Category: Traveling with Luke

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The Difference a “D” Makes

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And there was a woman who had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God.

Luke 13:10-13

I woke up burdened before I had to wake up. I am burdened by literal stuff—a house to sell, some valuable possessions that may not be worth much anymore, a husband in declining health–and also much self-recrimination (“Why didn’t you move faster on all this?”). I woke up sullen as a rock, impenetrable as clay. I opened my Bible to Luke 13, the reading for today, asking God to speak through the words heard and read so many times before. And here’s what he said:

Woman, you are freed from your burden.

It echoed in my head: not free, the more common usage of the idea behind the word, but freed.

Suppose the word was indeed free, as in, You are free. That’s an adjective, modifying me. It would suggest that I am already in a state of freedom, only my mental hangups keep me from experiencing the sensation of running through sunlit fields (in slo-mo) surrounded by butterflies and rose petals. What’s you problem, girl? Don’t you know all that dead weight you’re carrying is crap that the world (along with relatives, dependents, friends, bosses, etc.) loaded on you? Sweep out all that junk and be who you are—free!

But Jesus didn’t say that. “You are freed,” he said (“set free” in the NIV). Freed is a past participle, indicating action. And not my action. Someone else had to do something to bring it about. This bent woman, that blind man, this dead girl, that demon-possessed boy were all bearing, not just disability, but the widespread consequences of sin. “Satan has kept her bound,” said One who ought to know. And all were freed.

But what happened to their disabilities, their burdens? If “freed” is a verb form rather than an adjective, they had to go somewhere.

Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem when this incident happened. And he was taking all the burdens there.

No one he healed was free from the normal stresses of life or the certainty of death. But all could be freed from the burden of carrying an ever-increasing weight all the way to the grave.

As for me, nothing in my circumstances changed between 4:30 and 7:30 a.m. And yet, I am freed.

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David’s Son

But he said to them, “How can they say that the Christ is David’s son?”  Luke 20:41

These few days are laced with music.  Roving bands of singers and musicians are not uncommon during Passover week, but the mood this year is uncommonly light.  The city fizzes with anticipation, knowing something momentous is in the works.  He may wait until after the Passover feast to declare himself—or why not during?  Passover means deliverance, and behold, it is at hand; who could keep from singing?

The Lord declared to my Lord,

‘Sit at my right hand

Until I make your enemies your footstool.’*

A cobbled-up children’s choir, blown in like blossoms and led by someone’s older sister, sing in his presence:

Rule over your enemies, call up your people on the day of battle;

In holy splendor, from the womb of dawn,

Rise up in the dew of your youth—

For the Blessed One has sworn, and will never disavow,

‘You are a priest forever, in the line of Melchizedek,

The LORD stands at your right hand

Ready to crush kings, judge nations, pile up the dead.

Refresh yourself from sparkling springs

And lift up your head!*

Their order breaks down as the song ends.  Giggling and blushing, they stammer out, “Blessings on you, Son of David!” before running away in all directions.

Charming, think the followers.  Disturbing, think the scribes, who have sung the identical psalm any crownnumber of times with no more than a theoretical understanding.  But now it is looking at them—or is it?

“Tell me,” The Nazarene asks his audience: “why do they say Messiah is the son of David?”

His followers merely gaze at him dumbly, like sheep.

“Well,” one of the scribes begin (with some hesitation, suspecting a trap), “David was promised a successor who would reign forever, and . . .”

“How can David himself call him ‘my Lord,’ as you just heard in the Psalm, if Messiah is his son?”

The people keep on grinning, delighted with this rhetorical flourish, but the scribes know it isn’t a flourish.  He claims to be greater than David, their greatest king.  This can lead to no good.  Irksome as the Pharisees are, insufferable as the Sadducees, they all must align in a common cause.

The teacher is clever, they’ll give him that, and more than that—the teacher is profound and wise and infuriating and attractive and repulsive and . . . something entirely outside their experience.

