Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI.
IT was about four o'clock in the morning when Martha was awaked from her sleep by Mary, who stood by her. Weary with the shortness of her rest, she stretched herself heavily; then, with the recollection of the sorrows of the preceding day, that came back to her with a rush, she sat up and, with a bewildered look, brushed back the dark tresses, now streaked with grey, from her forehead.
"I would not wake thee earlier, Martha," Mary said: "but this night I had a dream that Lazarus our brother was risen and stood by me, and thus spake to me: 'I am risen for the glory of God and to show forth His handiwork. '"
"Dost waken me for a dream, Mary?" asked Martha, somewhat fretfully. "Thou art tired and thy thoughts were full of our brother and of the longing for the miracle of his healing."
Nay, but I woke thee not for that alone," said Mary; "but because two messengers from the Lord wait below. The Lord cometh nigh to the city."
Martha stood up at last. This was indeed news calculated to stir her active mind and soothe the anxious craving of her restless heart.
"I will go forth and meet Him," she said, beginning to attire herself in haste. "I will go forth and entreat Him once more, for He can yet raise our brother."
"Nay, our brother did say, 'Entreat Him not,' " said Mary.
"Nevertheless, I will go and meet Him," retorted Martha, averse, as always, to anything that savoured of dictation. "Wilt not come too?"
Nay, I will sit and wait here for the Lord," said Mary, "or, maybe, I will carry flowers and spices to our brother's grave."
Then Martha rose, and with pale face, and eyes darkened and hollowed with weeping, stepped out amidst the grey shadows of early dawn to meet the Lord. She found Him surrounded by His little band of disciples, as ever the central figure, and on His face there was a look that Martha had never seen before. It expressed anguish, and, at the same time, a measure of exultation. His visage shone with a radiancy not wholly to be accounted for by the reflection of the rising sun, that was struggling feebly through the olive groves. With deepest sympathy and love He turned to Martha, and she, at sight of her Lord, strengthened and revived in faith, and realising all she had suffered by His absence, sank weary and humble and abased (as Martha seldom was) at His feet, and cried out in bitterness of soul: "Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died."
Peter, incensed at her reproach, exclaimed: "Who art thou, woman, that thy brother should live when all men die?"
But she, heedless of the warning words of Mary, heedless of the angry looks of the disciples, and with a return of faith and hope in the presence of the Saviour, went on: "But I know that, even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it Thee."
A look of joy came into the eyes of the Nazarene. In the midst of all the unbelief and scoffing and persecution of the world, the faith of this woman seemed a slight refreshment, a little solace, a little return for all the sacrifice; and, as if with sudden power from above, in prompt answer to her quickened faith, the voice of Jesus rose with inspiring force on the cool, unbreathed morning air: "Thy brother shall rise again."
Then, falling at His feet, fighting with herself to force submission to His will, Martha cried out: "I know, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day."
Surely she believed and trusted to the fullest extent of the Jewish law and her Pharisaical upbringing; but the vision that was hidden from her was Jesus the Nazarene as God, and resurrection on earth. It was too simple to believe. Then, once more, as if to test the faith of this true daughter of the Jews, the Nazarene spoke words which not only fell on those around, but seemed shed, like the fragrance of flowers, on the waves of the air placed in their keeping, to be wafted hither and thither throughout all space, forming into sweetest music, heralding like silver trumpets to the ages and generations yet to come, shaking the hills and making the valleys tremble, crying out through all the centuries of time, echoing and re-echoing from snow-bound mountain peaks, thundering forth across the storm-clouds, murmuring like summer zephyrs, and tossing from star to star, weeping like rain, bubbling forth in mountain torrent, burning in glowing nuclei of fire in the hearts of men—the message of life and peace and love eternal: "I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth on Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest thou this?"
And in deepest love, the battle with mistrust and doubting over, the longing for the restoration of her brother merged into meek submission to His will, she murmured: "Yea, Lord." Then, not knowing whether she really understood His words, went on: "I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God."
