Why was she here? Why was she made to endure this? This is not what mothers are for. Where is God in all this? This was madness, this was Hell. Mary stared at the ground, watching drops of blood splat into the dust. It seemed she could hear them strike the earth, which did not make sense with all the other noise and shouting. She was surrounded by people, and yet she was completely alone. She looked up at her son on the cross, her eyes filling with fresh tears. He was almost unrecognizable to her; they had been so cruel to him, these soldiers.
Her mind went back to a day when he was a small child. He came into the house crying because some older boys had knocked him down. There was no cruelty in him, so he was always puzzled by it when he was little. She remembered wiping the tears and dirt from his face with the corner of her apron and holding him close. She looked at his battered face now and longed to wipe it clean, to hold him and nurse him.
She thought back further, to the impossibility of his birth; the encounter with Gabriel that had shaken her world; the wagging tongues of the village at her pregnancy; the trouble with Joseph. Sometimes, over the years, she half-wondered if she had dreamed the whole thing; who talks to angels? Yet, there was her son. She had been told this child was going to save Israel, and now, this? what was God playing at? How could it be the will of the Almighty for a mother to watch her son die? It all felt so wrong. She remembered the words of the old man in the temple all those years ago; that a sword would pierce through her soul. She had not understood his words, now she did. The man had no idea.
Mary did not know what the plan or purposes of Heaven could be in such misery; she did not care; she just wanted her son back. She looked around the flat hilltop at the rough circle of people, a jeering mob. She was startled by the hatred in men’s faces, her own countrymen. Why did they hate him so? She was sickened by the brutal indifference of the Roman soldiers. There was no purpose here. This was insanity.
She shut her eyes tight and covered her ears. She wanted to go back in time so she could prevent all this. She wanted to persuade him not to come to this terrible city. Why did he have to provoke them? these so-called rulers of men. She had never known him to be aggressive with people, but, this past week, it seemed as if he had walked into Jerusalem looking for a fight. He had gone right into the lion’s den and started throwing rocks at the lions, what did he think would happen? She opened her eyes and once again looked around at the angry faces; this was never a fight he was going to win.
He had warned her this day would come, but she would not listen. He had told her several times that he would be betrayed and executed, but that she should not despair because he would return to her. She would always wave her hand at him and tell him to not speak of such things. She would remind him that everyone loved him, and then she would change the subject. He would just look at her with his sad smile, kiss her on the head and tell her he loved her. Come back to her? What did he mean? She shook her head and pushed the thought away. She had seen her son do many remarkable things, but surely that was a promise even he could not keep. No, she would not let herself hope. She would make her heart like stone in an effort to keep it from breaking. But she knew she would fail.
She looked up at him again. He was speaking to the man next to him, another “criminal” dying for the entertainment of the mob. She could not hear what he was saying to the poor wretch. He was always ministering to others, even now. What a strange time to make new friends. All his friends had left him, except John, who was nearby. She looked around again and spotted him just a few yards away; he was watching her, his own eyes full of tears. She burst out crying again and reached for him. He came to her and she buried her face in his chest and sobbed.
She pulled away and looked back up at her son, he was looking at her now. One eye was swollen shut, useless, the other was bloodied but open and gazing at his mother. She put a trembling hand to her mouth and stared into his one good eye. She had always loved his eyes; they had an ancient-looking intelligence that tended to unnerve most people, but she found it comforting. They always gave the impression that he was in absolute control of things, even now she could see it as she squinted up at him through tears. She could also see that eye was full of pain, and love, and pity; not for himself, but for her.
It made her heart ache even more and her love for her firstborn gushed out of her in a fountain of tears. She perceived it as a love that would have no home soon, no place to rest. She felt the weight of it crushing her heart. She knew she would have to carry the awful beautiful heaviness of it alone; that it would leak out of her eyes forever. If that were the price for having him to love all these years so be it; he had been wonderful, and she would not trade her years with him for anything.
She wiped her eyes. He was still watching her; then he was speaking to John, but she could not hear what they were saying. Then he lifted his head and looked at the sky. That is when Mary noticed, for the first time, how completely dark it had become, it became hushed on the hilltop. She watched her boy as he searched the sky with his one good eye. He suddenly cried out, louder than she had ever heard him; calling for God, but there was only darkness. Then his bloodied head fell forward onto his chest. He was gone. Mary fell to her knees in the bloody dirt. She threw back her head and screamed at heaven. She fell forward with her face to the ground and cried into the dust of the earth; she scraped handfuls of it onto her head as if to bury herself.
John dropped beside her and gently lifted her to her feet; she leaned heavily on him as if drunk and saw the world passing around her in disjointed images, like some dreadful silent dream. She could not make sense of the images which only increased her sense of lostness. The darkness, a darkness that could be felt. The sudden quiet on the hill as the mob of people were breaking up and almost scurrying away, glancing nervously over their shoulder. The fear in the eyes of the centurion. She had never seen that in the face of a Roman before. She wondered vaguely if this might be the end of the world. She did not really care; she knew it was the end of hers. She had just watched it die in front of her.
John led her to the edge of the hilltop, outside of what had been the circle, where he helped her sit on a low stone wall. They sat for a long time weeping and watching as most of the people disappeared and the soldiers continued with their grim business. The darkness itself began to break up and drift away, like shreds from some tattered nightmare. A normal darkness began to stretch across the land as the sun began to sink behind the low Judean hills. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” The words echoed in her ears; the words of the psalmist; the last words of her son; the words of her own soul. Where was God? He was so present at the beginning of her boy’s life. So evident in all of his ministry to others. But now, when they needed him most? What was the point of her son’s life? Of his death?
A shaft of sunlight shot from the horizon, under some clouds, between two hills. It stabbed the hilltop where she sat and landed on the thorny head of her son. She watched it for several minutes as it illuminated the matted hair and the bloody thorns. For a moment it reflected off the sickening points and shone like a diadem. No one else took any notice, but Mary watched it until the light vanished.
“We should go Mary”, said John. “Let us leave this place, there is nothing good here.”
“I’m not leaving him”, she replied flatly, not like this”, gesturing weakly back towards the circle.
“I have spoken with Joseph”, said John, “from Arimathea, he has a tomb for the teacher not far from here, it has all been arranged. You do not have to do anything.”
Mary turned away from the scene and looked into the western sky at the disappearing sun. she put her face into her hands and began to sob again. She felt the sun setting on this world as it was setting on her heart. She wondered if it would ever rise again.
“Do whatever he tells you.”
-the last recorded words of Mary of Nazareth as she pointed to her son.