The Race

"Could it possibly be true?" he exclaimed, so loudly that he thought it was only inside his head. He jumped up from the table, and the chair flew back landing on the floor, a clay pitcher spilling wine across the table and running off onto the floor. The crumbs from the broken loaf of bread that he was nibbling from still clung to his lips and broken chunks of bread were scattered across the table, as he ran for the door.

Simon's wife shouted angrily behind him, "What on earth has gotten into you?" What do you mean running out the door like this and leaving this mess behind?” Come back here!” Simon didn’t have time for this kind of drama right now. “Why does this kind of conflict always seems to happen at the wrong time?” he thought to himself, but didn’t dare say aloud.

The last three years of his life had been like a dream that had bred with a nightmare and created a beautiful but challenging child.

He had left the family business, much to the consternation and disapproval of his father and mother, needless to say his wife. Oddly, it was his mother-in-law that was his most avid supporter, this wasn’t always so, but had all changed when something more than amazing, perhaps a miracle, had completely healed her, while she was laying at death’s door.

Before the “miracle” she was always at odds with Simon. When her daughter wanted to marry him, she was completely against it. She wanted her to marry  Nathaniel, “that nice boy from down the street”. She did everything within her power to keep her daughter from marrying Simon, causing as much difficulty between the two as she could ethically tolerate.

 "I just have to go and see for myself!" Simon said, as he rushed ever faster making for the door. "You aren't going to believe those idle tales are you? " His wife mockingly said, her anger and hurt escalating as she continued on saying, “When are you going to realize that you have wasted the last three years of your life, when you could have been building the family business and taking care of things at home?”  ‘that woman is just a busybody, she always has some crazy story that she is telling all the neighbors. Besides, you know what kind of woman she is.’ Are you really going to listen to what that whore has to say, and at one word from her go running off? ’What about me?’ There's things to do around here!"

Mary had run through the whole neighborhood with the most unbelievable news, so unbelievable in fact, that no one believed her. That is, until, she had come running in and told Simon that it was all true, exactly as Joshua had said while he was still with them, how they would kill him but that wouldn't be the end of it.

“That will never happen” Simon protested to Joshua at one point, desiring to protect his best friend and mentor. But, Joshua had rebuked Simon sharply for this statement, confusing Simon, who was just trying to help his friend.

Ever since Joshua had come to town the Priests had plotted against him, "THE PRIESTS", can you imagine it? The ones that taught our children and told us how to live. They were continually plotting and scheming how they could “be rid” of Joshua because he dared question their methods and motives. Joshua repeatedly questioned their self-centeredness and hypocrisy as they “preached” to the people, saying one thing, but really believing another. The real problem for them was that Joshua being so good and right, they could not find a way to get him to shut up and go away.

Simon ran out the door as fast as his sandaled feet would carry him, and, as he ran down the graveled dusty road his thoughts began to spin. He remembered with grief how that when Joshua needed his friend Simon most, Simon had ran like he’s running now, running for his life.

 “Well,” he told himself,” I wasn’t the only one that ran.” No matter, he remembered his words to his friend Joshua “I’ll never leave you! even if they kill me.” This had tortured his mind ever since they arrested Joshua, and now he was dead.

As he reached a crossroad, he spotted his friend John running up ahead. “What’s he doing there?” Simon thought aloud. “I can’t let him out run me, he’s the only one that didn’t desert Joshua. ’If only I can get there first and see if what Mary said was true,’ then they will all see that I really loved Joshua.”

Catching up to John, Simon nodded to him, and through his labored breathing said “What are you doing John? ‘Where are you headed?’ ”Mary came and told me “It’s all true! Everything that Joshua said is true! So, I’m going to see for myself.”

“Man,” Simon thought to himself, “I can’t let this happen, I’m going to get there first if it kills me.”

“ If it kills me, ‘at least then I’ll be wherever Joshua is.’”

He pulled up ahead of John his calves and thighs starting to scream. He wasn’t used to running this far, but he pushed himself harder than ever, his breathing was getting labored and the sweat poured down his body, soaking his clothes through and through.

John began to pull up close to Simon even pulling ahead of him a bit as Simon tired and slipped back, but Simon wasn’t going to quit this time. He ran until he thought the muscles in his legs would come apart. Up ahead he could see the rich man’s garden. “That’s where it is, that’s where Mary said she saw him.” John rounded the corner through the garden gate, spewing gravel in Simon’s sweating face.

They were in the garden now.

“NO!!” Simon explained as John reached the opening to the tomb first. John stood next to the opening and peered around the corner into the tomb, and stood there frozen. “Here’s my chance!” Simon thought, so he kept running right into the garden tomb and came to a dead stop, right at the spot where Joshua’s body should have been. He stood there with his mouth wide open in utter amazement, the linen that they had wrapped his body in was neatly folded on a stone bench in front of him.

Simon now knew that he really was Peter the rock as Jesus had said. He made it, he had finished strong.

All the memories of what Jesus had said came flooding back to him.

"Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify. And the third day He will rise again." Matthew 20:18 

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.  And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Matthew 16:17 

"Could it possibly be true?"