Ponder

PONDER
by Michelle Gott

I will never be the same again. I know. I am weary. The soles of my feet have blisters and my body feels downtrodden. My soul bears blisters too; my heart hurts. The tears have come unceasingly for days and the smell of fear and stench of death is on the wind. Blood, caked and dried, remains smattered in the dust and the mockery image of KING OF THE JEWS hangs like a plight on the wooden cross. They took his body sometime ago to a burial cave offered up by someone whom I don’t know, but that really isn’t any surprise. Jesus knew everyone; and everyone knew of him even though they may not have known him. The past tense cuts through me. I lost track of all his friends just as I lost track of him in the temple years ago when he was just a boy. The memory is bittersweet and fresh tears dry while a tired smile lingers on my parched lips. I didn’t have the energy to follow to this plot where they planned to put him. I heard them snicker about guarding his body from thieves. Who takes a dead body?! I mean, what lies in that purpose? Maybe I am just ashamed I don’t have a proper burial site for my son, just as all those years ago I was horrified I didn’t have a proper birthing place for him either.

That was another journey. That boy sure led me on many travels. All of his life was a journey, in fact. I haven’t been this exhausted since all those years ago; the memory again is bittersweet. I allow my feet to slip from beneath me as I slide down into the dirt, too weary to care how filthy I will be, my emotions too fragile to notice any longer the ache in my back and the afflictions on my feet. My head drops into my hands, and for just a moment, I am drawn back there, back to where it all began. I was just an average girl, loved by an adoring family; my whole future ahead of me, betrothed to ‘a good catch’, they liked to say.
Just then, I hear a noise beside me and the atmosphere shifts as I feel a presence settle close. Maybe I’ll pretend as if I am napping. No one would blame me, after all…But I hear his whisper, the son my son just gave me before he breathed his last breath, to care and look out for me. His name is John.

‘Are you doing okay?’ he sighs. ‘I’m not,’ he admits. ‘What are you thinking about?’ He is curious. He continues, ‘I thought he was the one; I still think he is the one who was promised. In fact, I know it is He! But how? Why this? I cannot comprehend how this can work out as he said. Something must have gone horribly wrong;’ he shakes his head sadly, ‘Maybe something he didn’t plan for.’

I open my eyes and I see the untold sadness dried upon his face. He was beloved to my son. His loss may be even greater than that of mine; the thought pierces my heart for him. ‘I’m remembering, son, how it all began,’ I say softly. ‘Would you like to hear the story?’ I ask as he nods, pools of emotion escaping his eyes. ‘Maybe it will ladle hope into your empty vessel,’ I give a mere sigh.

I begin. Not many know this. ‘My room lit up like the noonday sun had dropped in its center. At first, I was so afraid,’ I recall now as if it were yesterday. ‘This apparition materialized out of nowhere, like developed in the dark room, and suddenly, everything became so bright it hurt to look. The voice was all around me and even invaded inside of me. I was coaxed to not be fearful, yet I was. I was frightened and confused. But I am reminded now, I was also willing and obedient.

‘God! was it mystic to me! Why me? A teenage girl hidden in obscurity in the hills of a small dusty town, dreaming of my upcoming engagement to this dashing carpenter man who had just asked my father’s permission to, yes, marry me! Joseph was all I could think about! And suddenly this light falls on me; it fills me with favor, and I am made astonishingly aware that nothing will ever be the same again. I don’t know how but I am about to birth the son of the Most High God, and his name is to be Jesus, as it was foretold, and he will be great and will save the world from its recklessness. That’s what I am told: I am highly favored, and I will bear a son who will be Christ the Lord, who will save us from our sin.’ John has closed his eyes, and I’m unsure if he has fallen into a sleep, but the memory is on the tip of my tongue and needs sharing, so I continue.

‘And it was just as I had been told by the guardian of light. I believe now he was an angel, but I really didn’t know at the time. I could not go to anyone to ask. Who would believe an impoverished teenage girl like me…you will never believe this! a Messenger from God appeared in a dream to me and I bet you can never guess what He said?! I am to give birth to God’s Son, the one that our people have been waiting upon for centuries! Yep, that’s me whom God has chosen for that task…can you imagine?! I knew it would even be a stretch to confess to my mother.’ John still hasn’t moved but his eyelids rove as if he is watching a movie. Maybe he is imagining my story. ‘I can’t really tell you what I considered in my heart, son, but it wasn’t long before I began to change and it became verifiable that I was with child.’ The memory is humiliating still and my face feels heated inside out.

‘I lost everyone,’ I whisper. ‘No one stayed. Except Joseph, and later, I learned, that had a Messenger not appeared to him also, he intended to privately put me out.’ Tears spring to my eyes and my throat burns. A recollection of how Joseph had peered at me, scrutinizing, searching, flashes in my head. His disbelief betrayed who I hoped was to raise this Christ child with me. All of our lives we had been promised the Messiah. But, I get it, why would anyone believe it would be me who would be favored to bear the son of God?! I knew he didn’t believe me nor did anyone else. A raw inflection pricks me deeply; I bleed tears as I suddenly wish I had told my son I too had everyone I held dear turn their back on me and walk away. Just like everyone had just done as he hung dying on that tree. All except John, his beloved.

