It was still dark when a shadow moved out from the wall using her brother
Simon’s voice as he attempted to shake her awake. She tried to move her shoulder away but he was standing and able to
reach her no matter how hard she struggled to return to sleep. The bodily smells on the ragged clothing he threw to the floor
by her head made her move away instinctively, and the cold in the barely lit room pushed her partially upright. But before
she could rebuke him, she saw the look of horror on his face.
“
They have Jesus! They mean to kill him! Get dressed and come with me. No! “ They said sharply.
“ In these! Our lives as much as his depend on it. “
She
kept trying to ask him questions, assured that the darkness would prevent any show of her inner tunic as she pulled on the
crusted and ill smelling pieces of cloth over her head but even though they were alone in the room, he refused to speak. As
she followed him outside into the darker shadows cast by the waning moon, she kept repeating to herself that this was just
a terrible dream, born of the unusual amount of wine, at dinner and then with Deborah and the serving women to celebrate her
new status as a ‘woman’. This was a dream, a bad dream. Some terrible nightmare. Any moment
now she would wake and find that Simon hadn’t dragged out of bed, in tears.
It
had to be a dream!
Elisheba was with child a third time, having lost a child early because of the rigors of their life on the run, so
Simon promised he’d dropped out of the Cause to build furniture No one could have foreseen that Barabbas would be so
foolishly sentimental he would intrude on their quiet celebration, except for the soldiers who found and seized him there!
‘It
was basic military logic and incredibly stupid on the older man’s part.‘, she thought angrily. ‘
The night and the ceremony meant nothing to the Romans, they lost nothing but a few hours sleep waiting to see if he
would come! ‘
She’d seen murder in the eyes of her brother’s mentor, but never her brother Simon, until
this night as he talked about ‘freeing Barabbas’ against the overwhelming military superiority of the Roman Guard
in their own lair! Even she knew better than that!
This had
to be some terrible mistake!
Even though Ananias had been disposed from the role as High Priest three years ago, to be replaced by his son-in-law,
that still didn’t give Caiaphas the legal right to convene a partial gathering of the Sanhedrin, nor to call them together
in the middle of the night like thieves! Why would they? Her brother was talking nonsense!
She
put on the soiled garment thrust at her and accompanied him numbly to the courtyard of the house of Caiaphas.
She saw Cephas, Hulah and Petronela’s father, hunched over a small fire in the darkness of the crowded courtyard.
One would have thought that darkness had permanently taken the place of daylight there was so many bursts of activity in the
night shielded hours. Shouldn’t the major preparations for the first day of the feast already have been assigned?
But her heart leaped into her throat as she saw the older grey haired Centurion race down the outer staircase, whipping
his cloak around him in anger. She looked around for Simon quickly. Did he really expect her to stop and man and speak to
him when he was obvious in a hurry and in such a foul mood? She held her place, pretending not to see the older man until
he had mounted his stallion. As he readied to spur the dancing beast, his gaze raked across the knots of humanity in the courtyard,
as if he were looking for someone in particular. There was no flicker of kindness or recognition as his head moved a fraction
of an inch to complete his survey. He would hardly expect to see her in beggars rags at the high priests house, but her blood
chilled with fear until even the echo of the horse’s hooves disappeared and the sleepy birds returned to their twigs
to sleep though the unexpected interruption.
When
she tried to walk to the older fisherman’s side, he raised himself up with a crude oath and moved away, retuning to
another fire a short distance away after a few minutes. At first she wasn’t sure what she’d done to offend him,
but then she decided it was the oily smell of the dirtied clothes she was wearing. He’d mistaken her for a beggar. Still,
the rejection hurt so much she found a place by other people in like clothing where no cursed or struck at her and she stared
into the fire miserably, waiting for her brother to come back and find her. By their talk apparently a criminal had been taken
first to Ananias before coming here, but she shut out their ragged words and foul breath. What they were talking about as
professional scavengers at the edge of society had nothing to do with her in any way that she could imagine. She didn’t
even think they’d still consider Barabbas a Jew, for all the ‘lofty’ principals he gave as an excuse to
murder Roman soldiers when they could find them alone.
At
the sound of cock’s crow after the deceit of false dawn, the courtyard suddenly leaped into life, startling her
awake. She stood up to stretch her muscles, cramped when she’d fallen asleep in a crouching position. He mouth was dry
and tasted as if it had bird droppings in it and her head throbbed with a strange pain that made light and movement painful,
no matter how slight the source! Was she dying? She turned away and retched, only to hear a familiar voice raised in fisherman’s
oaths never meant to be heard beyond the water and a fearful rage from Huleh’s father. She staggered
toward the narrow arch in the courtyard that shown with the dark promise of motionless trees and surcease from this terrible
assault on her senses!
She felt so ill she was sure she was going to die, and afraid that she wouldn’t!
“ Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about! “
He demanded vehemently, and at that moment the rooster crowded to his kith and ken to warn them daylight and
possible danger from hunting predators had returned.
The sound of it,
so near her ear made her knot her fist at strike at the scaled legs of the indignantly pompous and brightly feathered bird.
She missed and her swing carried her around bodily and she fell back against the whitewashed bricks of the wall, fighting
for breath. In that instant she saw the group of armed men at the head of the stars, and her brother Jesus was among them,
hands bound! Her heart leaped into her throat as she saw her brother’s face, looking as Cephas, who
threw himself away from the clutch of the beggars hands and pushed himself past her, crying as if his heart would break!
All she could do was to stand in place as he was lead past her like a common criminal!
There were no words left in her as Simon reappeared at her
elbow, pulling her to her feet, following at the end of the armed servants and on lookers who followed the noisy procession.
But when they reached the Pavement, he pushed her toward the stone wall of the heavy masonry.
