It is again that day of the year when the divine Resurrection of Jesus Christ is observed all over the world by believers. Expanding it from the mere realm of faith, what resurrection of Christ means for me is ultimately a symbol of hope. It is synonymous to the joy felt by an explorer when he sees his destination after days or weeks of continuous toil in the reckless sea. But the most important part is how we traversed our way of the cross. It is our doings in that path that decides the hope of our future. This thought takes me to a well known short story written by the legendary Russian author Leo Tolstoy. The title of the story is ‘Two Old Men’. Pondering over the story, I felt a small connection between the core idea of the story and that of resurrection.
The story starts with a biblical quote from the book of John.
“The woman said unto him, Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus said unto her, woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. You worship you know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship Him. ” – (John 4: 19-23)
The basic premise of the story is that of a pilgrimage of two old farmers Efim and Elisha who are both good friends as well as neighbours. Efim is financially well-off who leads a very disciplined life and is very meticulous about taking care of his wealth as well as his family. Whereas Elisha is someone who is neither rich nor poor, and someone who is less cautious on his lifestyles. He also drinks often unlike Efim who does not have that habit. One day, Elisha persuades Efim to go for a pilgrimage together to the holy land of Jerusalem. Efim is reluctant at first and tells that his new house is just halfway under construction and in addition to that he has to arrange the marriage of his grandson. Elisha suggests to assign all these tasks to his eldest son but Efim seems hesitant to accept the idea as he knows that his son might not spend the money wisely. Still, Elisha finally succeeds in persuading Efim to go for the pilgrimage and one fine day they both set out for the pilgrimage carrying enough money for the entire journey.
On the way, Elisha stops in a village as he wanted to drink some water. He also asks Efim to continue the journey and says he will catch up with him after drinking some water. Efim continues walking and Elisha stops in a house nearby to get some water. But he finds that the members of the house are nearly dead and they can’t even stand erect including a couple of small children. He gets to know that the crops have failed this year in this village and all the poor families have no option rather than to die of poverty. As Elisha had some loaves of bread with him that he had saved for the journey, he took it out and fed it to the entire family. But even after feeding them, he didn’t feel to leave them now and proceed his journey to Jerusalem as he knows that after one or two weeks, the family would return to the state that he had initially found them. Elisha comes to know from the family that their cornfield has been kept by a rich peasant and he would no matter return it to them unless they pay their debt. Elisha redeems their land with the money he had and after that buys cows from the village so that the family can get back to their normal life. The plight of the family improves very much and one night, Elisha decides to leave their hut and continue his journey. But after proceeding some distance, he realises that he doesn’t have enough money to get to his destination. So he returns to his native village and says to his family that he couldn’t complete the pilgrimage and doesn’t explain anything further.
Meanwhile, Efim thinks that Elisha had overtaken him as he slept for a while and maybe Elisha didn’t notice him and continued his journey. Efim continues his pilgrimage and gets to Jerusalem. He asks everyone on his way whether they had seen a bald old man(Elisha) but it turns out that no one has seen him. But on consecutive days while offering prayer in a chappel, Efim happens to see Elisha just beneath the lamps where the sacred fire burns, but he is no -where to be found when Efim gets there. This continued for many days and finally, Efim understands that maybe its just an illusion.
After completing the pilgrimage, Efim returns to his village and on his way, he happens to stay at the same hut that Elisha had gone to ask water. The family welcomed him and tells him that it was a pilgrim’s love that made them what they are now and that’s the reason they treat all pilgrims with great respect. Each family member also goes on describing him, and finally, Efim understands that it was indeed Elisha who helped them out. Efim thought to himself, “So that is how he got ahead of me, God may or may not have accepted my pilgrimage but he has certainly accepted his”…
We all traverse different paths in our lives, for some people now it may be a hard time, while for others, things might be going smooth, but whatever be the path, it is important that we reach out to people who are in dire need. Maybe Elisha couldn’t complete the journey, but his soul definitely reached the destination that he wished. However hard our journey might be, its important that we always lend a helping hand and share our love to everyone who needs us just like Christ who upheld love and compassion till his very last breathe. We may feel exhausted or worn out on our way to our destination, and it may seem that our journey has come to an end… but there will always be a “Third day of Hope” that awaits us. That day of hope is in fact not confined to religious believers, but to everyone who at one point or the other helped out someone just like Elisha did.
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