There he stood, hammer in hand, working diligently next to his step-father, this boy she loved more than life itself.

As she watched from a safe distance, gazing, as only a mother can, at the beauty of her son, she was reminded once again that

He was not like the other boys.

Oh, he looked like any other Jewish boy in town with his dark hair and olive skin.  His voice and body were changing just like his peers.

But his mind, his heart, his soul, were old from the day he was born.

His insides did not match his still boyish outsides.  She could hear it in his probing questions that astounded her.  She could see it when the other pre-teens bullied another child and he would run to defend the adolescent underdog with his lion heart and then tend to him with his tender but strong, carpenter-in-the-making hands.

He didn’t look at girls the way the other boys did, or even as any of the other men in her world.  You could tell by the way he talked with them that he considered them his equals, that he valued them.  She saw it in the way he talked to her each time they had a mother-son discussion.

He looked directly into her eyes and seemed to see the things that even her husband couldn’t.

Others were drawn to him.  Even at his young age, he was an incredible story teller.  Adults and children alike gathered to listen to his tales that seemed to hold deeper meaning than they could truly understand.  He was known to even carry on theological discussions with the church leaders and leave them scratching their heads with his wisdom.

Who was this child she was raising?  This beautiful enigma that both amazed and confounded her?

Her mind flashed back to the day she found out she was pregnant with him.

There was a messenger with a clear message of who she would give birth to.

This child that was unconventional from the time he was miraculously planted in her womb.

He would be the Son of God. This is what she was told. He would free His people, and all the people to come, from their sins.

He would free her.

His vast wisdom, his unending love and devotion, his tender heart of compassion and his powerful words.  It was who he was.

Heaven come to earth.

She brushed the tears from her cheek as she looked at him with an ache inside.  The ache of knowing that he wasn’t just hers. That he never really was. That he belonged to a world that neither really understood or would believe in him or who he was.

Her mind couldn’t go to the day that he would do what was his destiny, his purpose.  How could she?  She didn’t understand it herself.  Didn’t want to understand it.

It was too much for a mother’s heart to grasp and bear.

The sound of the hammer hitting a spike brought her back from her daydream.  Her beloved son and her devoted husband finishing up another project.

Just like any other son and his father.  

She let herself believe it. She smiled at the perfect picture before her and let herself soak in the moment that she knew would too soon be gone….

Oh, Mary, how could you know the irony that was right in front of you?  

That it would be a hammer and spike similar to these that would put this beautiful boy of yours on a tree?

You had no way of knowing the pain that the two of you would face before his 34th birthday.  That you would spend the first Good Friday staring at the cross that would mark all of history.  That you would be weeping over the son who would be in the process of saving the world just as was predicted by hanging there dying as you watched.

Your heart will rage and break within you.  You will cry out for answers but you won’t understand.  It won’t make sense.  Much as it didn’t make sense when you conceived this child.  

You know this of God, Mary.  That He works in very mysterious ways and that those ways are not like ours.

Just wait Mary.  Just trust.  God is not finished.  Your son’s death is not the end.

Three days, Mary.  For three days you will grieve like there is no tomorrow.  You will want to die right alongside him and have your body placed next to the boy who had your heart from before he even made your belly swell.

Sunday is coming, Mary, I promise you.  You will see more things that don’t make sense, things too amazing and glorious for human words.  

You will see your son again.  And he will be more radiant and alive than ever before.

And miraculously, Mary, so will you.

How do I know this?  Because I am in the distant future, Mary.  I know your son.  I love your son, too.  And he is very much alive, never to die again.

And because of your beautiful son, Mary, I am alive, too.