Jesus said.
Mary smiled at Tom through wet eyes. “Go ahead,” Tom said. “I’ll catch up with David.”
Mary nodded with a faint smile and then ran to Jesus. David rejoined Tom and said, “She’s something special, isn’t she?”
Tom looked at David, surprisingly serious. “Tell me, David. If Jesus loved Lazarus so much, why didn’t he come sooner? Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that he did heal the blind guy, and all the other people who claim to be healed. Why didn’t he come here and heal Lazarus? He’s caused Mary so much pain by not coming… It seems to me that he’s been letting people suffer and die in his name from the very beginning.”
“Tom…” It was all David could get out.
“What?” Tom asked. “If God created the universe, he can save a human life. If Jesus is God, he could have saved Lazarus. So he chose not to. If Jesus is God, he could have saved Megan. If Jesus is God…God is a bastard.”
Tom couldn’t believe David’s reaction. David smiled!
“What are you smiling at? I’m being serious,” Tom said.
“I can’t say why some people die when and how they do. Only God can ever really know that. But some lives can be saved,” David said.
“What are you talking about?”
“I think we should follow Jesus.”
“Why?”
“Because after eighteen years, you ought to trust me.”
David was right. While Tom had lost all trust in Jesus’s ability to make the smart choices, David had never failed him. They followed after Jesus and the disciples along with the rest of the crowd.
As Tom wove his way past the scads of people, he saw a familiar face. Looking at him was the Pharisee named Tarsus, dressed in the common man’s clothing, walking among with the crowd. Tarsus caught Tom’s eye and nodded to him as men who have a common goal sometimes do. Tom nodded back.
Jesus, Mary and Martha stopped in front of Lazarus’s tomb, which was simply a cave dug into the grassy hillside. A large, rounded slab of solid stone covered the entrance with an airtight seal. Tom, David and the disciples stopped behind Jesus, the large crowd of mourners behind them.
Jesus walked to the stone and rested his hand on it. Tears rolled down his cheeks. Jesus took a deep breath, looked up at the sky and then turned to David and Tom with a look of determination. “Take away the stone.”
Tom looked at David as if to say: Is he serious?! David grinned and headed for the boulder. Tom followed, feeling very silly.
“Wait,” Martha protested. “By this time he’ll… he’s been in there four days… the smell… we can’t.”
Jesus looked at Martha with kind eyes. “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”
Martha looked at the ground, unsure, but then nodded and backed away, though her look of concern did not diminish. Jesus glanced at David and Tom, signaling them to push. Tom and David braced themselves against the boulder and heaved. It didn’t budge.
Peter, who was standing in front of the crowd with the other disciples, nudged Matthew and said, “Let’s help.”
Matthew nodded in agreement and grabbed Judas, who was standing next to him. “You too.” Before Judas could object, Matthew had dragged him all the way to the boulder. Tom and David were relieved that help had arrived.
“On three,” Tom said.
“What’s on three?” Judas asked. Peter and Matthew looked confused as well.
“I’m going to count to three. When I say three, we all push,” Tom explained.
“Ohh, why didn’t you just say so?” Matthew said.
“One…”
The five men braced themselves against the stone.
“Two…”
Tom dug his feet into the ground.
“Three!”
All five men pushed with all their strength and the boulder rolled free. A sound like venting gas escaped from the cave as its seal was broken. The crowd covered their noses and backed away. The stone rolled free and became unbalanced. It wobbled and fell onto its side, just missing Judas and exploding a cloud of dirt into the air, which mixed with the smell of death. Tom wondered if this would be the moment of Jesus’s undoing that wouldn’t be recorded in the Bible.
Walking past Tom, Jesus slowly stepped toward the cave. He grabbed the sides of the cave entrance and leaned in, bowing his head at the same time. “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I know that you always hear me, but I say this for the benefit…”
Jesus turned and looked Tom right in the eyes, “…of the people standing here, that they might believe you sent me.”
Jesus turned his head back toward the gaping hole in the earth. After a moment, Jesus turned his back on the cave and walked a few feet away, facing the crowd. Jesus closed his eyes. “Lazarus!” he yelled. “Come out!”
This is insane, Tom thought. It went against all reasonable logic, even for the people of this time period. Even still, Tom’s eyes were locked on the cave entrance, just as everyone else’s were.
A woman in the crowd screamed in terror and ran away. Something inside the cave was moving in the darkness, skulking and shuffling toward the light of day. With each movement, the figure produced a scratching sound as if a limb or dead body were being dragged over stone. It was like a bad horror movie. What happened next was both fully expected and completely unbelievable. Everyone present, minus Jesus, took a quick step back as a hand wrapped in white burial cloth clasped onto the outside rim of the cave entrance.
All at once, the whole crowd gasped. Several people turned and ran, screaming and horrified. Some fell to their knees, legs too weak to support their weight. Others stood silently, watching, waiting for the horror to continue. Jesus turned toward the cave as a man, wrapped in cloth from head to toe, staggered into the afternoon sun.
“Take off his grave clothes and let him go,” Jesus said to no one in particular.
Martha and Mary dashed to their brother and began tearing at the cloth, desperate to see Lazarus living again. Within a minute, they had exposed his head, torso, arms and legs. Lazarus was not only living, but looked to be in perfect health. His skin wasn’t pale and wrinkly, as one would think a dead man’s skin might look. He was full of life, vibrant with blood coursing through veins, pumped by a strong heart. Lazarus was alive!
Tom was bewildered. He staggered backwards and sat atop the flat stone, which had covered the cave entrance. He watched as Mary, Martha, Jesus and Lazarus were happily reunited. There had to be some explanation. This defied all of the rules of reality, of human existence…except one.
Gripped by a frigid suspicion, Tom suddenly saw through what was happening. There was one rule, one constant of humanity that applied to this situation: deception. He and everyone else here had been conned by perhaps the greatest sleight of hand in history. Tom knew now that David Copperfield had nothing on Jesus. He looked at Lazarus, alive and well and of all things laughing. He was in on it, that’s for sure. Tom looked at Martha, tears in her eyes, but she could have known. Tom looked at Mary. He had felt her heart break. Her emotions were real. Tom was sure of it.
Jesus had carefully orchestrated this event with his closest friend, Lazarus. They had conspired against everyone they knew and loved to further Jesus’s campaign and had gone so far as to cause Megan such incredible pain. Megan? Mary! Tom realized he was transplanting his feelings of past sorrow about Megan to the present situation. But it still applied. Jesus’s crusade had killed one woman he loved and had now injured another.
Mary served Jesus and Lazarus faithfully. Megan went to Africa for him. Mary trusted that Jesus would come and save her brother, and he betrayed that trust. Megan gave her life because she believed in him. And this is how