“ Too many people are noticing you. Put dirt on your face! “
“ No! “ She recoiled from him in horror, her foot
catching on the edge of a stone. In the end, they compromised. He pushed her toward a seldom-used tunnel entrance that echoed
men’s voices, soldiers no doubt. But as long as she remained in the shadows created by the rising of the sunlight from
ground level Simon felt she would wait until he returned.
The minutes passed
with a strange intensity as weariness and rejection pushed on her from the inside. As a trio of unwashed men finally stood,
after staring hard at her and poking at one another as they nodded in her direction, Ahava stepped back instinctively,
Looking for a doorway or a turn in the slick, smooth stones
where she could hide from the approaching men.
“ Princess?
What in all earth and heaven are you doing here? “
A familiar voice demanded as she moved on the edge of the milling crowd. Even the lowest beggar considered himself
better than the soldiers who held them to a small area of “Roman” ground, and his words were mixed with vulgar
threats and physical shoving that seemed to be coming from somewhere outside herself; her senses were too dazed and numb to
comprehend beyond the hard reality of the shoves by unkind hands.
Machba`nel’s
voice confronted her as she turned toward the sound of troops laughing and talking casually in familiar territory. At the
sound of his parental judgment against her, she pulled the thin cloak closer around her and began to run away from the growing
sunlight and noise of the small but vocal crowd. Sprinting beyond his ability to catch her she fled down tunnels of stone
marked by lit torches and the stenches of things too long out of sunlight. She stopped when she reached a large oval room,
blindly seeing the iron fixtures, the causally lounging soldiers, the thin blue line of pale sky between the three, high windows,
then the back of a naked man tied to a broad pillar at the same instant as the lashes struck in a new place, raising additional
welts of red and blood spurts when the beast in charge of the multi-tailed whip pulled it out, bringing flesh on the iron
and ivory barbs at the ends, and a fresh groan of pain from its hapless victim.
The
body writhe red in pain, and the Voice struck her at the same moment as the solder’s arms seized her and pulled her
around to hide her sobs in his chest as he fought for breath from his hard run after her.
“ Please! Take her far from here!
“
With a terrible cry that covered over the soldier crude oaths as they looked around in vain for weapons with which
to defend themselves, she ran and threw her body over the trembling form, laying her cheek against the wetness of his tears.
Tender lips raised to press against hers despite swollen crusts.
He was willing to
endure it by His choice but the mighty heart was almost broken by the pain she was feeling in His behalf.
“ I love you, Beloved. Please!
Go! “
“ Let
me die in your place, Lord! I deserve this! You don’t. “ She
begged between sobs, holding unto him even though she caused him fresh pain as Machba`nel struggled to pry her fingers loose
rather than allow any of the other, cruder men touch her. She struggled against him violently to no avail as he picked up
bodily and carried her back into the maze of tunnels under the Pratorium. She kicked so hard she felt the blood rise to the
surface from the broken blood vessels but no matter how she struggled he used his greater weight to confine and remove her,
though the lash fell again and she wasn’t there to block it!
She screamed violently
at him in the worst words she knew but his sobs only thickened and he twisted her around until she faced him again and held
her immobile until she had only the strength left to cry. She wanted to lash out at him verbally for allow that pain to her
gentle brother but she couldn’t bring any thing else against him that she didn’t hear in his great wracking sobs.
She’d never heard a man cry like that! His soul being twisted and tortured as it was pulled out of him, one lash and
cry of pain at a time.
Numb to the point of helplessness, she took his hand as his lax arms allowed her to slip free of his hurting grip and
gently led them both a few cubits further down the dank tunnel. He followed, stumbling blindly until he sunk to his knees,
against the wall, crossing his arms in front of his face and weeping so harshly it became the only sound she could hear. She
tried to comfort him but he pushed her away with an oath, cursing her.
Alone
in the tunnel as if he had removed physically as well, she looked down toward the room where they’d just left. Trying
to force her numbed muscles to obey her will and go back. Better to die with her brother than to try and live without him!
Something about her face, as she used his shoulder to support her as she stood, brought the man back from his private
agony and he realized what she intended to do. Rising with an effort, he wiped the dampness from his beard and staggered after
her, seizing the war sacred sword from her hand from behind. She moved forward at an uneven pace for another four steps before
the loss of weight in her hand seemed to register and she raised the empty hand slowly to where she could look at it and verify
that it was indeed empty. Then using the wall to support her unsteady legs, she turned around, looking on the stone floor,
thinking that she had dropped it.
He slid it back into place at his side and offered his hand to her. She looked at his hand, then upward slowly along
the metal clad leather amour protecting his chest, finally to his eyes. Then she got a strange look of recognition in her
eyes, and screaming his name is surprise, she ran to him, having to stand on tip toe to throw her arms around his neck.
Sobbing, she tried to recount everything she’d just seen and he made no attempt to remind her that he had been
there.
“ He wants us to go to safety, Beloved. To get help, free him, bring him home?
“
It seemed to work, although her eyes were still clouded and seemed unable to focus.
“
Yes, of course. Get help, bring him home! “
She
agreed in a little girl’s voice and when he tried to move, to take her back down the tunnel toward the daylight, away
from the coarse laughter and the crack of the whip, she clung
to him tightly, thinking that he was leaving her alone in this strange and terrible place.
He had to stop for breath midway down the water dampened stone walk. Men’s voices came and went as the work day
began in earnest for those troops which were taking over from their nighttime counterparts. He almost wished she’d start
crying, just so he could know that she was alright, but when he bent down to look at her she simply tucked her head lower.
Trying to keep her from hearing each carefully spaced whiplash to allow the victim to anticipate and dread the coming
punishment, he tried to distract her with the sound of his voice, telling her of the strange manner in which they’d
met and he’d been healed in the backflow of the river water as he rose up from the water by his cousin John’s
hand, but at each scream she tensed and seemed to be hearing nothing else but the sound of pain. He tried to increase their
pace before he lost his own mind!
