Fishers of Men

by Gerald N. Lund

  Annas flushed a little but went on. “By our law, it is unlawful to leave a dead man unburied on the Sabbath.”

  The governor offered them a thin smile. “Then we’re all right. Jesus won’t be dead until day after tomorrow.”

  Mordechai hid his irritation. Pilate was being intractable and enjoying it. “Even if they have not died, it would be a violation of our law to leave them suffering on a holy day.”

  Pilate laughed right out loud. “Oh, that’s right. Now that you’ve put this man to death, you can’t pollute yourselves by having him hang on the cross on a holy day.” He shook his head in open contempt. But before they could respond, he snapped his fingers. “Scribe!”

  A man darted in with a sheet of papyrus, quill pen, and small jar of ink. “Take an order for Tribune Didius.”

  The man sat down at the small table, dipped the pen, then poised it over the paper.

  “Tribune Marcus Didius. By order of His Excellency the Governor, the prisoners are not to be left on their crosses after sundown. See to it that they are dead before that time.”

  He snapped his fingers again, and the man picked up his things and beat a hasty retreat.

  “You have your order. Now go.”

  “Excellency?”

  But before Azariah could do any more damage, Mordechai grabbed his arm and dragged him away. “Thank you, Excellency,” he called back.

  VI

  It was not even ten minutes later before Pilate’s chief servant was again back at the door. “Sire?”

  “Yes, yes,” he snapped irritably. “What is it now?”

  “There’s a member of the Great Council asking to see you, Excellency.”

  “Again?” He slammed down his fist against the table. “I’m tired of those fools.”

  “This is one that has not been here before,” the man said nervously. When the governor started into one of his tempers, it was best to walk carefully.

  That stopped Pilate. “Oh?”

  “He says his name is Joseph of Arimathea, sire.”

  VII

  Golgotha

  Centurion Sextus Rubrius sat on the ground a few feet away from the center cross. His knees were up, his arms folded on them, and his head lay on his arms. The gravel beneath him stung through his tunic, making him very uncomfortable. He was barely aware of it. Time seemed suspended. It felt as if he had been stuck in this dreary place of death for days, and not just hours. The thought of staying there until the prisoners died was almost more than he could bear.

  He heard a soft moan, only barely discernible over the sound of the wind. Sextus straightened, looking up. Jesus had gone rigid. His legs twisted to one side to give him leverage, and his body arched upward. His chest rose and fell in great heaves. The pain must be excruciating.

  Sextus leaped to his feet and took a step closer. What was he doing? Was he even conscious? Then he saw Jesus’ eyes. They were huge and staring upward into the angry clouds. Sextus jumped back as a great cry was torn from the Galilean’s lips. “Eloi! Eloi! Lama sabachthani!”

  The nearest of the guards came running over. “What did he say?”

  Sextus could not take his eyes away from Jesus’ face. It was transfixed, looking up into the heavens.

  The guard leaned forward. “What did he say?”

  “‘My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?”

  “Ha!” another man said with great relief. “If his God has abandoned him, then he can’t be some great magician like everyone says.”

  Sextus didn’t deem that worthy of a reply. He turned as some of the onlookers came up. “He called for Elias,” one of the men exclaimed. “He’s delirious. He needs something to drink,” said another.

  “Leave him alone,” cried a third. “Let’s see if Elias will come and save him.”

  Sextus was still looking at Jesus. Suddenly Jesus’ head slumped to his chest, and his body sagged down again. “I thirst,” he said in a muffled voice.

  “Get me a sponge,” Sextus commanded. Even as he barked out the command, he darted to where the soldiers had a jar of sour wine. He looked around, then saw a stalk of hyssop lying beside the other things. He snatched it up as the soldier brought a sponge and handed it to him. Thrusting the sponge onto the end of the hyssop stalk, Sextus plunged it into the jar of wine, bracing himself against the wind. Carefully, he extended the sponge until it touched Jesus’ lips, now cracked and bleeding. The eyes opened in surprise, then closed again gratefully as he opened his mouth and sucked hungrily on the liquid-soaked sponge.

  After a moment, he turned his head away. Sextus waited, the sponge just inches away from Jesus’ mouth, but he didn’t open his eyes again.

  Finally, after a full minute, Sextus turned back around. To his surprise, David ben Joseph was there waiting for him. “Thank you, Sextus.”

  Sextus nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Then, as the two of them stood awkwardly together, Jesus lifted his head, his eyes again looking toward the sky. “Father.” It came out from a depth of weariness unlike anything either of these men had heard in a lifetime. “Into thy hands, I commend my spirit.”

  The head slowly began to lower, the eyes closing again. A great shudder ran through his body. Then, in one final sigh, Jesus spoke his last three words in mortality: “It is finished.”

  The chin dropped onto the bare chest. The body went limp, pulling against the nails in the hands and wrists. The face gradually relaxed, the lines of pain smoothing out.

  And then David could see no more through the sudden blur of tears that swept up like a flood from deep within his soul.

  VIII

  Sextus turned in surprise when he saw two of his soldiers spring to attention and slap their arms up in salute. When he saw the reason for their salute, he got an even greater surprise. Marcus was standing there, weaving back and forth as the wind, which was howling around them now, tore at his uniform.

  “Sire?” Sextus exclaimed.

  “I have received two orders from the governor.” His tongue was thick, and he was clearly struggling to make himself coherent.

  “What kind of orders?”

