Good Fridays - Mary's Story

You have to remember that while you probably think about him at the end, hanging there on the cross, I always think of him as my son. He was the first of our children, so everything about being a parent was new to us - when he was born we had no idea if we were doing it right, we just sort of made it up as we went! Actually everything was a bit like that - no-one told us how to bring him up right, we just did what seemed like a good idea. There are some moments that stick in my mind, like when he took his first steps or said his first words (he said 'Mummy' in case you're wondering). I remember the time when he was three that he fell down some steps into the street - he came this close to going under a horse's hooves, but somehow he didn't get hurt too much. Just imagine how I'd have felt if he went under though - the son of God squished by a horse while I was supposed to be looking after him! The thing about being a parent is you have all those 'nearly' moments and they nearly stop your heart because you love your son or your daughter so completely in a way you just can't explain. Every day of his life I loved him like that.

He was my son, but I always knew he was more than that. My first clue was the angels proclaiming his coming birth... There was always this sense that yes he was a normal, average boy, but yes he was something else as well. He loved to listen to the scriptures as much as I loved him I think, and trust me, not every boy his age was like that! He loved it so much that one time we ended up leaving him behind in the temple. He stayed listening and learning, and lost track of time or something. I panicked for three days until we found him again, and I've never really forgiven myself for leaving him behind I think. In a lot of ways I could have been a better mum, but like I say, I always loved him.

Anyway, you want to hear the end, not the beginning. It started with what they call the 'Triumphal Entry'. One of the things about him is you can never quite tell what he's thinking, or at least not all of what he's thinking. For the three years before this he would always try to keep things quiet, when he healed people he'd often tell them not to tell people who he was, and he never really came out and said, "I'm the Messiah by the way." So when he told his disciples to get a donkey and rode into Jerusalem on it it was a little surprising - you might not realise it but this was like holding up a big sign with ,"I'm the Messiah by the way. This is me, coming in on a donkey." on it. I was so proud of him, and of seeing other people begin to 'get it', begin to understand who he was. When that crowd started waving the palm leaves and laying their coats down in front of him there was something about it which just felt right, and who wouldn't like to see their son do well after all?Of course, you know that crowd didn't stay long. Even two hours later most of them seemed to have forgotten what they'd just done - I'll never understand how people can go from worship to apathy so quickly. Actually, I'd have settled for apathy instead of the hate that came later. Apathy wouldn't have betrayed him, apathy wouldn't have beaten him, or lied about him, or crucified him. I wasn't there when they arrested my son (there's another thing I feel bad about). The first I knew was when I got a text from John, "Jesus arrested,I'll find you." I didn't know what to do, I didn't even know who had arrested him or where they would have taken him. So, I just stood there, feeling like the world was ending.

Eventually John did find me, and somehow he got us into to the high priest's place. I think this was the first time I really saw the hate coming from their hearts. It filled the room, like the smoke from a fire seeping into every part of a house, carrying that stench, contaminating everything it touches. It was just pouring out of them, as they pushed him and punched him and accused him and lied about him.

They called it a trial but there was no truth there - they'd already decided the verdict and the sentence in their hearts. They called themselves the high priests, but they couldn't, wouldn't see God standing there in front of them. My son, God's son, was too much of a threat to their status, an uncontrollable Messiah who would ruin everything for them.

They knew they couldn't kill him without provoking the Romans, so they dragged him before Pilate to do their dirty work for them. Pilate tried to be an honest man, but I think he was torn between truth and politics. In the end politics won, and as he washed his hands in front of us I tried hard not to hate him for condemning my Jesus. Later, Jesus said, "Forgive them Father, they don't know what they're doing." I'm still tempted to hate Pilate, and the High Priests, and the soldiers who murdered my son, but I remember those words and I pray for them instead.

I wish I could forget all the things that came after this. I watched as my son was chained to a post and beaten with rods by those thugs who pass for soldiers. I watched him wince with every blow, but never break. I heard them laugh as they turned his flesh to pulp with every strike. I watched as they moved on from the rod to the scourge - you've probably never seen one, but they're evil things. It's a whip with nine tails, and in every tail there are bones, stones and hooks designed to tear the skin from the body. They flayed him and I watched as they broke through skin, with blood spraying on to the stones beneath him. I watched as they broke through muscle, and ripped it away from his back. I saw the bones of his back appear, as my son became a piece of meat in front of me.Finally they stopped, but only so they could throw the cross on his back and make him to carry it to his death. He was ruined already, the journey through the city and up the hill was more than his body could bear and they ended up forcing someone else to carry the cross.

Up there on Golgotha, I heard the sickening sound as they drove nails through my son's body, and saw him finally lifted on that terrible cross. My heart broke, but his, his heart still loved. He looked at me and at John as he stood next to me, and even as the life was bleeding from him with every moment he said, "Woman, behold your son! Son, behold your mother!" I understood something new then: I'd seen hate take on flesh in the high priests, and now I realised that love had taken on flesh in my son.