Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle/Chapter 40
CHAPTER XL.
AT Bethany nearly all the night had been spent in prayer. Not only were they overwhelmed with grief at the crucifixion of the Lord, but they feared also that other terrible events would follow. Lazarus was conscious that, in a humble way, he would have to travel in the footsteps of his Lord, and he was troubled with the thought of how the Master would wish him to proceed.
A little troop of friends and believers had visited him that night, and laid before him a plan for his escape, should his life be placed in peril; and it seemed to Lazarus that to leave Judæa would be his only way of continuing to testify to the wondrous miracles by which it had been proved beyond dispute that the Messiah had indeed visited the earth. Already steps were being taken by Caiaphas and Annas to prevent the scribes from making any records of these events; and, although those of the disciples who could write had assidiously noted day by day each event and word and act, still if, as was to be feared, they should be massacred, who could tell into whose hands their notes might fall, or how they might be altered and corrupted? To one who had once died, and knew a little of the world beyond the grave, death held fewer horrors than did life; therefore to leave his home and his beloved country, with all its tender memories, and thus preserve his life, would be to Lazarus a greater sacrifice than to lay it down.
With the first cold rays of the rising sun that stole into the room in which the three were seated with some of the disciples, their thoughts turned to the sepulchre, and they fell to reflecting how the sweet face looked after its first night of repose. With eager restlessness, Martha set about putting together the spices and essences she had prepared to take to the sepulchre that morning.
A hurried step was heard without the door, and the Magdalene, tired and flushed, but with exultation in her eyes, rushed in.
"The Lord is risen!" she cried. "The Lord is risen! Who then dare deny that He is God?"
Then, while the others pressed round to listen to her tale, Lazarus called to Peter and John, and said: "Let us hasten to the sepulchre, for I fear some artifice of the Romans. Therefore did they set a seal, to rob the Lord of a King's burial."
And so, still doubting,—as even the redeemed will doubt to the end of time, sitting in darkness and straining through the glass that they themselves have dimmed by superstition, by infidelity, by self-raised complications,—they hurried down the hill. Yes, Lazarus, who himself had risen, could barely accept the rising of the Lord.
The Magdalene called after them in vain. "Nay, if they had but stayed to hear my tale, they had not need to fear or hurry so," she said.
Then, when Mary and Martha and their household questioned her, she told them of her dismay when she had come to the sepulchre and found the body gone, and how, in the semi-darkness, she had not recognised the Lord, till she had heard His voice say: "Mary."
At the memory of this she fell upon her knees and cried out: "Who am I, who am I, that the Master should thus speak to me and say, 'Woman, why weepest thou?' Oh, Martha, where is now the sting of death, or the grave's bitterness? All life, henceforth, is one great truth, that riseth like a wall of strength against man's scheming wickedness."
And a great silence fell on all around, in the presence of the certainty of resurrection, the proof of a beyond.
Then, after a few moments, one voice after another clamoured for further details.
"What spake He unto thee?" asked one. "How looked He?"
"How can I tell thee?" answered Mary; "for words do fail me when I think of the love and beauty of that face that is always beautiful. I, in my foolishness, made as though I would clasp His feet in tenderness and love. But while I did so, He seemed to vanish from my touch, and in gentlest tones He said: 'Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to My Father: but go to My brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God.' And obediently and silently I came hither, according to His word, to tell the great news to the brethren and to the whole world, that the Christ is risen indeed."