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<h4>Jesus is stripped of His Garments</h4> <p>John 19:23-24</p> <p><em>As told by the gambling soldier </em></p> <p>Gambolling was a way of life for all Roman soldiers. Our pay was mere subsistence, and we needed some way for the extras of life. Gambling for the clothes off the back of our condemned criminals was one of many ways we made up the extra we needed to live. Today, two of these poor sods are experienced criminals, and they give as well as they take. If looks could kill, we would be the ones being fitted for these crosses, not them. They have been cursing us from the hour we tied them up. They don’t have much, but we taunt them as we gamble for what they have – not much – but no longer theirs.</p> <p>This third one has me beat. Quiet, dignified, he has said not one mean word to us. Stripping him of his clothes was easy. We took it all, even his bloodied cloak. The robe was part of the mocking, but it was good quality, rich purple and it was made in one woven piece, and we didn’t want to tear it, so we gambled to see which of us would get it.</p> <p>As I looked at him, I shivered. The sky had darkened, unnatural, like night, and with the sun gone, darkness and cold—great bedfellows. It was a omen, or what I was not sure.</p> <p>I looked again at his cloak, and then at his nakedness, as he awaited the next part of his humiliation. It was terrifying to realize that though I was fully dressed in Roman army uniform and he was naked –as he came into this life, so he was leaving it- I was the one who felt strangely humiliated and laid bare on that hill, while he had an innate dignity that had nothing to do with what he was wearing.</p> <p>I never wore that cloak, even though I won it fair and square.</p>

Footsteps of Jesus 10
<h4>Jesus is Nailed to the Cross</h4> <p>Isaiah 6:10</p> <p><em>As seen by the soldier on duty </em></p> <p>My job is routine. I make it so, by the rules I live by. The prisoners are not human. Doing what is required is all that is important, so they can’t be human. And, just to be sure, I never, never look them in the face. I never see their horror or their agony, their fear or their hatred.</p> <p>I was the one on duty during the Jewish Passover, when Jesus was condemned to death. Can’t say I ever heard his teaching, but whatever he did, he got his own people pretty riled up about it. It was they who brought the charges against him, and it was they who demanded Pilate order the death penalty.</p> <p>He made it up the path to ‘Skull Hill’, he looked so badly battered, I was almost surprised – after all I had heard he had fallen a number of times – but then he did have that big black guy carry his cross – without him, I don’t think we would have been needed to nail him onto these hunks of wood.</p> <p>I lifted the hammer to bring it down on the wrists. The trick you see is to just look at the places where you need to hammer, wrists and feet. Don’t look at the face, and definitely not into the eyes – just the feet and the hands. And so I drove the hammer down onto the huge nail, puncturing his wrist and securing him to the wooden horizontal bar of the cross. He didn’t offer a sound, and laid still as I grabbed hold of the other wrist and repeated the exercise. His silence disturbed me. It had never happened like this before. But I knew what I had to do, so I resisted the need to look into his face, and I kept my head down at the task at hand. I had moved now to his feet. Again and again the hammer came down, splintering bone and fixing his feet securely to the upright bar of the cross.</p> <p>I had done my job, and now I took the risk of looking at his face. As my fellow soldiers heaved the cross into its hole, with him upon it, I foolishly looked up, thinking that the pain would stop any recognition in him. But he glanced at me, and the other soldiers around me and then he raised his face to the heavens and said “Father, forgive these people, because they don’t know what they are doing.”</p> <p>I pretended I hadn’t heard, because deep inside I was shaking. Now I sit here in the dark, seeing the outline of the cross against the night sky, and in the darkness I weep silently, for myself or for him, I do not know.</p>

Footsteps of Jesus 11
<h4>Jesus Dies on the Cross</h4> <p>Mark 1537-39</p> <p><em>As seen by the Centurion </em></p> <p>Something strange was happening, but we were soldiers and we did what we were told. This prisoner was different, and the circumstances were different. Who was this Jesus anyway? And what did it matter to me?</p> <p>I had spent time in Galilee, and now, as I looked at the prisoner, recollection stirred within me. You see, I have a slave, he has been with me forever, and he was sick. I had heard of this local healer, and I was desperate, so I sent word to him—this Jesus. I had been impressed by the reports about him, and when my slave was so near death, I went to this Jewish Rabbi/ healer, and asked for his help. Well, the slave was healed, and this Jesus didn’t need to even come and touch him.</p> <p>When I was recalled to Jerusalem, I left all that behind me, thankful but focused on the work at hand. But Jesus confronted me now, the very same man, and a sense of foreboding filled my heart. What if the God’s are with this Jesus? Pilate seemed uncomfortable with the charges and it was obvious that he didn’t want to condemn him. Even he can see that he does not deserve such a punishment. None-the-less, early in the morning he does condemn him, washing his hands as he does so, as gesture to try and allow the blame to fall on others.</p> <p>There were moments in that walk that I will never forget, the woman who walked alongside him, the one who wiped his brow, the black man who was dragooned to carry his cross, the large group of women he spoke to along the way- they were the good memories. But there was also the violence by the crowds, their jeering and kicking him as he fell - that sort of hatred I wish I could forget. Throughout it all, he had a presence, and I understood my friend from Galilee. I felt sad that this man was going to die at our hand.</p> <p>Something fell into place when Jesus drew his last breath. A great cry arose from deep within him, his last breath escaping – “It is finished!”</p> <p>For the past three hours an unnatural darkness had fallen upon Skull Hill, and the sun had seemed to disappear. We felt abandoned by the universe, and it seemed that the cosmos echoed this momentous time. Who was he? – I heard myself say aloud. As I faced him, seeing how he died, and knowing the way he had lived, I could only exclaim “Truly, this was the Son of God!”</p>

