one who totally belongs to someone else." His voice almost broke, but he managed to finish what he was saying. His eyes glistened with the tears that he was fighting to keep from falling.

The two lapsed into silence, each lost, not in thought, but contentless misery. There was simply a kind of awareness of absence--absence of security, absence of money, absence of Jesus, and now absence of Mary, even when she was present.

He had nothing, nothing, nothing, but the fragment of hope that after this Sabbath, Jesus might return. How absurd! He could not bear it!

But one bears what one cannot bear, because one continues to breathe, however hateful each breath is. He found himself counting these breaths--he could think of nothing else--wondering in the back of his mind if that was all he would do at every moment of the years that stretched in front of him.

If only he could grieve, wail, shriek, pound his fist on the floor! But he could not move. He breathed, barely.

Eventually, after what seemed years and years, that interminable day did pass, and the even longer fretful, sleepless night. When the sky began to separate itself from the land, Joanna quietly woke two or three of the women, who during the night, as soon as the Sabbath had ended, had been preparing another batch of spices, and who had made water-jars ready and cloths to clean the body. The stirring woke some of the other women, and Mary, who had not really fallen asleep, also rose, but kept herself apart. Jesus's mother was sleeping.

The women quietly crept out of the house, leaving Susanna behind inside to lock and bar the door. Mary slipped out last of all, and Susanna wished her God's blessing in a whisper. "It should not take long," said Mary.

And then nothing happened, forever.

The Rock and John left.

And nothing happened, forever.

The two men returned, dazed, John carrying what looked like the shroud Jesus had been buried in. "The tomb is empty!" they cried. "Someone has taken him!"

There was a knocking at the door. All started in fear, "It is we," said women's voices. They opened, and the women who had left entered, and said, speaking by turns and sometimes at the same time, "Jesus was not in the tomb! The stone was rolled away! We saw two angels inside, who said that he had been raised! The soldiers were unconscious! And then he met us! And he had the holes in his hands and feet! And he shone like light! He is alive! He has come back as he said!"

"They are hysterical," said Big James; but the Rock and John simply listened, with mounting excitement. The women continued to protest, and the men to object.

And nothing happened, forever.

Toward evening, the discussions finally had died down, and everyone lapsed once again into moody silence. If Jesus were alive, where was he?

And again nothing happened, forever.

"Peace to you," said Jesus, who in some unaccountable way was among them, though the door was locked. He had greeted them with the usual Judean greeting, as if nothing had happened. He had an amused smile on his face, as he looked at everyone, staring dumbfounded.

"Peace to you," he said again, as if they had not heard. They began to move. He showed them his hands and side, but they still could not believe they were seeing anything but a ghost. Knowing their thoughts, he said, "Touch me. A ghost does not have flesh and bones, as I have." No one dared to do so.

"Have you anything to eat?" he finally said. Someone timidly handed him a fish, which he ate in front of them. "It is truly I," he said, in his old voice, and finally they believed. It looked like Jesus, and yet it did not look like Jesus; he was different. But who else would have wounded hands and side, and yet be walking as he was? The difference in his appearance was like the difference in a person one has not seen for thirty years; one knows it is the same person, somehow; and Jesus had entered a wholly new life.

And then he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven; if you hold him to them, they remain with him." And he disappeared as he had come.

Two days later, there was a timid knock on the door. Someone asked who it was, and "David" came through the thick wood. Matthew went to the door and opened it, and there was a forlorn, filthy wreck of a David.

"I am sorry," he whispered, "but I could not stay away."

"Stay away?" said Matthew, astonished. "Why should you stay away?"

"Come out with me," he said. "I cannot face them."

"What is the matter, David?" said Matthew, going out and shutting the door behind him. David walked out of the house and down into a remote part of the city, saying nothing.

Finally, they came to a small garden that was totally deserted. David went into the middle, and saw a bench there, and sat, putting his head in his hands.

Matthew came over and sat beside him. "What is it, David?"

In a voice choking with grief, he said, "I watched him."

"But know you not--of course, you know not. He has risen! He is alive! I saw him myself. With the wounds in his hands and his side!"

"I meant I watched him. I cannot bear it! Especially when I saw the Master just afterwards! And I hoped he would forgive me!"

Matthew said nothing for a long time, knowing that he had been referring to Judas. Finally he said, "I know what happened to him. I saw him myself."

"But I watched!" he wailed. "I followed him, and saw him go into the High Priest's house, and then he came out, looking--frantic--and then I followed him to his own house.

He went in, and I was about to enter and beat every last breath out of him, when he came out again with a rope, and went around the back to that tree, and--and--and I saw what he was going to do, and I knew what he was going to do, and I was glad--I was glad!--and instead of trying to stop him, I hid in the shadows and watched him.