Ultimately though, he’s a great trouble.  He is on a collision course with reality.  Real kings crush pretend kings every time and the collateral damage is horrendous: often counted, as every son of Israel has reason to know, in the multiples of crosses strung along the roads.  Better one casualty than dozens, or hundreds.  For the sake of many, one must die.

*Psalm 110, commonly understood as a Messianic prediction

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For the original post in this series, go here.

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Confrontations

One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up and said to him, “Tell us, by what authority you do these things, or who it is that gave you this authority.” Luke 20:1-2

He has established himself in the same courtyard—as if he owned the place! they keep thinking.  The crowds are thronging, the news is spreading, and alarm among the elites casts a pall over what was meant to be another orderly, peaceful Passover.  The chief priests, whose family lineage goes back to Aaron, the elders whose claim to authority even the Romans defer to, and finally the scribes and their Pharisee allies, who often clash with the priestly crowd, all meet to talk it over.

This disturbance, they all agree, has its roots in John the Baptist, who kept shouting about a new age until his ministry abruptly ended at the edge of a broadsword.  John’s death was a relief—one thing they could think that idiot Herod for—until the rumors of Jesus of Nazareth began circulating and swelling and all but shrieking at them.  Even at that, Jesus might have been manageable if he’d stayed in Galilee, but his appearance in Jerusalem is the worst kind of omen.

(Oh Jerusalem . . . if you only knew what makes for peace.)

Pharisees from those northern regions (those tiresome hicks, with their nattering about the Law and its proper observance) have brought troubling but useful reports about his weird claims and cheeky challenges to the old order.  Also rumors of signs and wonders, which can’t be confirmed even though they persist.  Now that he’s in the city he, doesn’t seem to be healing people (or pretending to), but his teaching is an even greater threat.  The way he talks, about my kingdom, my house, my Father—who does he think he is?

(How often would I have gathered you, as a hen gathers her chicks, but you would not . . . the more I called you, the more you ran away from me.)

There is no help for it.  For all kinds of reasons–political, social, religious–he must be destroyed.  And not in some back-alley garroting, but out in public.  First, though, it’s imperative to undermine his moral authority.  How much moral authority can a backwater preacher from Galilee have, anyway?

That afternoon, as the Nazarene is teaching in the courtyard, here they come: elders, priestly representatives, phariseescholarly scribes and Pharisees in their robes and tassels, marching across the tiles with the rocked-ribbed confidence of a Roman phalanx.  “Tell us,” say the eldest of the elders, whose name is Johannes, “by whose authority did you clear this place and take up this false teaching?”

The teacher doesn’t appear to be alarmed or taken aback.  He doesn’t even take time to consider the ramifications of the question.  “First, let me ask you something.  Remember John’s baptism, which people were pouring out of this city to receive?  Was it by the authority of heaven, or of a mere man?”

The elder opens his mouth to reply before recognizing the trap.  “One moment.”  With a jerk of his head, he draws the others aside.

“Where did that come from?” a Pharisee wonders.  “How strange—we were just talking about John!”

“Never mind where he got it,” Johannes snaps.  “He probably has his spies everywhere.  What is our answer?”

“The teaching was from men, of course,” one of the scribes whispers.  “John was a lunatic.”

“That’s not what the people think,” hisses Johannes.  “They still believe John was a holy man and a prophet.”

Eliphaz nods.  “Proclaim to the mob that John was mad and they’ll tear us to pieces.  No thanks.”

Maimonides, another elder, throws up his hands.  “Very well, then! Tell him it was from heaven.”

“And what will he say then?”  Johannes glares at each one of them in turn.  “That we should have listened to John!  Should have tossed dust on our heads and put on sackcloth and paraded down to the Jordan for that madman to baptize us.”  A seething pause follows, in which they realize they’ve been outmaneuvered. “We’ll get him next time.”  Turning back to the teacher, Johannes announces, “We can’t say for sure where John—that holy man of lamented memory—got his authority.”

