But the chief priests and elders fanned out among the multitude, cajoling them to ask for Barabbas to be released.
“No!” Matthew cried, and the other two joined in. “Release Jesus! Jesus!”
But they were shouted down until the governor raised a hand to silence the crowd. “Which of the two do you want me to release to you today?”
Matthew and Thomas and James’s plaintive cries were drowned out by the crowd as it roared as one, “Barabbas! Barabbas! Give us Barabbas!”
They continued until Pilate again silenced them with a wave. He was smiling now. “What then shall I do with this man, Jesus, who is called Christ?”
To Matthew’s horror, the crowd began shouting and chanting, “Let Him be crucified!”
Pilate’s smile faded. He raised both arms. “Why, what evil has He done?”
The people cried out all the more, “Let Him be crucified! Crucify Him!”
Now Pilate looked stricken and it seemed to Matthew that the governor was alarmed as he surveyed the crowd. They were jostling and surging forward, and the man had to fear a rising tumult. He signaled for an aide to bring him a bowl of water, and as soon as it arrived he made a show of washing his hands. As he dried them he said, “I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. What you choose to do with Him now is on you.”
“Yes! Yes!” the people shouted. “His blood be on us and on our children!”
Pilate released Barabbas, who ran into the crowd leaping and laughing. And as the three disciples watched, Jesus was scourged and sent off with a contingent of soldiers. Matthew, James, and Thomas followed from a distance as they took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around Him.
Matthew wanted to cover his eyes, but he could not turn away as they stripped Jesus and put a scarlet robe on Him. He recoiled in horror when they twisted a crown of thorns and pressed it down upon His head, causing blood to stream down His face.
Someone put a reed in His right hand, and they all bowed before Him and jeered, “Hail, King of the Jews!”
Had they not seen Him heal? Had they not heard Him preach and teach and prophesy and express profound truth never uttered before? How could they do this? Disagree with Him, oppose Him, even charge Him with speaking out publicly against the religious leaders . . . but this? Why did they have to scorn Him and mock Him? And how could He be sentenced to die?
Then they spat on Him, and one took the reed and struck Him on the head. Finally they tore off the robe and put His own clothes back on Him and led Him away. The crossbeam of the contraption on which He was to hang they settled heavily on His shoulders, and though He staggered several steps under it, it proved too much and He stumbled. The soldiers recruited a man from within the crowd to come forward and carry His cross.
It was all Matthew could do to put one foot in front of the other and he and his brother and friend followed the taunting crowd down the dusty roads and outside the city. The sun was rising in a cloudless sky as Jesus staggered along, pushed and prodded by the crowd and by the soldiers.
Matthew pressed a coin into a lad’s hand and bade him race to the house of Mary and her son and tell the disciples there that Jesus was headed to Golgotha, the “Place of the Skull.” How he had wished he had something different to report, that he would have had time to go back and dine with Jesus’ friends again as they awaited His fate. This was all happening too fast, and Matthew felt helpless.
Two other men were to be crucified that day, and Matthew recoiled as they were laid out on their crosses and their legs and feet nailed to the wood with great spikes. They shrieked in pain and cursed as their crosses were lifted over holes in the ground, then roughly dropped in. This caused their flesh to tear against the spikes and they wailed all the more, blood cascading down their bodies. They had to press with their feet and force their weight up and off their lungs to breathe, and the effort appeared pure torture.
IT WAS ANOTHER HOUR before Jesus was laid out on His cross, and by then His mother stood afar off with many women who had followed Jesus from Galilee and had ministered to Him. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.
The rest of the disciples had also arrived, and Matthew found it curious that they did not stand together. Even he parted from Thomas and James, as if each man was to experience this alone. John hurried to the side of Jesus’ mother. She and her party all hid their faces when Jesus was nailed to the cross and cried out in agony.
When His cross was dropped into the ground some in the crowd cheered. Others moaned in sympathy. Matthew saw Jesus talking with the men hanging on either side of Him, and then He asked for something to drink. A sponge was lifted up to Him, but even the smell of it made Him turn His head away and He did not drink.
At the foot of the cross soldiers cast lots, the winner claiming Jesus’ clothes. Later James would tell Matthew that this too was a fulfilled prophecy: “They divided My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.”
Then the soldiers sat to watch the three men die.
As the horrible day progressed and the sun mercilessly beat on all assembled, eventually the soldiers made a rough-hewn sign and hoisted it and nailed it above Jesus’ head. It read: THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
Many in the crowd pointed and wagged their heads and called out, “You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross!”
Likewise the chief priests, mocking with the scribes and elders, shouted, “He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let God deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”
Suddenly the sun was blotted out and though it was noon, the place turned dark as night for three hours. The wind blew cold, and Matthew pulled his cloak tighter around him, trembling and praying for His Lord, wishing this nightmare would end.
