Holy Days - Easter

She kept asking herself throughout the night, on Thursday, on Friday, did they believe? Did they believe he was the messiah? 

And as much as it hurt, Mary had to admit, of course not. That was the whole point. Even the disciples hadn’t believed. Not really. Not even Peter. John? Had John believed? At least he’d been there. In the end.

And she asked herself, all over again. Had she? 

Since she had first been told. Yes. Yes, she had believed. It had been a terrible burden. She’d known, all his life. She’d known how it would end.

For the world, his death was just another crucifixion, just another dead messiah. It was easier to end the story that way. Everyone was happy, then. Everyone would forget. That was how it always went. The day they died, that was always difficult, but then, there was always so much company.

She wondered what motivated them. Why so many boasted in the streets. It was a deep yearning, of course, an ancient one, and a horrible burden of a tradition. Their people had escaped from bondage many times. But the world always set another trap.

She’d known. She’d known from the start. And even if she hadn’t, he spoke openly of it, eventually, and eventually even in terms others would understand. It did not blunt watching it play out. Watching him torn. Watching him pierced. Watching him. Die.

Listening to him. She had spent his lifetime listening to him. To the end. To the very end. He’d always had something to say. She always had the time to listen. He spoke to her, from up there. He spoke to John. He spoke to others. He allowed himself to grieve. For him it was a moment he was experiencing for the first time, too, despite a lifetime of anticipation.

She wondered how she still managed tears. Watching it. Holding his body, later, when it had been taken down. While she waited, his body in the tomb. One night. Two nights.

Then this morning. She wasn’t among those he appeared to. That burden, among others, he had passed on to John. Perhaps that’s what he’d meant. Perhaps he knew that if she saw him, again, she would never be able to let go again. She had spent his lifetime giving him to the world. It seemed too much. Because no one had seen him the way she did. 

She waited, still. She waited to see him. She knew she could wait the rest of her life, and she wouldn’t. But she had lived with anticipation before.

She had her faith. It sustained her.

Holy Days - Saturday: An Easter Tale

By then he was dead. 

Some things, perhaps most things, are on a relative scale. Joseph’s doubts about Mary, his difficulty accepting the circumstances of her pregnancy, of needing to be persuaded by the visit of an angel in a dream, none of this should project an image of a man who was in any way unworthy to raise Jesus. In another age, in another context, a fictional one, Joseph is Jonathan Kent, adoptive father to Superman. 

Superman, Clark Kent, is often depicted as gaining his moral character from Pa Kent. Jesus didn’t find his character through Joseph. What he learned was how to be a man.

His mother, Mary, spent her life encouraging him, believing in him, knowing all the while the destiny that awaited him, in this world, in this life. She was, and Joseph was, firmly rooted in this world, this life. This is what they knew. Mary had extraordinary faith. Joseph, meanwhile, was the first model of what a good life could look like.

In those days it was usual for the husband to be older than the wife. Joseph was in his thirties, and Mary not yet in her twenties. This is to say, Joseph was established in his practice, as a carpenter, when Jesus was born, when they made the journey to Bethlehem.

When Jesus was a boy, Joseph was approaching middle age. When Jesus approached his thirties, Joseph was, for that time, an old man.

He had already done everything he could for his son. He led a life of quiet dignity. Joseph didn’t understand the larger concepts of faith any better than anyone; he knew them as well as Mary, certainly, whose faith was less informed by temple worship than in her son, in his destiny. 

Joseph saw how wise his son was. He didn’t try to understand it himself. In fact it was something they never really talked about. They spent their time together in idle chatter, Joseph about the many people he knew, Jesus often quietly, or sharing mutual jokes. They had an easy camaraderie that maybe wasn’t easy to see. It wasn’t for others, anyway. Maybe Joseph took it for granted. He wasn’t alive when his son went out. Perhaps his death was necessary for it to happen. They shared the work together, until it was time for different work.

Time didn’t have as much meaning, in the place where Joseph found himself, after dying. At some point he found himself face to face with his son again.

They didn’t say anything. Jesus hugged him. Joseph tried to understand what he saw in his son’s face. It wasn’t the face he remembered. It wasn’t so much older. But it was sadder. It was also filled with a kind of joy Joseph couldn’t begin to describe. It reminded him of the face his son had had when he was a boy, when he had been found after lingering in the temple. That had been the day everything had changed, when the whole family knew, for the first time, what lay ahead. That is to say, when Joseph knew his son understood his destiny for the first time.

Joseph hugged his son in return. He didn’t want to let go. Not again. Jesus gave him a gentle smile.

Then he was gone.