“You can’t?” their adversary repeats.   “Then I needn’t tell you where my authority comes from.”  He nods in dismissal.  “Priests, elders, scribes—until we meet again.”

His disciples and all hearers are delighted to see the snobs put down.  But his closest friends hear a disturbing echo: priests, elders, scribes . . . they have not seen the last of these.

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For the original post in this series, go here.

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Sunday Morning

When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of his disciples, saying, “Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat.  Untie it and bring it here . . .”  Luke 19:29-30

After leaving Jericho, they traveled on to Bethany and may have spent the Sabbath with Lazarus and his sisters.  The “great crowd” of followers–how many now? One or two hundred?–must have overwhelmed the little town, but everyone sensed that the movement was about to come into its own.   Jerusalem was next, and something great would take place there—something fixed, definite, and game-changing.

As the sun went down on another Sabbath, he called two of the twelve to him. Which two?  Shall we pick?  Let’s say it was Simon the Zealot and . . . Judas Iscariot.

They often don‘t get along because of political differences, Judas being a straightlaced, by-the-book sort, while Simon is always popping off about Roman occupiers and the Day of the Lord, meanwhile quoting blood-curdling passages from Nahum.  But both are eagerly anticipating the kingdom, and equally thrilled to receive this commission.

As the Master explains the plan to borrow a donkey and enter Jerusalem in style, the disciples nod, glancing at each other with mutual comprehension.  When they depart, the news spreads throughout the ranks of followers, just now waking up in pastures and barns: He means to ride into the city!  He has never ridden anywhere, on anything!  What could it mean, except that he’s about to claim his kingdom?  A prancing stallion might have made the point better, perhaps, but little villages don’t often offer that kind of conveyance.  No matter; if that’s what he intends to do, they’ll help him do it right.

Jerusalem

At daybreak they are on the road, the sun opening up behind them like a benevolent hand.  Spring breezes play with the new barley sprouting up in the fields and birdsong threads the excitable air.  As they approach the rise known as the Mount of Olives, here come Judas and Simon, leading a little donkey with a gentle, placid face.  “Master!” they shout.  “It happened just as you told us.  As we were untying the colt, its owner came out of the inn nearby and asked what we were doing and we said . . .”

He does not appear to be listening as he places a hand on the donkey’s head and gazes into its dark eyes.  A look of understanding passes between them.  Without any urging the beast moves closer.  Peter whips off his coat and spreads it across the animal’s spine; three of the others follow suit.  The donkey bends its hind legs and Jesus sits on its back, rising slightly over the heads of the surrounding men when the donkey straightens and staggers a little under the unaccustomed weight.

A gasp runs through the onlookers, and then a shout: “Hosanna!  He comes!  Blessed is he!”

Several of them run ahead to spread the news: “Clear the road!  Jesus of Nazareth is coming!”  The road is already thick with Passover traffic, but the travelers have heard of Jesus of Nazareth.  Who hasn’t? They stop and move to the side, craning their necks to see—including a delegation of Pharisees outfitted in prayer shawls and phylacteries.

Young date palms sway along the road.  One of the messengers shimmies up a trunk and cuts some branches, throwing them down to the women below.  Soon bystanders are stripping leaves from other trees and the air fills with a sweet, dusty scent.

As the donkey carrying Messiah crests the hill, this is what they see: a landscape of heaving palm branches and fluttering headscarves, a waiting throng clustered along the way to the Holy City with the road laid bare as a bone.  More people are running from the fields and pastures and the city itself, using their elbows to carve out places to stand and watch.  The disciples can’t help grinning like holy fools—This is their moment!