Finally, at about the ninth hour of the day, three in the afternoon, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” which Matthew knew was Aramaic for “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
Some who watched said they thought He was calling for Elijah, and one of them ran and took a sponge and put it on a reed, holding it up to Him and again offering Him to drink. But others said, “Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to save Him.”
Matthew suddenly found himself on his knees, finally realizing what Jesus had meant when He told him that one day He would experience Matthew’s pain. Matthew had suffered the loss of his beloved baby brother, and that had nearly ruined his entire life. Now God was losing His only Son, and ironically Jesus felt rejected by Him.
“God, forgive me!” Matthew sobbed.
And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and He bowed His head and died.
At that instant the earth began to quake and the silence was shattered by the thunderous sound of rocks splitting. People scattered screaming or fell to the ground, hiding their heads. A centurion shouted, “Surely this Man was the Son of God!”
Matthew stayed right where he was, watching, waiting, wondering if God would immediately avenge the death of His Son.
As the sky cleared and the sun reappeared, the centurions mounted their skittish horses and stood watch at the crosses, making sure no one tried to steal the bodies. Presently a young man came running from Jerusalem to announce to the scribes and Pharisees: “At the moment of the earthquake, the veil in the temple was rent in two from top to bottom! And along the way I passed cemeteries where graves had burst open and dead men were raised, walking toward the gates of the city!”
Matthew did not know what to make of this, but despite his curiosity, he would not leave the Place of the Skull. He stayed until evening, when a rich man, who identified himself as Joseph of Arimathea, came and showed the centurions a scroll from Pilate.
“I was a foll
ower of Jesus,” he said, “and I asked the governor if I could bury the body. See, here, all is in order, and that is Pilate’s seal.”
“Very well, sir,” the centurion said. “But where do you plan to take it?”
“To what was meant to be my own tomb nearby,” he said. “It was recently hewn out of the rock.”
“Is it secure?” the centurion said. “Everyone knows that this man claimed He would rise again after three days. We can’t have His friends spiriting away the body and claiming He arose.”
“There is an extremely large stone that can be rolled to cover the entrance.”
Mary and her friends helped Joseph lower the body, and he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and carefully laid it on a cart. Matthew followed alone as the small assemblage made its way to a garden tomb. Once Jesus had been laid in it, Joseph asked Matthew’s help in rolling the large stone against the door.
When Joseph departed, Matthew turned to see Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sitting opposite the tomb. He did not know what to say. He merely nodded, then slowly made his way back to the upper room where the rest of the disciples had gathered.
There was much lamenting and weeping, but they were also joined by previously dead friends who had been resurrected from their graves at Jesus’ death. And they all marveled.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The next day Matthew was sitting and talking with two men who had risen from their graves the day before, fascinated by their tales of having been in paradise. Peter had sent three other disciples into the city to see if any more danger was in store for the followers of Jesus. These reported back that the chief priests and Pharisees had gathered with Pilate, reminding him that Jesus was a deceiver who had predicted that He would rise again after three days. They told the governor that zealous followers of Jesus had dug up graves and claimed people had been resurrected.
Soon Pilate commanded that the tomb be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away and tell people He had risen from the dead. Pilate actually explained himself by saying that he didn’t want a new deception to be worse than the first. He told the Roman guards to make the grave as secure as they knew how. Matthew and some of the others stole away and crept near the garden tomb, hidden in the trees. In truth Roman centurions were there supervising the sealing of the stone. They left a full garrison to guard the area.
MATTHEW HAD NO IDEA what the future held for him. He was grieving deeply over His Lord, as all the disciples were. Some spoke of going into other regions and teaching and preaching about the kingdom, praying that they still had the power to perform miracles, with which Jesus had imbued them.
Thomas said, “But what are we to say when people ask where this Man is now?”
“That He is in heaven.”
“God is in heaven too, and they have ignored Him. Gradually the fame of Jesus will fade and the stories—yes, even of His healing the sick—will be forgotten. We will be the only ones left who truly believe He was the Son of God.”
Matthew wanted to tell everyone of Jesus, what he had learned, how he had been forgiven, what he believed about the future. But with Jesus gone it was as if any power to preach, and certainly to heal, had left him. Had he lost his faith? He didn’t believe so. But he had lost his Master and his Lord. After finding true life after so many years, he felt he was back where he started.
Oh, he was a different man, he knew that. He could never go back to tax collecting. Besides that Rome would never have him again, he had no stomach for that kind of work. Perhaps he would let the fishermen teach him their trade. They seemed to be the only ones who had something to which they could return. James and John’s father still ran their small fishing concern, and relatives had also continued Peter and Andrew’s enterprise.
