Joel: A Boy of Galilee Part 12

Now He stands before the High Priest,--alone, unfriended. Sleep, and wake not at the c.o.c.k's shrill crowing, for there is none to make answer for Him, and one who loved Him hath thrice denied!

Dream on! In the hall of Pilate now, thorn-crowned and purple-clad, Him whom thou lovest; scourged now, and spat upon. This day, indeed, shall He come into His kingdom, but well for thee, that thou seest not the coronation.

Sleep on, little disciple, be happy whilst thou can!

CHAPTER XVII.

IT was so much later than he had intended, when Joel awoke next morning, that without stopping for anything to eat, he hurried out of the city, and took the road by which the Master had made such a triumphal entry a few days before.

Faded branches of palms still lay scattered by the wayside, thickly covered with dust.

All unconscious of what had happened the night before, and what was even at that very moment taking place, Joel trudged on to Bethany at a rapid pace, light-hearted and happy.

For six days he had been among enthusiastic Galileans who firmly believed that before the end of Pa.s.sover week they should see the overthrow of Rome, and all nations lying at the feet of a Jewish king. How long they had dreamed of this hour!

He turned to look back at the city. The white and gold of the Temple dazzled his eyes, as it threw back the rays of the morning sun. He thought of himself as he had stood that day on the roof of the carpenter's house, stretching out longing arms to this holy place, and calling down curses on the head of his enemy, Rehum.

Could he be the same boy? It seemed to him now that that poor, crippled body, that bitter hatred, that burning thirst for revenge, must have belonged to some one else, he felt so well, so strong, so full of love to G.o.d and all mankind.

A little broken-winged sparrow fluttered feebly under a hedgerow. He stopped to gather a handful of ripe berries for it, and even retraced his steps to a tiny spring he had noticed farther back, to bring it water in the hollow of a smooth stone.

He did not find Rehum at the place where Buz had told him to inquire. His father had taken him to his home, somewhere in Samaria.

Joel turned back, tired and disappointed. He was glad to lie down, when he reached Bethany again, and rest awhile. A peculiar darkness began to settle down over the earth. Joel was perplexed and frightened; he knew it could not be an eclipse, for it was the time of the full moon. Finally he started back to Jerusalem, although it was like travelling in the night, for the darkness had deepened and deepened for nearly three hours, and the mysterious gloom made him long to be with his friends.

His first thought was to find the Master, and he naturally turned toward the Temple. Just as he started across the Porch of Solomon, the darkness was lifted, and everything seemed to dance before his eyes. He had never experienced an earthquake shock before, but he felt sure that this was one.

He braced himself against one of the pillars. How the ma.s.sive columns quivered! How the hot air throbbed! The darkness had been awful, but this was doubly terrifying.

The earth had scarcely stopped trembling, when an old white-bearded priest ran across the Court of the Gentiles; his wrinkled hands, raised above his head, shook as with palsy. The scream that he uttered seemed to transfix Joel with horror.

"The veil of the Temple is rent in twain!" he cried,--"The veil of the Temple is rent in twain!"

Then with a convulsive shudder he fell forward on his face. Joel's knees shook. The darkness, the earthquake, and now this mighty force that had laid bare the Holy of Holies, filled him with an undefined dread.

He ran past the prostrate priest into the inner court, and saw for himself. There hung the heavy curtain of Babylonian tapestry, in all its glory of hyacinth and scarlet and purple, torn asunder from top to bottom. No earthquake shock could have made that ragged gash. The wrath of G.o.d must have come down and laid mighty fingers upon it.

He ran out of the Temple, and towards the house where he had slept the night before.

The earthquake seemed to have shaken all Jerusalem into the streets. Strange words were afloat. A question overheard in pa.s.sing one excited group, an exclamation in another, made him run the faster.

At Reuben's shop he found Jesse and Ruth both crying from fright. The attendant who had them in charge told him that his friends had been gone nearly all day.

"Where?" demanded Joel.

"I do not know exactly. They went out with one of the greatest mult.i.tudes that ever pa.s.sed through the gates of the city. Not only Jews, but Greeks and Romans and Egyptians. You should have seen the camels and the chariots, the chairs and the litters!" exclaimed the man.

