This Man

Beards jutting, black robes rustling, the assembly of Jewish elders stared with contempt at the prisoner before them. They saw a man swaying with exhaustion, dark bruises swelling, blood dripping from ragged wounds. Enraged before the Roman governor, they cried, “We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Christ, a king!” How could such a miserable piece of humanity claim equality with God? Standing before them in humiliation, he incensed them to anger tinged with apprehension. He moved the hearts of the people; their presence only fostered fear. If they were to retain their power, this man must die.

Pilate, the Roman governor, thought he had side-stepped the troubling issue of what to do with the Galilean, charged with sedition by the Jewish elders. Learning that Jesus was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who sent him back, his wounded frame mockingly draped in a rich robe. Even in disgrace the prisoner imbued the robe with an air of dignity. Pilate recalled his earlier sardonic question to Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?” He hadn’t expected him to answer affirmatively. Regardless of the forceful entreaty of the elders, he could find nothing in the prisoner to substantiate the charges they brought against him. To appease the mob, he offered to punish then release him, but they kept shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Pilate washed his hands of the distasteful business and granted their demand, though he could find no basis for a charge against this man.

The thief knew he deserved death by crucifixion, though he fought against dying without hope. Through a veil of blood and pain he watched the face of the man on the cross beside him soften with compassion as he murmured something about forgiveness towards the mocking crowd. He and the other thief were ignored in the spectacle directed at the middle cross. People jeered and soldiers ridiculed the man they mockingly called “the king of the Jews”. The other criminal hurled insults, demanding that if he were the Christ he should save himself and them. The thief found himself rebuking him.“Don’t you fear God, since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Hope flared within the thief, sparked by the innocence of the man beside him. He believed he was who he claimed to be…the Christ, the Son of the living God, assuring him in truth, today he would be with him in paradise.

In the throes of death, the man on the middle cross held the attention of the Roman centurion. Gambling for clothes at the foot of the cross did not interest him. Just hours before as the last nail was pounded through this prisoner’s feet, darkness laid eerie claim to midday light. Then someone reported that the veil in the Jewish temple was ripped apart. Somehow the centurion knew these mysterious events were connected to the man on the cross. Suddenly the crucified man cried out, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Then he breathed his last. The very one who wielded the hammer, fixing the prisoner to the cross, now declared, “Surely this man was the Son of God.”

(based on Luke 23)

© Valerie Ronald and scriptordeus 2016. 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)