Behold the Man

by Bodie Thoene

  Immediately the quiet night shattered into a thousand fragments of sound and motion. As Joachim and Malchus advanced on either side of Judas, a burly figure waving a sword rose up in fury, slashing toward the traitor. “You!” Peter shouted.

  Judas jumped sideways, colliding with Malchus, who fell into the sweep of the descending blade.

  The high priest’s servant screamed and clutched his ear. Joachim shouted for his men, but even now they advanced cautiously, a wall of smoking torches held in trembling hands.

  “Peter!” Jesus rebuked sharply. “Put your sword away. Shall I not drink the cup that my Father has given me?”

  With a last helpless look around, Peter flung the sword into the pit of the olive press. Then he and all of Jesus’ friends fled into the night.

  Jesus put out his hand and touched Malchus’s arm. The servant shrank away, but Jesus persisted. Putting his hands on either side of Malchus’s head, he spoke a prayer.

  Both agony and bleeding stopped. Malchus, appearing both relieved and confused, touched the ear that had been cut off, now made whole again.

  “Am I a rebel that you come to take me with swords and clubs?” Jesus said. “Every day I was with you in the Temple, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour . . . when darkness reigns.”23

  Marcus, riding on Pavor in advance of Josephus on a chestnut mare, reached the head of the Bethany road and halted abruptly. There, strung out across the dark flank of Jerusalem, was the blazing snake of torches—reclimbing the hill toward the Temple.

  Josephus drew rein alongside and voiced the conclusion Marcus had already reached. “We’re too late.”

  Claudia sat at a dressing table, brushing her hair, when Pilate entered and stood behind her. Dismissing her maid, he regarded her reflection in the mirror.

  The intensity of his gaze troubled her. She colored and lowered her eyes. When he touched the back of her neck, she stiffened.

  “Where were you this morning?” he inquired. His tone, intended to sound casual, still had an edge of accusation.

  Claudia was instantly on her guard. “This morning?” she repeated.

  “You and . . . Philo?” Pilate placed his hands on either side of her neck as he awaited her reply.

  “The garden,” she said.

  “Ah, the garden. And out through the servants’ gate . . . and into the streets . . . off to greet the new king of the Jews.” He squeezed her shoulders, making her wince with pain.

  “You’re hurting me,” she protested, trying to writhe out of his grasp and rise from the chair.

  Pilate pressed her down forcefully and held her there. Bending nearer, he hissed in her ear, “Do you know the penalty for treason?”

  “Jesus . . . healed . . . your son,” she returned.

  Instead of releasing his hold at this reminder, Pilate pressed harder. When she tried to get away, he forced her to her knees, then grasped her hair. “If you follow this man, you bare your neck to the ax. Tiberius will execute us both for treason and laugh when he throws Philo to the lions!” Suddenly releasing his grip, he threw her to the floor but continued standing over her.

  “Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world!” Claudia argued.

  “And am I supposed to kneel before him in gratitude?” Pilate demanded. “For the sake of my son, do you expect me to swear allegiance to this king of the Jews?”

  “Yes! Yes, Pilate. And for the sake of your soul!”

  Mocking her, Pilate offered a bow. “The blood of Jews courses through your veins, not mine,” he said with derision.

  “And I am no longer ashamed,” Claudia fired back.

  Pilate stared at her, as if amazed she was not begging to be forgiven. With studied calculation he said, “Jewish blood will flow . . . flow through the streets of Jerusalem . . . before this matter ends. Your blood will mingle with the blood of this Jesus whom you serve.”

  Dragging her by the arm, a furious Pilate opened the door to the room where Philo lay sleeping. Slinging her around him like tossing rubbish on the dung heap, he flung Claudia onto the floor, then closed the door on her quiet sobs.

  Claudia heard the door being locked and Pilate issuing orders to a guard to keep her imprisoned no matter what she said.

  Burying her face in both her hands, Claudia remained for a long time on the cold of the stone floor. At last she rose and went to her son, who had somehow miraculously remained asleep through it all. Sitting beside him, Claudia stroked Philo’s hair while silent tears streamed down her cheeks.

  At last exhaustion overtook her. She lay down next to her son, curling herself protectively around him, and soon fell asleep herself. As she tumbled down the slope of slumber, the darkness of the Jerusalem night receded . . .

  Once again she saw the starlit night in the north giving way to the brilliant sunrise of Philo’s healing. She witnessed again Jesus carrying Philo on his shoulder. She dreamed of her son running . . . running! . . . for the first time ever, because of the man from Galilee. She heard Philo laugh with pure glee and saw Jesus’ approving expression of joy.

  Then the scene changed. Pilate appeared on the bank of the stream. Philo dashed toward his father, lifting his arms for an embrace.

  But Pilate shoved the child aside. From a coil at his waist Pilate unwrapped a whip and shook its sinister length free of tangles. Shouting a protest, Philo seized his father’s legs as Pilate began to strike Jesus across the face with the lash.

  Pilate kicked his son away from him so that Philo fell to the ground. Then Pilate alternated striking first Jesus, then Philo, then Jesus again.

