Magdalene | a meditation

Magdalene glanced around the room one last time, checking to see that everything from the meal had been tidied up. The other women smiled at one another, knowing that this was Magdalene’s way. They’d washed the plates and cups, swept the floor for crumbs, and stacked things along the wall just as she’d asked, but she was always one to double-check.

 And sure enough, Magdalene went once more to look at the provisions for tomorrow morning’s meal. In the corner was stored a clay jar of salted fish, one of olives, a bit of bread, a good size piece of sheep’s milk cheese, and some dates. It wasn’t much, she thought, but it would do. She’d certainly need to go to the market tomorrow for provisions to see them through the Sabbath.

Before sitting down to rest her tired feet, Magdalene attended to the two oil lamps, shortening the wicks so as to dim the light. The evening felt strangely tense, with an almost brooding quality to the air, and she didn’t want to draw any attention to this room where they were to spend the coming days. Sinking down against the wall, Magdalene shivered and closed her eyes.

Then she heard it. Hurried footsteps coming up the stairs. Her eyes snapped open as the heavy door swung open and Andrew rushed breathlessly into the room.

“They’ve taken the teacher!” he panted. “They arrested him in the garden, and have taken him to the high priest!”  

“What? Where are the others? Did they take them too?”

“No, we fled back through the garden and all escaped. James and John aren’t far behind, and the others are making their way through the streets. They almost caught young Mark, but he twisted away when they caught hold of his tunic and escaped.” And then he paused. “Judas was with them.”

“With them?”

“With the temple police. He betrayed the teacher.”

As she pondered the weight of that statement, Magdalene watched as the others began to arrive, and soon most of them were there, huddling in fear. “Shorten the wick on that lamp,” said Thomas, “and blow out the other one. They’ll be looking for us.”

Nathaniel was the last to arrive, and he came with news that Peter had gone to the home of the high priest, to see what he could find out. “Oh Peter,” Magdalene thought to herself, “he called you his rock, but you so often just sink like a stone in the sea. Be careful, Peter. Be ever so careful.”

No one could sleep, no one could eat or drink, or even talk. What are they doing to him? What will happen to Peter, to us?

As the night wore on Magdalene dozed fitfully, wakened again and again by her stomach lurching at the memory of what was happening. As the sun began to rise she heard the sound of heavy footsteps coming slowly up the stairs. She stared at the door, afraid it would be a Roman soldier. But no, it was Peter. Poor Peter, his face tear-stained, his hair and beard bedraggled, his body looking as if he was carrying some enormous burden across his shoulders.

And he was. It was a burden far greater than anything he might have to lift or carry; it was a burden of sorrow, of guilt, of shame. He’d denied that he was one of the teacher’s followers, he’d denied being a Galilean, he’d denied even knowing the teacher. Just as the teacher had said he would, three times he had denied this man who he loved. As he told his story—as he spoke his confession—the tears streamed down his face, and when he was done Peter doubled over in wrenching sobs. Magdalene tried to console him, but he was inconsolable. “He told me I’d deny him, and I vowed I never would. And I did.”

No one had any appetite for the salted fish breakfast, and no one really knew what to do. James tentatively offered to go out to the streets to see if he could find out what was happening to the teacher, but his brother John just shook his head. “They’ll arrest you too,” he said. “I can’t bear to lose you.”

Magdalene looked at Mary, and Mary nodded. “We’ll go,” she said. They won’t be bothered with two women. We’ll take our market baskets with us, and just slip through the streets.” A few of the men looked for a moment as if they might object, but no one did. They knew that the women were right; that they could move unnoticed through the market and streets.

Picking up their baskets, the two women went down the stairs and hesitantly opened the door to the alley. There was a bustle of activity, as people made their way to and from the pre-Sabbath Day market, and it occurred to Magdalene that they’d not actually brought any money for the provisions their little group would need. “Later,” she thought to herself. “For now we need to find news of the teacher.” Busy as the market was, there was also a stream of people making their way in another direction. Magdalene stopped at one of the stalls, idly inspected the barrels of olives, and then asked the merchant where all those people were headed.

“To the Praetorium,” he replied. “They’ve got some back-country teacher on trial, and he’s raised quite a stir. Who knows why? He’s just some Galilean.”

The two women glanced at one another, and then turned and quietly folded into that procession of people moving toward the Praetorium. Ahead they could see a large building with what looked like an open courtyard, which had filled with a crowd of people. The pace of their group quickened, and then they heard the chanting of a mob: “Crucify him!” Magdalene looked at Mary with horror but said nothing. “Crucify him, crucify him, crucify him!”   