“ Don’t try to make me hate you! I already do! I’ll never
surrender! “
Machba`nel paused, watching the
sun clad a few cubit’s away. Where could he take her? Where would they be safe now? His mother’s
estate on the Italian peninsula? Would Rome look for them there? Or even care?
He
lower his head to look at the hair freed from the filthy cloak meant for disguise, and even if he hadn’t smelled the
citron fragrance her mother used to make the family’s shampoo he would have known her out of ten thousands other maidens!
“ I already have, Beloved. To you. To Him! “
She looked up unwillingly and a fresh hurt stabbed into his heart when he thought himself incapable of additional ache!
“ You need someone to care for you, to provide for you, lest the fantasy become
real. “ He added in a strange voice, thinking to the brute of a farmer he’d
wrongly thought her married too. Her face remained blank and anger touched his eyes as he belated realized she had been helping
her middle brother to escape him. She watched the terrible struggle within him without knowing its source or its income, till
he raised his head to where she couldn’t see and fresh tears rolled thickly down the chapped skin into his beard.
As the wind picked up and howled at them in protest of being forced indoors the flickering the nearest touch still
revealed the calm as he lowered his face at last. She had no idea how much time had come or gone. But abruptly the wind stopped
its chill protest and there were no sounds but the squeaking protest of hungry rats disturbed by the fresh influx of soldiers
coming off guard duty and the loud thumbing of her own heart.
“
Would that circumstances were different, I would have spent the rest of my life happily loving you. “
It was a dismissal, a release she’d longed for moments ago-hours ago? But now felt chilling, to the division
of marrow and bone, sinew and soul! He was leaving her alone!
They were to the
area rank with urine where soldiers coming off guard stopped to relieve themselves when a stern face with short cropped silver
hair stood in front of them and refused to allow them to pass! He stared at the angry face and tried to reason why they were
being detained but only part of his mind seemed willing to accept the cruel reality of fresh air blowing over them and escape
a heart’s beat away, and some unusual and unknown force was preventing them. He tried to speak to tell them to move
aside, but his tongue was so dry it stuck to the roof of his mouth and only her ramrod stiffness clinging to him enabled him
to remain upright!
“ Since you are about to die, a traitor’s death, I’d say that you fulfilled
your promise, Mark Ba’nel. At least to her! “
Xavier Marcus said tightly between thinned lips. ‘ So this was why he’d
been given the illusion of pardon! To be pained with a truth he would have denied, even from the King’s
lips! A part of him understood that the middle aged warrior had just chose Aries over Eros but he was too bitterly shamed
to allow the subtle differential to outweigh his ability to wreck revenge! ‘
None of the soldiers assigned to guard the Centurion made any move toward the man of rank they recognized
as a favorite of Pilate s. It was too confusing. Who was the enemy and who was the friend? If the ones in authority in the
Pratorium above them could make up their minds, how could they?
“
Take the woman out to the campfires and release her. She’s only a woman. “
Machba`nel released her, obedient to the sound of authority in the older man’s voice then stood at attention.
Some innate sense of fairness flickered in the old warrior’s chest, seeing his son respond as he would have hoped for
him to do. Against the heat of his own need for revenge at the humiliation of being discharged and then re-instated as the
political winds blew from a different direction in the upper chambers of the Hall, he treated the man as he appeared
to be. Willing to give him the same chance at life, he’d just been offered by Pilate. Together, they could still grow
old, in service to Rome, and in dignity, honoring one another as they had for the last two and a half decades.
“ Are they done in there yet? “
He tried to make his voice sound bored, but in the close confines of the dampened rocks, it quavered. The younger man
was looking over his shoulder at the bent, slender form who never looked back and he slipped in his pose, as if in final defeat.
One shoulder dropping lower than the other as the pain from injuries and her struggles broke through the strange fog clouding
his mind. He looked back to his adopted father’s face, expecting to see him there but startled to see him standing there!
The sudden look of sadness and loss that swept his face raised the older man’s hand part way in sympathy, then
he remembered where they were and the task they were committed to complete, whatever followed for them personally once Herod
Antipas returned to Tiberius!
“ They’ve already done more harm than any twelve lifetimes could redeem, Father.
“
He spoke simply, a profound truth, as if it was a relief to shed all the images and spiritual amour to simply speak
from himself and in himself, as a man among other men.
“
Agrippa will have nothing to do with him, Pilate wants the body brought up to him. Now! “
He turned on his heel, as if expecting to be obeyed but the voice that reached him stopped him as surely as a cold
hand squeezed against his struggling heart. The pain shot up from his legs and groin, a sense of his own mortality life a
thunderbolt from Zeus betrayed how little time he had left till the vile threat stopped his heart from beating, but he dared
not show weakness for the sake of the man he once had been!
‘
They would live on! They would remember and use the name of Xavier ben Judah as a blessing
or a curse! ‘
“ No,
Abba. I can’t do that. “
He stepped around
as quickly as he dared, keeping his body rigid with military precision to mask the stiffness of pain at being so long on his
feet.
“ Heed me! And hear me well! Go drag him if you have too, but Pilate
wants to see Jesus, and see the man he will! “
“
No, Abba. Not this time. “ He answered quietly,
almost conversationally as he yielded up any life further than this dark, excrement smelling release to the better world beyond
the Master had spoken of so with such assurance.
“
You’ll do as I say! I’ve had enough of this romantic nonsense. First David and Shelomith,
with all of her tripe about a ‘honeymoon under the veil of Bacchius’ and now you! Do as I say,
coward! “
He ordered, pressing
his face nearer at the younger man’s strange unwillingness to obey. “ That’s
an order from your superior officer! Come to the ship to see us off tomorrow and we can talk about then, if you like. But
right now we both have a job to do and the sooner we get it done and over with, the better for both of us!
