My Cross

“Get a new cross ready, and get it done now!”

 

The voice was a familiar one.  The Roman centurion who did Pilate’s dirty work, knocking so loudly that the whole neighborhood shook awake, startled by such unwelcome noise in the early morning darkness. 

 

“This one can’t wait!”

 

I tried to answer, but my mind was still asleep.  Was this real?  Was I dreaming?  I opened my mouth to speak, but my tongue wouldn’t work.

 

So I struggled out of bed and somehow found the door without so much as a candle to help me. 

 

“Open up or I will have my men break down this door!” roared the angry voice on the other side.

 

“OK, ok,” I mumbled, “give me just a minute.  I can’t even see the lock in this darkness.”

 

Finally, after fumbling around for what seemed like an hour, and pinching my finger, hard, I was able to crack open the door just enough to peer out.

 

Standing there was the imposing figure of Rome’s finest, fully armored with war gear and helmet, and a gruff look on his face that would have sent the bravest enemy running.  Behind him stood a hundred more like him, casting dark shadows in the moonlight and crowding the narrow streets around our home.

 

“Pilate requires your services before the sun comes up today.  And don’t be one minute late with it.” he spewed.

 

I closed the door behind me to the sound of soldiers’ boots marching with the rhythm and cadence that comes only from years of training.  I was glad to hear the silence return as their footsteps faded in the distance.  They were on their way back to Jerusalem.

 

“What am I going to do?” I whispered to the door, now closed and locked again.

 

“It just isn’t possible to get a cross finished so soon.  There is no way.  It can’t be done.”

 

But if I fail, I die.

 

Pilate does not tolerate failure.  Or anyone who does not follow his orders to the letter.  Those who disappoint him become an example, so no one will fail him or refuse him again.

 

This is so unusual, though.  In all the years and all the times they have forced me to make their awful crosses, the Romans have never demanded one to be done so quickly.

 

Before sunrise?

 

What is the rush?

 

What is going on?

 

Who is the poor criminal who is such a thorn in Pilate’s side that he wouldn’t be allowed to live even one more day while a proper cross could be constructed?

 

What could he possibly have done that was such an affront to Caesar that Roman justice had to be rendered without even a review or an appeal?

 

Well, it is too early to be concerned with such things.  And I don’t have time to dwell on them anyway.

 

Sunrise?

 

How?

 

I walked out my back door into the yard where I keep the wood.  I have always loved the smell of freshly cut timber, which is probably why I chose to become a carpenter in the first place.  That, and the feeling of satisfaction I get when I finish a wagon for newlyweds, or a kitchen table for a new home, or a tool chest for an old man’s workshop, or my favorite of all, a cradle for a newborn baby.

 

That is why it is so hard for me to use good wood the way the Romans make me use it. 

 

I remember back when I first started to learn the trade of carpentry, how excited I was to apprentice under our town’s best carpenter.  He was known by everyone as the most skilled woodworker around.  His creations were much sought-after and cherished because of their quality and workmanship.

 

I used to love watching his hands as he cut, and planed, and hammered the wood.  They were strong hands, but also soft in a way.  They seemed to always hold the wood perfectly for the task that needed to be done.  They seemed never to make a mistake. 

 

His hands would sometimes rub against my arm, or he would reach out and give me a good-natured pinch on the cheek as a way to say, “Good job.”  At those moments, his hands seemed almost tender, and yet rough at the same time, calloused by hours and hours spent holding the heavy tools needed to turn rough wood into smooth furniture.

 

My whole family considered me blessed to be able to learn at his side, to watch and see just how he made such beautiful things.  I knew they were right.  Not just because of what I was learning, but also because of his kindness.

 

He was never angry when I wasted a perfectly good piece of wood by measuring it wrong.  He didn’t scold me when I took too long to cut a corner the right way.  He wasn’t upset when I had trouble getting an edge level.

 

Instead, he would take hold of the wood I was ruining and gently show me the proper way to do the work.  To this day, I don’t know how he could have been so patient with me.  I loved him like a father, and I always felt loved by him like a son.

 

No time for all of that now.

 

Sunrise. 

 

Soon. 

 

How?

 

Besides, I just finished one of their crosses yesterday anyway.  There it is, over there, just behind my wagon, ready to be loaded and transported to the Roman garrison at Jerusalem where they will use it on one of our Jewish zealots, named Barabbas.

 

He was arrested and found guilty of crimes against the state.  The verdict was crucifixion.  Crucifixion on one of my wood crosses.  Not that I would ever put my name on such a cruel tool of pain and torture and death against my own people.  But there was no way out of it, I had to make them.

 

Well, there is nothing to be done.  It is impossible to make a new cross from scratch with so little time to do all the hard work of carrying and measuring and cutting and smoothing and testing and loading it all and moving it to the city.

