Note: This story's been on my computer for a while, and it's one that I really enjoy. I took the basic idea from L.M. Montgomery's poem The Watchman, where the guard of Jesus' tomb is slowly converting as the days wear on. However, I wanted to deviate from that, and thought it would be much more interesting to have Jesus alive and talking to his prison guard. Though not mentioned in the Bible, I assumed that, before Jesus was shown to Pilate, he was placed in prison. If he wasn't, just have a willing suspension of disbelief going into this. Well, enough of the long note – onto the story!
It was just another job. That's what I told myself. I would just have to wait there for the night while Aleron went out to get some rest. I had nothing better to do that night, and besides, I owed Aleron one. The prisoner was going before Pilate tomorrow. It wouldn't be a long-term job.
The man was a native of the country, a Jew, of course. He had dark, curly hair, a beard, and a tanned face. We were both the same height – he stood next to me, behind his bars.
I knew little of this man, except that he had caused an uproar between the natives of the country. He claimed to be the son of their God – something not uncommon in the Roman world, but an outrage in the Jewish community. The Sanhedrin called him a radical, a man who wanted to stir up trouble; a blasphemer. They wanted to kill this man – this man, who, to my knowledge, had done nothing wrong. Nothing wrong in the eyes of the gods or the government. Pilate arrested him to quiet the Jews down.
The man began to walk about his small, cramped corner. There were a few others in the jail, but only this man needed a personal guard.
"He's rumored to have done miracles," they told me. "He may just want to practice them to get out of here."
The man was seven or eight years older than I was, at least in his thirties. He was dressed poorly, and had splinters and calluses on his hands. A carpenter by trade, they told me.
The moon glowed yellow through the cell windows, casting shadows all around me. I followed the man's shadow, back and forth, back and forth. It wasn't a nervous, quick, erratic pacing. Just one to wile away the time.
The man was to either die or be set free. Most of us betted on the former, though. This man had no way of living a normal life without the people of the community shunning him.
"The moon looks so lovely, doesn't it?" the man asked me. He spoke in heavily accented Greek, not the usual Aramaic that the Jews spoke. Most Jews barely even understood Greek, let alone knew how to speak it.
"I wouldn't know, sir," I stoically replied. I didn't want to listen to this quack's ramblings. I really was quite tired myself.
"So be it. Just trying to make these next hours bearable," the man muttered, as he went back to pacing. His shoes made a constant scuffling sound.
"I hate this waiting," he sighed. "It just makes me agonize over the ending even longer."
I refused to answer the man. He just wanted another convert, most likely. Another name to add to his list of insane, vulnerable people.
"You probably just want me to be quiet, don't you?" the chuckled grimly. "Don't want the prisoner making the night any longer at your expense. I'll stop, for your sake."
The man stopped his pacing. I turned my head to see him curled up under the window, looking outside. "You know, one more thing before I stop talking. I think that it was a wise choice to stay here with me. Who knows what might have happened if you would have stayed home."
I would have been spared your incessant chattering,I thought, annoyed. This man never gives up, does he?
"I would have been at home, writing to my wife," I replied, begrudgingly.
"Ah, so you can write? So is it safe to assume that you are not just a poor man who joined the army for some steady wages?"
Great Jupiter, this man won't give up!"Yes. I am the son of a prominent lawyer of Rome, Carolus."
"And you choose to become a man of the army," he said. "I just followed what my father did. He was a carpenter. Some Jews try to diversify, go outside what their father did. Most just stay with the family profession."
"I have two older brothers. Both are lawyers. I didn't want to be a lawyer, and I felt that we had enough in the family," I told him curtly.
"I just have older half brothers. My father was married to another woman before he married my mother. She died a few years before he remarried. My father was about my age when he married my mother. Mother was only about sixteen or seventeen when she married my father. My brothers are about ten years older than I am. I even have a great-nephew. Never cared about marriage, though."
That last sentence caught my ear. Never cared about marriage?
"You mean you're a bachelor?"
"Yes. As free of a woman as I was when I was born. Never slept with one either. It's not that I'm uninterested or prefer the company of men. I just had a higher calling that required me to be unwed and celibate," he explained, crossing back into religion.