There was talk from the hostess of the house where they were staying that her son meant to accompany Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to the tomb following the Sabbath, the morning of the first day of the week.
“For what purpose?” Matthew said. “Have they not seen it? It is a lovely spot, but they will not be allowed in to tend to the Lord’s body. Not only has the stone been rolled in front of the entrance—I helped do it myself—but the Romans have sealed it. There will be little the women can do but sit.”
“Perhaps that is all they wish to do,” Mark’s mother said. “Sit and remember.”
“I cannot imagine that will be easy with the Roman guards milling about. If I were one of the women, I would be hard-pressed not to think evil thoughts toward these men.”
“Oh, Matthew,” she said with a kind smile, “that’s not the way of the Master.”
“I know. But the pain is too fresh.”
“And sharp,” she said, sighing. “This is so hard.”
MATTHEW HAD had trouble resting since the crucifixion and had spent many of the hours of the night tossing and turning and often rising and pacing—only to find his brother and many of his friends doing the same. But that evening he found himself weary beyond measure. The trauma of the preceding days had caught up with him, and though it was his turn to trade his spot on a pliable wooden bench and recline on the hard stone floor of the upper room with a half dozen or so of the others, he was soon fast asleep.
Matthew did not awaken until dawn, when he heard young Mark scurrying about, complaining that he had overslept and that the Marys had left for the tomb without him. He watched the lad quickly dress and light out for the garden tomb.
Despite that he felt he could use a couple of more hours of sleep, Matthew found himself overcome with compassion for his sleeping friends. They were as bereaved as he, and it struck him that he had rarely thought of the feelings of anyone but himself before he met Jesus. He padded down to see if the mistress of the house was about and whether he could help her prepare the morning meal. He found her in the guest parlor, sitting and gazing out the window.
“A beautiful morning,” he said, then had to apologize when he realized he had startled her.
“Oh, it’s all right, Matthew. I need to get moving anyway. Andrew had some salted fish delivered last night and I must be about roasting it for breakfast.”
“May I help?”
“I have bread baking, if you could watch that and bring it out when it’s ready.” She paused. “I envy you, you know.”
“You envy me?”
She nodded. “That you can see the day as beautiful. It is, of course. I know that. But it does not soothe me, does not bring me pleasure.”
“Me either, really. I was just making conversation.”
“But I also envy that you got to know the Master. He loved you all so.”
“He loved you and Mark too.”
“I know,” she said, rising. “But I rarely got any time with him. He was most kind to me and to the women who followed Him from Galilee. But we all would say we did not know Him as you men did. The bond between you all was something very special.”
Matthew did not know what to say. It had always impressed him the way Jesus seemed to treat everyone the same. He was no respecter of persons. He was as kind and patient with children as He was with their parents. He was as gracious and grateful to the women around Him as to the men. And whether a man had been a fisherman or a tax collector, He treated him the same as He would have a man known in the city as one with real stature.
Matthew chuckled in spite of himself. In truth, Jesus was hardly impressed with people in power and said so at almost every opportunity. And as quickly as Matthew had chuckled he fought a sob rising in his throat. It was Jesus’ very directness, His honesty, His probing truth that had gotten Him killed.
Matthew shook his head as he slid the golden brown loaves from the hearth oven. Jesus would tell Him that it wasn’t the Romans or Jews who had crucified Him but that He had willingly given Himself up to do the will of His Father. There was so much about the Lord Matthew wished he knew.
He followed Mary up the stairs with the loaves and the roasted fish, leaving her just
outside the door as he entered to rouse the others. They appeared grateful for the sustenance and spoke kindly to Mary as she entered and helped serve.
THE DISCIPLES WERE nearly finished eating when they heard what sounded like thunder in the distance and the whole place was shaken. One table slid several feet across the floor and a bench pitched over, causing several men to fall.
“An earthquake?” one said.
“A tremor following the one from the other day.”
They sat and waited to see if more were to follow, and when none did, they gingerly went back to eating.
Several minutes later Matthew heard excited voices and footsteps on the stairs. Several rose to peer out and others looked frightened, as if they believed the authorities were coming after them. Mary opened the door to her son and the other two Marys, who swept past her, faces beaming and eyes afire.
“There was an earthquake!” they said.
“We know,” Peter said.
“An angel of the Lord descended from heaven and rolled back the stone from the tomb and sat on it!” Mary of Magdala said. “His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow.”
“You’re mad!” Thomas said.
“We’re not. It is as we have said!”
“What of the Roman guards?”
“They shook for fear and fainted like dead men,” the other Mary said.
Peter squinted at them and cocked his head. “But you were braver than they?”
Mary Magdalene said, “Not until the angel told us, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.’”
“Craziness!”