I’m going to read an
imaginative re-telling of the crucifixion by Peter Marshall, an American Presbyterian
pastor who died in 1949.
I’ve adapted it a bit.
It’s in four sections and
I’ll leave some space for reflection after each one.
In his original version,
Marshall asks, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”
To which the literal
answer is obviously not!
But as we consider these
events, you might like to think about what you might have made of it had you
been there, how you might have reacted.
Perhaps there will be
particular characters in the story you can identify with, at least a bit.
And you might like to
remember that these events were for us.
Although they were far
away and a long time ago, they are of eternal significance as the grounds of
our salvation.
(1)
The morning sun had been
up for some hours over the city of David.
Already pilgrims and
visitors were pouring in through the gates, mingling with merchants from the
villages round about, with shepherds coming down from the hills, and the
gnarled streets were crowded.
There were the aged,
stooped with years, muttering to themselves as they pushed through the throngs;
and there were children playing in the streets, calling to each other in shrill
voices.
There were men and women
too, carrying burdens, baskets of vegetables, casks of wine, water bags.
And there were tradesmen
with their tools.
Here a donkey stood
sleepily beneath his burden in the sunlight.
And there, under a narrow
canopy, a merchant shouted his wares from a pavement stall.
It was not easy to make
one's way through the crowd.
But it was especially
difficult for a procession that started out from the governor's palace.
At its head rode a Roman
centurion, disdainful and aloof, with scorn for the like of child or cripple
who might be in his way.
His lips curled in thin
lines of contempt as he watched the shouting, jeering crowd.
Before him went two
legionnaires, clearing the crowd aside as best they could with curses and
careless blows.
The procession moved at a
snail's pace.
The soldiers tried to keep
step, but it was evident that the centurion guards did not relish this routine
task that came to them every now and then in the government of this troublesome
province.
The sunlight glanced on
the spears and helmets of the soldiers.
There was a rhythmic
clanking of steel as their shields touched their belt buckles and the scabbards
of their swords.
Between the two files of
soldiers staggered three condemned men each carrying a heavy bar of wood on
which he was to be executed.
It was hard to keep step
for the pace was slow and the soldiers were impatient to get it over: left,
right, left, right.
"Come on! We haven’t
got all day!"
The crosses were heavy,
however, and the first of the victims was at the point of collapse.
He had been under severe
strain for several days.
Moreover, he had been
scourged, lashed with a leather whip in the thongs of which had been inserted
rough pieces of lead.
The carpenter followed
them with his ladder and his nails.
And they all moved forward
out of the courtyard of Pilate's palace and made for one of the gates leading
out of the city.
The sun was hot.
The sweat poured down the
face of Jesus, and he swayed now and then underneath the weight of the cross.
A depression had fallen on
the soldiers, and they marched in silence as if reluctant.
A group of women went with
the procession, their faces hidden by their veils, but their grief could not be
hidden.
Some of them were sobbing
aloud.
Others were praying.
Others moaning in that
deep grief that knows not what to say or what to do.
Some of them had little
children by the hand and kept saving over and over again, "What harm has
he done?
Why should they put him to
death?
He healed my child.
A touch of his hand and
this little one could see."
Another mother would chime
in, "He brought my child back to life.
She had all but died.
What harm could there be
in that?"
And so they wondered, and
so they went.
And there were men too who
followed as closely as they could—men who walked with the strange steps of men
to whom walking was not yet familiar, and others who still carried sticks in
their hands but who did not use them as once they had to tap their way through
villages and towns, men who had been blind and now through habit carried sticks
and who - strangely enough - were blind
again, but this time they were blinded by tears.
Their lips were moving in
prayer, and their hearts were heavy.
But there was nothing that
they could do.
Once when the procession
halted for a moment, Jesus turned and spoke to them, but they could not hear
him for the shouting of the rabble.
For most of the crowd
hardly knew what was going on.
They did not understand.
They had caught the
infection of mob spirit.
They shouted to the first
of the three victims, the one with the ridiculous crown on his head, twisted
from a branch of the briar.
It had lacerated his scalp
and caused blood to mingle with the sweat.
They shouted at him until
they were roughly pushed aside by the soldiers, and in some cases, they began
to shout at the soldiers.
Some of the children,
encouraged by their elders, joined in the shouting as the procession went along
the way that will forever be known as the Via Dolorosa, the Sorrowful Way.
(2) An outsider from
Cyrene arrives in Jerusalem.
Meanwhile outside the city
gate, all unsuspecting, Simon of Cyrene had almost reached the gate.
He had just arrived in
Judea and was about to enter the Holy City as a pilgrim for the Passover festival.
He had spent the night in
a village nearby, and rising early this morning he had bathed and dressed
himself carefully with excitement because soon he would be in Jerusalem, and
all the sights that had been described to him by exiles far from home, he would
see with his own eyes.
And all the sounds of
Jerusalem that seemed to be wafted across the miles over the waves of the sea
and to be sung by the wind, he would hear with his own ears.
And yet he tried to keep
calm.