God, I don't need to hear this Jewish Fol-de-rol from a lunatic,I thought as I tried to ignore him once again. I didn't want to get involved in this man's religion. The Jews were queer, with their belief in one all-encompassing God and their strange dietary ways and religious practices.
"Your wife, is she back in Rome?" he asked. I hoped he wasn't expecting us to be best friends or something.
"Yes. Most high-respecting women of Rome stay there, instead of coming to a country like here," I responded, injecting some venom into the word here. Rome was a dirty place, but at least it was a place of beauty and paved roads – and certainly no sand. Here, in Judea, it was sandy from the deserts, unbearably hot, rough, and unsettled. The city of Jerusalem was not even half as decent as the small towns around Rome.
"This country isn't a place for most high-bred women of Rome, I will admit," the man sighed, "but the women of Judea are strong. It is hard living out here; it's not the most settled place. But we are a people of pride, just like you."
"Pride," I scoffed, before thinking. I should have kept that to myself. But the man had no idea. We were just a people of conquerors; we stole our religion and culture from another people. We just elaborated on it and gave it a fancy new name, and then declared ourselves the best and brightest, and lived under that banner. If I could give the Jews credit for anything, it is that they were an authentic, original people. They never copied off of anyone, never stole someone else's idea, never pretended to be anything other than themselves.
"Is your wife beautiful?" he asked.
I thought of Helena – tall and graceful, slender and curved, like a vase. "She is lovely. Tall and pale like marble. Beautiful eyes, like the color of the sea. But she has the most uncommon color of hair – a bright red."
"I had a friend with red hair," he quietly noted.
"Yes. That man who turned you in," I said, matter-of-factly. I didn't want to rub it in his face that one of his closest friends betrayed him, but it was well-known. "Well, I guess he was your friend." I turned to look at the man, through his bars. The man was standing again, by his window, looking out at the stars.
"He still would be," he sighed.
"Still?" That made no sense. The man told on him, ratted him out, betrayed him. How could that traitor still be his friend?
"Yes. Judas was a troubled man. I can't hold out forgiveness just because the poor man was conflicted."
"How can you forgive such a man, though?" I asked him. "He betrayed you."
"Guard, I may die at the end of this week, but I'm not going to do so with hate in my heart. One shouldn't hold onto grudges."
There he goes again, with his righteous speak. Why doesn't he just give up and realize that all that he believes is wrong, that he should just go and recant what he said, realize his stupidity?I turned away, realizing how ignorant I was to be led on by such a man.
"Are you staying in Judea for long?" the man asked.
"Only for a few more months, then I can go home and get my household in order. Then I hope that I will be reassigned to stay in Rome."
"You must miss your family a great deal," he said, still extending a hand of friendship to me.
"A little. I've never been close to my brothers. They always thought of me as a cast-off. I wasn't meant to be born. My mother died giving birth to me, and my father remarried a witch of a woman," I told him. I was giving the man a good deal of information about my life, but he didn't seem like one to hold it over me. Besides, I could tell him all of the corners of my soul, and it would go to the grave with him tomorrow.
"My brothers did play with me when I was younger, but once they got older, they finished up their apprenticeships and then went off and settled down, had a family, and left me alone. I got closer to them once I got older, though. They really didn't have time for me, what with their own families to worry about. I do pity my poor mother. She won't have anyone when I die, you see. My father died when I was eighteen. My mother will be one of those widows, whose children don't want them."
"What of your half-brothers?" I asked.
"My mother is not of their blood; therefore, they have no real connection to her or reason to help her. I do have friends who will take care of her, though. My friend John is without anyone else in the world. I'll ask him to take care of her. The good news is, by the end of this week, I'll get to meet my father."
His words chilled me. He was so upbeat about dying it frightened me. No Roman or Jew or any man was glad to die, to plunge into the world unknown, or into the abyss of Hades and never live again.
"You can't be this happy about dying. Aren't you worried about what might happen to you?" I turned back to the man. He stood by the window, this time looking at me.
"No. I'll be glad to see my father again. I haven't seen him in over thirty years." He spoke so complacently, as if there was no trouble on the horizon.
