By the next day, the first day of Unleavened Bread and a Thursday, a sobered, silent group of forlorn disciples ate a quiet meal with Joseph and Nicodemus, breaking their unleavened bread and quietly talking of the events of that apocalyptic Passover.

Peter knew it was all over now, and toyed with the idea of leaving soon, getting out of Jerusalem and returning home, sorting out what was left of his fragmented life.

The next day was preparation for the weekly Sabbath, and the women worked at grinding up leaves and roots they had purchased, making spices they said they wanted to use on Jesus' body, hoping to gain entrance to the tomb before the fourth day, after which both common sense and Jewish law prohibited it.

Peter felt detached, uninvolved, almost like watching others from a vast distance.

Nicodemus was musing over what Jesus had said to him about "being born again," and remembering the tradition that a man had to "die for the sins of the nation."

This was a puzzle to Peter, though he accepted it as something that would happen to someone, someday—he couldn't connect it with Jesus.

Jesus was dead. It was over.

Peter expressed his dismay that they could sit there and talk about such distant, philosophical, otherworldly things when the reality of a crucifixion and their beloved leader lying lifeless up there in Joseph's new tomb was reality—the here and now!

Nicodemus said, "True, Peter, but remember one thing! "

"What's that?" Peter asked doubtfully.

"He said He would rise again!"

Joseph looked up sharply, and Peter half smiled.

"I'll believe that when I see it happen!" Peter said.

"I know you will, Peter. And I believe you'll see it happen! " Nicodemus said.

Peter could only smile at him and shake his head, wonderingly. He had been tormented by too many false hopes and had chased too many shattered dreams to ever get his hopes up about something so farfetched as that. Had he not been 'there and seen Jesus die with his own eyes, perhaps he could hope for some such ultimate, unthinkable miracle.

The others were equally skeptical. Nicodemus had made no headway whatever with his quiet expectation that Jesus would rise again; no one believed it possible.

The hours that followed were torture for Peter.

He was filled with shame and self- condemnation over what he had done, thinking what he could have done, what he should have done. He thought for the hundredth time how he could have prevented Jesus' arrest, how he could have been more effective with his sword, and he doubted that Jesus would have healed a split head!

He hoped, desperately, that the others didn't know how he had cursed and lied!

The shock and shame gnawed at Peter's vitals like a rusty fishhook, festered and poisonous. He flung himself about, raging to himself over the simplest things. He was beside himself with grief, rage, shock, hurt, humility, self-pity, guilt; it was impossible to sort out the feelings that swept through him like a burst torrent, like a raging sea, like a roaring wind.

He couldn't find a way out. His thoughts tormented him so: the specter, the ugly scene of those motley soldiers and priests with that little filthy squirt of a high priest's servant, the one Peter had tried to kill, and Judas, always Judas, the swarthy, handsome, glittering-eyed one with the deft fingers, smooth manner, ridiculous little mustache and constant talk about his impeccable "integrity" concerning money matters. Yet there he had been, with the filthy lucre weighting down his rotten pouch at his side, his clammy palms still sweating from the greed and jealousy that had consumed his soul. Yet, try as he could, Peter could not take the gnawing blame he felt and shift it onto the shoulders of some other person.

He sighed with a shuddering gasp.

Him! Peter, the so-called "pebble," the "rock"! Some rock, he thought ruefully—like a piece of camel dung that looked like a rock lying half rotted under a stone, more to the point! He had boasted, blustered and threatened!

His neck pulsed, and his palms sweated anew, as the red crawled up the back of his neck into his ears, remembering!

Stupid Peter! He had said, "If it is You, Lord, then bid me to walk out there on the water to You! " He was the one who had blurted out about making tabernacles to stay with Jesus on the heights of Hermon—why? Did he just want to appear "righteous" and impress the Lord? He, Peter, had gotten disgusted up there in Nazareth and left Jesus to return to his nets, and he, Peter, had tried to assume the role of self-appointed protector, guide and chief right-hand man!

Now He was dead. Dead! Peter couldn't believe it! It was absolutely impossible! He was so positive, so sure Jesus would never let them take Him! He was so sure he had staked his life, his family, his friends, his security, everything, on this glowing new kingdom Jesus had described. He was so wrapped up in it that for three and a half long years now it had been his life!

That dumb little chambermaid! Why had she felt it necessary to make idle chitchat with those stupid Roman mercenaries around that fire? So what was it to her that she had to blurt out, " Weren't you one of those Galileans I saw with Him?" He could have stuffed a pound of overripe figs into her dumb, turned-down, quizzical mouth! All he needed then to add to his unbearable anxieties was some stupid flip of a skinny chambermaid standing there sticking her reddish, runny nose into Peter's private affairs!