Then, she still kneeling in oblivious devotion at Jesus' feet, one of the disciples stepped forward, and touching her on the shoulder, said: "Hearest thou not? The Lord hath need of Mary. Bring her here."
At these words she rose and retraced her steps quickly along the road. The cool air, laden with the breath of awakening flowers, echoing with the music of the birds, rejoicing in the sun's promise of a glorious day, had given her physical support and courage, as the word of the Lord had soothed the agony of her heart and brought faith and resignation to soothe the torture of bereavement. It was with lightened step and smoother brow, with a smile of restored calm and hope, that she entered the garden Lazarus had loved. Already it and the porch and lower chambers were filled with Jews of all sects and classes, who had assembled once more to mourn with the late ruler's sisters. Some, too, had come from curiosity, to see whether the Nazarene had sent any message; others, in answer to offered bribes from Caiaphas.
To-day the wailing and chanting had a less mournful tone, as if to bring comfort to the bereaved ones:
"I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping. Thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down. My days are like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass. But thou, O Lord, shalt endure for ever; and Thy remembrance unto all generations. Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea, the set time, is come."
"Thou shalt arise, Thou shalt arise." What blessed prophetic message was that which greeted Martha on her return, and why did her heart leap within her and burn with strange excitement?
She paused at the entrance to the garden. It would not do to arouse the suspicious curiosity of the Jews by telling them that Jesus was waiting outside the little town. Drawing her veil over her face, and mingling with the crowd, she wended her way through the porch and across the tesselated court, where, out of deference to the dead, the small bubbling fountains had been stopped. She sought out her sister in her own private chamber. There, in sackcloth and ashes, with bowed head, praying lest her faith should die a moral death, sat Mary.
She started at Martha's voice calling in subdued hoarse tones: "Mary, Mary, the Master is come and calleth for thee."
Mary arose with feverish haste. She had expected this, so the message brought comfort but no wonder.
"He waiteth for thee just without the gates of the village," resumed Martha. "I know not why He calleth for thee, but there is that in His words and look that is like prophecy. I know not what hath come to me, but this day doth seem full of import, and I feel strangely comforted for the death of our dear brother."
"It is surely because thou hast been with the Lord, and He hath comforted thy soul," said Mary. Then, perceiving that the court was crowded with mourners, she whispered to Martha, nervously: "How shall we keep this crowd from following us?"
Then, with Eastern disregard for any privacy, with that gloating over horrors which is the characteristic of all the lowly classes throughout the world, the crowd of mourners, seeing the two women pass out silently and with veiled faces, murmured: "They go unto the grave to weep there." And, as if the sisters' grief was theirs, and the necessity of sustaining them with sympathy amounted to a religious law, they followed them.
Then, when the sisters took the opposite road to that which led to Lazarus's grave, they fell a-murmuring. Some said: "Their grief hath made them mad." Others, "Whither go they?" And one derisive voice said scoffingly: "Maybe that Lazarus is risen and they go forth to meet him." And so, murmuring, quarrelling, and wailing, the Jewish people followed the two women; till, O wonder unexpected and to be marvelled at indeed, they led them to the presence of the glorious Jesus! Impetuous as ever, fearing revenge or treachery, Peter sprang forward, as though to stay the crowd.
"Are ye mad, ye women?" he said impulsively, "to bring this crowd of unbelieving fools to the presence of our Lord? Do ye, too, now seek to slay Him because your brother Lazarus is dead?"
But Mary, conscious only that her Lord, the Messiah whom she loved, was there, near her once more, after these weeks of watching and waiting, fell down in adoration at His feet, echoing, but not in reproach, only in tender faith and love, the words of her sister: "Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died."
And, at sight of her great grief and faith, the Jews who stood around wept too, and once more through the olive groves resounded the wail of bitterness: "Look away from me, look away from me, for I will weep bitterly."
