At the Cross ~ Part 3: The Soldier
This was no ordinary crucifixion.
Felix Maximus had presided over his fair share of them, and none had unsettled him in this way.
Felix tore his eyes away from the Cyrenian kneeling in the dust and weeping over his bloodied hands. When he’d picked the man out from the crowd and forced him to bear the Nazarene’s cross, Felix hadn’t anticipated the man’s tearful reaction.
Simon of Cyrene, he’d heard the Nazarene call him. Did they know each other somehow?
For a supposed heretic, the man certainly had a great number of supporters. The tearful, soul-splitting cries of those who loved him had been nearly as plentiful as the furious demands to “Crucify him!”
Felix shuddered at the memory, his stomach turning over itself. Behind him, his fellow soldiers were dragging the Jewish rabbi toward his assembled cross. Stripping the garment from his beaten body until all he wore was a bloodied loincloth. Felix shook his head, attempting to dislodge the unsteady feeling that had taken up residence. You are a soldier of Rome. This is who you are. This is what you must do. There is no room for weakness or guilt. The weak will fall and only the strong will survive.
It was a mantra he’d frequently repeated to himself since being conscripted from his family’s farm and into the army of Rome at the age of eighteen. Throughout the long, hard days of training with his legion. Throughout the years of subjugating Rome’s conquered lands and people. With time, the inner-speech had become a belief and subsequently, an identity. His identity.
He had taken the lives of more fellow humans than he could count, overseen executions until they all blended together into a blur. And it had not bothered him in years.
Until today.
This man is innocent. How did he know? Felix wasn’t quite sure. Maybe it was the way Jesus quietly wept throughout the flogging Felix had overseen. Perhaps it was the quiet dignity with which he’d carried his cross until his body could bear the weight no more. Or maybe it was the way he’d looked at the Cyrenian, the kindness with which he’d spoken the man’s name.
Something about this man did not sit right with Felix. Somehow the charges of blasphemy and inciting rebellion among the populace did not ring true.
“Drink this, Jew.”
Felix turned at the voice of one of his men. The soldier was offering Jesus a vessel of soured wine mixed with myrrh-an anesthetic meant to ease the suffering of those crucified. The soldier forced the drink against Jesus’s lips, but he sputtered and choked on the first sip and pushed it away. Refusing it.
His fellow soldier sneered. “Suit yourself.”
“Stretch him out,” Felix ordered.
His men grabbed Jesus and forced him to lie down on the rough, wooden beams of his cross. Well, forced wasn’t the right word. The man was so weak from blood loss that he practically collapsed.
Now for the most gruesome moment of every crucifixion…
Already the other two criminals, one a zealot and the other a common thief, were screaming in agony as nails were driven into their wrists.
“Nail him down.”
One soldier held down Jesus’s arm, bracing it tight in case he tried to jerk away, while the other held the nail and hammer.
Felix crossed his arms over his breastplate. A sweat broke out across his face, and he knew it had nothing to do with the Judean heat. You are a soldier of Rome. This is what you must do.
He gave a sharp nod and set his teeth.
The hammer clanged against the first thick, iron nail one, two, three times, driving the metal through the flesh, cartilage, and bone of Jesus’ wrist.
For the first time that day, the man gave a blood-curdling cry.
Another nail was driven through his other wrist, and then through his crossed feet.
“Lift him up.” Felix motioned to his men and they obeyed, as they always did. With grunts and groans, they hoisted the cross and its occupant onto their shoulders and into an upright position, locking it into the hole dug in the earth.
Jesus gasped for breath through the pain Felix knew wracked his body. Crucifixion victims faced an excruciating dilemma. If they hung by their wrists, their arms strained painfully against the nails and their lungs could not expand and contract. So in order to relieve their arms and draw their next breath, they had to push their weight up with their nailed feet-which also caused mind-numbing pain to shoot up their feet and legs.
It was a constant choice between one pain and another. The need to inhale and the need to exhale.
For hours, these three victims would hang, caught in that agonizing dilemma, until they no longer had the strength to move and slowly suffocated to death.
A blanket of clouds covered the sky, but the morning sun broke through in patches, like spears of light. One particularly bright shaft shone down just behind Golgotha. Felix squinted against it, studying Jesus’s face.
How long would he suffer? Ten hours, twenty? Some victims could even hang on to a tiny thread of life for days.
