We all stood there, at the foot of those three crosses on Golgotha's hill. The sky was dark , almost as if night had come early to cover up this dreadful injustice. It seemed like forever that we stood there, quite a band of us, powerless to do anything other than wait. Despite the horror of the previous few hours where we saw Jesus carry the cross, when we heard his anguished cries as He was nailed, hand & foot to that wretched instrument of torture, when we heard the sickening thud as the cross was lifted upright & sank into it's prepared hole - that thud which will remain with me forever & Jesus' cry as the force of it shook his whole bruised & battered body; when we had heard the priests & the soldiers spit their venom at Him, taunting Him, despite all else they had done, they simply couldn't help themselves being the snakes in the grass they truly are. Despite all of that, we still hoped, still dared to hope that He would come down from that cross, that He would work another miracle, that He would come down in glory with God's angels. But his breathing got worse, more laboured, more painful. Louder & louder until all I could hear were these rasping, gasping breaths in the darkness. Time had no meaning any more....we were there with that sound & it felt like forever.
Jesus looked down at us all & saw His mum Mary there. He looked at John & told him to take care of her. How like Jesus that was - thinking of someone else even though He was there on that wretched cross, dying!
It was 3 o'clock, though it felt later, when suddenly Jesus Himself cried out. The sound of His laboured breathing was bad enough, but to hear that cry of abandonment from Him who spoke constantly of His close relationship with His Father, of that relationship from which He seemed to draw His strength & seemed to submit himself to, was heart-breaking, gut-wrenching & was the most hopeless cry I had ever heard in my life. 'My God, my God, why have You abandoned me?' If God had abandoned Him, what hope for the rest of us? We all knew then I think, that He wasn't coming down, that there would be no glorious angelic visitation, that there was only one way this was going to end.
Someone, I can't remember who, tried to give Him some of that bitter wine they keep by the crosses, revolting stuff, & it was then we realised that the chief priests & some of the others who had insulted Him & spat out their venom at Him were still there, still watching, waiting like we were, but that darkness had hidden them. They clearly couldn't hear Him properly, they were too far away & they thought He was calling Elijah! It would have been funny, them being so clever & all, not even knowing that what Jesus had really said was worse than that, so very much worse.
It didn't matter anyway, they could say what they liked now, do what they liked now, none of it mattered anyway. Jesus was dying. Jesus had been abandoned by God, His Father. Jesus, our hope, our friend, Jesus the miracle-worker, the freedom-giver, the one who they proclaimed as Messiah less than a week ago as He rode into Jerusalem on that donkey. JESUS WAS DYING.
His breathing was getting louder, but there were gaps between the breaths now, horrible deathly long gaps. Then, He cried out again, but this was a different cry, a cry more like the Jesus we knew, a cry that said 'IT IS FINISHED.'
Then.....silence.........for a few seconds which seemed like hours.
I remember thinking at the time that He sounded as though He'd beaten something, but then, that silence........
I know it can only have been for a few seconds, because then we heard the earthquake, we felt the earthquake & there were people shouting about graves being broken open, about the dead being raised to life. Why were they surprised? Jesus had died, but that enormous death, like a millstone thrown into still water caused ripples which were felt as dead people came to life again. Someone came running to those priests & told them that the curtain of the temple had been torn in two from top to bottom - imagine that! Top to bottom it had been torn in two. Just at the time Jesus died, that huge curtain tore.
We had no idea what it all meant, but we knew it was all to do with Jesus, even the priests knew that much, but where it brought a glimmer of light in that awful darkness to us that Jesus was still who He had said He was, it freaked them out! We were all still left though with the fact that Jesus was dead.
Joseph came then, a good guy who had spent time with us & with Jesus. He asked to take Jesus' body & offered a grave, the grave he had planned for his burial. They said he could take Jesus' body, so we all set to brining His body down & preparing it, Joseph had brought the embalming creams & cloths - I remember being so grateful for that. We hadn't thought of it, we were so absorbed in being there with Jesus, we hadn't given any thought to afterwards!
The men took his wrapped body to the beautiful tomb in a lovely garden & placed him in the tomb. We closed it & then waited. I have no idea why we waited then, we were simply numb & wanted even then to somehow be near Him, so we waited, we sat, holding each other in a vain attempt at comfort, though none could be found.
After some little while soldiers came to the grave - we could see those snakes, the priests in the background watching them. If I could have felt anything, I would have felt anger then, but I couldn't feel anything. It turned out that the priests had said we might steal Jesus' body & say He had been raised from death as He said He would. How typical of them to think we would be as devious as them. It hadn't occurred to us, because the worst had happened. Jesus was dead.
This was only the beginning! I know that now, but I didn't know it then. The next three days seemed such a long time until the story continued, but continue it did, because His death wasn't the end, but the beginning.
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