And Then Came Sunday

Eli Part Three

by Donna Poole

Should she call a physician? The boy refused to eat, drink, or sleep. He’d sat in that corner since Friday afternoon, over twenty-four hours now, not crying, not speaking, staring straight ahead. Sometimes he banged his head into the wall over and over until she thought he’d damage his brain, if he had any left after that terrible sight he’d seen of his king, the man he loved, beaten, tortured, and dying on a cross. It was enough to drive a grown man mad, let alone a seven-year-old boy.

The grandmother tried to comfort him by telling him what she had heard.

“Eli, his brave friends, Joseph, and Nicodemus took his body from the cross and put it in Joseph’s new tomb in a beautiful garden. They wrapped it in linen with seventy-five pounds of costly myrrh and aloes that Nicodemus bought. Seventy-five pounds, Eli! Normal burials use five pounds; only royal burials use seventy-five.  Perhaps Nicodemus agrees with you that your Jesus of Nazareth was a king.”

The boy moaned and started banging his head into the wall again.

“Eli, please, stop that and listen! They rolled a huge stone in front of the tomb so no grave robbers or wild animals could get inside!”

Eli made an animal like sound himself and banged his head more furiously.

What could she do? The grandmother felt like banging her head into a wall herself. She had tried everything, offering Eli his favorite foods, telling him stories he usually loved, singing him psalms. Nothing worked.

I don’t think the child even sees me, and I shudder to think what he is seeing.

When it came time to lie on their sleeping mats Eli did just as he had done Friday night, sat in the corner, knees up to his chin, arms wrapped around his legs, and refused to move. She and the ancient one went to their mats, but she doubted either of them would sleep any better than they had the night before.

Hours passed, and Eli did not make a sound. At least the head banging had stopped. Could he be sleeping?

She almost jumped when the ancient one recited a phrase from a psalm, “He gives his beloved sleep.”

Shocked, she heard Eli stumble toward the ancient one’s sleeping mat. She could picture him curled up next to his great-grandfather, seeking comfort. Eli said nothing, but finally the tears came, man sized sobs, terrible to hear from such a small child.

“I know, boy. I know,” the quavering voice of the ancient one said. “Let it out.”

It seemed Eli would never stop sobbing. The grandmother too had a psalm. She cried it aloud as a prayer. “Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”

Before sunrise, the grandmother felt Eli shaking her. “It is almost morning, Bubbe. What joy? What joy is coming today?”

Now what do I say? I don’t want him going back to that corner again.

“Go back to sleep, Eli. It is not morning yet.”

“No.” His voice was stubborn. “There is something I must do, Bubbe. I am going to the garden tomb.”

“What do you intend to do there? Do you know the Roman soldiers are guarding that tomb? Will you provoke them again? You barely escaped with your life the last time!”

“No, I do not know why, but I am not angry with the soldiers anymore. But I must go to the garden tomb. You stay here with the ancient one. I will be fine. I am almost a man now, Bubbe.”

She agreed that sadly the last few days had advanced him toward manhood far quicker than she would have wished, but he was far from grown.

“We will go together. Quiet, now; do not wake the ancient one.”

The sky was getting lighter as they neared the garden. She could see Eli’s matted hair and tear- streaked face now, and she felt a physical pain in her heart.

“What is it you need to do here, Eli?”

But the boy was once again silent.

The grandmother had never in all her years seen such a garden. The sun just lifting over the hills shined through the flowers that reflected the colors of heaven. The air smelled sweeter than a dream.

Eli shrugged out of his little white coat and ran toward the tomb.

Where does he think he is going? If those soldiers see him!

But there were no soldiers.

Eli looked at her and pointed at the huge stone rolled back from the tomb’s entrance.

“Eli, do not go in there!”

“But that is why I came, Bubbe. I want to cover the feet of the king with my coat, so he won’t be cold.”

“Eli El-Bethel, Martha El-Bethel, come to me, my children.”

Stunned, the grandmother looked at the man sitting on the garden bench. He held out his arms, and she saw nail prints in his palms. How could this be? She remembered Mary’s words, “He is my son, and the son of God.”

She hesitated, but Eli ran into the man’s arms. Both the man and the boy were laughing and crying tears of joy.

“King, why did you let them nail you to that cross?”

“I died for a greater kingdom than you can imagine. I died for the sin of every person ever born or ever yet to be born. I took sin into my heart, there on the cross, accepted its punishment, and made it not to be. Do you believe me, Eli?”

“It is true, then?” the grandmother asked. “You are the son of God?”

“Yes,” Jesus smiled. “Come to set you free and make you new just as you prayed, Martha El-Bethel. Do you believe me?”

The old one and the child both became new that day.

“Go now,” Jesus said to Eli, “and be a strong soldier in my kingdom. You have a weapon so strong nothing can stand against it.”

“I do?”

Jesus smiled at him. “You have love. You will live love, and you will teach love. Your Bubbe will be your first pupil.”

Eli clung to him. “I do not want to leave you.”

“I will be with you always, but we both have our work to do now.”

Eli and Grandmother turned to leave.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Jesus held out his arm and Eli laid his little white coat across it.

Jesus touched the coat gently. “Thank you, my son.”

He looked deeply into the grandmother’s eyes.

“I will,” she promised.

“You will what, Bubbe?” Eli asked.

But she just smiled.

That night, after Eli and the ancient one were sleeping, the grandmother began making two coats, a little one for Eli, and a bigger one to help the ancient one feel warm and loved. For the first time in her life, Martha El-Bethel felt warm, loved, and not alone. She remembered the king’s words, “I will be with you always.” It was true. He was with her, in her heart, smiling with her at each loving movement she made.