Holy Days - Good Friday: An Easter Tale

He was an old man, then. He’d been the oldest of them, all those years earlier. He’d known about the Hebrew culture, had studied it somewhat extensively, out of idle academic curiosity. That was why he’d chosen myrrh, then. He’d been led to believe they were going to find a king. He’d chosen it so they could anoint him.

Today, he was a much older man. His bones ached. It hurt to move much at all, and so he was content, most days to not move much at all. Today, though, Balthasar thought about other things. It was early, yet, still very early in the morning. But he’d received news. 

They’d found themselves talking about the old days, this week, revisiting that journey, all those years ago, the baby they’d found in a stable, whom they’d paid homage, even in such a state, to whom they’d given their gifts, the gold, the frankincense, and yes, the myrrh. They’d all had a sense of foreboding. Nothing they’d seen, no signs. They’d heard the rumors of the authorities in Jerusalem.

It’s not true, what they said even in those days, that no one talked about the man, that he existed in a vacuum, that his life was unremarkable in his lifetime. There are remarkable people you treasure whom no one would think to record for posterity. That will always be true. The scale shifts. The everyday kindnesses that are so easy to take for granted, the wisdom that comes from sources outside traditional roles. These are things that can leave a profound impact on the world. They called Balthasar a wiseman, but he thought, he hoped, you didn’t need to be one to understand such things. He knew he was wrong about that. He knew that was the true distinction.

This man had made an impact, and he had inspired fear, not because he led an insurrection, either against Rome or his own people. No, never anything like that. Those are the things that wind up being recorded. They don’t talk about love, about compassion, the things so many people yearn for, so easy to ignore, why they’re so precious.

But that was what had happened to the man. All through the night he’d been undergoing a trial. He’d been arrested. Outside, in the worlds untouched by the circles within Jerusalem, it had quickly become a scandal. Word reached Balthasar quickly, much more quickly than the distance should have allowed. He was worlds away, in so many ways. None of this should have concerned him, and yet it had, many years ago, and even a wiseman couldn’t really have appreciated, then, the implications, so seemingly regional, irrelevant.

The man was going to die. He was going to be executed. He would be long dead before Balthasar could muster himself to undertake another journey. The Romans were a bit too predictable. The authorities there knew how these things worked, all too well. They’d conspired to rid themselves of a pest, who had threatened their peace of mind, their complacency, a man who had dared gather the lost flocks of their society and given them hope. He would end up on a cross. The landscape had begun to look naked, Balthasar was told, if there weren’t at least a few of those about on any given day.

No, he hadn’t considered the myrrh for its other applications. He’d gone in search of a king. Depending on how long it took the man to die, if somehow his family still had the myrrh, it would be used for something very different, before this day was done.

Balthasar found himself ashamed. Ashamed for humanity. Ashamed for his own weakness. Weakness in body, now. Weakness in spirit. Then. Weakness in spirit even this week. They had all undergone a journey when this man was born. They hadn’t bothered, when they knew he would die. No one had. He would die alone. He deserved so much better.

He felt very old. He still didn’t understand faith.

Holy Days - Thursday: An Easter Tale

In those days he had been young, and when he looked back, now, he felt he must have been a child, and he could still remember his elders in the fields, with him, except they were old men, now, and he was in charge, and had been for years, and struggled to remember when it had been any different. When you’re a shepherd you know how your day’s going to go. There’s not much mystery.

There had been, that night, all those years ago, that star shining so brightly, and the angel…Later, he’d told himself he’d imagined it, dreamed it. Anything but admit that it had really happened. Alone, or alone now among those who had experienced it, it was easy to pretend. It had been a lifetime ago.

Anyway, he still occupied the same fields, still there in Bethlehem. Today he was asked to sell one of his sheep. The request came from people he’d been hearing about the last few years, people who had been traveling about, a network, agitated people. It wasn’t hard to find the like. Everyone was agitated these days. No one was happy about the Romans. If he kept to himself, paid his taxes, he’d found he didn’t have to worry about it too much. 

Why someone would want one of his sheep over in Jerusalem, he couldn’t say. Seemed like a lot of bother. He assumed it was for the Passover, but it was a little early, and they’d seemed to be in a rush. “The master needs it now,” they’d said, “He’s in a rush. Never seen him like it.”

There were a lot of masters about, but the one spoken about had tended to inspire a different response. Normally he inspired calm. The shepherd knew these people. These were common people, for the most part, some of them important fishermen from Galilee, sure, who operated in circles similar to his, but who had spent their lives in the same daily fashion as him, busy about their work, hardly the like to change the world. In normal times, anyway. These weren’t normal times.

And this was not a normal day. He wondered. What was so different? What so urgent? 

