Mary the Weaver – part 3

Woman weaving

None of us ate that night, and I at least only dozed fitfully, my dreams full of images of Jesus running around Nazareth, working with Joseph in the carpenters shop, playing and studying with Jonathan and over all those images, him hanging on the cross and dying.

Mary spent the next day, curled up in her cloak, sometimes sleeping, sometimes weeping, sometimes praying. We managed to coaxe her to eat a little, but she said eating made her feel sick. Late in the afternoon it suddenly seemed as if she had come to a decision, and she sat up and spoke to us. ‘When the soldiers took Jesus kethonneth from him, and gambled it away among themselves, I knew that this was the end, that this was what God wanted to happen. Now Jesus had nothing, was nothing. Like the flax plants which make up his kethonneth, he had grown in stature in these years he has been following his Father’s path and has been leading God’s people back to him. In this last day he has been broken, beaten, nailed shamefully to a cross, and reduced to be just the person his Father wants him to be.

I looked at the kethonneth that I had woven for him, and even that seemed to belong to someone else. Yet I know every stitch of that garment; every thread, every weave, every warp, every weft. I spun the flax on my distaff, working until I had enough to make a whole garment. I set up the weaving frame, which Joseph had made for me when we first got married. I propped it against one of the walls of the house, then I set every warp thread and weighted them so that there was sufficient tension to hold them in place. I wove every line of weft, building the material thread by thread, day by day until I had a single piece long enough to make a kethonneth for Jesus. I don’t know what garment God is making of his son, but I know that it will be the most beautiful thing that he has every given to the world. A perfect woven garment fit for the whole of human kind.

Tomorrow I will use winding sheet made by a stranger, given gladly to bury my son in. I will go, with his friends and we will annoint and bury him decently, as we have not been able to do today. He will be buried properly by the kindness of strangers.’

Mary and I left the house early and met up with Mary of Magdala, and some of the other women, and we set off for Jesus’ tomb. There was a bit of debate about the necessity of using the Roman guards to open the tomb, but when we got there, there was no need. The soldiers were slumped on the ground as if they were sleeping, and the stone had already been removed from the tomb. We took quick glance around to see if we could see the body, but when we couldn’t we set off at speed to let the Apostles know what had happened.

While we were walking, we were overtaken by Mary of Magdala, who just shouted out ‘I have seen the Lord’. At least that is what it sounded like. She sped off into the distance and arrived where the Apostles were staying long before us. She must have had to get her breath back, and her story must have been long for we arrived just as she told them that when the gardener she had been talking to just quietly said the word ‘ Mary’ to her, she had recognised him as Jesus. There was stunned silence at her news, then something seemed to click and the Apostles turned and began to hug each other and laugh and cry,

‘He is risen.’

‘Just as he promised, he has come back from the dead.’

‘Alleluia.’

Something seemed to come alive again Mary, sitting on a mat next to me, and she straightened herself. ‘This is what God wants from my son, not his life, but his death. He has created a garment to beautify the world through the son brought into the world for just this purpose.’

We have been scarcely able to take in everything that has happened since the day of resurrection. We remained as long as we could, helping the Apostles tell the story of Jesus, as we knew him as a boy. It seemed important that they know as much as possible about him. Now we must return to Nazareth, to our businesses, to our lives. Mary is with us. Nathan, Jonathan and I spent some time talking with John, whom Jesus asked to look after his mother. We will go back and talk with Jesus’ heir, and tell him that he must look after the family land now. Flax will grow there again, with all the other crops we needed to feed the family. The plough and mattock made by Jesus and Joseph will till and clear the land for years to come. Mary, widowed and now without a son, will be dependent on the kindness of her family. Mary the Weaver will make other kethonneths, for other people, but these will not be the beautiful garments made by and for Jesus, son of Mary, Son of God.

Mary the Weaver – part 2

Woman weaving

At this blunt assessment of what would happen to her son in the next few hours, Mary turned sheet white and would have collapsed, had I not quickly moved to her side and put my arm around her. I moved to sit her on a mat on the floor. After a little while the colour came back into her face, and she straightened up. ‘Whatever is happening now is God’s will for my son. I don’t understand how he can do this to him, to me, but I am going to be there, I am going to remain by his side. I am going to go to him, now.

Nathan took some hurried directions from our hosts, and we set off though the narrow winding street, thronging with people buying food ready to celebrate another day of pesach, or picking up trinklets to take home as gifts when they returned after pesach was over. Here and there we could see groups of Roman soldiers standing alert, watching the crowds, prepared to deal with any kind of trouble or rebellion. As we got closer to the route we had been told Jesus would take, from the Antonia Fortress to Golgotha, there were more soldiers, lining the streets. We could hear a noise, a deep seated murmer like an angry animal, and suddenly a group of soldiers, escorting a trio of bloodied men carrying crosses, came round the corner. Mary turned white again, and just whispered ‘Jesus, my son’.

The flax fibres are next taken and scutched, hit with a stick to finish cleaning out any impurities, so that the fibres are as fine as possible and as straight as possible.

How he heard her in among the rest of the noise, and in the depths of his own misery and pain, I shall never know, but he stopped, and put his head up, like a dog scenting its quarry. Just as the centurion raised his whip to hit him again, Jesus raised his hand, and stayed him saying ‘It is my mother’ and Mary slipped though the cordon of soldiers, and flung her arms around him. The soldier lowered his whip, but when the hug seemed to be going on too long, he reached out his hand to pull Mary off Jesus. Nathan and I slipped though the soldiers, and at a look from Jesus took the now weeping Mary from Jesus arms. We followed Jesus though the streets, dodging behind soldiers and stall holders, until at last we came to Golgotha.

