The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel

by Wangerin Jr. , Walter

  But the man said something like, “It’s all over now,” and he put his head down, and he died. Like choosing it. Like the last breath was no more difficult than the first had been. Like making a gift of the remarkable moment to the one who had given him drink. To Longinus: Here. This is for you.

  Therefore Longinus had said, “Surely, this was the Son of God.” And though he said it spontaneously, he never took it back again. He believed it.

  Nor was he alone. Some women had watched this man’s dying from the beginning. They had stayed through the storm. And the instant he died they knew he was dead and they drew near. They looked at his body with more than affection. They gazed at it with such deep and speechless yearning that they could not cry.

  Even in spite of the pain of the yearning, Longinus wished that something in his life might mean that much also to him.

  Later that day, he saw again that expression of fathomless yearning. This time in the eyes of a man. A man of some wealth and authority.

  About five o’clock in the afternoon, Pilate called Longinus into his presence and asked whether Jesus of Nazareth were truly dead already.

  “Yes,” the centurion said.

  “What, in less than half a day? Everyone else takes days to die.”

  “It’s unusual, but I saw him die. He’s dead.”

  “And I suppose you sought the evidence of it?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t have, except that the Jews want all three taken down before the evening. Their Sabbath.”

  “I know, I know,” Pilate said. “There’s a fellow here who wants the body of Jesus the Nazarene. A member of their Sanhedrin. Joseph. He wants to bury him in his own tomb. You are sure, then—he’s dead?”

  “My lord, we went to break the legs of the criminals to hasten their dying. But Jesus was already dead. A soldier proved it by piercing his side with a spear. The blood that flowed out was mingled with water.”

  Pontius Pilate waved a fat hand in front of his face. “I will never understand this people. Never. Go tell that fellow Joseph he has my permission. He’s waiting in the shadows of the gate. Go.”

  It was in the eyes of Joseph of Arimathea that Longinus saw the yearning for the second time. Therefore, he attached himself to the Jew.

  They returned together to Golgotha.

  Joseph—a man well-groomed and richly dressed—knelt down on the earth and unrolled a linen cloth. It was an expansive piece, close-woven and white. Then he leaned a ladder against the back of Jesus’ cross. He took a rope and an iron claw, and climbed up behind the body, which still hung from its arms, away from the pole. Joseph looped the rope around the chest of the dead. Then, pulling the ends back under his armpits and over the crossbeam, he tossed them down to Longinus.

  With sudden, violent wrenches of the claw, Joseph yanked the spike from Jesus’ left wrist. The body swung out and hung from the right arm. Longinus tightened the rope, taking Jesus up somewhat. Joseph applied himself to the right spike. It whimpered in the wood, and Jesus slumped altogether forward into the loop of rope. Longinus felt the weight in both ends of the rope.

  “Hold him, sir,” Joseph whispered. “Hold him.”

  He scurried down the ladder and stood below the slouching corpse, under the face and the black rain of the dead man’s hair. He put the claw to the spike through Jesus’ ankles. Longinus heard that he was weeping when he pulled that spike.

  Even as Joseph spread his arms to catch the corpse, he glanced to the centurion and whispered, “Now,” and Longinus paid the rope out, and Jesus came down into Joseph’s arms, one at the bend of the knees and one around his shoulders. The head fell over Joseph’s left arm. The mouth opened up under Joseph’s close gazing, and then again Longinus saw that holy yearning in his eyes.

  Joseph of Arimathea was holding his whole treasure in all the world—this world and the next one, too.

  He lay his Lord upon the white shroud. He wound the linen around him.

  And here came the women again. They knelt like flowers around Joseph’s tender wrapping. They each touched the broad, bloodless forehead of the dead man before it, too, was covered in cloth. Then they watched as Joseph took the shoulders and Longinus took the feet and together they bore the body to Joseph’s tomb, carved in rock with others of the Jews.

