A continuation of last week’s post Finding Purpose. An imagining of the crucifixion based on Matthew 27:55; Mark 15:40-41; Luke 23:26-46; and John 19:25-27.
Thank God John had come to tell Jesus’s mother. Under a sky still black with night, the alarm sounded from house to house among the women. “They’ve arrested Jesus!” In no time they gathered where Mary and her sister stayed, surrounding her – and themselves – with each other’s company, trying to mount a barricade to the rising waters of fear threatening to wash over them.
Somehow – was it John again? – the worst news came back sometime after sunrise: he was to be crucified. Even as they had feared his death, this sentence rippled through them with new horror. They knew of these Roman vulgarities but none of them would have witnessed such an execution to know what they were heading into. But there was no question that they would go – at least some of them. Mary was resolved and she needed to know they all stood with her. And they needed somehow to stand with him.
Despite the long hours they had already been awake, it seemed all too soon that they stood there on the path to Golgotha waiting to see their beloved trudge down the hill with his cross. Johanna spotted him first – “There!” she whispered, as he staggered toward them, clothed in a now filthy tunic, adhered to his back with huge blots of still moist blood. Someone else bore the crossbar.
Their weeping broke out afresh as he passed them, and Johanna felt sure he murmured something to them – “Women, don’t cry for me, cry for yourselves” – as if there could be any difference in their grief.
After he passed, the lines of the crowd collapsed and the women came together to follow down the hill where the Roman guard was already mounting the first of the three condemned onto his cross.
The screams as the soldiers drove in the nails froze the women in place momentarily. Some of them even retreated. How could they witness such savagery? But Mary began again and they followed.
They worked to get where they could see, and more importantly, where Jesus could see them. The guard allowed them only so close to the crosses. Johanna had hoped to see whether the soldiers had offered Jesus the pain-dulling draught they had prepared and sent ahead. It was so peculiar that the Romans allowed such things.
Mary positioned herself closest to the cross. And now, John had removed his hood, confirming his presence there with them. None of the other disciples were around. Johanna thought Jesus spoke to Mary, but with all the din around her she couldn’t be sure.
Johanna wanted Jesus to know that she was there – that they were there – to suffer with him, but it was so hard to look up and see him there on the cross. The Romans stripped the condemned naked; the shame of that indignity compounded the raw physical pain of the execution.
In frustration, Johanna determined to look out and not up. Now that the soldiers had finished their gruesome work, and the three stood on display, jeers crackled from the crowd. What an audience the scene had drawn – everyone from the priests gloating over their successful squelching of their rival to the common rabble for whom the crucifixion was a way to pass the day. But the wailing women huddled together remained largely invisible to these loiterers.
Again, Johanna strained her ears to hear Jesus speak. He had lifted his face – such as he could, what with the brambles on his head – “Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing.” Even now, he refused to abandon what he had taught them: love your enemies; turn the other cheek. The injustice of this good man dying stabbed her heart anew.
The taunting continued; the Romans gambled for his belongings. Johanna did her best to focus her mind in prayer but it was hard to still her heart against the bombardment of sensory overload: the ugly mockery, even the insects buzzing mercilessly around the victims wounds, always punctuated by the painful breaths marking the ebbing life of those on the crosses, combined with the awful stench of the place – the stink of excrement, fear, and death.
Feeling her head ready to explode, Johanna whispered a prayer under her breath. “Give me something, Lord, something to hold on to.” Perhaps in answer, she managed to discern distinct voices from the cross. One of the criminals had joined the throng in slinging insults at Jesus, but the other rebuked him.
“Don’t you fear God, since you are under the same sentence? We deserve this, but not him—he did nothing to deserve this.” Then he turned to Jesus and pled, “Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom.”
Jesus’s answer spoke to Johanna as well. “Don’t worry, I will. Today you will join me in paradise.”
For a moment, Johanna felt her spirit lift.
And then the darkness fell.
With all suddenness the noon sky turned black as night. For the first time since that blood curdling howl echoed from the initial nail, Golgotha became silent. No more sneering and scorn leaked out of the assembly. If people spoke now, they hushed their voices. Many of the mass made to leave, spooked by the strange atmosphere.
For a long while, there was only the excruciating breathing. Each intake of air caused the bodies so much throbbing; Johanna wondered that they could keep at it. But when she considered her own heartache, these women here with her – and surely that of his mother – she marveled that any of them could endure such torment and live to draw another breath.
And still the nightmare went on. They had been warned that crucifixions could take days. It felt like days. The women had even ceased their weeping – how could they have any tears left? They had fallen into a stupor, Johanna supposed – minds and hearts alike worn down by the persistence of this pain.
Finally a loud rumble broke the trance. Had it come from the Temple? Johanna began to turn in that direction when Jesus spoke, this time in a thunderous cry: “Father, I place my life in your hands!” Then he breathed his last.
With fresh tears streaming down her face, Johanna thanked God that Jesus’s ordeal was finished. This new weeping, she knew now, was for herself, and these blessed sisters here with her, as well as those back in the city. The real anguish had just begun.
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