There was something in the air. A desperation. Something was going to happen. The authorities were frequently given to sudden gestures, to assure the population of who was in control, to solidify their position. These things followed patterns. Troublemakers were rounded up. The shepherd wondered if the master’s luck had run out. 

All that was someone else’s problem. He tended his flock. He sold sheep. The urgency, though. These people. They seemed frightened. This was a movement of common stock. No one usually bothered to include men such as him in important affairs. His fields had been occupied by these people, though. He’d watched from a distance, too far away to hear, but surprised at the level of calm as the crowds listened. 

He decided he’d ask around, in a few days. He led a simple life. But he could involve himself in something like this.

Holy Days - Wednesday: An Easter Tale

Thirty years or so later…

The innkeeper hadn’t much paid attention, at the time, concerning the effect his decision to give a young couple some space to sleep for the night. He’d certainly noticed the effect of Herod’s decision, very soon after. So many innocents lost. He’d heard about the birth that happened in the stable, that to his shame almost hadn’t even noticed was imminent. The couple had been so humble, he’d felt shamed into helping them. The census had made everyone a little crazy. He’d thought, at the time, he’d done nothing to be proud of, giving them that, of all spaces. No dignity. They hadn’t seemed to mind. He had. It bothered him the rest of that night. Then he forgot all about it. Life went on as it always had, in Bethlehem. A quiet place. Certainly no Jerusalem. That was what he’d always treasured about it. Yet somehow he ended up in Jerusalem anyway.

Somehow. Right. He remembered their names. The husband had been a carpenter. The innkeeper remembered that. His line of business? He could always find value in such a trade. He obtained a variety of products from the man, over the years. In this way he learned about the son, the baby who had been born that night. Again, none of this was intentional. A coincidence. The son developed a reputation, over the years. Most of the time, he kept to himself, went about his father’s business. He spent much of his time ruminating, though. Not like a rabbi, although it was often said he ought to follow such a path, take up space in the temple in an official capacity. But he was always humble, exactly as his parents had been that night. 

The years progressed. The innkeeper heard how the son went out on his own, how he walked away from his father’s trade, found a group of friends who liked to listen to all that talk. On this day the innkeeper found himself talking with one of those friends. They said this man wanted to rent one of his rooms.

Passover was approaching. Space was once again at a premium. The innkeeper, all these years later, found he had a role to play in this family’s affairs, one more time. This time there was no hesitation. 

They needed it the next day. He’d heard about what’d happened a few days earlier. He imagined what it must’ve looked like. For a lot of men, for too many, it would’ve been too easy. Basking in the glory. Well, not the carpenter’s son. No, the innkeeper thought it probably felt embarrassing. This man would need someplace private. Strangely, the innkeeper, perhaps too aware of history, felt a certain foreboding. Something bad would happen in the days ahead. He made arrangements for the room to be fitted out in such a manner for a man who had merited such a welcome into town. Fit for a king, the innkeeper thought. In case it was his last chance for such treatment. 

There was another Herod, after all, and, the innkeeper found, names being collected all over again. Support, this time, for what he did not care to know, to be a part of. He was a humble man himself. Went about his work. Tried to believe he’d always done the right thing. He knew he hadn’t. 

The friend of the carpenter’s son gave him a shy kind of smile, upon completion of the deal. He wished he could be among them the next day.

Holy Days - Tuesday: An Easter Tale

Caspar, too, was old. They all were. That was how he saw the world, now. It’s easy to see everything the way you are. This is not a failing. Even wise men can suffer from such vanity.

When he was younger, he had traveled far, with his friends, to a humble place. He had presented frankincense to a baby.

Frankincense had particular significance to the Jews, as he’d gathered, a kind of offering to holy places, to sanctify them. So his gift was more of an acknowledgment. He’d done his research. He was paying his respects. Candidly, he thoughts his friends had been a little eccentric with theirs. But he didn’t have to understand. He let them carry on. They had different ideas, but united in their belief that the world held sacred mysteries. He didn’t pretend to understand the mysteries surrounding this baby. He didn’t need to, he’d decided.

Like all of them he tried to keep tabs on what followed. Not because he became a believer, once he’d learned just what kind of a life that baby grew into. Remember, in the early days it was a mission to the Jews, a matter for Jews. It didn’t expand until later, and by then Caspar was dead. But that’s later.

Now, on a Tuesday in the early days of a week that would change history, Caspar had a chat with his old friend Melchior, and that was when he found out what had happened that Sunday, and what his friend thought of that, the foreboding he felt, the certainty that far from portending good things, it singled the beginning of the end.

