The Tear

No one knew, she thought. No one knew. For all their laws and prophesies, for all their wealth and food and earthly things, they still didn't know. They simply didn't know! The girl shook her head, amazed at the thought of it all. With a little grunt, she hopped off of the tree branch and landed softly on the ground. Her feet lifted an inch off the ground and then fell back down in a slow, careless walk. She hummed softly to herself as if it meant nothing to her that she was over twenty miles away from the nearest town.

"Hello Columba" said a voice behind her. With a slight smile, the girl turned around to see a grey-skinned boy who looked to be about twenty-one. "Hello Ignobilis."

Columba took a few wandering steps toward the boy. "So where have you been?" she asked. Ignobilis smiled broadly and spun around with his arms spread wide. "Everywhere." Columba raised an eyebrow. "Everywhere?" she asked. "Of course," the boy said, looking a little insulted. "Do you think I'd lie to you?" The girl just smiled and said, "I only thought you might be a little careless in your answer." The boy's face turned a little more serious. "Why would that be?" Columba just smiled. "So what do you think of them?" The boy hesitated for a moment before slowly saying, "They're...disappointing." Columba's smile faded somewhat. "You don't have to be soft with your words." she said. "I know you're thinking of a few other words...vile or hopeless perhaps?" Ignobilis noddded. "Hopeless most of all, I've yet to see how creatures such as them can possibly be saved in this world or the next. It seems to me that they secretly lust for their own destruction." Columba giggled. "Then you haven't been everywhere" And then she was gone.

*******

That girl could be so infuritating sometimes! Ignobilis strode out onto the shore, looking around with more than a little annoyance. "Looking for someone?" said a voice behind him. He spun around and saw Columba sitting there on a rock, her legs hanging idly in the air. "What were you talking about, back there" the boy demanded. Columba looked out absently at the ocean. After a few seconds, she said, "Have you looked?"

He scowled. "Of course I looked, and I still have yet to find anything that contradicts my earlier assumption!" Columba slipped down off of the rock. "Then you haven't been looking in the right places." He grabbed her by the arm. "What is going on? I know something is amiss, I'd be a fool not to. What is it?" Columba pulled away. "Ask your master, he knows." she said, with a tinge of disgust. "I don't have a master, how many times do I have to tell you?" said Ignobilis. Columba shook her head. "No wonder you fell if you can even believe your own lie."

The girl turned to the ocean and slowly began making her way toward it. "Look among the poor. Seek those that earn their meals by their own sweat. Look for a woman bearing a child that will labor as hard as the lowest slave."

*******

Columba settled down in an empty, starlit street. Opposite her was an inn where a young man and young, pregnant woman was talking to a man who was kind enough but nonetheless unable to provide a room for them. "I found it" said a young man who had just appeared next to her. She smiled. "What took you so long?" Ignobilis sat down, looking somewhat weary. "So what is it that's so special about the child? What is he?"

Columba sighed. "The Father has seen all that has happenned here and breaks His heart to see what has become of His children. He jas watched as your master runs rampant among His people and He has felt their pain, their sorrow, and their grief as if it were His own. In His pain sorrow, He has shed a single tear. That tear now descends from Heaven and when it touches this dry earth it will be as a flood, spread outward in all direction and bring living moisture to parched, dying lips. Meet me again tomorrow night."

********

Ignobilis looked around the stable, trying to find Columba for the fourth time that month. There, standing by a pile of hay. the girl was gently humming a tune with which he was not familiar. Her arms swayed slowly at her side as the sound rose in volume and emotion. As the sound reached a climactic height, she leapt up in the air and broke out into song. She stomped the ground and as feet made contact the earth, sparks of light flashed into being and a white and blue fire came upon her. The joyous song filled Ignobilis as Columba rose into the sky, shedding her earthly flesh as she did so.

Ignobilis looked over at the child wrapped in a simple blanket, half afraid of what he would find behind that cloth, and half desperate to see just what the child was. As he approached the baby, he gasped. "My Lord! How can this be?" Ignobilis looked down at the child. The Son, the entity nearest to the Creator. "Lord," muttered Ignobilis, tears rising to the surface. "I'm so sorry. Forgive me; take me back!" As he wept over the child, his sobs cleared his throaght of ash and his tears washed away the grime that covered him from head to toe. "I've been such a fool! I love you; I need you!"

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.