“ He warned grimly, loosing patience.
Machba`nel’s
hand reached instinctively for his dagger at the sound of danger, but he withdrew it, straightening himself with a sudden
attention to the wet mud on his leg and thigh that his clouded mind had overlooked till it recognized the grim faced man as
superior officer. His entire life had been based on being a good solider, once the Commandant released from sure death because
of his intractability and he sought out the deepest awareness of truth inside himself to try to fit in the missing pieces.
Slowly the fog lifted and his rational mind began to take hold.
“
Sir, I can’t. “ He pleaded. “
I’m in service to the true King. Join us! All that I know of right, and honor and justice I learned from you,
adonai! “ He demanded eagerly.
Xavier
turned on his heel and motioned toward his Tribune.
“
Take the prisoner to Pilate, and kill the traitor! “
“
Sir! No sir! I won’t! “
The
older man recoiled in horror and disgust.
“
Then I will! Take the troops to the flagellatorium. “
*
Her brother Simon found Ahava outside, dazed and dirty, still clothed
in the cast
offs he brought her last night.
Part of him wanted to vent his rage and his disillusionment
on the unresisting girl. She represented everything that had been destroyed today but Barabbas, still stunned by
his release over the more worthy Nazarene had been specific about finding her and returning her to her mother while they regrouped
their forces! There were many with them now who’d refused until they received word of the gentle
rabbi’s arrest and mockery of a trial!
“ I have to get you to a place of safety, Beloved! Barabbas needs
me! “
She startled more violently at the use of her name then she did at his painful grip on her shoulders.
“ NO! I have to wait for Machba`nel! He hasn’t
come out yet! “
“ He went out by another escape. He said he’ll look for you with Ima!
“
Simon lied hastily, and weary beyond comprehension. The young girl nodded and leaned against her brother’s shoulder,
allowing him to make a way for them through the thickening crowd of outraged on lookers. Many were still dressed in their
best clothes for the second feast night coming at sundown, but they were drawn out in shock and dismay to disprove the whispers
traveling from house to house. It couldn’t be so! This was a sacred feast day!
Anxious to return to his pregnant wife and son before Elisheba could act in her hysterical
state, he took no thought to his younger sister’s needs. With tears of stunned dismay as fixed and unrelenting as the
dazed look on his younger sister’s face, Simon lead her to the group of crying women who were standing at a distance
from the activity on the apex of the skull shaped hill. Ahava sank to her knees by her mother, her pain too real, too deep
even for further anguished cries. She rocked on her knees and clung to her mother, trying to force some comfort into the hunched,
crying form. Sounds and smells overwhelmed them as the rock beneath they feet began to sway and groan. The Isaac’s scream
and the screams of the other man were drowned out by the frightened screech of the birds as they lifted en masse. The sky
in the size and color of their species, frightened out of their wits. As the strength in the wings failed, they fell back
to the groaning earth and lay as if dead.
“
You who were going to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of
GOD, come down from that cross! “
Raamah ben Tola mocked with the agony of a disappointed dreamer.
Suddenly he fell silent, his face flushed and crimson. He fought with the soldier with bloodied knees who’d swung
the hammer but the brute’s strength was too great, so he was forced back to the edge of the standing crowd, his face
covered with tears as he recognized his younger brother Isaac’s naked body hanging on the right hand cross! Inwardly
he cursed GOD at this injustice. Without warning, he was struck down, as if by a giant hand, and struck the rock of the gaunt
outcropping; foaming at the mouth and convulsing in the blood and the mud at the edge of the cliff. A swollen and impacted
vein deep in his brain rupturing; forcing blood within the skull case and down toward the brain stem with great knotted clots
like a handful of tzitzits racing toward the unprotected heart and lungs below. After a
time he woke, dazed and abandoned for fear he was demon possessed. Salvia dripped down the side of his mouth but he couldn’t
feel anything on that side. When he tried to use the hand under his to rise up in a seated position it refused to move, if
it was still there? He was forced to lay with grass stubbing into his eyes, watching the three crosses until a terrible darkness
seized him and the ground shook and he thought he was alone in the experience until he heard others scream in the voice denied
him.
Hilkiah knelt by the stricken man, his face slick with tears of shame and futility. With his son Noah’s help
they raised the writhing body from the edge of the cliff and carried it slowly downhill, intending to leave it at the house
where Zaavan and Deborah had lived before, but he thought they meant to wrap and bury him alive and as hard as he struggled,
he could find no way to let them know he was alive within the damaged shell!
Evi the Jebusite had come to mock but he found himself holding his breath and waiting in superstitious awe. His soul
expecting the very threat he’d just heard in the taunt. What purpose could be served by the death of this innocent man?
He waited, ready to believe, ready to raise his voice in loud and reverent awe for the god who was so powerful. He
even raised himself on tip toes, pushing against the silhouetted figure, to push it loose from the rough wooden cross. But
the only answer was mocking voice from another clump of grim faced men further down the road and the law cawing of the cross
to another in excited anticipation of a great feast. He waited a few minutes more, perhaps the Celestial one was calling all
of His forces from the four corners of the universe, to slam down on this small mountain and burn up the clouds in the fury
of their retribution against this sinful men, but already he was doubting.
‘He’s
going to let him die. He’s too small a god to stop him from dying. He’s turned His back on him for failure! ‘
He let out his inhaled breath in disgust, ashamed at his momentary foolishness. ‘Yes indeed, yes indeed.’
