When Jesus Wept - By Bodie Page 0,83

at it. Ah yes. I recognized the hand. It was familiar to me. I knew the scarred knuckles of old wounds won over the years working in the vines. I had used those fingers for everything. The hand was useless now. Limp and white. My body was now a dried cane, past its season, cut off and lying on the earth.

Mary’s hair fell across the chest of the corpse.

“Mary, why do you weep? I’m here, Mary! I love you! All is well.” But she could not hear me. There was no comfort in my silent testimony.

I heard the rustle of wings. I felt myself, my true self, hovering like a hawk, motionless on the wind.

A deep resonant voice said, “Lazarus, you cannot help them now. ”

I glanced up to see the angel. Tall, strong, wings folded at his sides, he was perfect in feature and form. Radiant white garments with the glow of a rainbow around him. I thought that he resembled me, only perfect.

“They grieve,” I said.

“They loved you.”

Mary cried, “If only Jesus had come! If only he had been here! Our brother would not have died!”

I said to my angel, “Poor Mary. Look at her. She has only just found me, and now I am lost to her.”

The angel said, “Remember when Eliza left you. And the baby. Your sisters will go on. Life will go on.”

“Well, then,” I said, looking at my old self. “It was a good life.”

My angel asked, “Are you ready?”

One last time I reached out to stroke Mary’s hair. This time I felt it, soft beneath my fingers. She raised her head as though she felt my farewell.

“Well.” She laid the hand across my old self’s chest and patted it. “Shalom, dear brother.” Not taking her gaze from the beloved face so familiar to her, she wiped tears with the back of her hand. “Look. He seems to smile. He was a good man. He’ll be with Eliza and the baby now.”

I felt the stirring of joy in me, like when music begins, calling one to dance.

“I’m ready,” I said to the angel.

He reached out to me. Spreading his great silver wings over me, he clasped my hands. “Come on, then. They’re all waiting for you.”

“Who?” I asked.

Before he replied, I heard the rushing of a great wind as we moved through a tunnel of light at unimaginable speed. And yet I did not feel the motion of our journey. Earthly time was stripped away as we were immersed into eternal timelessness. I glimpsed my old life falling away like old work clothes.

I saw myself as a child playing among the green leaves of my father’s vineyard. Then, as a young man, harvesting the grapes. Then, as a grown man, with a heaping basket on my shoulder carrying the fruit toward the crusher. Then I saw myself, the bridegroom, drinking the wine. Eliza smiled up at me. And I lay beside her, feeling the movement of our baby in her belly. Then there was Jesus and the blind boy at the Temple. I felt the eyes of my friend, Jesus, close upon me.

The light grew brighter and brighter before us.

I laughed. We emerged into a vast, beautiful vineyard that swept across rolling hills crowned by a golden sky. In the far distance blue mountains reared up, taller than any earthly mountain. A great city crowned the peak. Light and music flowed from within it. My angel stood beside me as my feet touched solid ground. His wing was over me. A melody surrounded me. When I moved my hand, I heard the tinkling of bells, like the water of a brook. I inhaled the sweet perfume of flowers.

In the far distance I heard voices calling my name, as my mother had done when I was a boy staying out too long after dark.

“What is this place?” I asked my angel.

“You have seen it in your dreams. The Father’s vineyard.”

To my right and left, clusters of red, purple, and gold berries hung from different branches of the same vine. Ripe and unripe fruit, blossoms and new growth sprouted together.

The ripest bunches hung from eye level all the way to the ground. They appeared to be so heavy with fruit, so plump with juice, I imagined it would take two strong men to carry them on a pole.

“I admire this vineyard,” I said to the angel as I placed my nose against the cluster and breathed in deeply. “Were there ever such grapes as these?”

I