A sudden fear fell upon the boy that this was the day that the One he loved best had been made king, and he had missed it,--had missed the greatest opportunity of his life.

"Was it to follow Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth?" he demanded eagerly.

The man nodded.

"To crown Him?" was the next breathless question.

"No; to crucify Him."

The unexpected answer was almost a death-thrust. Joel stood a moment, dumb with horror. The blood seemed to stand still in his veins; there was a roaring in his ears; then everything grew black before him. He clutched blindly at the air, then staggered back against the wall.

"No, no, no, NO!" he cried; each word was louder than the last. "I will not believe it! You do not speak truth!"

He ran madly from the shop, down the street, and through the city gate. Out on the highway he met the returning mult.i.tude, most of them in as great haste as he.

Everything he saw seemed to confirm the truth of what he had just heard, but he could not believe it.

"No, no, no!" he gasped, in a breathless whisper, as he ran. "No, no, no! It cannot be! He is the Christ! The Son of G.o.d! They could not be able to do it, no matter how much they hated Him!"

But even as he ran he saw the hill where three crosses rose. He turned sick and cold, and so weak he could scarcely stand. Still he stumbled resolutely on, but with his face turned away from the sight he dared not look upon, lest seeing should be knowing what he feared.

At last he reached the place, and, shrinking back as if from an expected blow, he slowly raised his eyes till they rested on the face of the dead body hanging there.

The agonized shriek on his lips died half uttered, as he fell unconscious at the foot of the cross.

A long time after, one of the soldiers happening to notice him, turned him over with his foot, and prodded him sharply with his spear. It partially aroused him, and in a few moments he sat up. Then he looked up again into the white face above him; but this time the bowed head awed him into a deep calm.

The veil of the Temple was rent indeed, and through this pierced body there shone out from its Holy of Holies the Shekinah of G.o.d's love for a dying world. It uplifted Joel, and drew him, and drew him, till he seemed to catch a faint glimpse of the Father's face; to feel himself folded in boundless pardon, in pity so deep, and a love so unfathomed, that the lowest sinner could find a share. But while he gazed and gazed into the white face, so glorified in its marble stillness, Joseph of Arimathea stood between him and the cross, giving directions, in a low tone, for the removal of the body.

It seemed to waken Joel out of his trance; and when the bloodstained form was stretched gently on the ground, he forgot his glimpse of heavenly mysteries, he saw no longer the uplifted Christ. He saw instead, the tortured body of the man he loved; the friend for whom he would gladly have given his life.

Almost blinded by the rush of tears, he groped his way on his knees toward it. A mantle of fine white linen had been laid over the lifeless body; but one hand lay stretched out beside Him with a great b.l.o.o.d.y nail-hole through the palm,--it was the hand that had healed him; the hand that had fed the hungry mult.i.tudes; the hand that had been laid in blessing on the heads of little children, waiting by the roadside! With the thought of all it had done for him, with the thought of all it had done for all the countless ones its warm, loving touch had comforted, came the remembrance of the torture it had just suffered. Joel lay down beside it with a heart-broken moan.

Men came and lifted the body in its spotless covering. Joel did not look up to see who bore it away.

The lifeless hand still hung down uncovered at His side. With his eyes fixed on that, Joel followed, longing to press it to his lips with burning kisses; but he dared not so much as touch it with trembling fingers,--a sense of his unworthiness forbade.

As the silent procession went onward, Joel found himself walking beside Abigail. She had pushed her veil aside that she might better see the still form borne before them; she had stood near by through all those hours of suffering. Her wan face and swollen eyes showed how the force of her sympathy and grief had worn upon her.

Joel glanced around for Phineas. He was one of those who walked before with the motionless burden, his strong brown hands tenderly supporting the Master's pierced feet; his face was as rigid as stone, and seemed to Joel to have grown years older since the night before.

Another swift rush of tears blinded Joel, as he looked at the set, despairing face, and then at what he carried.

