Bring the Boy to Me

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The desire of a parent to do whatever it takes to protect and care for their child is a primal one.

A Sword and a Saviour

Malchus’ eyes stung in the smoky haze of many torches, and his ears rang with the clang of boots and weapons. He let himself be carried along by the crowd of soldiers and temple guards streaming through the gate into the olive garden. Leading the way was a man called Judas Iscariot, purported to be a follower of the revolutionary they were sent to find. Malchus’ master, the high priest, had ordered him to witness the arrest and make sure the prisoner was brought immediately to him.

Malchus expected armed resistance, or at least a search for the fugitive and his men. Instead he saw a man robed as a rabbi walking purposefully toward them out of the gloom. A few men followed him, some with swords at their sides. When Judas Iscariot approached the rabbi and kissed him on the cheek, Malchus heard the man say, “Friend, would you betray me with a kiss?” Judas then slunk back behind the crowd.

“Who is it you want?”, asked the rabbi.

“Jesus of Nazareth,” was the reply.

“I am he,” Jesus said. At those words the whole company of men stumbled backward and fell to the ground. Malchus felt as if a mighty hand had pushed him from his feet, where he lay for a moment in a daze. He expected the rabbi and his men to use the opportunity to run, but the question came again, “Who is it you want?”

Unnerved, his captors restated as they got to their feet, “It is Jesus of Nazareth.”

“I told you I am he. If you are looking for me, then let these men go.”

Looking into the resolute face of the rabbi, Malchus thought, “he is about to be arrested and yet he protects his men? What kind of man is this?”

The rabbi’s men drew closer, ready to defend their leader at a moment’s notice.

Malchus didn’t see it coming until it was too late. A sword flashed in torchlight, sudden, searing pain smote the right side of his head, then his hand come away holding the scrap of his ear drenched in blood. The soldiers around him bristled as Jesus commanded the man who attacked him, “Put away your sword! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?”

Turning his powerful gaze on Malchus, the rabbi placed his hand over the streaming wound where his ear used to be. He felt a tingling warmth, then the cessation of pain. Never taking his eyes from Jesus, he tentatively raised his fingers to feel a whole, healthy ear attached to his head. His hand came away clean, no blood staining his palm. Before he could speak, the soldiers surged around him to grab the rabbi, bind him roughly and drag him out of the garden.

After the rabbi’s crucifixion and burial, Malchus heard rumors whispered around his master’s house, rumours that Jesus was not really dead, that his tomb was empty because he had come back to life and had been seen by many. These rumors caused his master, the high priest, many sleepless nights. But they were more than rumours to Malchus. They were confirmation of the truth that the healing touch he experienced in the olive garden belonged to none other than Jesus, the Messiah, now his Lord and Savior.

(based on John 18:1-11 NIV)

© Valerie Ronald and scriptordeus 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Valerie Ronald and scriptordeus with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Burden of Innocence

Drawn by the roar of an excited mob, Simon stepped out from a narrow Jerusalem street into a scene of mayhem. He had traveled  far from his home in Cyrene to celebrate Passover on the Temple Mount, never expecting to come upon such chaos on a Feast day.

Fists punching the air, voices yelling invectives, the crowd surged closer to the entrance of the Praetorium. Simon found himself absorbed in the seething throng, jostled and pushed until he was thrown up against the open gate.

The object of the crowd’s ridicule hardly seemed worth their fury. Surrounded by a company of Roman soldiers, a man beaten and bloodied beyond recognition struggled under the burden of a heavy beam. Simon winced at the gruesome sight of the prisoner’s back laid open by brutal flogging and his limbs purple and swollen from countless blows. He had seen condemned prisoners before but none tortured so viciously. The man’s face was a mass of open flesh where his beard had been plucked out; his brow gouged by the long, cruel thorns pressed on his head. Blood filled the hollows of his eyes, running down his chin to pool on the paving stones at his feet. Simon thought of his sons, Alexander and Rufus,  relieved they were not here to witness this atrocity.

“Crucify him! Crucify him!”, screamed the mob while soldiers goaded the prisoner forward through the gate. His clothing hung in bloodied shreds, still Simon recognized  remnants of the tasseled stole of a rabbi. Could this be the rabbi he had heard stories about ever since he arrived in Jerusalem? The one rumored to have healed the sick and raised the dead? Some even linked the title Messiah to his name. Surely he did not deserve this inhuman treatment.

Simon wanted to shut out the awful procession; close his eyes to the pain and blood, his ears to the labored gasps for air, his nose to the reek of sweat, but he could not. The prisoner sagged beneath the weight of the rough timber, stumbled then collapsed to his knees at Simon’s feet. Sentenced to die, he was forced to carry the beam of his own cross to the place of crucifixion but he could go no further.

Suddenly rough soldier hands grabbed Simon, shoving him toward the man on the ground, shouting at him to pick up the beam and carry it. He felt the sharp prod of a Roman spear in his side and knew he must obey or die. As he stooped to lift the blood-slick beam, the condemned man raised his head to look at him. Roaring mob, forceful soldiers, the smell of blood faded before that capturing gaze. The pain and suffering creasing the man’s brow and squinting his eyes could not diminish the absolute love blazing out. Simon’s heart suspended its beat for the length of that look, only to take it up again as a renewed heart, an alive heart touched by this almost-dead rabbi.

Hefting the rough wood across his shoulders, he felt sticky blood staining his hands but he was not repulsed. Instead, strength coursed through his limbs, enough to grip the beam with one hand, reaching down his other to help the bleeding man to his feet. The crowd parted as they moved towards Golgotha.

(based on Mark 15:21)