  Joseph knelt down and backed in. Longinus knelt and went forward. They lifted the body to a low ledge cut in stone on the right. They came out again and rolled a wheel-sized stone down a groove that had been etched just outside the sepulcher, until the heavy stone covered the door.

  So, then, it was done.

  Jesus of Nazareth was buried.

  Evening fell. The Sabbath arrived.

  But Longinus did not observe it. He was not a Jew. Neither was he the Roman he had been. The events of that day inaugurated for him a time of crippling confusion.

  In the next days he did two things:

  He left the army completely, seeking no reward at his departure, no villa to which he might retire, no final recognition. As far as his superiors were concerned, Longinus had perished from the face of the earth.

  And then he went through Jerusalem seeking a small child whose hands had been disfigured by burning half a year ago, who had nearly died from a blow to her head. This little girl had no parents. Her grandmother was elderly and widowed. She had an uncle—but whether he felt obliged to care for her, Longinus could not know.

  Therefore, the Roman decided that if the girl had been abandoned, he would raise her as his own. For he was the man responsible for her troubles and her injuries.

  If, on the other hand, her uncle loved her and was caring for her after all, then Longinus would offer his help as a brother to Barabbas, a second uncle to his niece. And if that were not acceptable, then he would be a servant to them both.

  THIRTY-NINE

  The New Covenant

  THERE WAS NO GATHERING of professional mourners that Saturday. No voices at all were raised in a public lamentation.

  It was the Sabbath. Religious law forbade engaging in thirty-nine various forms of work on the Sabbath. One could comfort the bereaved as a friend or relative. But not as a professional.

  Then again, it was not required of mourners on any day to lament the death of a criminal.

  Jesus of Nazareth had been executed. His death had been completely legal. This wasn’t a loss. It was a restoration of order and the public good. One doesn’t lament a healing.

  And what of those who loved him?

  They were in hiding.

  They muted their grief. No one in Jerusalem heard their crying, neither the authorities nor the great milling herd of pilgrims come for the Passover. Someone calculated that the number of sheep sacrificed that week was two hundred and fifty-five thousand, six hundred. Into so vast a blood-red sea the death of one Galilean dropped with scarcely a splash. And when several hundred thousand lambs are bawling before their slaughter, who can hear the voices of two humans weeping?

  Just as well.

  Those who loved Jesus did not want to be heard. They were terrified.

  Simon Peter, John, Matthew, James, Andrew, Thomas, Philip—all of the twelve except Judas—had returned one by one, spontaneously, to the house of the Essene and to the upper room where they had eaten their last meal with the Master. Here they huddled all day Saturday behind locked doors.

  The women went to Bethany.

  So many Marys, all like blossoms wilting: they sat at home with Martha and Lazarus. Mary their sister rose to serve them. She brought towels moistened in cool water. Martha rocked herself, round as a barrel, and listened to singing.

  Mary, the Lord’s mother, would be quiet a while, her head bent. But then the storm of her sorrow would strike as if in the forehead: she would fall backward clutching her temples in two hands and deliver herself to wailing. Her hair had been as dark as her son’s once. Now even from her widow’s peak it was streaked with silver, and the sword was in her soul. Joanna and Susanna, who sat on either side of the grieving
mother, fanned her when she wept. They nodded and murmured words of consolation and beat air into her face with relentless force until her sobs subsided. Then they, too, turned and listened to the singing.

  Mary Salome, the wife of Zebedee, the mother of John and James, also was there in the house, though she had chosen to sit somewhat out of sight behind Martha’s large clay firepot. She’d been at the tombs when they buried Jesus. There, too, she had concealed herself in the darkness. Mary Salome had heard the words that Jesus uttered from the cross. All of them—including the terrible sentence that joined his mother to her son. Because he was speaking from his death-engine, the new relationship seemed as solemn as a wedding. It confused her regarding herself. Had she lost a son as well? Therefore, she retreated into darkness a while.