One man strips off his cloak—his best, tight-woven and dyed russet red—and lays it down before the blessed beast.  Soon the road is patched with them—coats and cloaks and bright sashes, pressed into the ground by careful hooves.  Random cries are beginning to coalesce in a single repeated shout:

“Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

It’s a customary shout for festive worshippers entering the temple or gathering palms for the Festival of Booths.  That feast, also known as Ingathering, normally comes in the fall, but they’re celebrating the Ingathering early this year, and why not?  The LORD always said he would gather his people and open the holy gates for them:

Lift up your heads, O gates!

And be lifted up, O ancient doors,

 That the King of Glory may come in!

The delegation of Pharisees sticks out like disapproving schoolmasters.  “Teacher!” one of them calls to the passing procession: “Tell your disciples to pipe down!  This is Passover, not Succoth.”

The disciples can’t help feeling smug as their teacher answers, calling back over his shoulder, “I might as well tell these stones to pipe down!”

And there before them, at long last, is the Holy City, where all their hopes and dreams will come true.

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The End that’s Not the End

As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace to you!”  But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit.  Luke 23:36-37

Those two guys on the way to Emmaus—we never found out why they were going there.  But we know they didn’t stay.  “And they arose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem.”  They left Jerusalem in gloom; they return to a buzz of excitement:  “The Lord has risen indeed, and he’s appeared to Simon!”  Everybody’s talking: explaining, expositing, theorizing, speculating, repeating themselves over and over like TV pundits after big breaking news: Unbelievable!

Then Jesus shows up, and it really is.

Luke is sometimes unintentionally humorous—or it just may be that he writes this piece of the story with a smile.  Here they are, babbling on about the Lord’s appearances, and when he actually appears, they think he’s a ghost!  Or a “spirit”—something profoundly uncanny.  What were they expecting?

He probably looks different—perhaps something a little beyond human—but whatever the appearance, there’s enough of Jesus to recognize, yet something more to fear.  Not a tame lion, as we’ve heard tell of another character in Christian lore.  This is not the man they knew, who tramped the hills with them and broke bread with them and talked with them for hours on end.  It’s not (quite) the man who suffered and sighed and bled and died.

And yet it is that man—times infinity.

They couldn’t believe because they had never seen anything like this before.  No one had.  This was entirely new.

And yet . . . in a way it wasn’t.  That seed, planted in the virgin about 33 years ago, that microscopic marriage with a human egg—this unimaginable union of God and man they see before them–started back then.  But no—

Those interminable genealogies, those tedious “begats,” casting the bloodline back through the centuries: from Joseph to Heli to Matthal to Levi to Melchi and so on, all the way back to Adam.  It must have started then.  But no—

Remember when Got bent down and breathed life into a mound of clay, “and man became a living being.”  Surely it started then.  But . . .

Even farther back, Spirit broods over potential; a word trembles on the brink.  The Word.  Time and place have yet to be; all is joy and bliss and glory, filling the infinite.  The Glory has something in mind, and even though there’s no word for it now we’ll call it all things: each particular, various, after-its-own kind animal, vegetable, and mineral.  In His mind, they are made of particles so tiny that learned men in the far future, with all their subtle instruments, will not be able to track them.  But somewhere in the mind of the Maker, he draws a line at the frontier where the universe will begin.

With a “Let there be,” the future Son of Man crosses that line and brings forth all things.

touch-and-see

“Touch my hands and feet; it is myself.  Touch me and see.  For a spirit—as you understand spirit—does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”

And flesh and bones—as we’ve always experienced it—doesn’t live forever.  But this flesh and bones will.

We have to go back in order to go forward  So he takes them back, maybe as far back as “man became a living being.”  Then forward through the Law and Psalms and Prophets, and they begin to see that in him, all things hold together.*

Soon, Spirit will cross another line.  Luke ends his story with a ragtag group of followers returning to Jerusalem, to be “clothed with power from on high.”  With wind and fire the Spirit will rush upon them, as upon Samson and Saul in the old days, not to work God’s will through them but to be God’s will in them.  But that’s getting ahead of the story—which, we see now, doesn’t really end.