O friend of Phineas! O feet that often ran to meet him on the gra.s.sy hillsides of Nazareth, that walked beside him at his daily toil, and led him to a n.o.bler living!--Thou hast climbed the mountain of Beat.i.tudes! Thou hast walked the wind-swept waters of the Galilee! But not of this is he thinking now. It is of Thy life's unselfish pilgrimage; of the dust and travel stains of the feet he bears; of the many steps, taken never for self, always for others; of the cure and the comfort they have daily carried; of the great love that hath made their very pa.s.sing by to be a benediction.

It seemed strange to Joel that, in the midst of such overpowering sorrow, trivial little things could claim his attention. Years afterward he remembered just how the long streaks of yellow sunshine stole under the trees of the garden; he could hear the whirr of gra.s.shoppers, jumping up in the path ahead of them; he could smell the heavy odor of lilies growing beside an old tomb.

The sorrowful little group wound its way to a part of the garden where a new tomb had been hewn out of the rock; here Joseph of Arimathea motioned them to stop. They laid the open bier gently on the ground, and Joel watched them with dry eyes but trembling lips, as they noiselessly prepared the body for its hurried burial.

From time to time as they wound the bands of white linen, powdered with myrrh and aloes, they glanced up nervously at the sinking sun. The Sabbath eve was almost upon them, and the old slavish fear of the Law made them hasten. A low stifled moaning rose from the lips of the women, as the One they had followed so long was lifted up, and borne forever out of their sight, through the low doorway of the tomb.

Strong hands rolled the ma.s.sive stone in place that barred the narrow opening. Then all was over; there was nothing more that could be done.

The desolate mourners sat down on the gra.s.s outside the tomb, to watch and weep and wait over a dead hope and a lost cause.

A deep stillness settled over the garden as they lingered there in the gathering twilight. They grew calm after awhile, and began to talk in low tones of the awful events of the day just dying.

Gradually, Joel learned all that had taken place. As he heard the story of the shame and abuse and torture that had been heaped upon the One he loved better than all the world, his face grew white with horror and indignation.

"Oh, wasn't there one to stand up for Him?" he cried, with clasped hands and streaming eyes. "Wasn't there one to speak a word in His defence? O my Beloved!" he moaned. "Out of all the thousands Thou didst heal, out of all the mult.i.tudes Thou didst bless, not one to bear witness!"

He rocked himself to and fro on his knees, wringing his hands as if the thought brought him unspeakable anguish.

"Oh, if I had only been there!" he moaned. "If I could only have stood up beside Him and told what He had done for me! O my G.o.d! My G.o.d! How can I bear it? To think He went to His death without a friend and without a follower, when I loved Him so! All alone! Not one to speak for Him, not one!"

Groping with tear-blinded eyes towards the tomb, the boy stretched his arms lovingly around the great stone that stopped its entrance; then suddenly realizing that he could never go any closer to the One inside, never see Him again, he leaned his head hopelessly against the rock, and gave way to his feeling of utter loneliness and despair.

How long he stood there, he did not know. When he looked up again, the women had gone, and it was nearly dark. Phineas and several other men lingered in the black shadows of the trees, and Joel joined them.

Roman guards came presently. A stout cord was stretched across the stone, its ends firmly fastened, and sealed with the seal of Caesar. A watch-fire was kindled near by; then the Roman sentinels began their steady tramp! tramp! as they paced back and forth.

High overhead the stars began to set their countless watch-fires in the heavens; then the white full moon of the Pa.s.sover looked down, and all night long kept its silent vigil over the forsaken tomb of the sleeping Christ.

Abigail had found shelter for the night with friends, in a tent just outside the city; but Joel and Phineas took their way back to Bethany.

Little was said as they trudged along in the moonlight. Joel thought only of one thing,--his great loss, the love of which he had been bereft. But to Phineas this death meant much more than the separation from the best of friends; it meant the death of a cause on which he had staked his all. He must go back to Galilee to be the laughing-stock of his old neighbors. He who they trusted would have saved Israel had been put to death as a felon,--crucified between two thieves! The cause was lost; he was left to face an utter failure.