"I thought your father died when you were eighteen," I questioned. Surely, this man couldn't be older than thirty-five.
"My earthly father, Joseph, died when I was eighteen. My true, heavenly father is who I'm talking about. I haven't seen him since before I was sent here, on earth."
Yes…he did claim to be the son of God, didn't he? Why was I so surprised? Every time I fell into his trap that he was like me, that he felt genuine interest in my life, he slipped in another reference to his life, to his crime…to his faith. Who was he, so secure in his faith? No one, not even the priests of Apollo or Juno were as secure as this man. They all doubted, all wavered. But this man…this man didn't even flinch at the sight of death. He held on to the fact that he was truly the son of God.
I narrowed my eyes. "Why do the Jews think that being the son of a god is blasphemy? Most Romans would find that to be an honor, not a religious fallacy."
The man smiled gently, almost as if he was correcting an errant child. "Because, the son of God in Judaism is the one who will bring about salvation to the whole human race. He will redeem every soul, and make it possible for everyone to be in eternal happiness with God," he told me, so firmly and genuinely that I almost believed this man's lie.
"And you think you are the one who will bring about the change?" I almost scoffed. This man wasn't of any great pedigree, social standing, or physical prowess. He just looked like some Judean, someone I wouldn't even pick off the streets as the savior of mankind.
"Yes, I am," he said, still with that smile. He just seemed so calm, so firm in his beliefs, he made me feel so small, so uncomfortable. But then I felt a little prickle of rage: what did this man know of the afterlife, and of the gods? Those Jews, how high they hold their heads, thinking that they, even in their enslavement, are higher than we Romans are.
"Why do you Jews act like this?" I spat at him. "Why do you seem so hopeful, so full of promise, so sure that life has something for you?"
"But it does, friend. My father has promised my people that they are his beloved, that they will be happy not only during their life, but even after they die. You will not be lost forever if you die with God in your heart."
Why does he preach to me like this? Why is he so sure that there is even a God? "So it's only the Jews who will receive happiness in the afterlife?"
"No, my friend, it is everyone. God has realized that everyone, if they hold his beliefs in their hearts, will enter the kingdom of Heaven." His whole face seemed alight, as if he was just waiting for me to ask him this.
"Your God surely can't be any better or different than ours – no one God can control everything. It's something too big of a job for one person," I rebutted. I refused to be swayed by this man's slick answers. He was probably was just a loon, someone starting another cult that will get nowhere, other than deceiving and punishing its members.
"Person, yes. But my father is not a person, friend. He is a great, indescribable being, something so awesome and powerful that he is capable of anything and everything."
"But he is not a perfect being. Nothing and no one is perfect, not even Jupiter himself," I argued. This man had to falter somewhere – no one knows everything.
"But he is, my friend. He is all-knowing, omnipresent, and all-powerful. And he is not human, therefore, he is immune to mistakes. He is never tempted, he is something we should strive for, the perfect model of what a human could be. He will never forget you, harm you, or forsake you. He will never be unfaithful, and he will always love you – even in his wrath, he wants you to return his love."
Love. Please. What does this man know of love? He has no lover, only his poor, destitute mother, who will be forced to take up lodge with a stranger because her no-good son felt that he could change the world with some silly little words. He's just saying these things – they can't be real. Nothing can be that good to be true – not even a god.
"You Jews don't know what you're talking about!" I hurled at him. "You and your foolish beliefs of love and salvation. You're too busy pining away your life for a man who will never come than taking the opportunity to live out what the gods give you. You're just saying this so I can let you go and you can further pollute others' minds. Well, it isn't working!" I felt my voice getting louder and my fist beating against the bars of his cell. Somehow, this man had reversed roles, made me the one inside the cage and him the guardsman. How I loathed and was fascinated by this man; he offered so much, but what he offered was just veiled in lies.
He walked up to me, and I could see into his eyes; they were a dark brown, the color of ink. I could see myself reflected in those eyes, so deep they seemed like endless wells. There was so much in those eyes: hope, truth, light, love…and sincerity. I could look into many Roman eyes, even Judean, but all I could see was someone wandering through life. They didn't have the same look that this man had. I felt so unworthy, as if he was better than me, but he didn't care or know. He just was – and I could see all of that in his eyes.
