The Romans on either side of Jesus pulled Him to His knees, but this time the centurion Pelonius brought the procession to a halt and came back to look closely at the prisoner as He swayed in the grip of the soldiers. It was obvious that, if they released Jesus, the weight of the patibulum would only force Him to fall again.
“Loosen the beam from Him,” Pelonius ordered. His eyes were surveying the crowd and now lit upon a heavy-set man who stood nearby. “You there,” he called. “What is your name?”
The big man looked startled. “Simon. Simon of Cyrene.”
“Take the beam and carry it for Him,” Pelonius ordered.
Simon did not hesitate but stepped forward. The soldiers had already loosened the thongs and lifted the patibulum from Jesus’ back. Now they raised it so that Simon could slip his arms through the thongs and ease the timber upon his broad shoulders.
With the weight removed from Him, Jesus straightened His body and looked around Him. Veronica could have touched Him from where she sat on the back of her mule. As she looked into the Nazarene’s eyes, she was amazed to find no resentment mirrored there, only pain and suffering and, she was sure, a look that seemed to be one of compassion even for those who were torturing Him. Obeying an impulse she did not stop to question, Veronica, while the soldiers were adjusting the patibulum to the broad shoulders of Simon the Cyrene, quickly removed the veil from her head and handed it to Jesus.
He took the lustrous cloth in His two hands and pressed it to His face, wiping away the sweat, blood, and dirt that was caked there. As He handed the veil back to Veronica, stained by the print of His face almost as if its outlines had been painted upon the cloth, He smiled gently at her in thanks.
Veronica felt as sudden warm feeling of happiness and security flood her body, though just why the smile of this man to whom she had never spoken should do this, she did not know. But before she could say a word, the soldiers had jerked their prisoner by the arms and He had moved on, holding Himself erect now that the weight of the beam no longer pressed upon His back.
Veronica stared at the cloth with the print of Jesus’ face upon it. She felt no sorrow that the beautiful veil was ruined. She knew she would never try to remove the stains from the gossamer fabric, for the cloth, stained as it was, was now far more precious to her than it had been before. What she had seen in Jesus’ eyes when He had looked at her, the memory of His smile, was something she knew she would treasure all her life in the print of His features upon the veil.
“Veronica! Veronica!” A shrill voice calling her name brought the girl suddenly out of her reverie. She saw Jonas, his face set and white, his eyes like those of a hunted creature, leading Eleazar as rapidly as he could through the crowd with Zadok on the animal’s back. The hunchback stumbled in his haste, like a man walking in his sleep, and seemed oblivious to the screeching of the cripple.
“Stop him, Veronica!” Zadok pleaded. “Stop him or I will be killed!”
Jonas showed no sign of having heard or even of recognizing the girl or her brother who had always been his friends. Zadok’s face was livid with fear and he called Veronica’s name again as the mule came abreast of her.
Without thinking, she slipped from her mount, and moving over to Eleazar, quickly seized Zadok about the waist and helped him swing to the ground where he lay in the roadway, panting with relief.
“Jonas—Jonas has been like one possessed—ever since he saw Abiathar place the—the crown of thorns on the Nazarene’s head!” he gasped.
“Why?”
“Jonas gathered the thorns. Abiathar paid him a shekel to do it. Now he says he must ask forgiveness of Jesus. Before He goes to the cross.” He mopped his brow. “You saved my life, Veronica.” Then his eyes grew wide and he swung his body up with his powerful arms and backed away from her.
“What is it, Zadok?” Veronica asked. “Is anything wrong?”
“You walked!” the cripple said incredulously. “You walked and lifted me from Eleazar’s back!”
Veronica looked down at her feet and saw that they were standing firmly upon the road. To reach Zadok, she had taken three steps and yet had been conscious of no pain. She had not even limped. Instinctively, she swayed a moment and reached out toward Jonathan and the mule for support, but they were still several paces away, her brother still engrossed in watching the crowd that now swirled in the wake of Jesus toward the place of execution.
“I did walk!” she whispered, and moved her crippled leg tentatively, then when she felt no pain or unsteadiness, stepped bravely upon it. “I am well, Zadok!” she cried. “I have been healed!”
The beggar looked at her narrowly. “How did this happen?”
“Jesus—and the veil!” She held up the cloth with the Nazarene’s face still outlined upon it in blood, sweat, and dirt. “It is why I felt so different when I took the veil from Him! It had healed me as soon as I touched it!”
“Maybe He really is what they say,” the beggar said slowly. “The Messiah.”
“You can prove it, Zadok!” Veronica cried, holding out the veil to him. “Touch it and you can be healed as I was!”
But the deformed man now backed farther away in fear. “Keep it away from me!” he screeched, swinging himself off through the crowd with his powerful arms as if a demon were in pursuit.
Veronica turned to look about her at the crowd that was already thinning out as the people fell in behind the Romans and their prisoner to follow them from the city. Jonathan saw that she was not on the mule and with a cry of concern started toward her. Then he stopped as, her eyes shining, Veronica walked to him.