The last step of processing the flax is the hackling. The fibres are passed through a bed of nails, first a course set, then a finer set to leave a fine combed set of fibres.

I never want to see such a sight again. Hands that I had cleaned mud and blood off in childhood, and clasped in friendship as an adult, were nailed to a cross, and then hung for all the world to see. Mary would not leave him. We would not leave her. She was allowed to remain near him; we had to watch from afar. When it was all over, and mercifully it was quicker than the two others with him, his broken, lifeless, still warm body was taken down from the cross and laid in her arms. It was then that my heart broke for him and for her. He was truly dead. It was the end. Had God so deserted us, deserted him, after all that he had done in sending Jesus to us to save us?

As Mary was sitting there holding his lifeless body, and we were all wondering what to do next, two older men came and introduced themselves to us as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. They told us that they were friends of Jesus, and that they had been to Pontius Pilate to get permission to bury Jesus in a new tomb that Jospeh had had made for himself. Pilate had agreed on condition that Roman soldiers were set to guard the tomb, to stop anyone from removing the body. With Mary’s consent, Nicodemus signalled to his servants, whom he had brought with him, and they came forward with a small handcart and some sheets, which they hastily wrapped around the body, before lifting it carefully into the cart. They then began to push it in the direction where the newly prepared tomb was ready and waiting for it. We all followed the cart, Mary, Nathan and I, and those followers of Jesus who had remained with him. A contingent of soldiers followed us to make sure everything happened as Pilate had agreed. Jesus body was hastily placed in the tomb, and the soldiers rolled the stone over the entrance. A guard was set, and as the sun began to set, and the sabbath began, we were sent away.

Flax fibres are now ready to be spun on a distaff. Long threads are created, ready to be dyed or bleached. Then the creation of the linen fabric can begin.

Mary the Weaver – part 1

Woman weaving

Nathan and I led Mary back to Nazareth, after the extreem swings of emotion in that Passover week rendered her almost incapable of making decisions for herself. On the journey home she walked for hours with her head down, carrying her pack, in contemplation of something that she did not share with us. At night we made sure she ate, and that she was sleeping among our party, for protection. We worried about how she was going to cope when she returned to Nazareth, and normal life. Jesus had handed her over to the care of his friend John, but at least for moment, he was in Jerusalem with the rest of the Apostles, spreading the message of Jesus resurrection from death.

Mary is a wonderful weaver. All women in Galilee can weave. Flax grows well in our soil, and it is more profitable for us to make it into cloth, and then sell it. Over the generations we have learnt to weave on larger looms than anywhere else in the country. We are famous for producing cloth that is wide enough to need just a single piece for a garment.

We had set out from Nazareth, to celebrate pesach in Jerusalem, nearly three weeks previously, full of high spirits. We had our son Jonathan and his wife with us, and their son and daughter. They were young enough to run or dance and chatter for most of the journey, keeping us all entertained. We arrived in Jerusalem just about the same time as Jesus entered, riding on a donkey, having ridden over from Bethany where he had been staying with friends. Mary had hoped that Jesus would be in Jerusalem for the passover, and that she would be able to find him among the many thousands who were converging on the city. She looked on with bewildered fascination as the crowds tore down branches from the palm trees and laid them on the ground in front of her son. Some took off their simlah’s and laid them for the donkey to walk on. She smiled when they began to shout ‘Hosannah to the Son of David’. The smile was wiped off her face in an instant when she caught the look on the faces of several men who were obviously part of the Sanhedrin. If looks could kill, Jesus would have been dead then and there, no trial, no mess, no fuss; just dead and out of the way.

Mary met up with Jesus for meals at friends houses during that week, and I know that she urged him to take care, but she must have known, yes, she knew that the actions Jesus was taking in Jerusalem, were going to bring things to a head. Jesus, son of Mary, Son of God, was going to come into his own, this week, in this place. Except that none of us could have guessed quite how.

Jesus grew flax on the family land. When he and his hired workers had cut it they would leave it in small tied bundles on the ground in the field. The morning dew settles on the flax and the plants begin to rot. When they were nicely retted he would gather them in and take them to Mary for processing

It was a shock then, when on the Thursday evening a messenger came to say that Jesus had been arrested while he was praying with some of his followers in a garden in Gethsemane. Mary wanted to set out immediately to try and find him, but Nathan and I persuaded her, that as we did not know where he had been taken, we should wait until one of his followers sent us more news. I don’t think that any of us slept that night. All of us were certainly awake when a timid knock came on the door, and a young boy slid in when it was opened.

The next process in preparing the flax to weave, is the flax breaking. The strands of flax are beaten to remove the outer fibres, leaving the inner tough long silky fibres ready for the next stage of processing.

In a hushed whisper the boy told us that during the night Jesus had been taken before the Sanhedrin, then Herod, then Pontius Pilate the Roman Governor, and he had been condemned to death. There was to be no delay. Even now the Roman garrison were preparing the crosses for Jesus, and two felons who were also awaiting execution. As soon as the sun was fully up, Jesus would be led through the streets, carrying his cross, to Golgotha, the place of the skull, where he would be stripped, nailed to the cross, and then raised up to hang there until he was dead. Beside common criminals; like a common criminal.