He agreed mentally with the dark figure which stood by him casting no shadow as shade on the miserable females crumbled
at his feet. Evi moved angrily so he didn’t give them even that meager comfort either. How could she
know, his mother? His had been the hand to give the purse of silver coins into the traitor’s willing
grasp. Yet he knew, and he wanted to mock the foolish man with the famous name of honor at his nativity, but he couldn’t
because they shared the common bond of gender, although he knew the man shrunk from the accidental touch of flesh as he received
the coveted but secondary prize. He drew in a ragged breath, fighting compassion as the youngest girl turned and looked back
at him with such trust and hope. He felt the air around him pulse and quiver with the very expectation he had looked for just
moments ago. Puzzled he looked at the starkly outlined scene stretched taunt against the darkening sky as if they and only
they, the people of the this rock promontory were real in all of existence, and creation itself was holding his breath. It
was both an invitation and a Hand pulling him away and he wanted to hear the harsh whispers of strength and mockery coming
at him from the diminishing figure but the strengthening Call in his innermost being was attempting to sway him, with hope
trying to outweigh knowledge so carnal and vile he would gladly have allowed them to fall off his shoulders if only,,, if
only... he could just take one step closer to the promise growing in his heart.
“ He could save others, but he can’t save himself! “
An educated voice mocked just behind him, one he recognized from last nights council as well as on many other occasions
as well, and he snapped to himself. ‘What must it look like to have him so near the mother of the condemned man?
What was he thinking? That young one was as much as sorceress as her dying brother! ‘
He wiped the sweat and the spittle from his dry mouth and longed for a sip of wine, some excuse for the unnatural headiness
of just the moment before. Anything to negate the power it still had on his mind and soul!
‘If one had to die, why bother? I want to live!‘ He
challenged the celestial Rationality and felt it withdraw, with a sadness that almost struck him from his feet in its invisible
intensity. He leaned forward anew, but the gleam in his eyes ceased abruptly once he rested his great weight against the smiling
girl’s shoulder to keep his voice from reaching the man and his two assistants who stood so near they must have been
there for some purpose of their own. After a slight shift in movement from the red haired giant who’d been seated beside
the women without drawing attention to himself; his face had been so contorted with grief that the overweight Jebusite prince
had dismissed him as weak as the gender under his care, Evi used his free hand to raise the bulk of his outer belly where
it folded forward by his extreme position.
‘Yes indeed.‘
He thought in shocked acceptance. His senses had warned him correctly Despite the size of his amble
girth it was extremely sensitive, especially in the red and chaffed area where the unsmiling serving man’s knife tip
was digging in, the lower he dipped.
“ Yes
well, I think I’ll go now. “ He said hurriedly at the
girl’s shocked expression and pulled back, he could actually feel the knife tip withdraw and a beading of blood gather
at the slight but vulnerable cut.
When the grim faced man made no move to follow after him, he paused for breath, sweating copious from fear and exertion
rather than heat. He disliked the way the ground rolled and swayed under his feet as he tried to make his way down the hill.
He needed to get home! He needed to close the doors around him and shut out these stinking people with
their unwashed bodies and the stench of burning garage heaped too high in anticipation of a rare, three day Sabbath! He needed
to get away from the foul mouths that could taunt an innocent man as he hung dying in a gross perversion of their loveless
religion! It was bad enough that Rueben left him this morning to go whore that with female ‘thing’ he’d
married while she was still conveniently blind! He did it because he knew how much it hurt him to be proved
less than sufficient for the only man he’d dared to admit his love too! The beast!
He
sobbed to himself at the briefness of life and the depth of his punishment as he ached so deeply on his right side where he’d
fallen that he couldn’t even move his toes!
No one would come to help him! Rueben would never stand by him, feed him and love him with half of his body
dead to touch! He wept deeper tears than at any time since childhood, but after a few minutes the numbness passed, and though
a sharp pain replaced it, he could get to his feet and hobble a few feet to a nearby outcropping of rock. He tested it gingerly
before putting his whole weight on it. Blood trickled down from a cut in his scalp and he nearly wept again at the new injury,
however slight, until he found he had no tears or self-pity left. Picking up a dirt-covered staff, he bound one of his expensive
napkins over it and hobbled toward the end of the hill in distaste and emptiness.
“
He trusts in GOD! Let Him deliver him now, if He takes such pleasure in Him, for he said
He was the Son of GOD! “
As the red haired giant stood abruptly to his feet, the mocking speaker remembered something he’d left with his
larger group and hastened toward them with as much haste as he could arise. But the giant simply helped the grieving widow
to her feet, and shepherding the other women answered the Optimo’s unwilling summons to be allowed closer,
to avoid the hurting taunts. Xavier watched only until he saw his orders had been obeyed, and turned back to wait out the
lengthening hours as best he could, the pain increasing with every minute whether he stood or sat in a vain attempt to find
release from the pain. Still the hours and the sense of waiting went on, as the sky darkened and a chill apprehension
slowed and then silenced the soldiers who asked permission to light a small fire from the wood left unused by the mocking
plaque over the middle cross.
Xavier shielded his eyes and looked up, the man’s bloody forehead and scalp were leaned forward and he was looking
at him! The hurting warrior took a quick step backwards in shocked revulsion but the head moved, keeping
His eyes on him.
“ My Heavenly Father calls you. Please accept while
there is time? I know the truth of who you are, and you must too! “
The words were clumped in uneven groupings and interspaced by a struggle to breath over the accumulation of fluid in
His lungs but they were as sweet as a mother’s croon to the dying man and Xavier’s tears swept his doubts beyond
the reach of his pride to reclaim. Yet he stiffened his neck and moved to where he didn’t have to look at the tortured
face. It was too much to bear!
“ What kind of father would do this to his son? “
He demanded angrily, and then stopped as cold sliced through him from head to foot. What had he done to his son? But
murdered him to keep from having his pride betrayed because he’d followed this man to the grave rather than live without
him? He raced away from the flies and the noise, slipping on the mud created by the flow of blood and sweat, but the sound
of voices seemed to waken the other two men from their stupor and they began to mock the gentle rabbi on the middle cross
with the words they heard hurled by those whom they hated because they would live!
