It was great to see so many people at our Good Friday meeting on zoom this morning! If you weren’t able to join us, or you simply wanted to read them again, we will be posting all four of our monologues from this morning on the blog today! The monologues help to convey the feelings of four people mentioned in John 19.
Our third monologue is from the perspective of Mary, the mother of Jesus…
I stood there overwhelmed by unbelief and sorrow. What Simeon had spoken to me, 33 years earlier kept whirling round my head ‘Your own heart shall be pierced with a sword’,
Yes. That’s how I felt – it was almost a physical pain… I could hardly stand. I thought my legs would give way any moment. I leant on John, and he whispered ‘it’s okay, Mary, I’m here’ as he put his arm around me.
I looked up at my Son, Jesus, the Promise of Israel, now bloodied and dying for all to see.
The teachers of the Law and some of the Sanhedrin were there too. They hurled insults at Him and each one twisted the sword further in my heart. ‘He saved others, he cannot save himself’, ‘come down from the cross and we will believe in you’ they challenged. But I knew as He knew that this was not true! Hadn’t He given them plenty of proof before that He was the promised Messiah? Yet most of them had not been willing to give Him a chance. They were afraid of Him, jealous of Him.
And then I heard Him whisper ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do!’
Unbelievable! Fresh tears came into my tired eyes! Forgive them? For the way they had contributed to his torture, His agony? And for even now, at the end, having no mercy? I wanted to hit them, to make them suffer just a little of what my Son was going through! Jesus, Jesus, my Son, will I ever learn from You? And as I thought this He looked straight at where I was standing with John. His eyes were full of blood. Almost closed. I realised He was trying to speak to me, to us, so I pushed John closer.
‘Dear Mother’ He said in a barely audible voice, ‘behold your son’. and His face moved slowly and painfully towards John.
I wanted to shout, No, YOU are my Son, not John, not anyone else, I don’t want anyone else, but His beautiful face, full of compassion and yes, sorrow for me, prevented me from doing so. The tears now streamed uninhibited down my face. I nodded so He could see I was in agreement with this new arrangement.
Then His eyes were on John, standing there right next to me. ‘John’, He whispered, with an urgency in His voice ‘Behold your mother’. And as John tightened his arm round my shoulders, I could see a fleeting look of relief in His eyes. He had provided for me, His mother. The faithful Son, right up to the end!
Like that day at the wedding feast of Cana, when I had asked Him to do something about the wine to help out Samuel and Ruth. He had humoured me, because He loved me. And them.
Memories now flooded my mind… not just of Him with me, but with so many others… the widow’s son, being carried on the pyre on his way to his funeral; Jairus’ daughter; our good friend, Lazarus! He raised them all from the dead… and people clapped and cheered and said ‘Surely the Messiah has come!’ and less than a week ago they were looking to crown Him king, as he entered Jerusalem on a donkey…
He was doing so well – healing the sick, the blind, the lame, loving the outcasts, the marginalised…literally thousands hanging on to His every word for days… I was so proud of Him.
And now – here He was, my Son, gasping for breath! At the mercy of these Roman soldiers…
An anguished silent cry came from deep within me, as I groped about in the dark. Questions tumbled into my mind, one after another.
What happened?
Why did it happen?
God, why did You let it happen?
You could have stopped it! He could have been king, instead of suffering this cruel, undeserved death!
Why, God, was there not another way for You to have achieved Your purposes?
Now – He is almost dead. End of everything! What, oh God, have You accomplished through this unnecessary suffering of my Son whom I love?
Suddenly I remembered the Angel Gabriel’s words about Jesus when he told me I would be with child. ‘He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High… and of His kingdom there shall be no end’. No end, no end, no end? And so – what is all this, how can this happen, as He hangs on that cross…Aloud I whispered ‘I don’t know, I don’t know…’ But surely – God would not lie?
Hope, like a slither of sunlight, somehow began to creep into my dark, agonised mind.
What had the Angel Gabriel said to me when he told me I would become His mother and I had asked in bewilderment ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ He had said ‘NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD!’
Slowly a supernatural peace began to enter my heart as I pondered on the Angel’s words.
I glanced at Jesus again. His eyes met mine. There was torture there, yes, but now I saw something else. In the midst of this there was peace – and hope! The crooked half smile He gave me was the most wonderful smile I had ever seen… for in it I could see a future. For Him. For me, for all humanity!
With dawning realisation, I thought ‘His birth was a miracle from God, His death has been accepted by God, and with God, He can live again!’ Incredibly, inch by inch, hope was pushing out the unbelief… the pain… the despair!
And as a few seconds later, with a loud cry, He said ‘Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit’ I knew my Son had won, somehow He had won!
Even though it felt like my heart had been pierced not by one, but by so many swords, a new sensation of anticipation and excitement had also begun to enter my heart so that I was able to turn to John and say through my tears : ‘It is over, and yet it has only just begun!’
Written by Adele Dabrowski
