John/Galilee Bridge
Section 3A — The Message Reaches the Burial Witnesses
The resurrection message moved through Jerusalem by people.
Not by proclamation in the Temple courts.
Not by a herald standing at a city gate.
Not yet.
It moved from one frightened room to another.
From one household to another.
From one person who had seen something to another person who needed to know.
Mary Magdalene carried it first with the urgency of someone who had no way to make the words sound ordinary.
I saw the Lord.
The sentence was enough to make people stop whatever they were doing.
It was not enough to answer their questions.
Where?
When?
Was He wounded?
Did He speak?
Did He eat?
Was He different?
Was it truly His body?
Had He said anything about Galilee?
Mary answered what she knew.
She did not answer what she did not.
John noticed that.
The witnesses did not all carry the same information.
Mary had the garden.
Peter had something private.
The gathered disciples had the shut room.
Thomas had the wounds.
The women had the angelic message and the repeated direction toward Galilee.
The testimony was growing by accumulation.
Not by one person pretending to have been everywhere.
* * *
Mary Magdalene found Jesus’ mother among those who had remained near the disciples in Jerusalem.
The older Mary knew something had happened before a word was spoken.
She saw it in Mary’s face.
Not relief exactly.
Not yet.
Something too large for relief.
The younger woman crossed the room quickly.
Then stopped.
For one heartbeat she looked as though she did not know whether to laugh or weep.
Jesus’ mother stood.
Mary Magdalene took both of her hands.
“I saw Him.”
The mother did not move.
Mary’s fingers tightened around hers.
“I saw your Son.”
Silence.
“He is alive.”
The mother’s head bowed.
Her shoulders trembled once.
Mary Magdalene moved closer and held her.
For a while neither woman spoke.
There are kinds of joy that enter through the same door grief has been using.
They do not erase the grief immediately.
They overwhelm it.
Jesus’ mother had watched her Son die.
She had stood near enough to hear Him speak from the cross.
She had watched men remove His body.
She knew what death looked like.
Now another woman was holding her and saying:
Alive.
Mary Magdalene drew back.
Jesus’ mother looked at her face as though searching it for any sign that hope had become reckless.
“You saw Him?”
“Yes.”
“Not only the tomb?”
“No.”
“Him?”
“Yes.”
“He spoke to you?”
Mary Magdalene laughed through tears.
“He said my name.”
The mother closed her eyes.
Mary continued.
“I thought He was the gardener.”
The older Mary opened her eyes again.
“The gardener?”
“I was crying.”
“That is apparently a very dangerous condition for recognizing people.”
Mary Magdalene stared.
Then the older Mary smiled.
The younger woman laughed.
The laughter lasted only a moment before tears returned.
“He said, ‘Mary.’”
The mother’s face softened.
“He always did know how to make one word carry too much.”
Mary Magdalene nodded.
“He told me He had not yet ascended to His Father.”
The mother grew still.
“Not yet.”
“No.”
“And He sent you?”
“Yes.”
“To His brethren.”
The mother’s eyes filled again.
“His brethren.”
Mary nodded.
“He called them that.”
The mother sat slowly.
Peter.
John.
James.
The others.
Men who had scattered.
Men who had failed.
Brethren.
Mercy had crossed the grave before accusation did.
Mary Magdalene sat beside her.
“There was also Galilee.”
The older woman looked up.
“The message again?”
“Yes.”
Mary nodded slowly.
She had heard the promise before.
After I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.
She looked toward the north as though Jerusalem’s walls had become transparent.
Then another thought struck her.
“Nicodemus.”
Mary Magdalene blinked.
“He will need to know.”
A pause.
“And Joseph.”
“Yes.”
Joseph had given Jesus his tomb.
Nicodemus had filled that tomb with fragrance.
Both men had believed they were performing their final service to Jesus.
Neither man was going to miss the news that the tomb had failed.
* * *
Joseph of Arimathea received the report seated.
Nicodemus did not.
Mary Magdalene had barely finished the first sentence before the older teacher stood.
“He is alive?”
“Yes.”
“You saw Him?”
“Yes.”
“With your own eyes?”
Mary nodded.
“Spoke with Him?”
“Yes.”
Joseph sat very still.