“You don’t need to carry me again—ever!” she told Jonathan happily. “I have been healed by the Messiah, the Son of God.”
II
Even with his tortured hump, Jonas had never experienced physical agony to compare with the mental pain that had seized him when he saw Abiathar place the chaplet of green burnet upon Jesus’ head and press the cruel thorns into His flesh. Until then he had felt only pity for the Nazarene, the same sort of pity he would have felt for any good man who was being unjustly executed. Now his own sense of guilt engulfed him, and an overpowering need to beg forgiveness filled him with in urgency he could not deny.
That Jesus would not forgive him, once he was close enough to beg it, did not once occur to Jonas. He had heard others tell of the Nazarene’s teachings and knew that the one thing in His doctrine which appealed most to those burdened by the consciousness of their own sin was the promise of forgiveness if they came to Him and asked it. Certain that his own burden would be lifted once he came near enough to the Nazarene to beg forgiveness, Jonas seized Eleazar’s lead rope more tightly and pressed on in the wake of the crowd that had poured out of the courtyard of the Antonia to follow Jesus and the Roman soldiers.
The condemned man was well ahead of Jonas by now and with the people jostling him on all sides, he could make only slow progress leading Eleazar. To Zadok’s screams and imprecations he had paid no attention; the half-man, he knew, was quite capable of caring for himself. Though he could have made more rapid progress by dropping Eleazar’s lead rope, it did not occur to Jonas to abandon the faithful mule. Eleazar was a part of him; he would as soon have cut off his own right arm as leave the animal to the mercies of the crowd.
Through the gate leading to the hill of Golgotha, the procession poured, Jonas squeezing through and protecting the mule as best he could with his body. As the crowd burst through the narrow opening, it fanned out like water pouring through a cleft in a dam. In spite of all he could do, Jonas and Eleazar were thrown against the wall. In the press, Jonas dropped the lead rope and had to push his way through to try to seize it again, losing valuable time once more. But with the people spreading out as they streamed through the gate, he was sure he could move faster and could reach the Nazarene before it was too late.
“Jonas! Jonas!” The voice was so weak that he did not recognize it at first, but the sound of his own name was enough to stop him.
“Jonas! Help!”
He placed the voice now; it came from against the wall where a man lay, his white robe already stained with a spreading blot of red where he had been wounded. In the same instant, Jonas recognized his old master, Elam.
“Help!” Elam begged weakly. “Help, or I die!”
Jonas hesitated and looked toward the crowd that was still streaming through the gate in the wake of the condemned Galilean. If he stopped now, all chance of reaching Jesus was lost. And yet the spreading stain on Elam’s white robe meant that the Pharisee must be badly wounded and would probably die unless someone came to his aid.
Among the crowd no one showed any sign of stopping, so Jonas came to kneel beside Elam. The Pharisee’s face was pale with the fear of death and loss of blood; his eyes, as he looked up at Jonas, were like those of an animal brought down in the hunt and not yet dispatched.
“A sicarius,” Elam gasped. “He stabbed me—took my purse. Tear my robe and bind my wounds. Then carry me to a physician.”
Jonas gave one last look toward Golgotha. He could see the procession beginning to climb the hill upon which stood, stark specters of death against the spring sky, the three uprights upon which three men would soon be dying. He knew he could never ask forgiveness of the Nazarene now. The burden of his guilt must rest upon his soul forever. But he could not let Elam die.
Turning, he began to rip the Pharisee’s robe to make a bandage for the two knife wounds in his side.
III
It was about the third hour when the procession taking Jesus to be crucified reached the hill of Golgotha. With the shadows of the uprights falling almost across them, Mary of Magdala, with Mary the mother of Jesus, and Mary the wife of Cleopas, stopped at the foot of the hill to watch while Simon the Cyrene carried the patibulum to the center upright and laid it down. Jesus, His head lifted proudly and showing of sign of fear, walked up the hill to where the soldiers waited. On either side, the thieves who were to die with Him were already being dragged to their crosses, screaming for mercy.
As a final gesture of humanity, it was customary to give a condemned man wine with myrrh to bring on insensibility, but when Pelonius offered it to Jesus, He refused with a shake of His head, choosing to bear the full pain of the death He had chosen for Himself. Nor did He struggle when they seized Him and threw Him down upon the patibulum, binding His arms to it with heavy cords. Then while one of the four soldiers in charge of the execution spread out both His hands in turn upon the wooden beam, another drove through His palms the nails that would hold Him suspended there.
A great sob broke from Mary of Nazareth when she saw the first nail driven home into Jesus’ flesh and she turned away, unable to watch any longer the agony of her son. Her own heart breaking with pity for Jesus, Mary of Magdala comforted the older woman as best she could. She had seen some of the disciples among the crowd now gathered at the foot of the hill, but did not speak for fear of identifying them to members of the Sanhedrin who had also come out with the crowd to witness the execution of the death sentence they had voted. When John appeared beside her and helped Mary of Nazareth to a rocky outcrop where she could rest, Mary Magdalene moved up the hill until she was as close to the foot of the cross as the soldiers would permit.