"And--and he did not tie the rope well, as I did, and it took him much time to die, and I watched all of it, and all the time I was telling myself that I was enjoying it, and it was horrible! It was horrible! I could see my father suffering thus, and I remembered how I felt in those last few moments, and I could not bear it!

"I could not come back here, Master, with all you good people! The Master said that if we wanted to do something, we did it in our hearts, even if we did not do it. And I wanted him to suffer thus! But then I saw him, and it was horrible!--and still I did nothing to help him! And I was thinking I enjoyed it, and all the time I hated it, for I knew what it was, and what would happen after he died! And to think I wanted that! I cannot stand myself.

"Before, I thought I hated him, Master. But I--Master, now I have forgotten how to hate!

"So I tried to stay away, but where could I go? I could not kill myself, though I longed to, for I knew what was awaiting me, and the Master had rescued me from that very thing! It was the least I could do for him, dying there--Oh, I cannot bear it! So I kept living. What else could I do? And finally I came back, hoping that you would revile me and detest me, but not throw me away--much as I merit it!"

"Let me tell you something, David. If you have forgotten how to hate, Judas has done you a great service."

David looked at him, not knowing whether to be horrified or merely astounded. Then he said, "But . . . But you do not know all, Master. Know you not who I am? I am the one who . . . I cannot say it!" And he broke down in wild sobbing.

Matthew, after he had sobbed himself out somewhat, said, "I think I know what you wish to say, David. You are the one who took me from my house and tried to kill me after you had shown me your father."

David, who had been sobbing with his eyes on the ground, looked up. "You knew?"

"I suspected. I did not see you that night. But there was too much that came together for it to be coincidence."

"When I saw you there," said David, "when the Master brought me back, I thought I would faint. I had hanged myself because I did not have the courage to kill you, and there you were! Haunting me!"

"But you did not try to avoid me."

"No, because I hated you! I thought your following the Master was the height of hypocrisy, and I wanted to unmask you, and then kill you. If I could unmask you, I would have the power to carry it out!"

"I always wondered why you kept so close to me."

"I kept waiting for a time when I knew that you had just sinned, and then I was going to take my knife and stab you to death, so that you would go where I had been! I hated you that much!

"And you never did sin! You were so good! And for a long while I hated you because you were good! I hated you more, because you said you loved me. And then I could not. But I needed someone to hate."

"I suspected also that you hated me. Mary of Magdala even warned me once against you. But I thought that if you killed me, I would richly deserve it, because I could understand why you hated me and wanted to kill me. My own father hanged himself for the same reason yours did, when I was but nine years old. If I could have found the man who was responsible, I would have killed him also; but I was too young, thank God. I did not even really realize that it was because of the taxes that he was driven to despair; I thought it was our poverty, and that I was somehow responsible--and I could not bear it, and so I ran away and tried to forget it. And without realizing what I was doing, I became a tax-collector myself!

"That was why, when I saw your father and it made me think for the first time in years of my father, I begged you to kill me, because I understood, and I realized I deserved to die.

"But there is someone who loves us, David, and he has, as he told me, a way of arranging things. Consider what has happened. If my father had not died thus, I would not have realized what I had been doing when I saw your father, and that changed my whole life--it made me a real person, instead of some animal like a magpie collecting gold simply because it was there, and caring nothing for the one whom it was taken from.

"And if you had not killed yourself, the Master would not have brought you back to life, so that you could have a second chance to redeem yourself. And if you had not hated me and wanted to kill me when I had sinned, you would not have followed the Master with me and heard, in spite of yourself, what he was saying, and seen his loving acts. You learned, David. You tried not to, as I did, but you learned.

"And then, when I did not satisfy you--not because I have not sinned, David, but because I never did anything you could see as a sin. If you knew my heart! But thank God you did not! But when I did not satisfy you, you turned your hatred against Judas. And if Judas had not died, you would not have seen what you wished to do, just as I saw in your father what I had been doing.

"And that brought you here to me, just at this time. You see? It was all arranged. I must tell you that I saw my father on the day Jesus died--they tell me many people saw dead ones who came back briefly--and he told me that he had been rescued forever by the Master, and he also told me that your father is also saved. It was all arranged. If I had not seen Judas, I would not have prayed for my father and your father, and they would not have been saved. He told me that.

"And now you are back here just at this time. When we saw the Master after he had risen, he breathed what he called the Holy Spirit upon us and told us that if we forgave the sins of others, they were forgiven. This is a power we never had before.

"And therefore, David, by the power that was conferred on me by our Master and Savior Prince Jesus, I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."