The Father speaks, and light appears;

light

the Son enters a human egg and incarnation happens;

fetus

the Holy Spirit pierces a wall of flesh, and indwelling begins.

spirit-descends

He loves a good story, they say. By crossing that line at the birth of time, he began the greatest one of all.  And it goes on . . .

*Col. 1:17

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Emmaus

That very day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened.  Luke 24:13-14

 

What a walk that was, Cleopas—emmaus

A long way to haul a heavy heart

With bread for the journey and the bitter herbs

of recollection.  And it showed,

for that was his first remark: Why so sad?

Well, there’s some relief in telling what you know—

enlightening the ignorant, right?—and so

remember our surprise when he enlightened

us.

 

Such teaching!  Such pulsing, winged words

that beat upon our hearts and made them burn;

that joined the rough parts in smooth-sanded turn.

Miles unrolled like a scroll beneath our feet, until

our destination leapt out of the twilight.  Yet

we could not give him up.  Remember?

How he became our host; took bread and

broke:

 

And we saw it all–

 

Prophets, priests, kings; the law, the Lord;

the blood of all sacrifice, ceaselessly poured

into one body.              Taken, broken;

the satisfied sentence, once for all spoken.

We looked and we saw—then, swift as a dart

he vanished from sight and entered our hearts.

What a walk, Cleopas, and at its end,

with bread for the journey, we’d yet to begin.

 

For the original post in this series, go here.

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But . . .

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared.  Luke 24:1

Women on the way with spices, angels on the way with news.  They meet at an empty tomb.  Both are empty-tombamazed, for different reasons.

The angels: they’ve longed to look into these things,* and now they’ve seen them.  The plan has unfolded, from the old Adam’s first appearance on earth to the new Adam’s last, with a wooden cross piercing the center.  Now they understand, and it seems to perfect to them, so reasonable and right and symmetrical and beautiful they don’t get why anyone can’t see it.  Even the humans who are facedown on the ground before them. These heavenly beings have taken the form of men, but their presence is so thundering-bright the humans can do nothing else but react as though they were gods.  Even Caesar, if angels had been sent to him, would have done the same.  They’re not human, these beings, but do you sense a human-like impatience about them?

Why do you seek the living among the dead?

The women: up with the dawn, busy about the house, on the road as soon as it was lawful to travel.  It’s a man’s world, but women rule the gateways: always the officiates at birth and death.  They are here for the last office.  On Friday they screamed, all Sabbath they wept, now they are empty as though scrubbed with sand and set out in the sun to dry, their one concern being to persuade the guards to let someone roll the stone away so they can get to the body and properly prepare it for its final rest.

As it turns out, the guards are nowhere to be seen and the stone has already been rolled away.  We can totally understand their shock, even if the angels don’t.

Why do you seek the living among the dead?

The “men” are too bright to look at; with faces to the ground the women hear: Don’t you remember what he told you?

Do we remember?

We are told lots of things, every day.  Every day, we hear from people who can’t help telling us their version of the story: why we’re here, what we are, what it all means.  Day by day we hear.  In church it’s one thing, in school it’s another—in the office, at home, in the news, at the movies, at the airport, in the hospital, at the cemetery, back in church—so many things.  We hear constantly, but rarely listen.  We see, but rarely look.

Why seek the living among dead kingdoms, stone idols, iron gardens, petrified religions?  The old stories end here, and new stories aren’t really new—why do we keep peering into tombs?  Why don’t we just remember what he told us?

Trembling, in great excitement, the women hurry back to the disciples—the remaining eleven—who haven’t begun to drift apart yet, even though they have no reason to stay together.  The news spills out on eager voices: Mary and Mary and Joanna and Salome all trying to speak at once so it comes out in pieces, back end first.  Two men—Angels!  The guards—gone!  Rolled away– the stone!  Empty–the tomb!  And they said—and they told us—and don’t you remember what he said?

