The Second Night

The second night is worse than the first, and the first was one of the worst nights ever.

In retrospect, many of us were thinking, Well, that didn’t last long. We had just spent the last few years following him around in his travels, watching the impossible happen every day. It wasn’t really about the miracles. Knowing they were real didn’t make much of a difference. All of us had seen bogus miracles performed, and...it’s really like magic. To the untrained eye they’re indistinguishable.

No, it was more about his strange combination of uncompromising authority and...compassion. We spent a lot of sleepless nights mulling these things over. None of us could live up to his standards. It was impossible. But knowing him was enough for us to want to try. Even when he soundly rebuked us in our human failing, which we understood, eventually, was the very thing he had come to forgive...somehow it made sense. Even though he was perfect, he was imperfect, too, which made him human to us, and, of course, divine. The one went with the other. Again, it was the combination that made him so undeniable, even when we struggled so much to grasp what eventually seemed...the most basic fact in the whole history of the world.

There wasn’t a lot of learning between us. Few of us could read, or write, and aside from our previous devotion to the baptist, we hadn’t been pillars of faith to anyone, much less well-known visitors of synagogues and the temple. We were humble folk. A lot of people said that made us gullible, that we would believe anything, as long as it made our lives a little easier.

But it didn’t. It made our lives, if anything, harder. Aside from defending him on a constant, relentless basis, which itself was difficult, especially for those of us not previously familiar with sustained socializing, there was, of course, the standard we were supposed to follow, which as I’ve said, was hard enough itself. We felt like constant failures. We never needed him to say anything about it. Secretly we were grateful, though. He cared. That was the whole point.

Then, of course, the authorities decided they’d had enough. They hated him constantly challenging them, embarrassing them. There was no way they looked better than he did. All they had was tradition and empty titles. He knew everything they only professed to know, and he claimed no title except the one he was born with, the one he told us led to...

Listen, we all struggled with it. It was inconceivable. In the beginning some of us were convinced everything would lead to...Even if none of us were born fighters, we thought if pressed, and with enough of us, we could accomplish anything. We thought we would be kings. He never once suggested such a fate. Then of course he told us what really awaited him, the thing he was always meant to do, the reason he was here at all.

It sounded like a tragedy.

And it felt like a tragedy. Most of us stayed as far away, when it finally happened, as we could. Some of us lingered and then, ashamed, fled. A very select number witnessed the final moments. All of us heard, every detail, of how it ended. It was an agony. I can’t even begin to express it. And we had been revealed as cowards. We had never deserved to share those years with him.

This morning we gathered, and one by one talked about the preceding night. None of us had slept a wink. Some of us admitted we owed him that much. His last night was almost as bad as his last day. We had all known people tried by the Romans, executed by them. We had all seen fields of crucifixes. And we had all, in our cowardice, looked toward the hill with its empty crosses, long hours after his death, after he had been placed in the tomb.

Most of us were still crying. Most of us wouldn’t stop for a long time. Some of us are still crying tonight.

I’m crying, too, but... I also wonder. I wonder if this was the plan all along. I mean, I know it was. It is a terrible knowledge, which he lived with all his life. And he struggled with it, too, and if he struggled with it...Maybe we were cowards so we would live, so we could...There was always a plan. God knows everything. He sees everything, past present and future, all at once. And he saw and he understood. He knew what would happen.

And it was terrible knowledge, and great knowledge. He saw us struggle for a long time, and I have no doubt we will continue to struggle...

So on this night, this worst of all nights, I hope tomorrow brings...And if it does...when it does, I will cry once more. I should be empty of tears. But these will be different.

I believe. It hurts to have experienced all this, but I am grateful.

I believe. I believe.

I believe.