  At last, tired from the exertion, Pilate flung the whip away and picked up a hammer and a sharp iron spike.

  Claudia saw Jesus stretched out on the dirt next to her son. She saw Jesus’ hand held out flat on a beam of wood.

  She saw Pilate grasp the spike, then raise the hammer to strike. “Nooo,” she cried out. She awoke, gasping and racked with sobs that shook her whole frame.

  Philo stirred. “Mama?” He reached to embrace her, trying to comfort her.

  Hugging her son fiercely, Claudia could not speak. So the two rocked in silence inside the locked bedchamber.

  Chapter 44

  The night had been infinitely long and exhausting. Now a blood-red dawn pried back the latticework over Philo’s windows.

  Claudia tapped again on the door and called out to the guard. Her voice was hoarse and feeble sounding from all her attempts. “Please! Please let me out!”

  The sentry sounded uneasy as he replied once more, “Sorry, ma’am. Orders.”

  “But you must! I have to warn my husband. Something terrible is going to happen!”

  “What is it, Mama?” Philo piped.

  “I must see him. Get word to him. Listen,” she said, stooping to the boy’s eye level, “Jesus is in danger.”

  Scanning the room, Philo dashed toward the writing table. He held aloft a quill pen and a stoppered horn of ink.

  “Yes! Brilliant boy!” Claudia praised.

  Seating herself at Philo’s table and pushing aside scraps of parchment lettered in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew alphabets, she wrote, I have been tormented all night with dreams of Jesus. Have nothing to do with that just man.

  Hurriedly returning to the door, she pounded on it again. This time the guard spoke at once. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Orders are—”

  “Yes, I know,” Claudia responded impatiently. “Call your officer. I’m pushing a note under the door. See that it is taken to Governor Pilate at once! At once, do you hear?”

  Dressed in the p
urple-bordered toga of office, Pilate paced around the curule throne in his audience chamber as if suspecting the chair of harboring rebellion.

  Cassius arrived and saluted.

  “Well?” Pilate demanded.

  “It’s been going on all night,” the officer reported. “First the high priest, then Caiaphas’s father-in-law, the old high priest, then Lord Caiaphas again. Now the high priest and the other Jews have brought the prisoner to you.”

  “What do they want me to do with him?” Pilate mused aloud. “Never mind. Show them in.”

  “Pardon, sir,” Cassius responded. “They say they won’t come in, meaning they can’t. It’s a holy day and all, and they’re terrified they’ll be defiled.”

  With a frustrated sigh, Pilate nodded his assent. “Tell my servants to bring the chair.” He pointed at the X-shaped frame.

  The outside air in the courtyard was chilly. A thin film of ice frosted the cobblestones. Pilate ascended the platform, waited for his chair of state to be properly placed, then seated himself.

  He was confronted by High Priest Caiaphas and a mob of his henchmen—Herodian guards and Pharisees, numbering about a hundred. In front of them, his face bloody, one eye swollen shut, and his hands bound behind his back, was the man Pilate knew was called Jesus of Nazareth. He looked neither majestic nor threatening.

  “Greetings, Governor,” Caiaphas said formally.

  Pilate frowned. “It’s the wrong time for a social visit. What do you want?”

  Caiaphas indicated Jesus, as if Pilate might not have noticed him. “We brought a prisoner. A rebel. A traitor against Rome.”

  And then the whole crowd began to accuse Jesus, saying, “We found this fellow subverting the nation, and forbidding paying taxes to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.”

  Then Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

  Jesus said, “It is as you say.”24

  Laughing at the pitiful spectacle in front of him, Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowd, “I find no fault in this man.”

  But the mob grew even fiercer, saying, “He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, beginning in Galilee.”

  Pilate’s face lit up with relief as an idea struck him. When he heard the word Galilee, he asked if the man was a Galilean. As soon as he remembered that Jesus belonged to Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent Jesus to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem at that time.

  It took only five minutes for Caiaphas and his entourage to tramp with Jesus of Nazareth across the frosty stones to Herod’s palace. Now when Herod saw Jesus, he was glad, for he had desired for a long time to see this man from Nazareth. Herod had heard many things about the country rabbi and hoped to see some miracle done by him.

  Herod questioned Jesus with many words, but Jesus would not answer. The chief priests and scribes vehemently accused him. Then Herod, with his soldiers, treated Jesus with contempt and mockery before they sent him back to Pilate.

  Once more, wrapped in a robe thrown over his toga against the cold, Pilate sat on the platform in the courtyard. He had not been able to pass the responsibility onto Herod after all.

  Summoning the guards to bring Jesus forward and up to the dais, Pilate rose and faced him. Jesus was taller than the governor by a few inches. The governor studied Jesus closely with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension.

  Pilate’s trance was finally broken when a soldier arrived bearing a note from Claudia. After hearing its source, Pilate received it coldly, read it, then crumpled it in his fist.

  Speaking again to Caiaphas, he demanded, “What accusation do you bring against this man?”

  The high priest, exasperated at having to repeat what he’d already recited, said, “If he was not a rebel, we would not have delivered him up to you.”