He raged on, kicking himself, excusing himself, thinking "what if" at least a thousand times.

But it was too late now—It was all over.

How he had wanted to believe Jesus, to accept the fact that He really was the very Son of God, the promised Messiah, who would redeem His people and begin a grand new kingdom. And he had believed, in a way. Oh, Jesus had surprised him many times and disappointed him now and then, but all in all He had been a remarkable Man, strongly convinced of His own place in life, of His own destiny.

Now that Peter thought back to those last few weeks, and how concerned he and many others had become at Jesus' dark sayings about being delivered up and about being persecuted and whipped in the synagogues; how he had been up before dawn and away by Himself to pray, and how He had been losing weight and seemed to fast more than usual; well, it all added up.

Did he somehow sense He might fail? Did Jesus Himself have a sense of foreboding that things might go wrong? Peter agonized like this for three days and nights.

On the morning of the first day of the week, Peter didn't know whether to believe Mary, Jesus' mother, and Mary Magdalene or not. They claimed to have been at the tomb and to have seen two angels inside and to have been actually spoken to by them! They said they had turned back and seen this disfigured, stooped, terrible looking man they thought was a graveskeeper and had asked him, " Sir, if you are the one who has carried His body away, please tell me where you have laid Him and I will come and claim the body. "

At that, they reported the man had said "Mary" to Mary Magdalene.

The voice was the same, she said, with tears and trembling hands, though He looked so terribly different. She had blurted out "Rabboni," meaning "Master," quickly, and had tried to embrace Him, but He drew back quickly and said, "Touch Me not, for I have not yet ascended unto the Father. But go unto My brethren and say to them, I ascend unto My Father, and your Father, and My God and your God."

Excited almost beyond containment, the two women related the story to Peter and John. Joanna and the other women kept affirming it was true!

Peter was still rubbing the sleep from his reddened eyes, having endured another tortured night of tumbled dreams and thoughts, when the two Marys had come pounding at the door and saying, "Peter! Peter! Is John with you?"

Hearing their story, Peter couldn't believe it. Why? Did they intend further parading of His dead body? But Jewish law wouldn't permit it, surely. Would even the rabid mobs that had screamed out their hatred, demanding "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" stand still for the Romans parading His mutilated body through the streets?"

Without turning to see if he was following, Peter grabbed up a robe from the peg inside the sleeping room and said, "Come on, John, we're going to the tomb."

They hurried through the streets, increasing their pace once outside the main gate, and Peter was panting from his running when they came to the tomb site. It seemed temporarily unguarded, for some reason, but the huge, rounded stone they had wedged firmly against the door was rolled back!

The door of the sepulcher showed black, empty of any guard.

John stooped and peered inside, saying to Peter he could faintly see some linen clothes lying about! With a gasp of shock, Peter shouldered past John and entered the tomb. The feeble light from without revealed it was large; large enough for perhaps four or more bodies. Right there, before Peter's eyes, were the linen grave clothes that had been used to wrap Jesus' body, the bloodstains clearly visible. Lying further away, as if carefully folded, was the napkin they had used to wind about Jesus' head.

"John! " Peter said, voice choking with disbelief and fear. "Come . . . come here!"

John timidly entered then, and gasped

"Peter—He is gone. He is risen!"

Turning, Peter stepped back outside, and his eyes were momentarily blinded by the harsh light. John joined him outside, where the two men looked around, wondering about the tale of the women concerning the two in white. There was no one else in sight, and Peter supposed the Roman guards had hurried off to report to their centurion.

" How do you suppose the stone was rolled back?" Peter asked.

"I don't know, unless angels did it—"

"Do you suppose the Romans took His body somewhere?"

"But why? What would they do this for? Pilate washed his hands of the whole thing, and he is over the whole Roman garrisons. Surely some centurion would not dare disobey him."

"The Sanhedrin, then?"

"If they did, they would be violating the traditions about touching dead bodies, and right in the middle of the Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread. "

"But who, then?" Peter asked, puzzling.

"Perhaps He is risen—just as He said?"

"Do you really believe that, John?" Peter queried. "But how is this possible? Alive, I know Jesus could do great miracles—but dead?"

"All I know is, He said He would rise again the third day! " John said as they walked along the pathway toward the city. They continued puzzling over the empty tomb, racking their brains as to some logical explanation all the way back to the house. Their late breakfast was more of the same as they had the women relate their experience at the tomb to the whole group, and Peter and John added details about what they had seen.

