Author's Note: I just saw Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" and the scene where Mary cradles Jesus lifeless body in her arms inspired this. It moved me so these words just flowed, as I perceived what could be going through her mind as she bore witness to the horror that was the passion of the Christ.

Some scripture verses referred to were:

Genesis 3:15, 22: 2-12, Exodus 8-12, Matthew 2:10-11, 27:60-66, Mark 15:46, Luke 1: 26-38, 2:49, 23:53, John 8:3-7, 18:1

GOODBYE MY SON

The sky was dark and foreboding as her beloved son Jesus gave up his spirit having died a horrific death on the cross as the atoning sacrifice for all the sins of the world. The Roman soldiers, those who bravely remained after the sky and earth both mourned the death of God's Son by roaring with thunder and earthquake, reached up to set free the limp, lifeless body of who they knew as Jesus the Galilean. The body was lowered into the waiting arms of his mother, Mary who witnessed in full the horror of the cup he drained in the garden of Gethsemene. She had watched as the sadistic Roman soldiers beat him mercilessly, as they laughed and their feral eyes gleamed with bloodlust. Yet as she wept endless tears of agony at seeing her child so abused a part deep inside knew that this had been his willing choice. It had been the only path he could tread, the path he had been born to tread.

Mary cradled Jesus' body in her arms as she did the night she brought him forth and laid him in a manger, a humble resting place for the birth of the King as the Star above, God's herald of the event illuminated the barn as if it were midday. Her arms held her baby as she savored the newborn scent of him, and nuzzled his downy head. She had born him after being chosen of Almighty God and visited by an angel to be planted with the seed that was destined to bruise the Serpent's head. At that time, the knowledge of what awaited was blissfully unknown as Mary rejoiced in the birth of her son.

As she held his cold body, still covered with the countless welts, stripes and raw flesh exposed by the brutal beating he had endured she gently stroked his thorn covered forehead as she did when he was a small boy, soothing him when childhood fears and tears came. Her heart pounded as the memories of his life flew past like the wind that began whipping at the few gathered at the foot of Jesus' cross.

"Mother," her other son John said softly. "Joseph of Arimathea has gone and asked of Pilate if we could have the body and will bury him in his family's tomb."

Mary nodded woodenly as she continued cradling Jesus, her tears running in warm rivulets down her cheeks that ran off her face and down to his body, mixing and mingling with his blood, caked on and drying in brown tributaries from the river flowing from his pierced side. Her own clothes were drenched with the draining fluids from his body, the last vestiges of his life flow, now the only remaining evidence of his once living flesh.

Mary Magdalene, the adulteress who also stood and witnessed the punishment heaped on the man who had saved her from certain death that day in the square when the crowd wanted to stone her, approached Mary the mother of Jesus and wrapped a comforting arm about her. Mary gazed at the younger woman in a grieved daze, and her eyes showed a fleeting glimmer of gratitude then she turned back to the bloodied form that was her son.

Soon, the man Joseph came to the mourners and spoke, "Permission to take him has been granted and the tomb is being prepared. Let us take him now, to his resting place." And he and John, the disciple Jesus had loved hoisted up the battered body and began the trek to the sepulchre that awaited.

As they walked along, Mary's eyes never left the sight of her son, and again she remembered the day that she and her husband Joseph had taken Jesus to the feast in Jersusalem and he had gotten lost. Typical parents they searched frantically for three days until they found him with the teachers and rabbis in the court of the Temple, teaching. And typical parents, they scolded the twelve-year-old.

"Son, why did you go off without telling us?" Mary had admonished. "Your father and I have been seeking after you and were worried."

But Jesus held up a hand and had responded, "Why were you seeking after me? Don't you know I must be about my Father's business?"

And Mary and Joseph marveled as he continued teaching.

"I must be about my Father's business." Those words had begun echoing in her head as she walked and was realizing that this horror, this travesty was all a part of his Father's business. That this was a part of the Almighty God's plan, and she had known since she was a young girl that one did not question the actions of the Almighty. She had grown up knowing of the miracle of Abraham and Isaac, of the provision for Moses and the Israelites to free them from the captivity of Pharaoh. She had heard and believed unquestioningly the story of David, her kinsman and his ordained throne, of the prophet Isaiah and the words that brought hope to her people. And although she witnessed the heinous scourging and death of her beloved son, she accepted that God allowed it, not easily but she accepted it nonetheless.

They finally arrived and the Roman soldiers that had accompanied them on orders of Pilate to make sure that the body, once deposited in the tomb would remain. For the chief priests of the Temple had requested that the tomb be sealed, lest the body be removed by Jesus' disciples, the soldiers rolled back the stone to allow entrance. John and Joseph carried him down the stairs and laid him on the flat stone, dressing his body and covering him with fine linen.

Mary had followed them to watch as the body that once was the baby she bore, the little boy she comforted, and the young man she followed was laid to rest. She approached the prone form and knelt beside him one more time.

"Goodbye my son," she whispered as she tenderly kissed the cold forehead then as John gently grasped her shoulders helped her to her feet to ascend to the surface of the tomb. Once they were out, the soldiers rolled the stone over the opening and sealed it.

Mary watched as they withdrew and left, their duty done and she knelt down and began her real mourning as she crumpled to the ground in anguish, her tears flowing once more.

"Goodbye my son."

END