Then, in their half belief, reproaching Him, the Jews cried out: "If Thou hadst raised Lazarus we had believed."
No earthly pen would dare describe, no human heart can realise the sympathy and mingled grief of the Messiah. Surely never was the union of the Godhead and the Manhood in the person of the Christ more strongly manifested than at the death of Lazarus and the sorrow of his sisters. The grief of separation, the agony at having been absent, the sorrow of the two women He loved; all this was no less acute because as God He might have avoided it. But to do so would have been to set aside His manhood, to shirk the responsibilities of earthly life. It was as if the power of God had been for a brief moment laid aside, to let the griefs of manhood have their sway; nay, more, it was as if Satan had been allowed in these last hours to tempt the Messiah with a temptation that assailed alike His Godhead and His Manhood. What greater temptation to the Man than to use His God-given energy for the sake of human friendship? What to the God than to assert His power by one transcendent act? What more heartrending task than to wait in meek submission to God's will amidst the taunts of scoffing enemies and the tears of those beloved?
Jesus wept. Surely all earthly grief and desolation, the disillusion of friendship that has failed, the inability of expressing one's tenderness to those one loves, the general impotence of humanity, are forever comforted by those divine tears wrung forth from the aching heart of the sorrowing Saviour. Slowly they rolled down those troubled features on to the white garment, crystal drops of mingled purity and love; but they were not allowed to fall to earth.
Ever foremost in his devotion, John pressed forward and stayed them in their course, as though he would fain be washed in those pure waters. Yet one fell to earth, and, as it fell, a snow-white starry flower with seven points united by a tiny corona sprang into life.
But while the disciples were exclaiming at this wonder and trying to attract the attention of the bystanders to it, the cry went up: "Behold how He loved him." And others cried again, as so many had cried before: "Could not this Man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?"
The hour of temptation was fast passing away, the patient submission to God's will was near to its reward. The answer to the prayer of the Messiah was close at hand, His groanings and His trouble were about to have their fruit.
Gently, in a voice that reached only the two women, the Nazarene murmured: "Where have ye laid him?"
And the crowd, hoping and half believing that, at last, it was to see the miracle the nation had been expecting, howled and shrieked: "Show us Lazarus and we will believe.
Mary, in much humility, entreated the Lord to come and see the tomb where they had laid him.
Then, when the cry grew ever louder, "Show us Lazarus and it sufficeth us," Thomas approached the crowd and, raising his hand to still the tumult: "Men of Israel," he said, "wherefore call ye for Lazarus? Do ye not remember how our Lord spake in parables? How the rich man did call to Abraham from hell, and cried and prayed that Lazarus be sent unto his brothers from the dead, and how Abraham gave answer: "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead'?"
But they cried only the more: "Show us Lazarus, show us Lazarus," though the shouts were now less boisterous.
Then Thomas perceived that Jesus was already following the two women towards the tomb of Lazarus, and that half the crowd were already beginning to go after Him. Many faces he recognised amongst them, among others that of Nicodemus, eager and anxious. Presently he came up to Thomas.
"Why asketh He where they have laid Lazarus?" he inquired of the disciple. "Surely He knoweth all things?"
"Methinks it is lest the Jews should imagine that we have agreed upon some trickery, for they seek daily to destroy the Lord."
"Thinkest thou that He will raise Lazarus?" he continued.
"I know not; it seemeth like it; but who can tell?" And so, discussing, arguing, inquiring, bickering, the little band of Jews, that was growing every moment thicker as one passer-by after the other swelled its ranks, followed the two bereaved sisters, who showed the way to the Nazarene.
Who can tell what thoughts filled the soul of the God-Man? Thoughts of God, thoughts of friendship, thoughts of loving sympathy at the joy He was going to restore to the house at Bethany. Thoughts, perhaps, of His own death, which was soon to follow the resurrection of Lazarus.