With Jesus’ hands securely nailed to the crossbeam, the soldiers lifted it and, carrying the timber with His body dangling from it by the nails and the cords, hoisted it into place against the center upright.
The pain must have been agonizing, but Jesus did not cry out as the patibulum was fastened into place and then, to complete the crucifixion, heavy spikes were driven into the lower portions of the upright through Jesus’ feet. Finally, across the upright beam a board was nailed upon which had been painted with brush and ink in large letters:
THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS
As Jesus hung there upon the cross, those who had sought to destroy Him shouted insults for a while. Finally, they began to drift away, leaving only the soldiers whose task it was to watch until the three condemned men were dead, the small knot of women with John and Mary of Nazareth, and a scattering of disciples and followers of Jesus who chose to maintain the deathwatch there.
At the foot of Jesus’ cross soldiers began to throw dice to see who would win the garments of the three prisoners to be sold for money to buy wine.
Chapter 36
Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?
John 20:15
Through the early hours in the morning, Peter had remained hidden in John Mark’s home. Overcome with grief and guilt at having thrice denied the Master he loved, Peter could at first do nothing but wring his hands and moan in sorrow. Mary, Mark’s mother, had begged him to eat, for she could see that he was close to breaking from remorse and sorrow, but Peter had refused. All that morning he prayed without pause, trying to remember the things Jesus had taught him since that day so long ago when the Master had come to the shores of Galilee and said, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
As he prayed and recalled the times when he had sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to the great truths of the doctrine He had come to earth to preach, Peter now at last began to understand that Jesus had not come into the world to establish an earthly kingdom in Israel. And he could see that he and the other disciples had refused to listen to Jesus because of their ambition for earthly glory. The Master had opened for them—had they but been able to realize it—the gates of a vast and endless spiritual kingdom which all might enter merely by acknowledging Him and living according to the simple precepts He taught, dwelling there with Him through eternity.
II
About the sixth hour a strange pall of darkness fell over Jerusalem like an ominous cloud. Thunder rolled across the hills and lightning slashed the sky, sometimes appearing to seek out the pinnacle of the temple as if to destroy it.
When Mark’s mother and those around her came to Peter for reassurance in the face of this strange phenomenon which none of them could understand, he finally found the strength to put aside his own fears, as he had not been able to do the night before in the courtyard of Caiaphas. And he discovered that comforting others took away much of his own fear and uncertainty.
The darkness had been over the city for nearly two hours by the time John Mark returned from the praetorium. His first words confirmed the conclusions at which Peter had arrived during the morning, now that he was able to understand the meaning of what Jesus had been telling the disciples for the past several months.
“Jesus is crucified on Golgotha!” the youth cried. “Between two thieves!”
For a moment Peter’s heart was so filled with pain that he could not speak. “Where are the other disciples?” he asked finally.
“John took Jesus’ mother away with him,” Mark said. “Mary Magdalene and some other women are watching at the foot of the cross. The others have scattered.”
Peter said no more but began to ready his robe and sandals.
“They will recognize you if you go out now,” Mark protested. “You were the only one who tried to resist last night.”
“They must recognize me,” the big man said simply. “Because I am going to the hill and demand that I be crucified beside Jesus. With my head down, for I deserve no better.”
Mark was horrified. “You cannot help the Master now!” he protested.
“But I can help myself,” Peter said, “by atoning for my guilt in deserting Him and denying Him.”
“I will go with you,” the youth offered.
“No,” Peter told him. “This is a journey I must make alone.”
The darkness which had engulfed the city was already beginning to lighten when Peter strode through the gate leading to Golgotha, his powerf
ul body proudly erect, his face calm with purpose.
When he approached the foot of the hill, he saw that while two dying men still hung on the outer crosses, the center one was empty. As he stood looking up at the cross in perplexity, a group of Roman soldiers passed him going down the hill, carrying the garments of the executed men over their arms.
Slowly Peter climbed the hill until he stood at the foot of the center upright, looking up at it.
“You knew Him well, didn’t you?” a voice said beside him, and Peter turned to see a Roman centurion standing by. It was Pelonius who had commanded the detail of troops charged with the execution.
“I knew Him and loved Him,” Peter said simply.
“I saw you with the Nazarene when He entered Jerusalem almost a week ago,” the Roman said. “He must have trusted you, for you walked beside Him.”
A great sob broke from Peter and he pointed to the bloodied patibulum lying upon the ground at the foot of the upright member of the cross. “Nail my arms to that,” he begged, “and let me too die here.”
The Roman shook his head. “I have crucified many men,” he said, “but none such as this one. Even on the cross He said, ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.’ He was a righteous man. You can serve Him better by continuing to teach what He taught than by a needless sacrifice of your life.”
Peter looked again at the empty cross and once again he seemed to hear a gentle but familiar voice saying: “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church. And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
The centurion was right. To let himself be crucified now would be to deny Jesus once again by ignoring the Master’s own words about him. His task was clear. To rally those who had followed Jesus. To go back to Galilee, to Peraea, if need be, and carry on the work Jesus had begun.
The Crown and the Cross: The Life of Christ Page 43