Footsteps of Jesus 12
<h4>The Body of Jesus is placed in the Arms of His Mother</h4> <p>John 19:38:</p> <p><em>As spoken by Joseph of Arimathea  </em></p> <p>I cannot be secret any longer. I must declare my loyalty, and do it publicly. I have spent too many months watching him, listening to his words, and seeing his miracles, all in secret admiration and belief. Now I must declare myself his. What stopped me for so long? I was a member of the Sanhedrin, and I knew how many of my fellow council members were bitter in their dislike and anger. It should not have stopped me, but the fear of losing face was too great. I remained silent when I should have spoken out. Now I live with my own shame. Pilate gives his permission, strange as the request must seem to him, a foreigner unused to our laws, and I move back to the place of the skull to take his body away and wrap it in graveclothes for burial.</p> <p>It is dark all around, though still before official sundown, and the beginning of the Sabbath. Most of the spectators have gone home, their gory spectator sport now over and finished with. There are still women at the foot of his cross, or at least as close as they are allowed to get. They weep and grieve, for him or for themselves, I do not know.</p> <p>As my servant and I give the guard our authority to take down his body, a number of the women look up, some young, others older. An older woman stood by, her face streaked with tears, sad and grief-stricken. With help the cross was upended from the hole, and laid once again on the ground. Nails driven in such a short time before are now ripped out again, as Jesus dead body is released from it’s cursed tree.</p> <p>Before I could stop her, and I am not sure I would have wanted to, the woman rushed forward and gathered his vacant and staring face into her loving arms. And in that action, I knew her for his mother. She rocks back and forth, holding him close to her breast, as one would to suckle a new born babe. Even as the tears roll down her face and touch gently upon his, she reaches down and touches his face one last time. Despite this day, I now sit in wonder at what tomorrow might hold.</p>

Footsteps of Jesus 13
<h4>Jesus is Laid in the Tomb</h4> <p>John 19:39-42</p> <p><em>As spoken by Nicodemus</em></p> <p>If Joseph can show courage, I should do the same.</p> <p>I was the one who spent the most interesting night of my life listening to the young rabbi. I went in secret, and kept my secret admiration from all my friends in the Sanhedrin, even from his followers. I couldn’t afford to let anyone know how much his teaching disturbed and fascinated me. And now, here I am, public in my following of him, grieving together with Joseph his other secret disciple.</p> <p>A servant of Joseph’s came a few hours ago to tell me that a tomb was prepared for the body of Jesus. Would I be willing to help with the burial?</p> <p>The time has come, we must hurry in order not to violate the Sabbath.</p> <p>Quietly now, with no tears, Jesus mother touches one last time the face of her beloved son, and Joseph and I, assisted by our servants, lift the lifeless body and carry it across the garden to the tomb. The other women take hold of Mary and lead her away, supporting and encouraging one another, as they leave this place of suffering and death. I have brought spices and herbs. We have little time, before the Sabbath begins. None-theless he must be buried properly and with dignity.</p> <p>We enter the tomb, only Joseph and I. The servants stand respectfully outside. There is a large slab of stone in the centre of the cave, and on it we lay the body and I sprinkle profuse spices on it. Then the two of us wind the long sheet around and around his body until everything is covered in white.</p> <p>His pierced brow has stopped bleeding, but I can still see the marks of the thorns. Tenderly, I lift the head and Joseph winds a separate long white band around it.</p> <p>We exit walking backwards, as if in the presence of a king. The stone on the side of the cave is round and flat and looks extremely heavy. The four of us put our weight and strength to it, and slowly, with great difficulty, we seal the tomb. As we turn around two things happen. Through the bushes we see some of the women who have come to see where his body has been taken. They move to speak, but at that moment, some soldiers come up, ordered to keep watch so that no-one disturb or steal the body.</p> <p>The women in fright turn away. The soldiers set up their guard stations, and we go home to celebrate the Sabbath. What will the new day bring? What has happened to all the hopes of those who love him, and where is the new life he promised?</p> <p> </p>

Footsteps of Jesus 14
<h4>Jesus is risen! He is risen indeed!</h4> <p>Isaiah 52:7</p> <p><em>As Spoken by Thomas </em></p> <p>I wasn’t there when Jesus appeared to all the other disciples behind the locked doors. I heard about it of course, and I saw the difference in my friends. I realized that I had missed out on something, but I just couldn’t get my head around the idea that Jesus was alive again. I had watched from a distance, but I knew without a doubt, he was dead! I guess I resented their enthusiasm. I declared that I wouldn’t believe that he was alive unless I saw him myself, and put my fingers into the nail wounds and wound in his side. What a gracious Saviour he was! Even in the face of my arrogant words of disbelief, he met my need to see him myself, his wounds and his risen body. I fell at his feet, recognizing him for who he was Lord and God. He was disappointed, I think, that I needed physical proof, and compared my faith to those who would believe without the physical evidence of wounds and risen body.</p> <p>And then I knew what I was being called to do. I was to travel to far off places and tell people what I had seen and what I knew of Jesus, Son of God. I remembered a passage from Isaiah about the ‘feet that bring good news’ and this was good news indeed. I walked through valleys, and over mountain ranges, through fields of flowers; everlastings that reminded me of the everlasting life and hope promised and begun in the new life given.</p> <p>My wanderings took me far and wide, even to the shores of India, and beyond, always heading east where many accepted my words, my testimony of the one who had defeated death, and given us this hope of life everlasting. From doubt and blindness, to faith and seeing, to awe and joy and finally commissioning and sending, The ends of the earth have indeed seen the salvation of our God.</p> <p> </p>

Footsteps of Jesus 15

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