Mary

I am not that Mary or indeed Mary of Magdala. I am married to Clopas. He is the brother of Joseph the carpenter. He was a brave and honourable man. Joseph too. But I am talking about Clopas who stood by his brother when most of the family wanted nothing more to do with him. It seemed right that we decided to stand by his son, and Mary of course, when even Joseph’s other sons wanted nothing to with their brother. I went with Mary and the others to the place of execution. How had it come to this, I had wondered at the time.  I watched him as he died. He died as he lived in control, and with compassion. He proclaimed forgiveness and took time; despite the never-ending agony he must have been going through to make sure his mother would be cared for. I was grateful when the end came that the Arimathean came and offered his tomb for him. It was unexpected. Executed people were usually thrown on the rubbish heap, and Nicodemus came with enough balm to anoint several kings.

Apart from returning in two days to properly embalm him that was that. Hopes and dreams that began long before his birth had come crashing down. All was lost. We went to the tomb early on what we now call the first day of the week. The tomb was empty. It did not bring any joy rather further despair. Who would have taken his body? I was never sure what I saw at the tomb. I had never been given a message from what looked like an angel before. The message seemed to be that Jesus was alive. Some of us, including Clopas and myself decided we need to get out of Jerusalem. We were heading for Emmaus. We have family there and would be made welcome.

Jesus joined us at about the halfway point. There was no reason why we should not have recognised him, except we were not looking for him. He opened the scriptures in the easy way that he always did, inviting us to see new things and delighting when we did see. We invited him to stay with us. Jesus had taught us about hospitality. It was when he prayed that we saw him. The he was gone. I did not know I could run so far and so fast. We were back in Jerusalem in about half the time it took us to get to Emmaus. We paused outside the house otherwise it would have been impossible to speak. The two of us bounded up the stairs, tapped on the door like we had been taught. The door opened. He is alive! We know they said, he has appeared to Peter. Mary beamed at us, he has also appeared to James. I would love to know how that went. Mary and I went into a corner of the room, and embraced, laughed and cried.