I stared at his face; the fire etched deep shadows into his searching eyes, hammered his cheeks, danced on his swollen lips. Under its spell his skull jumped, appeared to be shifting angles quickly. Yet he was silent, disturbed by the day's journey to Bethany.
The sky poised with the threat of moisture, a welcome calamity for the desert stones still smoking from the sun's abandoned girdle of heat; the land laid exhausted and roasted, and the merciless sand baked our feet to cinders.
If the night sky opened he might even sleep through the rain, or crawl back into that tomb he emptied that very day when he pulled his friend's dead arm into the blistering light; even the stones turned and took notice. The sisters embraced Lazarus, bathed the respiring corpse throughout the afternoon in the healing pool, but the rancid flesh clung to him like bits of paper imbued with stench. Like a skull Lazarus' eyes still laid deep in their holes, and he was miserably blind.
Yeshua's mind wandered in the blanket of sleep - was it not best to leave the dead to eternity? Why cause a man to suffer again the agony of shedding this dustbowl of ragged organs? Maybe it was the most selfish of acts, for his friend was racked unto death, yet Yeshua made no attempt to heal him before the grave. Had he not done more for the Centurion's slave! But he let Lazarus, his friend, rot, and finally die. He was free from life. Today Yeshua recalled this shedding snake as a challenge to the Temple. The once beautiful Lazarus' skin pulls from it's own body as if repulsed.
What did it matter to the priests or the curious? The Pharisees never questioned that the miracle could occur. They were just angered that he chose to do it on the Sabbath, and they condemned Yeshua. Giving a leper hope is one thing - raising a dead man is exceptional. How could their God compete?
Yeshua, for the first time in his life, realized his days were numbered. He should have cut the sky and commanded the archangels to infest the earth. Lazarus was his best trick, and no one seemed to applaud. Now, in the corner of his room, Lazarus shrieks, torn with mental decay and regrets, a foul body keeping his loved ones at bay. His mind blooms, having known death and the beauty of heaven, only to have been dragged back into dread, to court fever and death once again in the near future. What had Yeshua saved?
The Master's eyes opened slightly, soaked with tears. At a distance, still visible, he could see the fallen rock, almost smell the empty tomb. It called him. The sky darkened and on its canvas softly he saw the Praetorium, then Golgotha. His lips tasted the blood, he shivered at the hooks tearing into his back. Those who did not flee (he knew none of the faces) wept, then laughed.
His lips spilled a silent plea that no Messiah would ever drag him back into this world. The darkness of the cave is supposed to be eternal.
都筑区 お墓
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