And as he set out on the
short walk that lay between him and the city, he was thoughtful.
He walked along the
winding path that sometimes ran through the fields, sometimes along the
tortuous course of a river bed, sometimes wound up a jagged hillside to twist
down again among giant boulders and huge rocks behind which highwaymen could
easily hide.
He walked along beside the
tall rushes and through the crops.
He could hear the sheep
bleating on the inhospitable hillside while the morning sun climbed higher and
higher and chased away the mists that had lain on the hilltops.
Already he could see ahead
of him the temple gleaming gold in the sunshine.
And he thought of his own
city, Cyrene, looking down from the elevation over the waters of the
Mediterranean.
As he neared the city
gate, he began to hear shouting that grew louder and louder.
And there seemed to Simon
to be a sort of beat to it, a time in it, a rhythm—a sort of chant that he
thought sounded like "Crucify, crucify crucify."
And they met right at the
city gate—Simon of Cyrene and the crowd.
He found that the
procession was headed by some Roman soldiers.
He could recognize them
anywhere.
He knew a legionnaire when
he saw one.
It was official, this
procession.
But he had little time to
gather impressions, and as for asking questions, that was impossible.
He couldn’t make himself
heard in all this noise, in the confusion that seemed to be so violent and so
terrible.
There was a sinister,
throbbing malice in the atmosphere, and Simon shuddered.
And then he was aware of
two moving walls of Roman steel between which there staggered a man carrying a
cross.
And then he saw there were
three men.
But it was one, one in
particular, that attracted his attention.
He thought there must be
something strange about it all, but before he could understand it, he was
caught up in the procession and swept out through the gate again.
He was excited, afraid
somehow and helpless.
He was puzzled and ill at
ease.
He scanned face after
face, quickly looking for some light of welcome, some word of explanation, some
smile, some friendliness, but he found none.
The whole atmosphere was
drama and cruelty.
The horror of it all crept
over him like a clammy mist, and he shivered.
He had been captured by
the procession, stumbling along, tightly wedged in the very heart of it,
walking along beside the three men who staggered under the weight of crosses of
heavy wood on which Simon knew they were soon to be put to death.
Each man was bent beneath
the burden he carried.
Perspiration moistened
each drawn face.
But that one to which he
had been so attracted, that one that was strangely appealing—it was a face that
arrested him, and Simon felt his gaze returning again and again to that one
face.
He noticed that blood was
trickling down from wounds in the brow, and then he saw what caused it: that
crown of thorns pushed down on the forehead.
But it was his eyes, it
was the terrible look in his eyes, that fascinated, awed, and frightened Simon.
He watched with bleeding
heart as they shuffled along.
The look in those eyes!
Simon could see nothing
else, and as he walked everything was forgotten: the feast, the celebration,
the temple, his mission, friends he was to meet, and errands he had to
accomplish.
Everything was forgotten
as he watched the man carrying the cross.
And then the man looked
up, his eyes almost blinded by the blood that trickled down from under that
grotesque crown.
Why didn't somebody wipe
his eyes?
And as Simon looked at
him, he looked at Simon, and the eyes of these two met.
How did Christ know what
was in Simon's heart?
What was it that made him
smile that slow, sad smile that seemed to say so much to Simon, that seemed to
calm his wildly beating heart?
The look that passed
between them Simon never forgot as long as he lived, for no man can look at
Jesus and remain the same.
(3) Simon carries the
cross.
Jesus stumbled, and the
soldiers, moved more by impatience than by pity, seeing that the Nazarene was
almost too exhausted to carry his cross any farther, laid hands on Simon and
forced him to lift it up.
Simon's heart almost
stopped beating.
He couldn’t speak.
Just a few minutes before
he was a lonely pilgrim quietly approaching the Holy City.
See him now: his shoulders
stooped under the weight of a cross on which this man—this man with the
arresting face—was soon to die: in the midst of the procession of howling men
and women, walking between two moving walls of Roman steel, and carrying on his
shoulder another's cross.
The look of gratitude and
love that flashed from the eyes of Jesus as Simon lifted the load from his
tired, bleeding shoulders did something to the man from Cyrene.
And in an instant all of
life was changed.
Simon could never explain
it afterwards.
There are some things you
can't explain.
He could never tell
exactly how it happened, how all at once he saw the meaning of pain.
He understood the
significance of suffering.
The meaning of prayer was
unveiled.
And the message of the
Scriptures— the passages he had
memorized as a child: the messianic songs, the prophecy of Isaiah, whole
passages of Scripture—now came to life.
He saw what they meant for
the first time.
It was as if a light had
been turned on in his heart and soul, as if divine illumination had given to
him meanings and significances he had missed until now.
He understood.
And somehow he was glad.
And yet his joy was deeply
touched with sorrow.
(4) They arrive at
Calvary, and the execution takes place.
And so they came to
Calvary.
They called it Golgotha –
the place of the skull.
Visitors to Jerusalem
would be asked if they could make out the skull-like silhouette of the hillside.
It was a place to be
avoided.
It was where two highways
converged upon the city —and down in the valley below a place of stench, a
place of horror, an ugly place where refuse always burned.
