Disclaimer: Biblical fiction is based on actual events, but elements have been added to enhance storytelling. For the accounts this story is based on, please refer to Matthew 27:31-56; Mark 15:24-31; Luke 23:26-49; John 19:17-37.

Spurred on by my father’s passion, I made the pilgrimage that countless Jews have made before me. I went home to Jerusalem, the home I’d left as a baby. I loaded up a caravan of animals, servants, and like-minded relatives. I set out on the journey of a lifetime to behold the glorious city of our God and worship in his Temple for myself.

It was a long road. Uncountable miles. Dry mouths and sore backsides at the end of every day. Soon we began to smell like our camels – what stinky beasts. Still we pressed on. Through Egypt and the Nile delta. Around the desert. Then to the sea so salty, a man can lie on its surface and read a scroll without worrying about getting his hands wet. Then up the Jordan River to Jericho. Finally, we were in Judea, passing over the ground our fathers had walked generations ago. The anticipation escalated as we climbed up the rocky road through the mountains! I was overwhelmed with joy, completely obsessed with my quest to reach the home I’d only dreamed of!

Finally, I saw it. 

I was leading the caravan, when, quite unexpectedly, we reached the top of a ridge. The road sloped down, and there, across the valley, was the city. My city. Jerusalem! And there was the Temple! Enormous! Rebuilt and renovated just a generation before. A massive wall on the east, dropping down a hundred cubits or more into the valley! The houses and palaces! The impenetrable fortifications! The majestic gates at the center of city life! At last! I’d seen it with my own eyes!

My generosity abounded. How could it not? I offered sacrifices right there. The poor and crippled were lined up on either side of the road. I shared freely, offloading the rest of my provisions, passing out the choicest cuts of meat to the lowest of lows. I imagine I wasn’t the first Jew to make this journey and have such a euphoric reaction, but nothing could temper my joy. 

That is, until I reached the gates of Jerusalem itself.

*     *     *

The timing of my arrival couldn’t have been better. The Passover Feast was about to begin. The lamb was going to be slaughtered the very next night! By God’s infinite grace, I could celebrate the greatest Jewish holiday with the whole nation! We decided to spend the night at the town on the ridge, since it was already getting late. What was its name again? Bethphage? Bethany? No matter. Morning came and we were on the road again, bright and early. We made our way slowly down the mountain, soaking it all in. I didn’t want to rush a single moment.

We drew closer to the city. How enormous it looked as we stood in the Kidron Valley looking up at it! Our accommodations were with my father’s brother, near the market on the west side of the city, but we were arriving from the east. My father knew the city well – it had been his childhood home – and he had instructed me carefully how to enter it. “Come to the city from the mountains to the east. Then you’ll see Jerusalem and the Temple of God in all its glory! But don’t enter through the east gates, by the Temple. My brother – your uncle – lives on the opposite side of the city, and passing through with a full caravan would be disastrous! Not only are you sure to get lost in the narrow streets, but you’ll be an easy target for thieves and swindlers. Go around the outside of the walls to the north and enter at the Judgment Gate. Your uncle’s house overlooks the market there.”

I did as instructed. I guided my caravan north up the Kidron, past the huge retaining wall of the Temple, which shadows the ravine each afternoon. Past the pools of Bethesda (what a stench!) and around the north city wall. Then, finally, I saw our entrance. The Judgment Gate.

It was open! Beckoning us! Welcoming us home! As we approached, people scattered to clear the road, clearly a sign of respect for this epic journey that had reached its culmination. At least, that’s what I thought was happening. I didn’t realize until it was too late that another procession was coming out towards us, leaving the city through the same gate we were about to enter. The people were actually scattering and hiding from them.  Roman soldiers. About a dozen of them. The captain was leading the way, looking for someone in the crowd.

“You!” he said, pointing a finger at me.

“Who? Me?”

I looked around, but I was the only one left on the road. The rest of the caravan was well behind me. They’d noticed the Romans earlier than I had and quietly followed the rest of the people and cleared the road. Everyone avoided eye contact with the soldiers. 

Except me. 

“Yeah, you! Rich boy! I’ve got a job for you.”

“Um, I’m sorry,” I stammered. “You must not understand. I’ve just arrived on a long journey and–”

“Shut up!” he growled, as he grabbed the back of my neck and shoved me toward the city. 