Or maybe not. These two certainly had a unique perspective on all of it, a scholarly one, and they were peering in from the outside. They were free to speculate.

So that was what they did.

His friend seemed hopeful. Caspar wasn’t so sure. Anything could happen, right? And the world often seemed determined for the worst outcome, even when he claimed profusely otherwise. He didn’t want to call himself a cynic, but sometimes it seemed the only rational approach. And, well, he was an old man, now. He’d seen many things. They all knew what Herod had done, after all. 

He had to laugh. They had both been so hopeful, then. His friend gave the baby gold. Caspar had brought the incense. A part of him says he knew better than he knew. That part of him was faith. And it was right for him to struggle with it. That was what faith was all about. 

It was only when he had grown so old, that he allowed himself to admit such things.

Holy Days - Monday: An Easter Tale

Melchior was an old man, by then.

Someone told him about it. They told him about what had become of that baby they’d visited, all those years ago, those long decades. 

Each of them, all three, had agreed to bring gifts. He’d chosen gold. At the time he couldn’t really have explained, except the stories had said the baby would grow up to be a king, and so it had seemed appropriate.

But what he’d heard, since, not just what they all heard, later, about what Herod had done, not even to say how he’d tried to trick them, seemed to contradict that. He didn’t really understand it, hadn’t back then, either, not that it had mattered. A different culture, a different world. But in the final analysis, none of that had mattered. What he understood, then, was that he was simply paying homage. He saw no reason, now, to think otherwise.

No, that baby had not grown up to be a king. In that world, in that Roman world, after he’d thought about it, that had never really seemed likely anyway, or in any sense that would’ve been interpreted in that way, then, trivial. He’d heard all about the culture the baby grew into, its vision of the future. He listened as it was explained to him, what that baby grew up professing. He knew a thing or two about some of that, surely.

But he had never seen any of that in quite the manner he saw it from this new perspective.

And then he heard about what happened yesterday. Yesterday that baby truly had, for a moment, grown up to be a king. Melchior had to laugh. In a selfish moment he even wondered whatever had happened to that gold. Many men would have at least laced their attire in it. He didn’t see that as a possibility, here.

He would never see this man for himself. He saw him once, as a baby. He worried about him. He knew that culture, that world, everything that man had already struggled against. Such crusades were not meant long for the world. Or maybe.

He still could not escape this man’s story. Just perhaps, it was a story that would endure. Melchior had first read it before any of it had even happened. He followed a star to see its first fruits for himself.

He decided it wasn’t so hard to believe.

Holy Days - Palm Sunday: An Easter Tale

The angel Gabriel had almost literally seen it all.

Angels came forth sometime before the earthly realms. They were never God; they were never omniscient, omnipresent, certainly not omnipotent. But they were certainly privileged.

But they could observe. Gabriel had done a great deal of observing. He saw what humans got up to. He saw the many ways they envisioned faith. He saw the many varieties of religion, how they started, how they played out, the effect they had on humans. He knew God’s relationship with humanity was complicated. God didn’t just pop in for a visit with anyone. Most of the time it was completely a matter of faith, and believing what was said, and knowing what to believe.

Every now and then, Gabriel was sent to intervene. That was something he’d done, when Christ was born, into the world. None of any of that was a mystery to Gabriel. He knew from the moment of his announcement how it was all going to play out.

So on the Sunday before the end of that brief life on earth, he watched with some curiosity how Christ’s day progressed. He watched Christ’s friends procure the donkey. He saw the happy frenzy in the streets, as word spread. He may have watched humanity since its infancy but he honestly couldn’t say he understood it any better than he ever had. 

He simply allowed himself to get caught up in the moment, even knowing where it was leading. 

Humanity can be fickle. If the right people align, then it can be an organic miracle. That, he thought, was what Christ had always tried to say. If the wrong people align, it can be a disaster. That’s what he thought God had been trying to say since Eden., since the serpent, since Cain. Listen to the wrong people, get caught up in yourself…

But this moment, this perfect, impossible moment. For Gabriel it seemed to symbolize what Christ’s life was all about. Not what would happen in a handhold days, which again, even someone who doesn’t see all time all at once knew was coming, since for God, for Christ, was known from the beginning, and was an open understanding in Heaven. No. It was watching people be joyful. 

Which was really why he’d taken the assignment to announce Christ’s birth. It was indeed a privilege, getting to see these humans, who struggled so much, happy. They didn’t know what to expect. Gabriel knew and he was still happy. He didn’t know about this day, that this would happen, too. But he hadn’t needed to.

So that was also why he so enjoyed watching Christ make his way through the streets, through the palms. This was Gabriel’s faith.