It’s true!  All true!

Hysterical talk, they think.  Excitable women.

Even given a dismissive attitude toward females, you’d think these men’s memories would be stirred a little.  But there’s a wind blowing—feel it?  Mere men never know where it comes from or where it goes** and the Spirit is waiting in the wings (so to speak) to make His appearance.  The impetuous Peter is curious enough to run to the garden where he finds the grave just as the women described it.  Curious!  But he still doesn’t know what to make of it.

Do we?

*I Peter 1:12

**John 3:8

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He Made His Grave among the Rich

Now there was a man named Joseph, of the Jewish town of Arimathea . . . (Luke 23:50)

While the screaming was going on, he couldn’t make his voice heard.

Maybe he didn’t speak loud enough. Maybe he barely spoke at all.  In the heat of the trial—or what the officials were pleased to call that travesty of justice—there were a few dissenting voices, such as that himself and Nicodemus and perhaps one or two others.  They may have tried to turn the tide quietly, speaking to one man and then another, but the odds were clearly against them.  The hour carried the day, and swept a righteous man to his death.

Now it is quiet.  Events have passed by the governor’s palace, which is now returned to a place of routine business.  Joseph, as a man of wealth and influence, has Pilate’s ear, and now that it is quiet his reasonable voice can be heard: Give me the body.

A reasonable voice; an odd request.  But then, this whole business is odd.  Pilate handed the man over for execution just that morning—is he already dead?  The normal procedure would be to throw the remains in a pit near Gehenna with the other two, once death had wrapped its slow crushing grip around all of them.  Then the whole distasteful business would be over and done with.  But if Joseph wants to offer the hospitality of his own brand-new tomb, let him.  Pilate’s permission, once he’s determined the man is dead, is quick and curt.  An odd request, but it seems right.  A fitting end, perhaps.  Though the governor formally absolved himself for the death of an innocent man, it still troubles him.  And though he now goes about his business with a studied show of normality, it always will.

And they made his grave with the wicked

and with a rich man in his death,

although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth.  (Isaiah 53:9)

When Joseph first thought of offering his tomb, did he recall the prophecy?  Probably not; there was so much to do and so little time before sundown.  Supplies must be gathered, servants called to wash the body, strong men recruited to take it off the cross.  (How did they do that?  Prying the nails out would crush the hands and feet.  Perhaps they could just pull the body free, but not without more tearing of tissues—or perhaps, after hanging so long, the holes could have stretched out enough that hands and feet could simply be lifted off the nails once the cross was horizontal.)

joseph-of-a

With all these dreadful practicalities, it’s doubtful anyone was aware of fulfilling any prophesies, even though that particular prophesy is a very strange one: numbered among the transgressors, buried among the rich.  Priests and scribes had probably debated the meaning of that passage through the centuries—set out parameters, debated the particular, and divided into schools of thought.  But when the day finally comes, everyone is too rushed to think or too distracted to connect or too numb with grief to do more than set one foot in front of the other, like the women following the servants of Joseph’s household as they carry the body to the tomb.  Mary of Magdala, Joanna, and Salome assume it will be their last journey with him.  They watch, the observe, they return to the city to purchase spices before the sun goes down. Exhaustion falls on them like the close of day, and they enter a forced and fitful Sabbath rest.

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Among the Scoffers

And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know now what they do.” . . . And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!”  Luke 23:34-35

Rulers: If you are the Chosen One . . .

Save yourself!

Soldiers: If you are the King of the Jews

Save yourself!

Criminals: If you are Messiah

Save yourself! and us!

Messiahs breath catches, snags on the nails, streams out in shreds.  No . . .

Not me and you

not both and all

no and–but or.

It’s one or the other.

Save myself or you?

I choose you.  I choose . . .

from the other side, a whisper choked and raw,

barely raised above the mutters and jeers:

“Lord? . . . that kingdom you talked about?

