I AM
Thirty-six hours had passed since the execution of Jesus of Nazareth,
bringing the first day of a new week. Very early in the morning Mary
and Martha had arisen. With Anna and Debora, Martha was going to
Jerusalem, where, just outside the city gate, she was to meet Mary, the
mother of James and other women who had followed their acclaimed King
from his own Galilee, and were now going to his sepulchre. These women
had rested over the Sabbath as the Law required, and had prepared
spices and sweet ointment with which to anoint the body so hastily put
away on the evening the third day before.
Mary had chosen to remain in her garden that she might be alone, and in
the dawning of the morning, she walked slowly. Her heart had been
wrung by pain; her tears had been spent. The will to grieve had left
her and the calm of resignation had settled where the storm had torn
her soul. As she walked in white the surrounding gray gave her the
appearance of an ethereal being, dim and unreal, walking in a garden of
shadows, quiet as a sleeping child, and perfumed with dewy lilies.
Beside the lily bed she paused where she had once stood on a glad day
with her beloved Master. She did not break a stem. She did not even
stoop over the blossoms. She did not sigh. She did not for the moment
seem conscious of her own existence. As she stood she felt her heart
grow warm with a warmth as penetrating as sunshine and as vital as life
itself, a strange unfathomable warmth that seemed to flood her being
and yet be at one with it. Strangely moved by this pulsing warmth, she
turned in the pathway, and as she turned, the hush of the sleeping
garden was stirred by a vibrant voice which spoke the one word, "Mary!"
With wildly beating heart she paused. The voice seemed to have come
from under the olive tree where the old stone bench stood empty and
wrapped in gloom. When she had strained her vision for a moment she
saw a form in the shadows, at first misty and gray as the morning, but
taking distinct shape before her bewildered eyes until a face looked
toward her with unutterable love.
"Mary." Again her name sounded on the stillness like a holy call. "It
is I, be not afraid."
She knew now, and in a voice of ecstasy she replied, as with flying
feet she ran to him, "Master--oh, my Master!"
"Touch me not," he said when she would have thrown her arms about him.
"Thy hands are not yet ready. Yet because thou hast eyes to see, thou
seest. Blessed art thou among women! The things that I have taught
thee, forget not, nor add to. I am the Beginning and the End. I have
the keys of Death and the Unseen and lo, I am with thee always, even
unto the end of the Ages."
And when Jesus had seen the face of Mary illumined with the immortal
joy of the mystery of Deathless Love revealed, he passed again into the
Unseen.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Coming of the King, by Bernie Babcock