When the moon went down that morning over the hills of Judea, there were many hearts that mourned the Man of Nazareth, but not a soul in all the universe believed on Him as the Son of G.o.d.

Hope lay dead in the tomb of Joseph, with a great stone forever walling it in.

CHAPTER XVIII.

"WAKE up, Joel! Wake up! I bring you good tidings, my lad!" It was Abigail's voice ringing cheerily through the court-yard, as she bent over the boy, fast asleep on the hard stones.

All the long Sabbath day after the burial, he had sat listlessly in the shady court-yard, his blank gaze fixed on the opposite wall. No one seemed able to arouse him from his apathy. He turned away from the food they brought him, and refused to enter the house when night came.

Towards morning he had gone over to the fountain for a long draught of its cool water; then overcome by weakness from his continued fast, and exhausted by grief, he fell asleep on the pavement.

Abigail came in and found him there, with the red morning sun beating full in his face. She had to shake him several times before she could make him open his eyes.

He sat up dizzily, and tried to collect his thoughts. Then he remembered, and laid his head wearily down again, with a groan.

"Wake up! Wake up!" she insisted, with such eager gladness in her voice that Joel opened his eyes again, now fully aroused.

"What is it?" he asked indifferently.

"He is risen!" she exclaimed joyfully, clasping her hands as she always did when much excited. "I went to His tomb very early in the morning, while it was yet dark, with Mary and Salome and some other women. The stone had been rolled aside; and while we wondered and wept, fearing His enemies had stolen Him away, He stood before us, with His old greeting on His lips,--'All hail!'"

Joel rubbed his eyes and looked at her. "No, no!" he said wearily, "I am dreaming again!"

He would have thrown himself on the ground as before, his head pillowed on his arm, but she would not let him. She shook his hands with a persistence that could not be refused, talking to him all the while in such a glad eager voice that he slowly began to realize that something had made her very happy.

"What is it, Mother Abigail?" he asked, much puzzled.

"I do not wonder you are bewildered," she cried. "It is such blessed, such wonderful news. Why He is alive, Joel, He whom Thou lovest! Try to understand it, my boy! I have just now come from the empty tomb. I saw Him! I spoke with Him! I knelt at His feet and worshipped!"

By this time all the family had come out. Reuben looked at his daughter pityingly, as she repeated her news; then he turned to Phineas.

"Poor thing!" he said, in a low tone. "She has witnessed such terrible scenes lately, and received such a severe shock, that her mind is affected by it. She does not know what she is saying. Did not you yourself help prepare the body for burial, and put it in the tomb?"

"Yes," answered Phineas, "and helped close it with a great stone, which no one man could possibly move by himself. And I saw it sealed with the seal of Caesar; and when I left it was guarded by Roman sentinels in armor. No man could have opened it."

"But Abigail talks of angels who sat in the empty tomb, and who told them He had risen," replied her father.

Joel, who had overheard this low-toned conversation, got up and stood close beside them. He had begun to tremble from weakness and excitement.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'THE STONE IS GONE!'"]

"Father Phineas," he asked, "do you remember the story we heard from the old shepherd, Heber? The angels told of His birth; maybe she did see them in His tomb."

"How can such things be?" queried Reuben, stroking his beard in perplexity.

"That's just what you said when Rabbi Lazarus was brought back to life," piped Jesse's shrill voice, quite unexpectedly, at his grandfather's elbow. He had not lost a word of the conversation. "Why don't you go and see for yourself if the tomb is empty?"

Abigail had gone into the house with her mother, and now the summons to breakfast greeted them. She saw she could not convince them of the truth of her story, so she said no more about it; but her happy face was more eloquent than words.

All day s.n.a.t.c.hes of song kept rising to her lips,--old psalms of thanksgiving, and half whispered hallelujahs. At last Joel and Phineas were both so much affected by her continued cheerfulness, that they began to believe there must be some great cause for it.

Finally, in the waning afternoon, they took the road that led from Bethany to the garden where they firmly believed that the Master still lay buried.

As they came in sight of the tomb, Joel clutched Phineas by the arm, and pointed, with a shaking finger, to the dark opening ahead of of them.