The Nazarene lifted his face to the sky. His shoulders shook. In pain? Or was he crying? The man took a shuddering breath and opened his mouth to speak. “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”
By them Felix could only assume he meant the ones who had ordered his execution, and even Felix himself, whose task was to see that order carried out. What sort of man would use his dying moments to plead forgiveness for those taking his life?
Felix turned away, steeling himself against the sudden sensation of guilt clawing up his back. You are a soldier of Rome. This is who you are.
Before him, his companions laughed and jeered, arguing over who should get Jesus’s garment. It was customary for the men overseeing the executions to receive the garments of the convicted, and Jesus’s garment was woven without a seam-a fine garment, indeed, even if stained with his blood.
“Cast lots for the thing and be done with it!” Felix growled. Any other day, he wouldn’t have been bothered by their irreverent banter. But today, it grated.
Felix placed a hand on the hilt of his gladius. It was a habit, a strange sort of comfort to feel the cold, solid steel at his side. Gripping the hilt firmly, he felt something tucked into his belt pressing against his arm. He’d nearly forgotten the scroll, written by Pilate himself, that was intended to hang at the top of Jesus’ cross.
While his fellow soldiers cast their lots for Jesus’s garment, Felix retrieved a hammer, nails, and ladder. Trying not to make eye contact with the man, Felix propped the ladder against the cross and climbed up to nail the parchment to the wood. Composed in Aramaic, Greek, and Latin so any literate person passing by could understand it, the message read, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”
The King of the Jews, indeed…
“Woman! Here is your son!”
In spite of himself, Felix looked over at Jesus. His attention was focused on a woman standing at the edge of the crowd-the same woman whose mournful cries had caused him to stumble in the street. A small cluster of people crowded around her, all equally bereft. A pretty young woman, two other middle aged women, and a young man. Jesus’ mother turned to the young man, her trembling fingers pressed against her lips.
“Here is your ima.” Jesus choked on a sob.
The young man in the crowd-a disciple of his?-nodded gravely, tears streaming down his cheeks. He placed an arm firmly around Jesus’s mother’s shoulders, drawing her protectively to his side. Giving a silent promise to care for her as his own kin.
The hours ticked by, each one slower than the next. The crowd ebbed and flowed in size as spectators came and went. Travelers heading into Jerusalem stopped to stare, while others left the city to come see the scene for themselves after hearing the gossip spreading like wildfire from house to house. All day, the atmosphere surrounding the capital of Judea had been snapping and sparking, like lightning building up inside a storm cloud.
Whether a supporter or an enemy, it seemed no one could resist the sight of the infamous, controversial rabbi nailed to a cross.
“Look at you now, Messiah!” a newcomer to the crowd jeered. “Not so high and mighty now, are you?”
A woman pointed her bony finger at Jesus. Her face was streaked with dirt and sweat, and a smug grin exposed her yellowed teeth. “I see how it is. He could save others, but not himself. If he really is the Son of God, he should be able to come down from that cross. Isn’t that right?”
A cluster of black robed Pharisee’s drew closer to the woman. The hatred and self-righteous anger burning in their faces was clear-even to Felix. “This woman speaks the truth. If he really is the Son of God, let him prove it now. We will believe him if he can come down from that cross.”
The Pharisee at the forefront of their tightly knit group-they looked like a flock of buzzards on the hunt for a fresh carcass-stared up at the Nazarene with a cold gleam in his eye.
Felix waited, wondering if Jesus would respond to the taunts. But there was only silence.
That is, until the convicted zealot hanging to the left of him broke the silence with curses and insults of his own. He condemned the dying man while he himself hung dying for his own crimes.
Felix’s fist gripped the hilt of his sword and he opened his mouth to command the fool to be silent, but another voice cut him off.
“Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence?” It was the man convicted of thievery in the marketplace, hanging on Jesus’s right. “We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
Felix clenched his gladius tighter and lifted his chin to peer up at the thief. Perhaps his gut instinct that Jesus was innocent was not so far fetched after all. Though who could count the word of a thief as accurate?
The thief turned his head to Jesus, his body trembling as he pushed up on his feet to draw another breath. When at last he was able to fill his lungs, he opened his mouth and pleaded, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
A sharp wind cut over the crest of Golgotha, ruffling Felix’s crimson cape and cooling the sweat on his skin. What would Jesus say? Would he maintain his claim to be descended from the Jewish God even now?
“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
A chill raced up Felix’s spine. And it wasn’t from the wind.
