Her voice hadn’t quiet healed yet—
Still raspy and achy when she woke up on the third morning
There was a chill in the air although the sun warmed the dry earth beneath her feet
Children climbed trees at the bottom of the hill and busied themselves with play
The dust had finally settled from the crowd’s stomping protests
Many went about their day without an interruption—
Bread was made
Children were dressed
Animals were fed
His blood had just begun to dry—
The blood of a poor homeless Jew that called himself God
Claimed to be the king of the Jews
A king would have rather taken his own life than be humiliated like he had been—
He had been beaten; his flesh had torn from his bones
His lips never uttered a word of self-defense
They made a fool of him—
Stripped of his clothes and dignity
His ministry raped by evil—
He hanged there alone and died alone—
His eyes closed in death as disciples and mockers alike watched
It was the third day of mourning—
Her tears hadn’t stopped flowing
Only to sleep, but she woke with nightmares and the aching of missing him
Her mind deceived her—
She heard him speaking in her dreams
And felt the warmth of his forgiveness
Her eyes opened only to see the walls of her small home—
He was gone
She walked to the market and passed the hill on the way
His cross was still there and his body still in the tomb
The world continued just as before—
Noisy streets and crowded booths
Broken eggs in the dirt and hagglers trying to get a deal
Those that knew him wondered if they had known him at all
How could he have left them?
If he was who he said he was then, why did he hang on a cross?
He had always been so outspoken and passionate—
But when they accused him, he stood silently
And took the whip against his back, his face, his very soul
She walked through the hagglers, vendors, people that had been at his crucifixion
In her small basket, she placed some herbs and spices and purchased them for a small price
She walked back to the winding path toward his tomb
In her heart, she held to his words as tears fell down her face
Three days had felt like three years
She steadied herself against a rock as she wept
Her weary feet pressed on through the rough terrain
The scent of mourning oils still embedded in her hair
The tomb was in sight—
The harsh sun and grief tempted her with an illusion—the stone was rolled away
She blinked and rubbed her eyes hard
The stone was rolled away
Surely, someone had stolen his body
She buckled beneath the weight of her grief—death had taken him
And now his body had been ripped from its rightful place
She had painstakingly prepared his body for burial
With all the reverence she could, she had prepared the body of her King
His body had been wrapped as she sang a Psalm to him
He could not hear her praise
She could not let him go
All of Heaven and hope had seemed to stop breathing when he did
Her very soul seemed to grow dark within her, but still she sang one last Psalm
It had been three days since she prepared his body—since the stone had separated her from him
The light disappeared and she closed her eyes once more and then looked again
The stone was gone
She began to crawl in the dirt, picking up all the spices and overturned basket
Then, she looked and there was someone standing just in front of her
Their feet displaying the deepest scars she had ever seen
Startled that a stranger saw her in such a state, she quickly stood to her feet
She looked up into the eyes—
Full of love as deep as an ocean
With compassion as wide as the heavens
She saw her reflection in his eyes
And knew in that moment for whom he had died