It was then that I saw what the procession was all about. Three men were being taken out, each carrying a beam across their shoulders. The first two were managing their loads, but the third looked half dead. Maybe more than half dead. The soldiers kicked him forward, shouting at him to keep moving. One had a whip, which, despite its many blows, only had the result of knocking the man down again.

I immediately understood. These were criminals. I’d seen the big stakes in the ground along the road, near an outcropping of rock that looked eerily like a skull. They were being taken out to be crucified. How very Roman.

“Carry that cross for him!”

I was thrown forward and tripped on a stone embedded in the road. My momentum carried me forward onto my face in the dirt. I was just about to come up swinging when a voice in front of me said, “You’d be wise not to fight back, or you may find yourself on a cross of your own.”

I looked forward and there he was, the criminal, collapsed on the ground beside me. He looked like hell. His face was swollen and bloodied. Chunks of beard torn out. Missing teeth. I think his own mother would have trouble recognizing him. Great gobs on mucous hung from his hair and clothes, like he’d been spat on a dozen times. He smelled like old urine. Are those thorns on his head? The beam was lifted off his back and put on mine.

“Up!” 

I reluctantly obeyed. The criminal slowly wobbled to his feet, free from his burden.

“Now get going!”

We walked side by side, back along the road, away from the city.

“What kind of a place is this?” I muttered under my breath, disgusted. 

But I knew the law. Impressment. Any Roman soldier can force any non-Roman into service at any time. He can confiscate your horse, apprehend your food, or make you carry his gear. There are some limits, of course, like that he has to let you go after a mile, but I’d never seen impressment enforced, at least not around Cyrene. No wonder the Jews hate Herod and the Romans so much! Impressment doesn’t endear any ruler to his subjects.

It was amazing how quickly my abounding joy turned into seething rage. “Stupid Romans,” I muttered again. “I come all this way to carry a cross for a God-forsaken criminal.”

Then I was a little embarrassed, because this bloodied condemned man stumbling along beside me heard every word. Is he even going to make it to the cross? He fell to one knee as he coughed up blood. Then he looked up at me and said, “I tell you truly, you wouldn’t be so upset to bear my yoke if you’d known who it was you were bearing it for.”

What’s that supposed to mean? Then he managed the faintest of smiles before he heaved himself up and kept trudging forward. Am I supposed to know you? Are we related?

Little did I know that I was carrying the cross for a celebrity. Even in Cyrene I had heard about a great teacher who performed amazing miracles. You must have heard about him in your travels. Everyone said he was the Messiah and expected him to gather an army and deliver the Jews from their enemies. I’d hoped to see him while I was here in this part of the world. 

Jesus from Nazareth.

How ironic that I didn’t recognize him when we came face to face. But how could any of us have known who he truly was?

*     *     *

I didn’t have to carry his cross far. The rocky rise with tall stakes in the ground was just outside the gate. Golgotha, the Place of the Skull. The Romans called it Calvaria. It was outside the Judgment Gate (of course, how appropriate), near the Praetorium, Herod’s Palace. Every city had an execution site, but even I, a Jew from abroad, knew the name of Jerusalem’s.

We got to the place. Crowds upon crowds came out to see him. It didn’t take long for me to hear who he was. This is Jesus? The Messiah who’s going to save us all? I stood there stupefied. I couldn’t get his words out of my head.

As was the custom, kind-hearted women from the city were allowed to give the condemned men wine mixed with myrrh. A small mercy to dull the senses. The other two gulped it down greedily, but Jesus refused. He wouldn’t allow a drop to pass through his lips. Are you mad, man?! Don’t you know what’s coming next?

They crucified him there in the usual way, if there is a usual way. What a ghastly practice. The methods are only limited by the soldiers’ imagination. But the day Jesus was crucified, the guards didn’t seem particularly creative. 

“I don’t care how, just get it done.”

The centurion wasn’t keen on his task. He must have known the significance of whom he was killing, at least politically. 

Jesus was tied to the crossbeam with thick ropes, arms stretched outward over the top and down the backside of the rough lumber. A soldier brought out the nails, huge metal spikes, forged specifically for this purpose. Four for each prisoner, one for each limb. They must’ve been a cubit long. The nails were driven through the back of Jesus’ wrists into the wood. This is always the worst part – victims writhe and plead and scream as pain shoots through their bodies. Jesus did none of that. He just gasped as his body was pierced. In between the clangs of the hammer, I heard him speak through gritted teeth. “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

What kind of a man can forgive his enemies as they crucify him?

The crossbeam was lifted off the ground with Jesus hanging from it and dropped into the notch near the top of the tall vertical stake.