Felix Maximus… You are a soldier of Rome! There is no room for weakness…
Suddenly, the winds picked up again, swirling in strong blasts around the crosses and through the crowd of onlookers. The dreary clouds that had hung heavy all day began to swell and darken. Felix braced his helmet against his head and looked to the sky. All traces of sunlight disappeared behind the heavy curtain, leaving them in darkness akin to night. And it was only mid-afternoon.
The unease he’d been feeling all morning circled around his chest and cinched tight. Were Jupiter and Tempestas showing their wrath? Or was it the Jew’s God-the one Felix had heard referred to as Yahweh-responsible for stealing the sun from the sky?
The crowd surged with cries of alarm, staring up at the sky and bracing their robes and headdresses against the whipping wind. Felix stepped away from the foot of the cross and drew closer to the edge of the crowd. He put out his hands and shouted over the noise of the wind, “Remain calm! Return to the city, if you wish! It looks as if a storm is on its way.”
“Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” Jesus’s broken voice split the air sharper than any sword.
Felix whirled to face him again. The words were not spoken in Aramaic or even Greek. Perhaps it was Hebrew?
“He calls for Elijah!” a woman shouted behind Felix. Though who this Elijah was, he could not guess.
Jesus lowered his head, his body trembling as it sagged against the cross. Fresh rivulets of blood ran from the place where the nails pierced his wrists and dripped to the ground below. Felix knew every movement, however small, cost him dearly. Earlier, the man had refused the wine mingled with myrrh, but perhaps after so many hours of torment, he would now accept the anesthetic.
“Decimus!” Felix ordered one of his men to approach.
“Yes, Centurian.”
“Retrieve the soured wine again.”
The soldier nodded in deference, left, and returned a moment later with the container of soured wine, a sponge, and hyssop stalks.
Felix accepted the items from the man and approached the cross once more. He stood just a cubit away from it’s base, directly beneath the dying man. A great, fat drop of blood splashed against Felix’s caliga, seeping through the leather bands and to his toes. The breath lodged in his throat. Blood was nothing new to him. Usually far more than a single drop coated Felix’s skin. So why did the sight of that drop of crimson leave him so unnerved?
You are a soldier of Rome. This is who you are. This is what you must do. There is no room for weakness or guilt. The weak will fall and only the strong will survive.
“This is who you are,” he hissed between his teeth once more. Then Felix lifted his head, prepared to offer the wine to Jesus, and realized he was already looking at him. The man’s lips lifted wearily, smiling at him, the Roman soldier charged with overseeing his execution.
This is not who you are.
Felix flinched. Had he heard the words spoken aloud? But no, Jesus was only now opening his mouth to croak out, “I thirst…”
Suddenly trembling, Felix hurriedly soaked the sponge in the wine and used the hyssop to raise it to the man’s lips. His arm quivered as he held the offering aloft, allowing Jesus a few moments to partake of the drink.
Pulling back, Jesus met Felix’s eye again and nodded slowly in thanks.
Felix could do nothing but stare.
Lifting his face to the black sky, Jesus seemed to draw every ounce of strength he had left into pushing himself up by his feet. “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” And then, with another shuddering breath, he shouted, “It… is… finished!”
Suddenly, lightning split the sky down it’s center, tracing a jagged trail from the heavens to the earth. The ground beneath Felix’s feet began to quake. Rocks, boulders the size of men cracked in half.
The crowd erupted into chaos, many fleeing down the hill and toward the gates of Jerusalem-if their legs could carry them across the shaking ground. Women shrieked in terror and prayed for their God to spare them. Unable to balance his weight any longer, Felix tumbled to the ground, pushing himself up with his hands in time to see Jesus’ mother and her companions also drop to their knees in a tight huddle. The young man charged with the mother’s care starred up at the cross, a look of pain and fear crumpling his features.
Felix scrambled around on his hands and knees to follow the man’s gaze.
Jesus’s head lolled forward against his bloodied chest.
He was dead.
The earth at last grew still, but the trembling in Felix’s limbs renewed in earnest. An overwhelming feeling of fear unlike any he’d ever felt for any of Rome’s gods consumed him. This was not the work of Jupiter or Tempestas. The Jewish God had taken hold of the earth and shaken it to its foundations.
For this was no ordinary crucifixion. And this Jesus of Nazareth had not been an ordinary man.
Felix pulled the helmet from his head and let it clatter to the ground as he sat up on his knees. “Surely, He was the Son of God!”