When it’s finally yours–remember me?”

Bloody fingers slowly uncurl and stretch; the right hand of one to the left of the other.

When it is mine, it will also be yours.

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Criminals All

Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him.  Luke 23:32

“Up! It’s your time!”

Their names are unknown to us: One and Two.  Left and Right.  As we meet them, they’ve known for some time that the day was coming but they weren’t sure when—like all of us.

They’ve lived their lives in a haze, yelling from the very first hour: give me food!  Give me warmth!  Give me shelter, give me love!  Give me that shiny thing, and this tasty thing, and that thrilling thing, and this intoxicating thing that will make me lose consciousness for a while so I’ll forget how unsatisfied I am (like all of us).

Unwilling to make do with that they had, they became thieves; interlopers, snatching bright moments from the dull days, decking their lives with desperate finery.  They bargained with the time but time always wins; sooner came before later, and they were caught.

Like all of us.

“Up!  It’s your time!”

Pulled from a filthy cell, loaded down with heavy cross-pieces, they are herded like cattle to the Walk of the Damned.  Terror blinds them; only gradually do they perceive the splatters of blood on the path before them.  And then the crowds: Dear people, is all this acclaim for us?  No, couldn’t be: there’s another poor wretch ahead of them, who’s doing all the bleeding and attracting all the noise.  And what noise!  Wails of sorrow, mocking jeers, furious catcalls packed into a multi-legged clamor, punctuated by stings of a whip applied to make them move faster.

Is there no escape?  No way out?  They’re moving down a hollow tube with iron walls and no joints—no vulnerable places that can be exploited.  Life—once full of possibilities and angles and gaps, pleasure and pain, light and dark—now hardens, funneling them down to a single point they cannot see beyond.

As for all of us.thief

Down the road, through the gate, up a long, tortuous hill, the splintery crosspiece bearing down with every step. Still, they’d gladly keep walking forever—or even more gladly pull someone from the screeching throng to take their place  That scribe over there, his face so buckled you would have thought he was passing bricks, screaming his rage.  That smug-looking Pharisee or his grim-faced pal.  Any one of the contemptible Romans: illiterate peasants most of them, of no higher birth than a Jewish thief, who nonetheless lord over them every chance they got.  Even that wailing woman there, or the wide-eyed boy—pull one of those out of the mob, put this hunk of lumber on their back, and I’ll not protest.

Might feel guilty tomorrow of course, but there will always be another skin of wine and another willing woman to help me forget.

“Halt!”

Not today, though.

Rough hands throw the crosspiece on the ground, drag the two men aside and strip off their clothes.  A guard sizes up those pathetic garments with a calculating eye, deciding if he wants to gamble for them.  Though they know they’ll soon be beyond it, shame stabs each of the condemned as they stand exposed before the crowd.  They’ve been observers at scenes like this, and well know the kind of jokes and jibes passing among the ranks right now.

The crosses are being nailed together.  The two thieves, pathetically trying to cover their private parts with unbound hands, become aware of the third condemned man.  He too is naked except for a grotesque garnish—a circle of spiky thorns pressed down on his head.  The soldiers are calling him King of the Jews.  The thorns are supposed to be a crown—their idea of satirical wit.  The two thieves realize, at about the same time, who this is: Jesus of Nazareth.  They’ve heard of him—who hasn’t?  And what Jew, however impious, didn’t harbor some hope, however sketchy, that this was the one: Messiah.

The screaming mob now surrounding Skull Hill must have had the same hope—what else could explain their rage?  In the last moment before the hammer falls, when they are seized and stretched out, when extra hands are called to hold down their twitching bodies, they feel it too: absolute rage, consuming fury.  Like a child of wrath, foolish, disobedient, malicious, envious, full of hatred for themselves, for others, for God,

Like all of us—

Screams rip the bland blue sky.

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For the original post in this series, go here.

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