Nicodemus took two steps away.
Stopped.
Turned back.
“The Psalm…”
Joseph looked at him.
Nicodemus shook his head.
“No. Isaiah.”
Then:
“The serpent.”
Joseph frowned.
“What serpent?”
Nicodemus held up one hand.
“Not yet.”
“Not yet what?”
“I do not know.”
Joseph considered him.
“That is unusually honest.”
Nicodemus almost laughed.
Then the laughter failed before it formed.
His mouth tightened.
He looked away.
“I thought…”
The sentence stopped in his throat.
Mary Magdalene watched him try again.
“I thought I would never speak to Him again.”
Joseph’s expression softened.
Nicodemus wiped beneath one eye, annoyed to discover moisture there.
“There were things I wanted to ask.”
Joseph put a hand on his shoulder.
“Apparently you still can.”
That possibility seemed to undo Nicodemus more completely than grief had.
He laughed once.
Then again.
The second laugh turned into tears.
“I buried the man I had been waiting for my entire life.”
Joseph said nothing.
“I helped wrap Him.”
Another breath.
“I thought my questions had died with Him.”
Joseph squeezed his shoulder.
“Then perhaps Galilee will be inconveniently long.”
Nicodemus laughed through tears.
Mary Magdalene smiled.
Joseph looked toward her.
“What did He say?”
Mary repeated what she could.
Her name.
The Father.
The brethren.
Galilee.
Nicodemus began pacing.
Joseph watched him cross the room once.
Twice.
At the third turn Joseph said:
“You are doing it again.”
Nicodemus stopped.
“I am thinking.”
“You think with your mouth.”
Nicodemus looked offended.
“It is efficient.”
Mary Magdalene laughed.
The old teacher turned toward her.
“I am pleased someone appreciates scholarship.”
Joseph smiled.
“She is laughing at you.”
Nicodemus considered.
“That is less encouraging.”
* * *
The resurrection had done something strange to Nicodemus.
Before the cross he had been careful enough to hide behind questions.
He had come to Jesus at night.
He measured words.
He turned thoughts over privately before allowing anyone else to know what he was thinking.
At Golgotha that reserve had begun to crack.
He had watched things happen that Scripture seemed to recognize before he did.
The sign over Jesus.
The wounds.
The garments.
The bones not broken.
The rich man beside him preparing a tomb.
Fragments had begun colliding in his mind faster than dignity could contain them.
Now the report of resurrection finished what grief had started.
Nicodemus could not sit still.
He moved.
Stopped.
Quoted half a verse.
Forgot what verse he was quoting because another had appeared behind it.
He laughed.
Then cried because he was laughing.
Then became irritated because he was crying.
Joseph watched him with increasing amusement.
“At some point,” Joseph said, “you will have to breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“Not consistently.”
Nicodemus ignored him.
“Mary.”
Mary Magdalene looked up.
“When He spoke to you…”
“Yes?”
“Did He look…”
Nicodemus stopped.
There was no elegant way to ask the question.
Mary understood anyway.
“Wounded?”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
Nicodemus’s face changed.
“The same body.”
“Yes.”
Joseph looked toward the floor.
Mary continued.
“I did not touch the wounds.”
“I know.”
“But it was Him.”
Joseph looked up again.
“The body we buried.”
Mary held his eyes.
“Yes.”
Joseph’s jaw tightened.
He turned his face slightly away.
Nicodemus stopped pacing.
Neither man spoke for several moments.
They had carried that body.
They knew its weight.
They knew the stiffness beginning.
They knew the wounds.
The blood.
The burial cloth.
The amount of spice placed around Him.
They knew exactly what condition Jesus had been in when the stone closed.
Mary was not telling two men unfamiliar with death that something surprising had happened.
She was telling the men who had handled the corpse.
Alive.
Joseph laughed once under his breath.
Nicodemus looked at him.
“What?”
Joseph shook his head.
“I gave Him a new tomb.”
Nicodemus waited.
Joseph’s mouth pulled into a smile.
“Apparently He did not intend to keep it.”
Nicodemus laughed.
The laughter broke something open in Joseph too.
For the first time since Golgotha, John would later hear the rich man tell the story without sounding as though every word had to climb over grief.
* * *