I lowered my eyes to my feet. I couldn't stand looking at his eyes any longer. I felt myself writhing in my skin, as if everything about me was worthless and unclean. "I know this is a lot of truth to expose in one night-"
"Truth!" my voice cracked out of fury. "There is no truth in what you say!"
"-nevertheless, I don't expect you to follow me. I am just stating who I am, and what I believe. You may go on with your gods, friend-"
"Stop calling me friend," I breathed heavily. "I am your guardsman, and I am in a higher class than you, Jew."
"-but I am just letting you know that there is another way, another belief system. And, even fulfillment. But you may go on with your life without ever heeding what I say. I just hope that you will find happiness, so that when the day comes, you can look me in the eye and not aver your gaze." He spoke in a soft voice, not comforting, and not viciously, but plainly, telling me the facts, as he always did. I couldn't stand another minute with the man. I felt like letting him go and jumping into a river out of misery at the same time.
The man walked back to his window, where the sky was beginning to darken – the darkest hour, almost before dawn was to come. I began to feel my sanity return to me, my breath becoming less labored, and my mind starting to calm. I lifted my eyes back to the man, to see him still staring out the window.
"I have one last question, sir," I asked him. "Aren't you afraid of death?"
He turned to me, and I managed to keep my eyes on his face, however I looked at his forehead rather than his eyes. "I'm only afraid of the pain, guard. I'm not afraid of the afterlife, for I know that I will be with my father."
I heard the jail door open, and my comrades were back. They came to me; I was still clinging to the bars. I straightened myself up as they came over and undid the lock on the man's cell. They pulled him out and shackled his wrists and feet, and led him away to be questioned once again.
"He wasn't too much trouble, was he?" Aleron asked me, as we walked away from the jail and went to Pilate's side.
It was the most agonizing night of my life. "No," I lied. "He just talked of nonsense."
You should have heard him, Helena. I've never met anyone, Roman, Jew, Egyptian, or any other race that was as secure in his faith as he was. He made me feel ashamed to live, Helena. He made me feel like everything I've done wasn't worth it, that I was just as worthy as the dust he walked on. Not even my own father has made me feel that way….
I dropped the pen. The letter came is spurts, as I would write on for minutes on end, then suddenly run out of words to explain everything. It took me two hours to write a letter than would usually only take fifteen or twenty minutes.
Even though the man said to forget what he said, I couldn't. Everything he said haunted me, irrevocably changed me. I couldn't go only living blindly and half-heartedly worshipping my gods. They had nothing in store for me anymore. They didn't promise the intimacy or love that this Jewish god did. Nor were they as appealing as the Jewish god. They acted like schoolchildren, while the Jewish god seemed like a mature man, like…a father.
No. I can't become one of those Jews. I can't do this. I can't be one of them – I can't believe this man! He was just a maniac, ranting about some god that doesn't exist. He was just trying to get inside my head. I can't listen to that man!
I crumpled up the letter. I couldn't send something that incriminating and that idiotic to Helena; she'd think I had gone mad myself.
I stood up and walked over to the water pitcher to look at myself. It was all the same; the fuzzy yellow hair, the long nose, the slight gap in between my two front teeth. But my eyes…my eyes of hard, gray stone were not the immune set of rocks that I once saw. They were now filled with emotion – doubt, fear, sadness, anger, pity, confusion. They were not the stoic eyes I once had. It was all because of him.
I didn't even know his name. It was something funny, something Jewish that ended with an 'a'. Those Jews had such funny naming habits.
Why am I so conflicted by what this man said? He is just instilling the same amount of doubt that he did in his followers, so they could listen to him and agree with him, just so they wouldn't feel this way. Well, I won't! I can't follow that way. I need to be a good Roman and follow the rules.
