This is sad just to warn you...
His fell to the dirty, muddy ground, his back open with fresh wounds. As the blood ran down His head and into His face, He closed His eyes. The blood stung. This man had not deserved this. He had deserved none of it. Not the unjust and unfair trials, not the beating nor the stripping nor the mocking voices. He did not deserve the cat of nine tails that had dug into His bare back thirty-nine times, slicing open fresh cuts every time it hit its mark. The man was innocent, innocent as an angel, a lamb. Yes, He was the Lamb. Innocent.
The Roman soldier grabbed the man by His stinging shoulder and pulled Him with no mercy to His feet. The man staggered and fell again. He was too weak to move. He just lay there on the ground, His arms outstretched, His face in the mud. He thought about His friends and His mother that had brought Him into this cruel world. They were there. He slowly and painfully turned His beautiful face towards the crowd and saw her. His mother. She was in tears more than anyone outside Pilate's house. She was trying to push people away to get to her beaten son but no one would let her through.
"Please!" she cried. But no one listened. They were all against the man, though He had committed no crime. He was innocent. Like a lamb.
More soldiers came, blocking the path of the man's mother, roaring with evil laughter. One of them knelt at the fallen prisoner's face, grinning maliciously. He had something in his hand. It was a ring of thorns. No. It was a crown of thorns, meant to be placed upon the wounded man's bloody head. The man's vision blurred as the thorns were placed upong His dark, Jewish hair. He winced mostly, but sometimes a small, harmless tear escaped the closed brim of His perfect eye.
The soldiers kicked Him until He cried out. They laughed again and spit on Him. The crowd cheered them on. The poor man was able to destroy them all; He only had to call out to His Father in Heaven. But He didn't because He loved them. If He failed this mission, no one would be able to be with Him. Through so much pain, embarrassment, and hatred from the people He loved so dearly, there was a reward. But He would have to do this. It was what His Father asked of Him. And so, He would obey.
Pilate had asked, "This man, innocent and without blame or Barabbas, the murderer and lawbreaker."
They had chosen the Lamb.
Now they were yelling and shouting all sorts of remarks. Some said to let Him go. Some shouted that He should be stabbed or just beaten to death. Then one man shouted over all of them. He said, "Let's crucify Him!"
At that man's voice, the Roman soldiers went away and brought back a large crossbeam. Then, pulling the condemned man to His feet, they placed the beam across His back, forcing Him to carry it. The splinters from the rough wood dug into His cuts and wounds as He walked. The poor man cried out but no one helped Him. He walked slowly but without complaint that the cross was too heavy. But His strength was limited. He tried hard to lift the beam up but He couldn't much longer. The man collapsed in the mud with the heavy cross on top of Him. Closing His eyes, the man felt the weight being lifted from His beaten back and heard a soldier shouting at another man.
"You!" he said to a random man in the crowd. "Carry his cross!"
The almost dead man glanced over to His loved one and saw that the man was trying to refuse the soldier. But the Roman grabbed his arm and shoved the cross onto his back. Then that man stumbled and fell for his Lord. The crowd still jeered at the fallen man, but He only stood up and walked limply to His cross.
The man carrying the cross felt the pain that the beaten man felt. The blood that had stained the wood dripped lightly onto his cheek and down his face. The man carrying the cross then realized that Jesus Christ was just about die...for him.
