Saturday Sorrows

A woman, dressed in black, rises at dawn. She sneaks quietly out of her home and looks for a place to be alone, away from the sounds of weeping. Her name is Mary. She is from Magdala.

It was so dark up on that hill yesterday. I think that’s what I’ll remember the most.

Not his screams, that ear-splitting cry of his …

or when he told us not to weep for him …

or his final words, when he voiced his feelings of forsakenness.

Why, oh Lord, have you forsaken us?

It’s the darkness that scared me the most. The clouds were so full and black, completely blotting out the sun. As if the flames from a thousand candles were suddenly snuffed out.

I’ve known darkness like that before. Not the darkness when you find yourself suddenly awake and afraid in the middle of the night. That’s temporary. Everybody knows the sun will eventually rise.

The darkness I’m talking about is kind that keeps you captive in broad daylight. It’s the kind that fills you with paranoia and evil thoughts. It makes you feel like you’re a crazy person, even when all is calm, when there’s a moment of peace.

It can make you foam at the mouth and give you the strength of seven men. It makes you want to hurt yourself, or worse, try to kill yourself. People tell me that more than once I tried to jump off of a cliff. There were times I needed to be tied down so that I wouldn’t harm myself, or others.

But, thankfully, those days are gone. I’m not that woman anymore. I’ve been changed.

Cleansed.

Transformed into a whole new creation.

I was having one of my episodes when he passed through my town. It took three men to drag me and throw me at his mercy. It’s not like I remember any of this, but from what I was told, seven evil spirits came out of me that day.

I was delivered from darkness and brought into the light, by the Light. He himself said so. He said he was the Light of the World. I’ve been with him ever since. Because he also said that whoever followed him would never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. I promised to stay as close to him as possible, because I don’t want to take one single step in darkness ever again.

But now the light of life is dead. He asked us to follow him, to walk with him, to abide in him. How? He’s gone.

He deserted us.

He left me. Abandoned us all.

It’s all so confusing. I really don’t understand. Why Lord did you let this happen? Couldn’t you have escaped? Fled? Gone another way or taken a different rout? Instead you walked right into capture.

This despair is overwhelming. But, it’s not like it was before I met him. Somehow it’s different. I know that because he changed me … this grief will someday disappear. He healed me once and now I must trust that the Father will do it again. We had so little time together, but it was enough to alter my life forever. He taught us about what the Father is really like. About love. About faith. About peace and forgiveness. He may be gone, but I now have a love for the Father that had always been missing.

I hope he knew how much we all loved him. I stayed with him as long as possible. He asked me to follow him and I wouldn’t stop until I couldn’t go any farther. I went up the hill and back down to the garden tomb. I saw the place where they laid his body. I’d have gone into the grave with him if they had let me.

I’m going back there tomorrow, as soon as the sun breaks through the dark of night. I want to anoint his body. I have to get the spices ready. I think Joanna and James’ mother will join me.

Those soldiers rolled that stone and enclosed him in blackness.

The light of world was extinguished.

Alone.

In a tomb of darkness.