The man's trial in front of Pilate was peculiar. Pilate asked him if all the charges the Sanhedrin had put in front of him were true, and all the man said was 'if you say so.' The impertinence. But he didn't stop or deny it. He just let Pilate assume. He let the Jews do what they wanted to the man, and they decided to crucify him. The crucifixion was to be held in an hour. The others were torturing him as I wrote the letter. I couldn't stand to be there, seeing those eyes look at me while pain was wracking his body, all for an unjust reason.
"You know, you're missing out on the torture," Marius interrupted my thoughts.
"I don't want to see it," I uttered. How they could get enjoyment out of seeing this man, a lamb for sacrifice, being beaten, was beyond me.
"Suit yourself," he sighed, as he sat on a cushion. "It's almost time to lead the man out for crucifixion."
Did I really want to be there, to see him get killed? No. But I did have one last question for him.
I grabbed my helmet and sword. "Come on, let's go." I didn't want to be there longer than it was needed. By Jupiter, or Yahweh, or any other deity, I didn't want to have this man's blood on my hands.
The crowd was riotous, screaming for the man's blood. The spat on the weakened, gory man, throwing pebbles and debris at him, mocking him. The other soldiers did little to interfere with the man; they just looked ahead, stony and silent. I felt a lump rise in my throat. I wasn't anywhere near the man, but Marius was on his right. If I could just get to Marius and have him trade positions with me…
I weaved my way through the crowd, though the task wasn't easy. They tried to get as close to the man as they could, to rub dirt in his face and humiliate him at all costs. I felt anger rise up in me. Who were they to touch the son of God? Then I squelched it down. This wasn't the son of my gods. Let them treat him as such. I was only here on duty.
I got to Marius halfway through the journey. By the time I got to the man, another man that had been wandering by had been plucked from the crowd to help the weakened man. The man could no longer hold up the beam of wood, for he had been so tired and battered.
"Marius, let me cover the man; you're better at calming crowds than I," I said. Marius willingly agreed.
"These people are vicious; they almost tried to stab me just to get to him," he huffed, as he walked to the back of the crowd. I now stood on the right side of the man. His robe was tattered and matted with sweat and mud. His hair hung limp and frizzy, with caked blood. He was hunched over in agony, and I could see the places where he had been whipped on his back. He turned to look at me, and I saw a new look in his eyes – agony. This man had endured so much, and was being stripped of everything he had, in front of the entire town.
"Guard, why are you here?" he asked. His voice had lost the security it once held. It now was hoarse and labored.
"I need to know one last thing," I whispered to him. "Is this the only way you can do this – save humanity – by dying for no real reason at all?"
He looked at me, and I couldn't tear my eyes from him. He seemed to look at me as if he loved me. "Yes. So I can sacrifice myself for my people, so they can live with me and my father in Heaven, so that they know of my love for them."
Everything that I had felt since last night, when he first spoke of the only God, seemed to come together and explode. I almost felt like my soul had left my body, the revelation was so astounding. Out of the explosion came a new, beautiful feeling –serenity. My gods never made me feel that way. They left me restless and without answers. This all made sense now. Life didn't have to be a pointless wandering; it could be something beautiful that led to an even lovelier eternity. Everything this man said made sense. It didn't matter that he was a Judean and that I was in a class above him. He gave me rest to my soul.
By this time, we had reached the hill where he would be crucified, along with two others. Aleron pulled the man aside, and laid the beam down atop another beam, and began to build the cross where the man would hang. I stopped in my tracks, too shocked to realize that the man I had just finished talking to was now going to be no more. I stood watching for a moment, as the crowd tried to rush at the man. They began to strip and divide the man's clothes, and I turned away. My peace was found, but now I felt shaken. The only man to give me solace, to give me an answer, was about to die. I couldn't bear to see anymore.
I walked past my tent and into the heart of the town. The temple, so sacred to the Jews, was before me. I looked at the stone structure; there were no fancy adornments, only a stone building with steps and plain columns. I walked up the steps, numbly. I could barely remember any of this when I looked back.
I walked into the area of worship, a place with high ceilings and places to sit. I saw some priests and Levites preparing something for worship, and I tired not to make any sound as I collapsed into the last bench, burying my head in my hands, and crying, crying until I couldn't feel, couldn't remember, and couldn't care.