James
felt the weight of his brother leaning on his arm as they looked up in horror at the bloodied figure that hung in the sun’s
heat over their heads. Joses retched in horror, the partially eaten meal in Zaavan’s palatial mansion rising up undigested
mixed with bile as it spilled upon the blood-darkened ground.
“
Is there nothing I can do? “ He demanded, eyes glazed with pain and
self recrimination.
James looked toward Rebecka, but Abigail, seeing the glance, though it was for her and she pushed herself to her feet
shakily, and walked to them. Joses turned and flung himself against her amble frame, weeping so bitterly it opened fresh wounded
for his older brother, who stood there numbly as his sister-in-law lead the broken man to the edge of the broken weeds where
they could talk in private. Life went on around them, in victory over the Man he was only now beginning to understand.
“ Let this Messiah, the king of Israel, now come down from the cross, so that we
might believe! “
“ He is, whether you believe it or not! “
The aged Centurion said, in a bout of fresh pain as gentle words swirled around him like a protecting cloak that he
neither accepted nor pushed away. He knew the dying man wanted him to repent, but he wasn’t sure
he could. If he hadn’t come too far already ins tiff necked rebellion to a god he didn’t understand, to try and
make some last minute plea as he felt life ebbing from his trembling limbs? A commitment to a dying man
couldn’t be broken by the very Code of Honor which had brought him to this perplexing place.
The words brought fresh screams and pleas from the two men covered with crawling ants and tiny black flies that flew
into the soldier’s eyes and mouths with nauseating persistence, forcing them to brush them aside or spit them out. Suddenly
one of the knelling men threw down the ivory cubes and rose to his feet angrily, striking the base of the nearest cross to
him, jarring the writhing figure into seizures of pain and muscle fatigue.
“ Shut up! Shut up with you, up there! You aren’t coming down
off that cross alive so hurry up and get it over with so we can leave! “ He
snarled in the victor’s contempt for his vanquished foe.
“
Jesus? “ The man on the right cross gasped in humility
and remorse.
Xavier stopped in place, the sound of the liquid filled word seared deep into his soul as he fought the truth within
him. Other than the man’s family he couldn’t remember anyone calling the godly man by so familiar a means as his
name. Even his disciples called him ‘Master”, or ‘rabbi”! He looked up against
his will, his bones aching at the mounds of disjointed bone and sinew on the dying men set against the strangely lightened
sky. Was it day or night?
The man on the center cross lifted his head, disturbing a stinging mass of black flies and gnats like a dark halo.
“
Remember me when you come into your kingdom! “
The dying man gasped and the aging warrior repeated the words with his own mouth.
“
Truly, I say to you, today, you will be with Me in Paradise! “
They stopped, exhausted by the effort of speaking and Xavier collapsed backwards, causing his calones
to cast aside the opium and the goblet to catch him before he fell.
“
You’re too old to be out here in this heat, good lord. “ Giovanni
coaxed, trying not to see the heaving form clouded with black buzzing flies over their head.
“ I heard you! “ He said
sharply, in his love for this strange man at his side. He could have had his own command, but he was willing to abide under
a Centurion who never made it to general, the path to being Caesar in today’s society! “
You’re only fourteen years younger than I am! “
“
Yes, but I’m no longer the one dying! “ The man paled
visibly beneath his dark tan and he bowed low in abject apology but old warrior just touched his shoulder in a rare gesture
of friendship and compassion.
“ I can’t get mad the one time someone tells a truth in my presence, however rare
that might be. “ He added in bitter self-mockery. The man rose himself unwillingly,
unable to disguise the tears in his eyes, but Xavier chose to ignore them.
‘This was such an unnatural and long day, he half expected the crosses to become trees again and sprout!
Something had to happen to reflect the truth of what was happening here! ‘ He
thought in anger toward the One who allowed this to continue for so long. What good was a god who couldn’t
stop the one dearest to him from dying?
“ Let
the women come near! What is he thinking of? “ He
demanded angrily, seeing the swaggering bully Longinus speaking sharply to four women and a tall young girl. “
Tell him! But first! “
The Optios
turned back sharply for he had already snapped to do as he was ordered. He accepted the clean square
of cloth with a look of puzzlement.
“ First,
press that between his legs. No mother should have to look up and see that! “
A cold chill struck the outside of the aged warrior as he watched slack jawed when his calones took
a place behind the moaning group and made it clear he wouldn’t return! The tall girl who’d lost her head covering
and the young boy to the older woman’s side accepted her weight as she motioned for them to help her walk closer. Xavier
stepped up quickly, lest anyone, especially the squad leader Longinus, smarting from his stingingly public rebuke try to prevent
them, but the others were hunched over their games of chance, trying to force the hours to go by faster.
Looking down at the young whose head had leaned against his head so confidently such a few hours ago, His face softened.
“ Behold your mother! “
Young John nodded, too stricken by the vile sight of blood and whips to attempt words.
Jesus’ head lolled back, facing the thunder and lightening that warred with the birds circling overhead,
Ahava sobbed, afraid she’d start crying again, and she leaned forward, smelling the lingering fragrance of the
spikenard as she kissed her brother’s feet, the rough edge of the iron nail brushing her cheek as soft
as His touch had ever been. As deeply as she ached, she bowed her heart to her GOD’S command for this unestimatible
pain and humiliation. Then she turned and helped her mother back to the ground where the crushed weeds
gave them some protection from the dusty smelling rock. When Mary offered her comfort, despite her own grief, the young girl
crumbled and fell to the stones where she stood.
‘ Why? Why?
