A Man Named Jesus

I am a busy man. I don’t have time for religions, politics, or superstitions. Still, the noise coming toward my shop from the city that morning caught my attention. I put down my tool and wood and stepped onto the stone entry to my shop. The size of the crowd surprised me. It walked until it reached just past my shop, then split to line the street. In the middle of the road, three men carrying horizontal wooden beams for their crosses struggled to walk forward, prodded and whipped by Roman soldiers on horseback and on foot.

The first two men seemed of no interest to the crowd. There was a slight gap in the procession after they passed, and then I briefly saw the third man stumbling up the road. He certainly didn’t look like a madman. He was bent almost in half, the weight of the wood tied to his shoulders pressing mercilessly down on him. His lean face was covered in blood, flowing from a horrible crown of thorns pressed into his scalp. Sad brown eyes focused on the road in front of him. His back and sides showed the deep cuts of a leaded whip. The people blocked my view again as they crowded in on him and yelled at him. I hate to admit it, but my curiosity kept me lined up beside the street, watching. Bystanders began jeering at the bloodied man, and I knew then the third man was Jesus. Throwing rocks and words at him, people began shouting. “So, you say you’re the Son of God, save yourself!!” “You’re the Messiah? No! Our Messiah was going to help us out of our situation, not make it worse!”

Jesus fell down over and over, finally unable to get up at all. The crowd massed around him, shouting, “You seemed so strong during your preaching, but now you can’t even carry your cross.” Three soldiers pushed the closest hecklers back toward where I stood, and my view was momentarily blocked. Standing on my toes, I peered over their heads in time to see a man being roughly pulled from the sideline by the tallest Roman. The other two soldiers untied the beam from Jesus’ shoulders and tied it onto the unlucky man’s back. My heart chilled as I saw him bend with its weight. Jesus sagged to the dusty ground.

This was a man I knew named Simon! He had obviously been at the wrong place at the wrong time during his latest visit to the city with his sons. I saw his boys clinging to each other, looking terrified at what they saw. They tried to follow their father, but were pushed back by a soldier. The youngest boy fell and started to cry. These boys were old enough to understand their father had no choice when the Roman’s pressed him into that awful service. They’d seen the results of crucifixions before, but not the journey to the crosses. They were young, but aware enough to know where their father was headed and what would happen to the shredded man lying in the dirt. Having no other choice, the children began following their father and the crowd to the last place they wanted to be. Jesus was pulled to his feet and pushed forward by a soldier, and the procession resumed.

Before I could step out of the way, I became entangled in the crowd and pushed along. The mob was so thick and single-minded, I could have lifted my feet and still been moved. Perhaps I should have. My sandals were stepped on so many times I was blistered and bleeding by the time I was able to separate myself from the people. By then, morbid curiosity had taken over, and I continued to walk behind all of them: the two other men carrying crosses to their doom, the crowd, the soldiers, Simon, and the man named Jesus. Further behind me, two little boys stepped slowly up the trail, too. They had no place else to go.

I had no desire to watch a crucifixion, yet I felt a sick excitement also and soon could see three single posts of wood in the distance. I bent my head and gathered my energy as the pathway ascended the hill. By the time I nearly reached the top, many people were already heading back the other way toward Jerusalem. Their faces reflected either anger or sorrow. I began to feel uneasy, and thought about turning around myself. Any idea I’d had that there might have been something Jesus would do to stop it all quickly disappeared. The crowd in front of me had also lost some of the tone of anger. Now I could hear the anguished cries of the men as their bodies were stretched across the ground, as well as the voices of women, which surprised me. I stopped looking up and concentrated on making it to the top of the horrible hill without falling. My feet were already a mess. I didn’t need to hurt my knees, too.

I stepped over bones as well as rocks as I climbed. I quickly drew my eyes away when I remembered the name of this execution site: Golgotha, meaning Place of a Skull. I involuntarily shuddered as I pictured Jesus’ eyes turning into dark, empty sockets like the skulls lying here and there. Many of the Roman’s victim’s bodies had never been claimed by people. Instead, the wild animals, birds, and relentless heat took care of the remains until all that was left was what I stumbled over now.

I began to wonder why I was continuing, but something propelled me on. It no longer felt like just my morbid curiosity. Memories of other stories I’d heard about Jesus filtered through my mind, even though I’d tried not to listen. He had blessed and healed, touched and comforted, and even raised the dead, I’d overheard some say. Yet, he couldn’t save himself. That’s what I struggled to understand as I finally stood upright at the top of the hill and surveyed the scene before me. I’d made it just in time to witness Jesus being nailed to the cross.

I could hear the other two men. Thieves, the man to my left told me. They screamed and begged as the long, thick nails drove into their flesh and through muscles. Some days the noise of the shoppers and sellers outside my store would settle down, and if the wind blew just so I could hear the sounds of the suffering at this execution site, but it sounded far away and I told myself it was birds. When criminals were brought down our street, we all had turned away and figured they deserved the punishment. There had never been a procession like this one past my shop, though. I wished the Roman’s had found a place further from Jerusalem to do this horrible deed, but that was the point. They wanted us to hear it and have to see it as we came and went on our travels. It was a way to use fear to keep Jews oppressed and under control. We knew it could be any one of us. You didn’t necessarily have to be guilty of a crime to be crucified. Jesus was proof of that. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.

The sound of a hammer striking a nail caused me to look over. Jesus’ face distorted with agony. His tears mixed with sweat and blood, burning his eyes and dripping off his face onto the rocky soil below. To my amazement, I thought he was looking at the soldiers with pity, understanding they had to do their awful job. That momentarily unnerved the soldiers, especially the young man standing off to the side watching. It was obvious he hadn’t been turned into a merciless man by his fellow soldiers, at least, not yet. There was a tiny moment of silence, except for the thieves’ cries and curses. Then the sharp sound of the nails being driven into Jesus’ feet and the cross was resumed when the Centurion shouted at the soldiers to hurry up. I couldn’t believe it. Jesus never said a word, while the thieves had begged for mercy.