  Pilate pulled the robe closer around his shoulders. “I still say he’s your problem. Take him and judge him according to your law.”

  “But,” Caiaphas shot back, waving his accusatory index finger, “it is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.”

  Pilate stared at Caiaphas and then at Jesus. Recollections of the fiasco with the images of Caesar played out in his memory. There had been other complaints about his governing to Caesar as well. How could this problem be played out without causing more damage to Pilate’s shaky reputation?

  Pointing to the high priest, he said, “You wait here.” Gesturing toward Cassius, he said of Jesus, “Bring him inside.”

  Once back in the audience chamber, Pilate leaned back against his desk, leaving Jesus standing in the center of the floor.

  “Are you the king of the Jews?” he said again.

  “Are you asking this for yourself? Or has someone else told you this concerning me?”

  Pilate was indignant at being queried by a prisoner and a common Jew at that. “Am I a Jew?” Pilate spat. “Your own people . . . the chief priest . . . brought you to me. Why? What have you done?”

  Peering past battered eyelids and speaking through cracked and split lips, Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight . . . but my kingdom is not from here.”

  Pilate was dumbfounded. Memories of healings—his own son and reports of hundreds of others, including bringing a dead man back to life—and his wife’s dream assaulted Pilate’s thoughts from every side. To give him time to clear his mind, he repeated, “Are you a king, then?”

  Lifting his chin, Jesus responded, “You speak rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I came into the world; that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.”

  Pushing himself up from the desk, Pilate walked over to the window and stared out at the morning. Tiberius was no more the son of a god than Augustus was a deity. Yet they ruled the Roman world with absolute authority, the godlike power of life and death. What if this man—the beaten, bloody, much-maligned Galilean—really did have the power of life and death?

  Unable to resolve the dilemma, Pilate mused aloud, “What is truth?”

  When Jesus did not reply, Pilate summoned Cassius and the guards and prepared to return to the courtyard.

  The courtyard below Pilate’s raised platform was full of onlookers. Marcus, still dressed as a commoner, stood with Josephus at the back of the throng, near the gate. Marcus tried to gauge the temper of the crowd.

  Nearest the platform were the high priest and his devoted followers, the elite of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin, and the wealthiest merchants. Closely ringing those were folk in poorer dress. Marcus judged them to be paid supporters of the high priest, since they didn’t speak or make any gestures without first looking at Caiaphas’s minions for instructions. And, Marcus noted, many of them possessed a freshly minted shiny silver coin. This was evident because several took the payment out of their clothing to admire it.

  There were precious few supporters of Jesus. Marcus saw none of the inner circle of twelve and not many others he recognized. Since Jesus was charged not only with blasphemy but also with treason, punishable by crucifixion, they were probably all in hiding.

  Among those closest to the stage were stirring. Some pointed toward the curtain that draped the entry to the palace. Something was happening.

  Pilate emerged first, followed by Jesus. Jesus, still bound, was led out with a soldier on either side. Clearing his throat before speaking, Pilate addressed the crowd. “I have questioned him, examining him thoroughly. Here is my conclusion—I find no fault in him at all.”

  Rumblings of discontent started with Caiaphas and then, encouraged by his subordinates, spread throug
hout the audience.

  “And!” Pilate said, then repeated himself more loudly in order to be heard over the crowd. “You have a custom, and as a gesture of my goodwill, that I release someone to you at Passover.” Flipping the tail of his toga across his arm so that the purple hem pointed at Jesus like the image of a darkly crimson lance, Pilate asked, “Do you want me to release the King of the Jews?”

  When Caiaphas shouted his reply, spittle flew through the air. “Not this man! Give us . . . bar Abba!”

  Speaking when he had not intended, Marcus cried out, “No!” He had spent years chasing the worst of the rebels, the notorious bar Abba. How could this be happening?

  No one heard his lone objection. “Bar Abba!” was the chant, encouraged by Joachim. “Give us bar Abba. Not this man. Free bar Abba!”

  Marcus was stunned. Josephus grabbed the centurion’s arm, expressing his distress as well. Would the mad hatred and envy of the high priest extend to letting a murderer go free rather than Jesus, the healer?

  Turning toward Jesus, Pilate regarded the silent man with consternation and confusion.

  Marcus willed Pilate to stand up to the mob. Surely the governor could see this was a huge miscarriage of justice. Surely even ambitious, arrogant Pilate could read the true motives behind the lies and the false witnesses. This demand to release bar Abba proved what an insane turn this affair had taken.

  Whispering in Josephus’s ear, Marcus said urgently, “This may be a good thing. They may have pushed too far, asking Pilate to release a man who has not only killed Romans and mercenaries but slit Jewish throats too. They’ve given him reason to resist them.”

  Josephus did not speak. The scholar’s tear-filled eyes regarded Marcus with worry and apprehension. “This man has no sense of justice . . . of right or wrong,” Josephus said, indicating Pilate. “He will be swayed by whichever wind blows the tale from here to Caesar’s ear.”

  His face imprinted with frustration and annoyance, as if he had bitten into a sour apple, Pilate announced, “I will take him and scourge him.”