I could tell John about my cousin Elizabeth and about another man named John but that is almost too personal for me to speak aloud. He wouldn’t comprehend what it felt like to watch the confirmation fall across her face as her baby leapt inside her in recognition of the coming Christ. Or what it was to witness life spring from broken barrenness and timeworn truths. Or the depth of loss that does something to you, diminishes everything you once dreamed about and leaves you raw and removed and remade.

Just then, John opens one eye, and it glistens. He is listening and waiting. I continue, ‘That was the beginning of the census, so before I was able to give birth, Joseph took me so we could register. The journey was long and arduous. We meandered for many days, me on the back of a tired donkey bearing me as I am bearing the child. My body felt broken and bruised; my feet ached from the blisters. Along the journey, it came time for me to deliver the baby.’
John sits up straighter beside me suddenly, his eyes faraway, as if he sees something I cannot. He speaks quietly. ‘Do you realize that is what Jesus is to do for you and for me, for all the world, as it is written? He is to bear and deliver mankind from all its sin.’
His words stun me as a cold chill runs the length of my body. Gooseflesh dimples my skin. I ponder what John has spoken, and I hear me weeping as if I’m not present, but, rather, hovering over myself. I had the significant honor to bear and deliver the Savior of the world who would in turn bear my sin and deliver me from death into life. My son, who I gave life to, and now my life has cost him his death. The concept is too much for me to grasp.
John is scholarly; I remember that about him. He is still staring into the distance. ‘To bear means to bring, to lug, to carry or convey, to deliver. It also means to endure.’ He sighs and I watch the expression on his face turn dusty. ‘To not bear, is to shun or refuse or to throw away.’ John shakes his head as truth settles in both of our marrow. Silently, ‘He lugged me all the way to this moment and he endured all of this for me.’ His voice cracks and emotions pour from his eyes like watercolors in the rain. ‘Because he refused to throw me away like I deserved.’ I am rocked to my core by his words and he is as well by his own admission. Vehemently, John shakes his head and there is a rasping in his throat. The sound of humility is the quietest crashing I’ve heard. I dare not interrupt what Almighty God is revealing so I sit silently in my own reflection. Eventually, ‘Go on,’ he encourages. ‘Tell me what happened next.’

The years flood away, and suddenly there I am again, just a frightened child, in the cold, dark shadow of a forgotten barn. I was terrified and felt so alone; it seemed like such a mistake. I had so many trepidations. How can I tell John this reality? the King of kings and Prince of peace, is being birthed in a stable of hay and dirt; the Infinite Infant being swaddled in a cloud next to the braying of a mule and the bleeting of a lamb.
‘I believed the Messenger had been sent from God, and that I had carried God’s son, and he is surely arriving, but there wasn’t even room for him then.’ I sigh. ‘My poor son; he had a heavy weight he already bore before I could even bring him into this world. He was born to die.’ It steals my breath. I hold these thoughts close in my heart as I am transported back decades; it’s as if it were happening all over again. All my tomorrows are at once illuminated in this place.

The memory is both precious and painful. I would never be the same again. The imprint of those moments changed me forever, and I aged inside far beyond my years the night I looked upon my son, this Savior, for the first time. I didn’t perceive it then but, in my heart, I think, I was acquainted with what was to come. His hand so tiny yet someday it would hold all our troubles in its palm. It would host the nailprints where our sin would be buried. He would lug our shame; he would bring redemption to our stories. His shoulders, so small, but they would someday carry the pain we were not meant to carry alone. His cry would convey someday a plea for our rescue, and he would trade his life for mine and yours, as if he meant nothing and we mean everything. By the light of that brilliant star in the sky, I recall, his eyes sought mine; I saw the hope of all mankind staring back at me. My heart aches as I suddenly realize that night wasn’t the only time when this son of mine would find there was no room for him. I cannot breathe. It brings me back to reality and the present. I pretend it is the dust stirred from the activity at the foot of the criminals’ crosses. Both men were put to death on either side of Jesus and the crosses where they hang are being lowered to the ground. One had jeered my son; the other had wept and Jesus had spoken some of his last words to him.
I cough and it startles me out of my reverie. John stirs also. Just then, a murmur moves through the flock of curious onlookers who still remain, gossiping about the horrid event that had crucified my son. John stands, and then ever so gently, helps me to my feet. ‘Come,’ he commands.

I follow him to the base of the crosses where the crowd has grown. ‘Did you hear?’ a woman whispers, ‘He said to that one,’ and she points to one of the dead men, ‘”Today, you will be with me in Paradise.“‘ A chill runs my spine.

John takes my hand, tugging me with him. Once we are out of the curiosity of the people, he says in a hushed tone, ‘Did you see the faces on those dead men?’ Slowly I nod. I know he is thinking what I am thinking. Anguish shriveled the face of the one criminal, the one who had jeered and mocked my son. But the other man, well, he looked like he had just fallen asleep, so peaceful. ‘You don’t suppose, do you…?’

John doesn’t have to say anymore as I finish his thought. ‘That he had a divine appointment on that cross and met the Savior of the world and is now in Paradise?!’ John slowly nods and tears clot my vision. I can barely stand as the truth steeps inside. All the moments, all the memories, all the miracles, all the miles. The promise of a new day dawns where once a cross stood and I know I will never be the same again. I have come full circle, face to face, heart to heart with the Son of God Almighty, the Savior of the world.