The Crucifixion

There were so many people, and everyone was moving.

They were yelling, throwing their hands in the air, and shuffling forward, trying to reach the man Pilate stood by.

Pilate stared out at us with an expression of despair.

Once already, today, the man next to Pilate had stood there. Pilate had sent him away, but now he was back, and the pharasees were shouting.

"Crucify him!" they yelled. "Crucify him!"

The crowd rumbled with these screams, and I wiped the sweat from my brow; the heat of all these bodies pressed together making me feel light-headed. I stared up at the man they screamed about, at the robe the color of the robes' of kings hanging limp on his tired body, the crown made of thick thorns stabbing into his skull.

My heart beat fast, imagining the pain.

Pilate was yelling to the crowd, asking what reason he had to kill this man.

The pharisees hollered angrily in reply that this man had claimed he was the son of God. I startled at this, stepping slightly back, and a man behind me slammed into me, giving me an angry expression as he pushed past me.

When I next saw the man, closer up, after weaving my way out of the crowd, he was covered in angry, deep and long cuts, all over his body. His back was bleeding, his chest was bleeding, his legs and arms were bleeding. He looked as if he had just emerged from a river of blood.

Two large pieces of wood, crossed, were settled on his back, and he was struggling to carry them through the city streets toward Calvary.

I could not imagine how a man so deeply injured that he looked to have been dipped in red paint could possibly carry such a weight on his shoulders.

I fell into the crowd again and walked alongside as this man struggled, and then he fell, and I felt as if I, too, might collapse.

He fell to the ground, his legs giving out under him, and the cross landed on top of him.

I barely stopped myself from letting out a shriek.

When a man, one I recognized, a man named Simon, was chosen from the crowd to help this man carry his burden, they picked the cross up together, and where the bloody man had lay, red covered the ground, like the sight of an animal slaughter. I covered my mouth and looked away, but moved forward with the crowd when the bloody man did.

A group of women stood near the bloody man and wept, their tears as numerous as the drops of blood falling from his open wounds. He turned to them and told them not to cry for him, but for Jerusalem, who had turned away from the Lord. I was shocked, and my own eyes pricked with tears.

At the top of the hill, a soldier went to the bloody man and offered him wine. The man tasted the drink and shook his head. I did not understand his refusal. Would the wine not help numb the pain?

They lay the bloody man on the cross and brought nails towards his outstretched left arm. My eyes widened, and I turned and walked a distance from the crowd. I could not watch a nail go through this man's flesh and bones.

But even from where I stood, I heard his screams of agony.

I sat down and folded into myself. A breeze went over my shoulders, and I felt my shoulders shake with sobs for this stranger being nailed to a cross and hung in the air.

I stood and walked down the hill a bit. I could watch no more of this.

When I glanced back up, I saw the bloody man hanging on the cross, all life gone from his body. A sign above his head read, "This is the King of the Jews."

And then a soldier stuck his spear in the man's chest, and I screamed in anguish.

Then the earth rumbled beneath me, and I was thrown off my feet. Fear seized me, and a boulder in front of me cracked in half.

I looked back up at the man hanging on the cross.

This man was much more than the King of the Jews.

© 2012