So went the whole day, and on into the evening. No one dared to venture out during the day for fear of being recognized.

Peter was particularly wary. What if one of those Roman mercenaries with whom he had shared that fire saw him? What if that chambermaid pointed him out? For days he went out only by night.

They were all huddled together, talking almost nonstop in bewilderment over all the events of the past few days, and listening to Mary Magdalene tell this incredible story that same evening, when an apparition appeared!

Suddenly there was a person that appeared to be Jesus!

But He was so different!

His skin was deathly pale, almost white, and the terrible, livid scars gaped with brutal ugliness. The scalp had been ripped and torn; great gashes had disfigured the face; and the lips were shredded. Terrible, torn holes appeared in the feet and hands.

He said, "Why are you so frightened? Why are you reasoning and arguing inside yourselves? See My hands and My feet? It's Me. Come here and handle Me and see for yourselves. See? A spirit has not flesh and bones as you see I have. "

They were exclaiming, saying, "But it's impossible, it can't be," and "Lord, is it really You?"

At this He had asked, "Have you anything here to eat?"

One of them turned back to the table and handed Him a piece of broiled fish, and He began to eat it before them. They stared, incredulous.

Peter was terribly frightened, afraid this was only a frightening vision, like up there on Hermon, and afraid that it could be true at the same time.

The vision of that same body, naked and bloody, hanging high above the heads of the tormentors and Roman soldiers, reawakened Peter's agony as he had watched, wanting to shout with rage and slay every Roman in sight, but afraid. He thought of that black, black day, with flashing lightning and the rumbling noise of an earthquake, the way the Roman soldier had reached up with his spear and jammed it cruelly into His side, the way His head smacked backward and then slumped on His chest. Peter gaped at the hands with their huge scars dexteriously pulling away a piece of fish, and watched Jesus eat, chewing carefully, looking at first one of them and then the other.

Suddenly He vanished! Several of them cried out, and John knelt to pray right then and there.

Thomas came in about an hour later with a report on the streets.

They began babbling to him about the appearance, and Thomas scoffed.

"You're crazy!" he said. "Except I could see in His hands the print of the nails and actually put my own finger into them, or put my hand into His side, I will not believe any of this!" That next eight days was one of the worst times in Peter's memory.

One day blended into the next, with most of them remaining indoors nearly all day, daring only to go out for a walk around the neighborhood at night, and even then with fear of being singled out.

Repairs were under way everywhere. Rumors were that the priests had gathered together for a special dedication of prayer at the installation of the new tapestry that had been made for the Holy Place, and many a parapet and rooftop had been repaired. Arrests were being made too, but the authorities weren't able to find many witnesses who claimed to know many of the disciples.

The frightened pilgrims from other countries had long since taken a hurried departure, some of them not even remaining for the Days of Unleavened Bread. Of course, even bigger crowds would likely be present for the Feast of Pentecost, especially now that the news of these strange occurrences was being spread throughout this part of the world.

Messengers on fast horses had spread out in all directions, some of them under pay of the chief priests, of course, and others to inform some of the Roman garrisons.

The people were shocked that Barabbas had been released, and that Jesus of Nazareth, a good and gentle Man who had healed many of them, or so they said, had been crucified! Two other criminals had died too, the news said, and the Romans were on alert and had requested reinforcements from Asia.

The next ships arriving at the ports from Tyre to Rhodes and from Alexandria to Rome would bear the news.

Every day they sat endlessly discussing this or that latest rumor, waiting for something to happen, seemingly paralyzed into numbing inactivity by the furor in the city. It could have cost them their lives to have been recognized.

One of the strangest rumors came from Bethphage in the form of a servant of Joseph's who claimed the grandfather of his best friend had walked up and began exclaiming about all the changes that had been made in the house!

The family had screamed and run away, the story went, leaving the old man standing there scratching his head and calling to them. It wasn't until one of the very youngest got up his courage and approached the old man that the rest got over their fright and began questioning him.

The story was that he had been dead for more than a year!

Other rumors, equally strange, had it that several more of the best-known men of recent years, men of some note in the city, and two who were thought to be sages and prophets, had been seen alive!

With such rumors flying thick and fast, Peter thought, the people are in the mood to expect any relative who had been buried to come walking up and say hello. Maybe it all went back to the raising of Lazarus. Maybe people had talked themselves into some sort of mass hysteria, and were just seeing things.

And maybe the Romans, or the high priests themselves, were just spreading these rumors to keep the people upset and to make them think rumors about Jesus being seen alive were only some more empty tales, like the rest of them.