And the evil smelling
smoke curled up and was wafted over the brow of Golgotha.
That was the place of
public executions.
And there the procession
stops.
Only as the nails were
driven in did the shouting stop.
There was a hush, because
most of them were stunned and horrified, even the hardest of them was silenced.
It’s not pleasant to watch
nails being driven through human flesh.
Mary, his mother, stopped
her ears and turned away her head.
They could hear the echo
across the Kidron valley—the hammer blows.
Simon of Cyrene from time
to time wiped away his tears with the back of his hand.
John stood beside Mary and
supported her.
The other women were
weeping.
But as soon as the
Nazarene had mounted his last pulpit, as soon as the cross had fallen with a
thud into the pit they had dug for it, the shouting broke out again.
There were some who had
followed him once, who had been attracted by the charm of the wonderworker.
There were many among them
who had accepted loaves and fishes at his hands.
And now they shouted
taunts at him.
They remembered what he
had said, and now they hurled his sayings back in his teeth.
They threw at him, like
barbed arrows of hate and malice, promises he had made, predictions and eternal
truths that had fallen from his lips.
Now they taunted him.
They stabbed and wounded
him with things he himself had said:
"He saved others, he
can’t save himself.”
They admitted all the
miracles he had performed.
He had brought back the
dead to life again.
He had given sight to
blind eyes.
He had straightened
withered limbs.
He had caused the lame to
leap and to walk and to praise God in their joy.
“He saved others, can’t he
save himself?"
"Miracle man, come on
down from the cross and we will believe—one more miracle, the greatest of them
all!"
"You’ll re-build the
temple in three days, will you, Mr. Carpenter?
You have nails in your
hands, but no hammer!
You can’t build a temple
up there.
Come on down from the
cross and we’ll believe you!"
They shouted until they
were hoarse.
The noise was so great
that only a few of them standing near the cross heard what he said when his
lips moved in prayer: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they
do."
One of the thieves,
crucified with him cried out to Jesus, "Can't you see how we suffer?
If you are the Son of God,
save yourself and us!"
He twisted himself upon
his cross, he writhed his shoulders, and he leaned on the crosspiece.
And then he begged and
taunted Christ, to save them all.
(What he sought was
salvation from the nails, not salvation from sin; salvation from pain and
suffering, not salvation from punishment.)
Then a spasm of pain
gripped him, and he slipped until his weight once again fell upon the nails
that held his hands, and he began to curse and to swear until his companion
turned his head and rebuked him:
"What has this man
done that you should curse him so?
Seeing that we are in the
same condemnation, don’t you fear God?
They have some excuse
putting us to death.
We broke the laws.
We tried to start a
revolution.
But this man has done
nothing.''
Then he said to Jesus,
"Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
And Jesus, his face drawn
with pain but his voice still kind, answered, "This very day, when the
pain is over, we shall be together again.
Truly I say to you, you
shall be with me in paradise."
And the man, comforted,
set his lips to endure till the end.
The sun rose higher and
higher.
Time oozed out like the
blood that dripped from the cross.
Jesus opened his eyes and
saw his mother standing there and John beside her.
He called out for John to
come closer.
And Jesus said, "You
will take care of her, John."
And John, choked with
tears, put his arm around the shoulders of Mary.
Jesus said to his mother,
"He will be your son."
His lips were parched, and
he spoke with difficulty.
He moved his head against
the hard wood of the cross as a sick man moves his head on a hot pillow.
A thunderstorm was blowing
up from the mountains, and the clouds hid the sun.
It was strangely dark.
The people looked up at
the sky and became frightened.
Women took little children
by the hand and hurried back to the city before the storm would break.
It was an uncanny
darkness.
It had never been as dark
before.
Something terrible must be
about to happen.
Women stood praying for
Jesus and for the thieves.
The centurion was silent,
although every now and then he would look up at Jesus with a strange look in
his eye.
The soldiers were silent,
too.
Their gambling was over.
They had won and lost.
Suddenly Jesus opened his
eyes and gave a loud cry.
The gladness in his voice
startled all who heard it, for it sounded like a shout of victory.
"It is finished.
Father. Into thy hands I commend my spirit."
And with that cry he died.
* * *
All sorts of people would
have seen Jesus on that fateful day.
His friends and his
enemies.
The religious and the
irreligious, what we might call church people, and those who were rarely at the
temple or synagogue.
There would have been
priests and scribes, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, Zealots.
Rich and poor.
Men and women.
Locals and visitors.
They were there.
Simon of Cyrene was there,
and the soldiers, too.
The Centurion.
The women.
John.
What would we have made of
Jesus?
And what might he have
said to us?
What would you say to him?
A modern hymn says:
Behold the man upon a
cross,
My sin upon His shoulders;
Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers.
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished;
His dying breath has brought me life –
I know that it is finished.
O Lord Jesus, have mercy
upon us.
Grant us your forgiveness.
Give us repentant hearts,
and the gifts of faith, hope and love.
And by thy grace make us
clean.
Amen.
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