THUD.

Sometimes there’s a little ledge to support the feet, but not for Jesus. The last two nails were driven through his ankles into either side of the stake. He was suspended there, straining to push himself up on spiked legs with every breath. He hung exposed and humiliated for all to see. 

Who could deserve this? What was he convicted of?  The charges above his head read:

The “King of the Jews” in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. What kind of a crime is that?

Two other criminals were crucified with him, on either side, but their charges were clear. Zealotry, theft, murder. I asked a bystander about them. “They ambushed some Herodians in the city a few days ago, but the Romans caught them in the act. Most were killed, but three were captured alive. They were brought to the governor to be sentenced, but I don’t know where the third one is. I heard it was none other than Barabbas, their ruthless leader. Maybe he died from the beatings…”

I barely heard his words as I stood mesmerized by the man in the middle. Blood covered much of the cross, slowly flowing from his many wounds: thorn-wrapped head, smashed up nose, split eyebrows, whip-shredded back, and pierced feet. He was bleeding away what little life he had left. From the cross, his crimson lifeblood fell onto the hardened ground of his fatherland. I watched as it covered the earth beneath him.

The soldiers at his feet started arguing about who should get his clothes. They were soaked and stained with blood, sweat, and who knows what else. I don’t know why anybody would want such filthy rags. They’d probably just hawk them at the market for a few measly coins. The centurion, already irate at having to crucify the “King of the Jews,” erupted at his men. “Goddamn it! Would you shut the hell up!”

He seemed edgy, looking around nervously at the growing crowd and up at the darkening sky. What could you possibly be afraid of? A riot? Getting struck by lightning? The soldiers started playing games for the clothes.

“Come, master. Let’s be going.”

My servants had seen everything and were eager to put it all behind them. Frankly, I was too. The whole scene was dreadful. Crowds had gathered and the mourners were in full swing, weeping and throwing dust in the air. But despite the grief of some, others taunted him. Incessantly. In fact, all along the road to the cross, and even while he was hanging from it, Jesus was mocked. “He saved others but can’t save himself! Is he the Messiah, chosen by God, the King of Israel? Let him come down now so we can see and believe!”

Most of the mockers were well-dressed – some were even in their priestly robes. Sadducees, I assumed, and probably some Pharisees with their disciples. The soldiers chimed in too, as they gambled for their prisoners’ last possessions. Even one of the criminals on the cross next to him began cursing him. “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!”

But Jesus just hung there, taking all their abuse without a word. The only one to defend him was the criminal on the other side. “We’re getting what we deserve for our actions, but this one has done nothing wrong.” 

My servant was pulling at my sleeve. I’d seen enough. But as I turned to go, I heard the repentant one cry out. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom!”

You poor fellow, what are you talking about? You’re both dying helplessly on a cross. You must be delirious. But then I heard Jesus – pale and weak, but with as much of a smile as he could muster – speak again. “Truly I tell you, you’ll be with me in paradise today.”

The Jews erupted at this, redoubling their abuse. Who has ever heard such a thing spoken from the cross? What kind of a man is this?

As I walked away towards Jerusalem, I couldn’t help but look back. There he hung, dying. I thought this journey would be the highlight of my life, that it would be about coming home to the city of God. But now it felt like God had just left it. 

*     *     *

Hours later, I sat on the roof of my uncle’s home as Jesus hung from a cross outside the city walls. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel him. We all could. 

At midday, the sun failed – ekleipo – and the sky went black. It sent a chill through us all. Then, in the midst of the darkness, an earthquake struck. The land shook so violently I thought the whole city would crumble apart! Dishes smashed in every kitchen, animals wailed in every barn. Children screamed, women were hysterical, men trembled in fear as great rocks split apart before their eyes. Buildings started crumbling. Nobody could stand on their feet. It was as if we were all bowing before the King of the Jews as he died, whether we wanted to or not. I don’t know how we all weren’t buried alive. After what seemed like eternity, the earthquake ceased as quickly as it began. The ground was still, the sky bright again. 

What just happened? Surely this wasn’t all because of Jesus?!

Crowds of people began slowly streaming back in through the Judgment Gate, downcast. Tears streamed down, hushed tones. It could only mean one thing. Jesus was dead. 

What did I just witness? 

We didn’t recognize our own God when he came to save us. Indeed, I made the journey of a lifetime to carry the cross for a criminal, not knowing that it was him who was actually carrying it for me.