Page 26 of Unveiled Tamar’s Story (Mysteries & Wonders of the Bible #1)

“Look, here is the place where He was laid. There are His burial clothes. Do you not remember what He said to you while He was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men to be crucified? Do you not remember that He promised He would rise again on the third day?”

Valerius couldn’t close his eyes, but he wanted to, to savor the words. He hadn’t heard that promise. He hadn’t known his Lord had said death wouldn’t defeat Him.

If he had, would he have understood as he stood beneath the cross? As he felt the whole world buck and weep and rebel at His passing?

Even as he wanted to think so, he knew better. If these women, if His own disciples, forgot that, if they gave up all hope and thought Him truly dead and gone, then how would he have done any differently?

Even faith, even knowledge, withered in the face of the cruelties of life.

Even when one had already witnessed a miracle, one couldn’t always cling to the hope of another when one was parched in the desert, one’s children dying.

He’d learned that from the Scriptures well before these last few days of despair.

But Jesus had triumphed over despair. He had triumphed over the tomb. He had triumphed over the sin He’d known would be fatal.

Fatal, but fleeting. How strange and beautiful that was. How strange to think that a God who was Spirit had taken on flesh, and valued that flesh enough to take it up again even after relinquishing it to death.

Something he would have to ponder later, when those women’s feet weren’t rushing by him again.

Time meant nothing as he lay there in that peaceful stillness, staring up at clouds that skidded across the sky, changing from pink to gold to white.

Apart from his open eyes, it felt like the most restful sleep.

Every muscle at ease. No discomfort at all, despite the rocks and uneven ground he knew were beneath him.

He knew it the moment the paralysis released him. He felt it in the return of the need to blink, the way his muscles suddenly felt the ground beneath him. He leaped to his feet as Albus and Caeso did the same, their eyes both grazing him for a shocked split second before moving to the tomb.

Valerius didn’t turn around to see it, not yet. He turned instead toward Tamar as his men entered the empty cave.

She too had fallen. She wouldn’t even have been visible when the women came upon them. Had she heard the angel’s words?

He couldn’t tell, to look at her bemused face.

He didn’t know her well enough to read what that set of her mouth meant, or that quirk of her brow.

But he knew she understood him when he nodded toward the path away from this tomb, his command unspoken but clear.

She ought to leave. Now, before his men came back out.

She obeyed, darting into the tomb but emerging again a scant moment later, yesterday’s silk in her arms. She disappeared from sight a second before Albus and Caeso stepped out.

“I do not understand it.” Caeso stopped beside Valerius but kept his face turned toward the tomb. “We saw the body in there. We rolled the stone into place ourselves. We checked the seal when we arrived last night, and it had not been disturbed.”

“How did the stone move?” Albus settled his gaze on Valerius. “You were the nearest, my lord. Did you see? I could hear it rolling, but I could see nothing but the sky.”

Valerius shifted his gaze from Albus to Caeso. “Did neither of you see anything at all?”

They both shook their heads, brows drawing into different versions of the same frown. “Not until the women ran up,” Caeso said. “I could see them when they drew near and passed between us.”

“But you did not see Jesus walking out of the tomb?”

They stared at him, dumbfounded.

He didn’t know whether to smile or sigh. “Light? Did you see a bright light?”

They hesitated, looked at each other, and then each gave a slow, hesitant nod.

That was something at least. “First I found the light blinding, but then it focused. Into the form of a man. It was Jesus. I recognized Him from the cross. As He was walking away, I felt the stone begin to roll. I could just make out an arm and a…wing, it looked like.” At their frowns, he drew in a breath.

“It matches the Hebrew descriptions of angels. Some of them, anyway. God’s messengers. ”

Their frowns didn’t lessen. “If the dead man had already risen and was walking away,” Albus said, “why did the angel roll away the stone?”

He had wondered the same thing, of course. But now he felt certain he had the answer. “So they could see—the women. So they could see at a glance that the tomb was empty. He rolled it away not to let the Lord out, but to let us in.”

Caeso rubbed a hand over his face and then let it fall.

It didn’t make it far though. Just to his chest, where it splayed over his heart.

“The governor will never believe us. We will be killed for this. And yet, if I am going to die, I am glad I felt this first. I am glad I…” He trailed off, his eyes shifting to the empty tomb again.

“I do not even know what all those things you have explained mean. Who this God is, who His Son is. But I know I saw a corpse in that tomb, and now it is empty. I saw a light that made me aware of every wrong thing I have ever done, a light that burned it all away.”

“I thought it was just me.” Albus rubbed at his chest too. “I do not even want to do those things anymore. I do not want that life.” He looked to Valerius. “What life does that leave us? We know nothing of the ways of the Jews.”

Valerius clapped a hand on each man’s shoulder. “I will share all I have learned with you, most gladly. But first things first, my friends. We need to go make our report to Pilate.”

Albus’s face darkened. “Right. The question of what life to live will be irrelevant.”

He squeezed each man’s shoulder. “I do not believe we were struck but left alive, only to be killed for what we witnessed. But if so, then I will go to the grave bearing that witness anyway. Though He was dead, He lives again. Jesus is the Son of God.”

Pivoting on his heel, he led his men away.