  Mary Magdalene, her lips gone bloodless; the flesh around her eyes so blue and wounded; her fingers twitching like the limbs of a spider; her thin bones shivering—this Mary was not crying. She was singing. Her voice was little, like a child’s, like a small bubble of water. But it was absolutely accurate. And the melody was lovely.

  That’s why the women were listening. Because the melody was sweet and the song was happy. There was no sorrow in this song. It was a tune for love and dancing:

  “Catch us the foxes,” she sang, “the little foxes that plunder the vineyards.” Then softly, softly: “Our vines are in blossom—come!”

  And again she sang: “My beloved speaks and says to me:

  Arise, my love, my bright one, come!

  For the winter is past andn the rain is gone,

  the flowers are voices

  for song and all choices,

  and turtledoves laugh in the land—”

  Mary Magdalene paused in the midst of her singing. She spent a moment in reflection. Then she said, “His locks were wavy, as black as a raven. His eyes were like doves by springs of water, bathed in milk and beautiful.”

  The women listened, and all the women nodded. His eyes were like doves. They knew what Mary meant.

  II

  EARLY SUNDAY MORNING, as soon as the Sabbath restrictions were lifted and they could in good conscience travel distances, three women left Bethany for Jerusalem, Mary Magdalene, Mary Salome, and Joanna.

  Midway around the northern rise of the Mount of Olives, Mary Magdalene stopped and looked at the others.

  “Did you feel that?” she said. “Did the earth tremble?”

  Each woman was carrying cloths and a jar in her arms, myrrh in one, frankincense, nard. They meant to anoint the corpse of the Lord with spices, their final honor to him whom they loved. It was only the third day since he had been buried.

  “It seemed that the ground moved under my feet.”

  “It did move,” said Joanna.

  Mary Salome said, “But there was no sound.”

  Neither was there light yet, though the stars were dimming in a charcoal sky. Dawn was behind them.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Hurry. Please hurry.”

  They skirted Jerusalem on its northern side, then turned south to the garden in which Joseph’s tomb had been newly hewn in rock. Mary Magdalene was peering forward and muttering, “But who will roll the stone?” She couldn’t make out which sepulcher was Joseph’s. The wall of the city was on their left, blocking any eastern light. All the tombs were in shadow.

  Suddenly Joanna shrieked and dropped her jar.

  Mary Salome dropped hers, too. It shattered.

  A pillar of white light, bright as a blade, had shot down from heaven and stood on the stone of Joseph’s tomb. That stone was lying flat on the ground.

  Mary Magdalene gasped. The dawn air smelled of myrrh.

  A voice said: Don’t be afraid.

  It seemed to Mary that the light contained the figure of a man, glorious in every aspect and so bright that brightness itself was his clothing.

  The man said, You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is not here. Behold the place where they laid him. Then run to tell his disciples that he goes before you into Galilee. There you shall see him as he said to you.

  The light withdrew into heaven, leaving the women blinded and terrified. That voice had been no consolation.

  Mary Salome gathered her robe up and started to run back the way that they had come.

  Mary Magdalene, void of all expression, began moving toward the tomb itself.

  “Mary, don’t!” Joanna rushed forward and pulled at her sleeve, but then she shrank back from the open tomb, wailing, “Mary, please! It was an earthquake! It was the Romans or the wrath of God. Whatever happened, it’s all over now. Mary, please, let’s go!”

  Mary did not respond. The small, solemn, pale woman now knelt down directly in front of the black hole in stone.

  This was more than Joanna could bear. “We can’t tell anyone,” she cried, and dashed after Mary Salome.

  Mary Magdalene bent forward and stretched her hand into the shadow of the sepulcher. Cold air. A dead air, but no odor. On the right side in darkness she touched a flank of hewn stone. With her fingers’ tips she measured upward one cubit and came to its surface: this was the ledge upon which they had laid the body of the Lord. She reached deeper in darkness, preparing to touch his rigid corpse—but found nothing. Felt nothing. There was nothing there.