 

I will just have to take the finished cross for Barabbas to Pilate and beg for my life.  Maybe he will show me mercy since I did, at least, finish this one on time.  Maybe instead of death, he will give me forty lashes.  Although forty lashes might be worse than death, actually.

 

Time to go.

 

As I approached the Jerusalem outskirts, I heard crowds of people shouting.  I had never heard anything like it before.  I got closer and saw hundreds, maybe thousands, of people gathered in the plaza in front of Pilate’s judgment seat.

 

They were shouting Barabbas’ name, over and over again. 

 

“Give us Barabbas!” they screamed.  “We want Barabbas! Release Barabbas!”

 

I pulled my cart up to the place where I always unloaded it.

 

“Here is your cross for Barabbas,” I reported to the guard who was in charge of the crucifixion detail.  “But I am sorry I did not get the other cross finished.  There just wasn’t enough time.  Please forgive me.”

 

The soldier started laughing at me.  It was the kind of laugh that turns into a chortle, and then a cackle, and then a cry.

 

“This is your lucky day, Jew,” he managed to choke out between deep huffs of more laughter.

 

“We only need one cross today.  Can’t you hear?  Your friends in the square have just called for Barabbas to be released as Pilate’s annual act of mercy during your Passover.  He is a free man now.”

 

Relief.

 

“So you won’t be needing this cross, after all?” I asked, for the first time hopeful that I might live after all, through some miracle of our Lord.

 

“I didn’t say that,” he replied.  “We still need it.  There is a new outlaw who will be crucified today instead of Barabbas.  He claims to be King of the Jews.  You probably know him.  Goes by the name of Jesus.  Jesus of Nazareth!”

 

As soon as I heard the name, my knees buckled.  Before I could catch myself, I was face down in the dirt.  My strength had left me.  I crumpled to the ground.

 

Know him?

 

Of course I know him!

 

I grew up in Nazareth too!

 

Jesus had stood beside me all of those years in the carpentry shop in Nazareth, best friends, we learned to be carpenters from the man who was like a father to both of us, Joseph.

 

We had played together as boys, day after day in the shop before the work began.  I had eaten at his table, in the chair next to his, always enjoying the wonderful meal his mother, Mary, had made.

 

We had wrestled in the mud after rain storms, fished together whenever Joseph would take us on a rare day away from the shop, and we often raced up the street to see who could be the first one into synagogue on the Sabbath.

 

Best friends.  More like brothers.

 

Jesus…crucified?

 

Why?

 

What had he done?  I couldn’t understand it. 

 

Somehow, I found the strength to pull myself up from the ground.  The soldier was laughing at me even harder as he unloaded the cross.

 

The cross.

 

My cross.

 

How could he die on my cross?

 

It was my fault.  His death would always be because of me, because of what I had done.

 

I couldn’t hold it in.  It didn’t matter that the Roman soldier was there, watching me.  The tears ran down my face unceasing, mingled with the dirt still on my lips, and that sticky, wet sand seeping into my mouth.  I didn’t care.

 

“Get out of here!” yelled the Roman.  “Your job is done!”

 

As I tried to find the foothold to pull myself up on the cart through sobbing eyes, I heard a commotion behind me.  Those all-too-familiar footsteps of soldiers again.  But this time they were not in sync, but out of kilter, chaotic.

 

Startled, I looked back.  They were pushing and shoving someone dressed in a purple robe in the middle of their pack like doomed prey in the midst of wolves.  At first, I couldn’t tell who the man was, all I could see was the blood flowing from his head where a rough crown of thorns had been planted.

 

As they passed by me, the man in the robe suddenly stopped and turned.

 

He looked right at me.

 

Suddenly, I recognized him!

 

I couldn’t believe it.  But there he was, just a few steps from me.

 

It was Jesus!  

 

Time itself seemed to stand still for that moment.

 

Immediately all of those feelings of guilt and torment started to flood back and I fell to my knees before him.

He quickly reached out and touched my shoulder.

 

“Father forgive him, for he knew not what he did.”

 

Then he was gone, pushed along again by the mocking Roman soldiers who taunted him and spit on him until they put the cross on his back so he could carry it himself to his own crucifixion.

 

But it was my cross.

 

It was my cross he carried that day.

 

I didn’t stay in the city.  There was no need.  I knew what was going to happen when the soldiers’ hammer blows fiercely striked the spikes.

 

But I no longer felt condemned by what I had done.

 

The moment Jesus spoke to me, all of the guilt left me immediately.

 

I felt free.

 

I felt new.

 

I felt loved.

 

I felt forgiven.

 

And I knew, somehow, deep within me, that I would see Him again someday.

 

Not only as my best friend.  Not only as my brother.  But as my Savior.

 

Rev. Greg McCollam,

Pastor, Walnut Hills Baptist Church