The narrow street was now so full of people that they could no longer even see the courtyard, so Magdalene took hold of Mary’s arm and pulled her to the side, to a small stone bench sitting by the door of one of the buildings. The two clambered on to the bench and looked. In the distance they could see him. Yes, it was him, it was the teacher. His hands were bound with rope, his head bowed, and even from a distance they could tell that he had been beaten. “Oh, save us,” Mary gasped. “Save him…”  

“Crucify him!”

And then crowd fell silent, and they could hear a voice coming across the distance. They couldn’t make out the words, couldn’t decipher the language, but the roar of approval that followed left them with no question. The teacher had been sentenced to die by crucifixion.

Climbing down from the bench, the two women hurried back to where the others were hidden, not daring—not able—to say so much as a word to one another. As they entered the room, every head turned toward them, every eye trained upon them. Magdalene drew a deep breath, swallowed, and then looked blankly at a spot high on the wall. “He’s been…” She paused and tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “He’s been sentenced to death on a cross.”

“Crucified?” thundered John. “But that’s reserved for zealots, rebels, and political criminals!”

“Yes,” replied his brother. “But maybe that’s what they think he is. And why not, with all of us singing hosanna last week as we came into the city, and all of his talk about the kingdom? Didn’t we all hope he really was the one anointed to turn out the Romans and re-establish the true kingdom of David? Didn’t you and I, John, want to be seated at his right and left hand in this kingdom of his? I believed it; I really did. But it doesn’t matter now, because once the Romans decide to clamp down and crucify a rebel, his followers are as good as done.”

“What are we going to do, then?” asked Bartholomew.

“Nothing,” said James. “There’s nothing to be done except to wait until it is safe to flee the city and hope we don’t get caught.”

Magdalene glanced over to where Peter was sitting on the floor and watched as his head slowly sunk till his chin rested on his chest. She paused, and then said, “I will go to where they will hang him on that cross, and if all I can do is watch and pray and let him know that we love him, then that is what I’ll do.”

“I will go with you,” said Mary.

“So will I,” said Salome.  

Silence held the room, as the others all glanced around at one another. It was Peter who broke the silence, as he raised his head, the tears again filling his eyes. “I will also go.”

The next voice was that of his brother Andrew. “No, you won’t. The women can go unnoticed; we know that now. But you? No. You’ll be recognized and arrested. It is time for us to go back home. Your wife needs you. Your children need you. Our father needs us both. It is time to go back to being Simon Bar-jonah; back to the fishing nets; back to the only life we really know. It is over. It is finished.”

Quiet murmurs and defeated nods of assent came from all around the room. Magdalene, Mary, and Salome picked up their baskets, and without saying another word headed out onto the street and made their way to the gate of the city, and beyond that to the Place of the Skull. By the time they arrived, it had already happened; bloodied and beaten, the teacher was hanging naked on the executioner’s cross.

All around were people who had come to watch the horrific spectacle. Some wept, some jeered and mocked, but most simply came to see this thing that the Romans had done yet again. One more dying Jew on one more cross outside of a city that seemed to be but a very faint reflection of what King David had dreamed it would be. A few merchants had even moved their stalls outside of the city walls, hoping to cash in on the opportunity for a few extra sales. “This is a hard city,” Magdalene whispered to Mary and Salome. “A hard, hard city.”

Magdalene would later say that it was difficult to begin to tell how long they stood there, watching, praying, weeping. Did the hours creep by, each heartbeat taking an eternity? Yes, but at the same time it all passed like a blur. At some point the sun itself darkened, right in the middle of the day, as if the very creation itself was in mourning. From where they stood they heard him cry out a few times, but couldn’t decipher his words. Finally, just as the sun began to emerge from its long, strange eclipse, they heard a clear cry: Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani? Someone nearby said, “Is he calling for Elijah?” but Magdalene knew. “He’s praying,” she said to the other two. “It is from a David psalm. I’ve heard him pray it before, always when things were hard. ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” The three women looked up toward the cross and watched as his head slumped forward and his whole body convulsed. “This time,” she added, “This time, I am afraid he really has been forsaken.”

When evening had come, and since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate wondered if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had been dead for some time. When he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the body to Joseph. Then Joseph bought a linen cloth, and taking down the body, wrapped it in the linen cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. He then rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where the body was laid. (Mark 15:42-47)