Barefoot in the wilderness
in search of understanding

Mother and child

As I mentioned, I’m giving the address at the Wednesday evening Eucharist service during Holy Week. Having got the thing written, I thought I’d put it up here now rather than wait until afterwards. So, here is my reflection/meditation on a picture of Mary and Jesus from the Stations of the Cross by Sieger Köder.

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A peaceful scene, here. A mother cradles her son, loving arms gently round his shoulder. A mother and son reunited, perhaps. He had not taken the path she would have chosen for him – wandering the country, preaching, teaching, getting into trouble with the authorities. No wife by his side, no children at his feet each night, no family sat around the dinner table. No, not for him. After a hard day, after the demands of the crowds, after the questions of the priests, after the strain of talking to so many people, all her son had was his friends. And where are they now? Friends who have now deserted him, left him alone. Except for her. Now, they are together again.

Does she remember the first time her arms held him? Her firstborn son, born in a time of fear and uncertainty, to parents of doubtful reputation. Those stories we hear – are they going through her mind, too? Visitors from the East, shepherds, shining star, angelic choirs? Gifts of gold, expensive ointments, sheep and space. Her own angelic visitor, declaring that this child would be special? Her fiancé, hesitant to accept a pregnant woman as his wife?

And, then, flight into Egypt – repeating in their own lives the journey their people had made so long ago. Exile. After an attack that made their son a new Moses, escaping a kingly decree that slew all the male children except him, saved by his parents.

And still she holds him. Does he grow colder, now? See, how pale his skin has become. The marks of whips, thorns, nails and spear, all exposed by his nakedness. And nothing his mother can do to heal him, to kiss and make it better for him. Is this the sword that pierces her heart? To hold her dead son, alone. Taken from her by political forces beyond her control. Forces he had called down on himself, despite her warnings. She had tried to protect him from himself, but he would not listen. “All who listen to my words and do them are my mother, and brothers, and sisters.” How hurtful those words had been to her, then. And yet still she cared for him, as she cares now.

His head rests on her shoulder, cradled by hers. Intimacy between the creator and the created, between mother and son. And yet her face is so calm. Beyond tears, perhaps. She has watched him die, hanging there throughout the long, hot day. Through the talking, the shouting, the silence. Through the darkness, the light, the fear. But not the hope – no, no hope, now.

His face is hidden from her, pressed into her shoulder. Just as he was always hidden from her. His heart was always so strange. So many times, growing up, he had confused her, hurt her. Eventually, even left her, with her husband, her children, her role as wife and mother, while he went off to save the world.

The sun sinks below the horizon, now, casting red light over everything, over the skulls lying on the ground behind her. His skin is so white, so pale, the lifeblood run out, the life gone. She will cry tomorrow, once he is buried in a tomb. Too late, now, for funeral rites. A quick burial is all they can hope for. At least a stranger has provided that for her, for him.

And still her arms surround him, holding him, not letting him go. Her cloak of green, the colour of life, surrounds him, too, covering his nakedness, as she covered his first nakedness with bands of cloth. There is nothing else growing around, here. The ground is bare. Nothing grows here, in the place of death. The sun bakes it, the people trample it. It is a place of loss, of death. The only silence that comes here is absence – absence of people, absence of hope, absence of joy.

Is his body cold, now? So pale, so white. The wounds still open, staining her clothes, her skin. And still she holds him close. Holding his body close to hers, to the body that gave his life. But not now, not this time. Her role in creation is over, now. Her son is gone, leaving only this. Leaving this shell of a life spent on the road, in crowds and in isolation. Friends and followers, sycophants and supplicants, all are gone, now, gone away. A failed prophet, a defeated rebel, a disappointing messiah. But still her son. And still she holds him. Leaning her back on the instrument of his death, taking support from the weapon that killed her son, her hopes, she holds him. And still the tears do not come.

On her shoulder, a dove appears. Dark, now, but this bird of hope mocks her. Symbol of God, of the Spirit, flying down on her son, as it did at his baptism in the river. “This is my Son,” indeed. This is my son, and he is dead. Her tears are held back behind gates, the floodwaters pent up. Tomorrow, she will shed them. For now, she still has her son.

The dove holds an olive branch in its beak. Just like the dove sent out from the Ark brought back an olive branch. “There is land, there is land. Trees, growing things, life. The waters are gone.” But, for her, the floods are still there, still waiting to emerge. Perhaps, on the far side, after forty days and forty days and forty days, there will be dry land. But he will not be there. Her son, her beloved son, her firstborn. He will still be dead.

And still she holds him. Her arms around his, her cloak gathering him to her, her head resting on his. My son, my son. Why did this happen? Could I have done better? Could I have stopped you, stopped them?

On a hilltop, surrounded by skulls, by darkness, the sun now only a red line across the horizon, still she holds him. Her son. Her son. Her messiah.

pax et bonum