  Mary’s stomach twisted. He was gone! He was gone, as the blinding white figure had said!

  Mary jumped up.

  Daybreak: there were flecks of golden fire over Jerusalem, south between the stone wall and the hill of crosses. She ran through the Garden Gate into the city and up the road that led to Zion. She ran to the house of the Essene and beat on his door. She beat and beat till someone came and opened it. Then she rushed through the vestibule, out the back to a second building built higher than the first, up its stairs to another door, which was locked: “Simon!” she cried. “Simon! Simon, open the door!”

  Not since Jesus had driven the demons out of her had Mary moved with such strength and ferocity. If Simon didn’t open the door soon, she had a mind to crack it like a cask with her forehead. Behold, Mary! Mary Magdalene is crazy again!

  But Simon did open the door.

  And Mary immediately was chattering:

  “They took the Lord out of the tomb, out of the tomb, Simon, Joseph’s tomb, the tomb itself, and we don’t know where they put him—”

  Simon grabbed her and demanded, “Are you sure?”

  Mary said, “It was dark, but I put my hand in—”

  But Simon Peter was already racing down the steps and out into the street.

  John cried, “Simon, I’m coming, too.” He flew past Mary. He ran so fast that he outdistanced Simon.

  Mary followed both men. She caught up to Simon at the Garden Gate, and when they both came to the tomb they found John kneeling at the entrance peering into it.

  Simon pushed John aside and went in.

  The morning light had strengthened. Mary could see what Simon Peter was looking at inside: the shroud—still in its windings on the ledge, but flat. And there was the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head, rolled up in a place by itself.

  Now John, too, crawled into the tomb. The two men crowded the small space, so Mary pulled back and stood aside, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

  When the men came out they were shaking their heads and saying nothing.

  “Simon?” Mary begged. “John?”

  But they began to walk away, each consumed by his own thought.

  Mary ran ahead and stood directly in front of Simon Peter. “What are you going to do about it?” she said. “How will we find his body?”

  Simon put his big face close to hers. She saw his jowls trembling. “Leave it alone!” he said. “Don’t you think we’re in enough danger already?” Then he walked away. John followed.

  Mary watched until they disappeared into the city and then, finally, she began to cry.

  No, Mary Magdalene was not strong again. She was weak and helpless and sad and desolate. An
d now that the tears had begun, she could not control herself at all. She went to the place where Mary Salome had broken her jar of myrrh. She knelt down and gathered the pieces and tried to fit them together again. But she couldn’t. She could hardly see. Weeping filled her vision with such a rain of sorrow, that all the world was blurred.

  She dropped the clay shards and howled like a small child lost. Yes, Mary is crazy again, and she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care.

  “Woman?”

  Someone was calling to her.

  “Woman?” It was a clear voice, breaking through the morning and the roaring in her head.

  “Woman,” it said, “why are you weeping?”

  Huffing with her sobs, Mary looked up and thought she saw the gardener coming.

  “Because they took my Lord away,” she sobbed, “and I don’t know where they put him.”

  The man said, “Who are you looking for?”

  “Oh, sir!” Mary said, rising up, “if you are the one who carried him off, tell me where he is and I’ll get him myself.”

  Now the man stopped directly in front of her—long, dark hair through her swim of tears. A white tunic. Clean-shaven.

  In a soft, familiar voice, the man said, “Oh, Mary.”

  She gasped.

  She looked and saw the beautiful forehead, the raven black hair of her dear Lord Jesus and his steadfast, golden gaze!

  “Rabboni!” she cried.

  “Hush, hush, child—hush.” Jesus placed a finger to his lips. “You cannot cling to me now,” he said. “I haven’t yet ascended to my Father. But go to my friends and tell them that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”

  Oh, yes, Mary Magdalene was very strong indeed, and swifter than the north wind blowing toward Jerusalem. She was fair and she was lovely now, her lips like a scarlet thread, her cheeks like halves of a pomegranate.