Why? ‘ She sobbed, taking no comfort from the messianic phrases Ishmael had taught
her. There was no comfort that she could find except in blind obedience to what obviously was to be, or
He wouldn’t have allowed it, Blessed be His Name! Her brother Simon knelt beside their mother, trying to hold
Mary and his pregnant wife in his arms at the same time. He was crying. Their Simon, their personal zealot who was going to
free them like a modern day David against the Roman Goliath, and he was crying like he hadn’t sting he was stung by
the bee in childhood!
At the sixth hour of the day, the earth shuddered mightily. Buildings swayed, trees toppled and profound darkness
told hold of the earth, darker than any night had a right to be. No created being on the earth nor
in the heavenlies was allowed to witness the terrible sacrifice of the great King’s Son.
There had been cries
and curses earlier, but the darkness had gone on for so long
that the people just slumped where they were, waiting for death to take the rest of them. Movement
was impossible, Feet, hands, legs, sprawled where they had been when the darkness fell and you couldn’t move without
stumbling over them; and if you could move, where would you go? They were blind. With eyes wide open, they were blind! Even
the cries of the children eventually fell into whimpers and then they slept....it was darker than any night had the right
to be....The sun had fled from the sky. How long? Was this to be the end of the earth?
There
was movement from the crosses, spasmodic, struggling, sounds!
Then about the ninth
hour, a loud voice broke through the darkness.
“ Eloi,
Eloi! Lama sabachtani? “
‘ My GOD, my GOD! Why have You forsaken me?
“
“
The man is calling for Elijah! “
“ Let us see whether Elijah will come and take him down? “
Ahava looked up from her cupped hands instinctively, only to see a blurred figure beginning to emerge from the lessening
darkness. She wiped the tears from here eyes and looked over her shoulder. People were starting to rise, to reach up their
hands as if to lift the cloak of darkness another inch or two off their shoulders, She looked back
in shock as one of the soldiers ran toward the center cross with a stick in his hand, with a sponge on it. The rank
odor of vinegar filled the newly created Selahs between bodies. She couldn’t tell if he was doing this in pity
because the vinegar would cause the body to lose water and hasten the end, or in anger at having been made so puny by the
Forces surroundings the dying man.
She
wanted to jump up and trip him but she’d held the same position too long and her legs refused her command. But when
the sponge was forced against his face, Jesus jerked away from it, the only movement possible since his joints had popped
out of place in his arms.
“ I thirst. “
The air around them was becoming more breathable, and she could see that the heavy bodied vultures had clustered in
a group to one side of the bared rock. Then the light returned in brilliant majesty. It emanated from the
man on the center cross, radiating outward like swords of yellow and jasper brilliance. Instantly filling east, west, north,
south, skyward from horizon to horizon!
He called in a loud voice, no longer choked or gasping, but joyous! “
Father, into Thy Hands I commit My Spirit! “
His head dropped and died.
An ear spitting roar burst outwards in all directions and the rocks exploded the noise of it or burst into pieces!
Trees trembled or swayed, animal voices echoed frantically the length of the valley outside the city gates and in the mountain
ridges, both domesticated and wild. Petals burst from fruit and nut blossoms, shaken from their limbs no matter their stage
of opening as the sunlight turned as red as a flame as it core.
The three occupied
crosses on the hill of stone, and the hundreds like them lining the road in bloodied anticipation of further use, swayed threateningly
as the rock and ground buckled and split in mortal anguish. The ground groaned and writhed like a woman in labor; rocks fractured
and split asunder from the force running through them, pitching people to the ground; held immobile by the weight of the boulders
and stone penned against them or by the effect of the centrically created force .
Lame
or able, soldier or civilian, men were unable to rise to their feet. Not a heart but was beating wildly until the huge cataclysm
subsided with a shuddering sob; like a woman who child has pushed out of its narrow channel into the harsh reality of the
light of death.
The aged Centurion had to seize his Optio’s arm to hold his balance, seeing his own wide and
staring eyes looking back from the younger man’s awe struck face.
“
Truly! This man was the Son of GOD! “
They clung to one another as the ground heaved and buckled in on itself and the sound of buildings collapsing and the
roar from the earth deafened every other noise but the praise that flowed from a myriad of tongues and languages as the awesome
event passed with a shudder of the while earth.
“
How could a god die, adonai? “ Giovanni asked
in a trembling voice, focusing his energies on protecting the older soldier who’d served faithfully so many years.
He began to repent his personal question as the Centurion pulled him forward by not releasing the hold on his wrist
as he staggered out from the under the scarlet hued cloth to view the indescribable return of Spring newness to the winter
devastated landscape.
“ Not how, we may never know that, but why!
“ Xavier answered in awe.
“
Who will teach us? “
He forced himself
past his own fear, seeing the other men stand, returning to their tasks, shaken but in military order. Not so the crowd behind
them, but they were of no concern to him.
“
I don’t know. “ He agreed. “
I don’t know, yet. “ Focusing on the task at hand.
As Jesus’ last words rent across the universe, Machba`nel ‘woke’ to a weight against his chest that
he couldn’t understand as he sat upright, gasping for air and finding little under the cover of hide and stones. He
heard the sound of their sides striking against each other as he pushed till the air filled the shallow hole where he was
unaccountably lying. He struggled to make some sense of where he was and who he was. Something momentous had happened to him
but as he sat upright, unable to see, his mind was struggling with too many questions to single out just one and answer it.
Then the light increased painfully and the first hesitant bird chirps responded to the phenomenon of total darkness in midday
and he realized he wasn’t blind. The darkness had been in their air around him! Then he remembered; everything.
When she saw Machba`nel walking toward her, Ahava thought that she was dead, gone to the land where Spirits rest and
wait! Then he grew near enough to feel the return of warmth to his skin, and the pressure of his fingertips
on her skin was real, flesh and blood real, as tears coursed down their cheeks, commingled as they embraced wordlessly.