They stood opposite to the grave now. It was a cave hewn from one single piece of rock, and at the entrance, hiding the ghastly sight, the corpse, hateful to the Jewish eyes as a thing defiled and unclean, stood the stone that Martha had insisted on having rolled in front of it at the words of Annas. From between the apertures came forth the sickly odour of frankincense and myrrh and other spices, with which the body had been embalmed.
In silent awe, the crowd ceased the cries that were some of taunt and some of praise, and the two women raised their eyes in sorrowing anxiety; while the Lord, groaning and weeping, stood by the grave, with eyes upturned to heaven. Meanwhile the multitude kept increasing, till half Jerusalem was there to witness the glory of the Lord.
Closed round the Lord, to keep Him from harm's way, stood the twelve, the traitor, Iscariot, on the outside. A little to the right were Mary and Martha, Mary just in front of Judas; behind them throngs of Jews, attired in many-coloured garbs of red and blue and white and purple, according to their rank or station.
The sun beat fiercely on their heads, for the glorious miracle of the world was to be enacted in the full light of day.
Presently Mary felt a clutching at her sleeve, and starting, half in terror, half in bewilderment at being thus roused from her reflections, she almost touched the hideous face of the traitor Judas, that was peering into hers.
"Dost not fear that, because of this, the Lord will die?"
Mystified by his words and still more at the look of mingled greed and craft and despair upon his face, Mary stepped forward to bring herself away from him. But he thrust out his head and hissed: "If Lazarus doth live again, then surely will Jesus die. His blood be upon thee and Martha, and upon thy children and thy children's children."
Terrified and amazed at this uncalled-for curse, Mary was about to make reply, when, brief and terse, the voice of the Messiah gave command: "Take ye away the stone." And He pointed with his finger to the grave.
The hour was come. But a few moments longer would the veil be stretched between the power of God and the belief of man. The air seemed freighted with portentous marvels, each heart palpitating with suspense.
The disciples sprang forward to obey; yet, even now, the voice of unbelieving common-sense, of faithlessness, of law-bound argument, sounded from Martha's lips. In horror and no simulated terror, she shrank from the dread sight she feared would meet her eyes.
"Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days."
With a gleam almost of indignation at her want of belief, her worldly clinging to the social rites and conventionalities of Jewish custom, yet able still to tolerate the iron-bound limits of man's narrowness, the Nazarene fixed His full gaze upon her.
"Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God?"
Then, as the breeze chases a faint ripple from wavelet to wavelet, there rose a murmur through the multitude: "Verily He will raise him."
Then the disciples rolled away the stone, and the restlessness of the crowd increased; they were ready to burst into shouts of praise or fall in adoring worship; but the impulse was restrained by gestures from the disciples entreating peace.
In the glorious splendour of that Eastern sun, that glowed with an added brilliancy, as if in expectation of the stupendous miracle that was to be performed, the Saviour stood. Unabashed, unflinching, beneath its scorching rays, with eyes that seemed to pierce, like eagles, through the circles of blazing light beyond, even to the very throne of truth itself, to the feet of the Eternal I Am, the Christ uplifted His fair head to heaven; and at that moment forked tongues of fire, silvery and golden, like the sun dancing on waves, or a shower of gold, played round about His head. Then the Saviour of the world upraised His voice in prayer to Heaven, in accents of such certainty of answer, such oneness of communion with the Father, as could leave no doubt within the hearts of men!
"Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me. And I knew that Thou hearest Me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me."
There was a momentary silence, while the crowd, believing now, without a doubt, that this was indeed the Christ, stood also with eyes upturned to heaven, waiting, expecting, for they knew not what; each weaving in his own fancy the next act of this colossal drama. Then, in a voice that thundered, as though calling across endless æons of years and days, and floating across the waves of time and of eternity, beyond the bounds of heaven and hell, Jesus gave forth those words that ranked Him God: "Lazarus, come forth! "