E is for Easter (flash fiction)

EASTER

She knew he had a mission, this child of hers. From the moment she first held him in her arms, she felt that he was different; that his life was part of a great plan, fulfilling a God-given purpose. But what that purpose was, she didn't know.

The child grew and flowered into manhood. He left her, as is the way with sons, to be with a group of other young men; decent young men from respectable families. And yet she felt uneasy. For she knew her son had that mission to accomplish, and she wondered and she waited.

Three years had passed, when they brought her word.
“We have heard terrible news. Your son is dead. He is hanging from a tree."
“Where? Where is he?”
“We do not know.”

Shocked and distraught, she went searching for him, and found that he was not so very far away after all. Just two days had passed when she discovered him; hanging, as she had been told, from a tree.

And in her grief, she thought, was there to he no mission after all? Was her son's life in vain? For what purpose had she borne this child, and for what
purpose had he died? And she fell and sobbed at the foot of the tree, her arms around its trunk, her cheek pressed against its rough bark.

“Oh, my son! My son! What has happened to you?”she wept. “ What has happened to you, my Judas?”