Elisheba screamed and tried to scramble away from the man in the bloodied uniform but Ahava closed her eyes and clung
all the tighter to the burly man, praising GOD under her breath, in a joy that would have seemed obscene just moments before!
Including her mother into their heartfelt embrace, they clung to one another long after the shaking subsided then Machba`nel
stepped forward a pace, keeping them safely in his shadow and gazed with wide eyes overhead for the next celestial display.
Expecting the mood to turn to blood and the sun to go out as the ancient prophets foretold! Of the day he believed this to
be!
People
around them gradually stood to their feet as well, shaking the dust off their clothes, standing in silenced awe or speaking
in low whispers, waiting for the Hand of GOD to come crashing through time and Selah, then the cries of the birds resumed
and buzz of the stinging flies and the groans of the men on the crosses over their heads resumed without a breath of fresh
air moving, and many there who went home in shame, not entirely certain of what they’d seen and heard but too awe struck
to deny its existence.
The women who’d believed
in and followed Jesus crept closer to the rock base where Mary and her family collapsed, without tears left to shed. Waiting,
as the soldiers around them waited, but not sure for what. Holding its breath to see if there would be some further celestial
demonstration, now that the Great and Invisible One had shaken them from their complacency.
Xavier
pulled himself to his feet in horror at the blood covering his lower limbs, but was unable to locate any source broken in
his own skin or muscle to account for it. An anger filled him that he didn’t understand. Gripping the outer cross for
support, tears streamed down his face in unmanly display, but the Tribune feared to attempt to wrest control from the broken
warrior. If Pilate objected, it would be his word against the cunning old man and he could well end up on one of these himself!
The odor of vinegar was strong on the air where the clay vessel had overturned and broken, and to his left one of the common
soldiers was trying to wipe the blood off one side of the ivory dice.
Xavier was the first to speak, but even then barely above a hoarse whisper.
“
My son, come to me! “ But the hand he held out for support
was covered with dried blood and bits of wood.
Machba`nel looked down at the
bloodied hand like an ox staring dumbly at an empty manager. He tried to step away from the trembling girl but she reached
out instinctively at his movement and he stopped. He had to take the princess away from this terrible place, from the renewed
cries as flock of ravens tired of the wait and began to peck at the bound man’s cheek, but there wasn’t room enough
in the whole world to accommodate the terrible weight locked within them as she whimpered her dead brother’s name. Xavier
pulled back in superstitious awe and horror, trying to put some rational explanation to the movement of earth and multiplied
conscience at the death of this single man,
‘An earthquake, a
coincidence. It wasn’t the first in history, it wouldn’t be the last‘ , He postponed as hardened soldiers
came to him trembling like babes in their mother’s arms at the first awareness of thunder! It helped him to restore
order and to see the mocking crowd silenced and largely broken up.
‘Their
part was over, he was dead, they’d won‘ He thought, bitterly angry at the
emerging wariness of how close he had come to believing even as he talked to a dead man dripping out the last of his life’s
blood. Huh! Weakness! A woman’s weakness! The need to believe in what couldn’t be see!
‘We aren’t savages any more! ‘ He raged inwardly, then caught a
glimpse of three men suspended between earth and sky on execution devices meant to extract the last barbarous ounce of pain
and mental torture. How far had they come from the jungle where pray was killed and eaten for survival, not
tormented for a day under the hot sun?
Trembling violently, he pretended
an interest in his own duties among his fellows, he was watching the man with the cut cheek and tentatively seeking the One
this Man had died for, to see if he could find again what he felt in that instant his superior touched him and smiled, forgiving
him? Xavier turned on his heel, checking the ground for tools or nails left unused, before the ‘Ravens’ crept
out of their black, goat’s hair tents at night, in their thieving ways, and pulled the iron nails out of the blood soaked
wood! Choosing to quench the rising Spirit within him with the same ruthless brutally he’d been systematically stripped
of his ability to feel his enemy’s pain. The vacillating soul within fearing this new emotion as weakness, taunted by
a Voice that seemed far more powerful than dominant Aries, the god of war himself! Burying
the sense of empathy with a savage decision that shook Sheol; already reeling from the entrance of the Holy
One as He stood before His defeated foe to accept the keys to Death and Hell on the nail scarred palm of His Hand. A space
opened in the dark void of the underworld so long dominated by the pride of its dark prince. Then Jesus, alone, crossed the
great gulf from Sheol, which was created for Lucifer and his fallen angels, into the welcomed air of Paradise and from within
the haven of angels the godly of generations past saw face to face the Source of the light in which they had waited for the
promise of Eden to be kept.
When Joseph
of Aramathea took down the body of the LORD they treated it with as much reverence as if it were still alive but the time
to sunset was too near to allow more than a hasty placement of the stiffened joints on the expensive burial cloth Joseph had
purchased for himself as the young virgins who remained in the dimming light covered the bloodied form with hundreds of blossoms
they’d gathered from the nearby walls of the rock quarry and the valley as the gift they had to give their dead king;
revering him in death as they had life. Then as the women watched the soldiers rolled the heavy stone on the front of the
Joseph’s tomb, where never before any man had lain, and they followed His mother to Bethany to wait out the three day
Sabbath caused by the arrival of Passover on this year of jubilee. But no one wailed or mourned, their loss went too deep.
They were almost to the road leading to Lazarus’ house when Machba`nel joined them, his face ashen with grief
and still marred by the dirt laid over his corpse. Wordlessly he took the young woman’s arm and allowed her to lean
against him, sobbing so softly it simply sounded like profound, wet breaths.
“
Call me Isaac. “ He pleaded tenderly. That other life and its obligations had ended with his
death. But what this new life would bring, he didn’t have the nerve or the wit to guess. They could wait as darkness
closed around them, allowing privacy for the restored family’s overwhelming grief.
-
End Chapter 27