  “First, Pilate has granted permission to a man named Joseph of Arimathea to take the body of Jesus and bury it.”

  Sextus was both surprised and relieved at that. “Very good, sire. And the second order?”

  “Pilate wants the prisoners dead before sundown.”

  “Pardon, sire?”

  “You heard me!” Marcus screamed at him. “Break their legs.” He spun around and strode to where a legionnaire was holding his horse. “The matter here is done,” he called back over his shoulder. “I’m going back to the Praetorium. See to it, Sextus.”

  Sextus was too flabbergasted to even respond. He watched silently as Marcus galloped away, then finally turned to his men. At the sight of their commander, they had gathered around to await their orders. Sextus took a deep breath, then looked at his senior noncommissioned officer. “You heard him. You know what to do.”

  The nails driven through the wrists of those crucified pierced the great medial nerves that ran up the arms. This caused such intense pain that the muscles of the upper torso would begin to violently constrict. This, in turn, squeezed the lungs until the victim began to suffocate. To ease that pressure, horrible as it was, the person being crucified could stand on the nail in his feet enough that he could rest himself on the small seat for a time. When the pain became unbearable, he would slump down, and the cycle would begin all over again.

  Thus the life of the victim would be preserved through many hours, even days, of inconceivable pain.

  But with their usual careful attention to the art of suffering, the Romans had also devised a way to hasten death when it was required. Near the place of execution, they kept a long piece of rough oak with a handle carved on one end to provide a grip. The man in charge of the execution walked swiftly to where the mallet and spikes lay on the ground. He found the oak club and hefted it expertly. Then, without waiting
for a further signal, he walked to the first Zealot. Without so much as a glance upward, he swung the club, striking the man’s legs squarely across the shins. There was a dull thud, then a terrible scream. The man’s body dropped sharply now that he could no longer support himself. Death would come in minutes.

  The second rebel was dispatched with equal swiftness. When the man approached the center cross, however, Sextus stepped forward. “He’s already dead,” he said.

  The man shot him an incredulous look. Was he somehow trying to protect the man? These criminals had been on the cross only about three hours. Already dead? Not a chance.

  Not asking permission, the soldier jerked the spear from the nearest legionnaire’s hand, and with one swift movement thrust the point upward into Jesus’ side. The point, sharpened to the fineness of a keen dagger, buried itself a full hand span into the prisoner’s chest. There was no response. No cry of pain, no violent jerking of the body. Astonished, the man yanked the spear out again. A mixture of blood and water poured out as Jesus’ followers stared in horror at what had just happened.

  Sextus had started forward when he realized what his man was about to do, but he had not been swift enough. He stepped back, his face gray. “I told you he was dead.” He swung around. “All right, get them down from there. Someone get the pinchers so we can pull those nails.”

  As they sprang into motion, Sextus turned to see what had happened to David ben Joseph. He had returned to his position with the others. Their faces looked like spectral spirits as they gaped at the Romans. In a day of one staggering emotional blow after another, here was yet another bitter and terrible act, and their faces showed it.

  Well, it was done with. Never had he been so glad to see an assignment finished. He would—

  A cry was ripped from his throat as Sextus was suddenly thrown off his feet and slammed to the ground. Pain shot through his arm and the side of his face as he hit the gravel hard. Dumbfounded, thinking he had been struck from behind, he started to get up. He shook his head, faintly aware that all around him people were screaming. But as he got to his knees, the earth beneath him bucked like a wild horse. He bounced once, then went down hard again. He rolled over, gasping with the pain. He saw that he had scraped a two-inch patch of flesh off his elbow. He touched his cheek with his fingers, and they came away red.

  Coughing violently, Sextus pawed at his nostrils, trying to clear them to breathe. Dust was everywhere—thick, choking, blinding dust. He covered his mouth, fighting for breath. He got to his knees, looking around wildly, trying to maintain his balance on the undulating earth. In quick succession, his mind registered the images that were all around him. The ladder he had been on just minutes before toppled sideways and crashed to the ground. It didn’t lay still, however. It continued to bounce up and down as though it were possessed by something alive. Two of his legionnaires were clinging desperately to each other as they swayed crazily back and forth, as though they were on the deck of a ship in a violent storm. One of them screamed as he was torn loose from his companion and hurled to the ground. Somewhere behind Sextus a tremendous crack sounded, as though some gigantic wine jar had split in two. He turned and saw a fissure the width of his hand snaking away from him. At the same time, a thunderous roar sounded all around him, like a thousand chariots bearing down. The earth bucked and heaved and trembled like a tortured monster trying to break free.

  Later, he would try to calculate exactly how long it lasted and conclude it probably was no more than a minute. But while it lasted it seemed like an eternity.

  Finally, the earth subsided. The groaning softened; the trembling steadied. With a start, Sextus felt something wet on his face, then realized the heavens had unleashed a slashing, driving rain. It was almost as dark as night, so thick were the clouds overhead. In seconds, the air was cleared of dust, and the ground turned into a quagmire. Sextus got unsteadily to his feet. Lightning was flashing almost continuously. The thunderclaps were so violent he could feel his eardrums compress with the concussion.

  For a long moment, Sextus stood there, heart pounding, gasping for breath, feet spread wide apart, hair plastered to his head, water streaming off his face into his suit of armor. Slowly, so filled with awe that he felt he could barely breathe, he turned and looked up into the face of Jesus of Nazareth. The eyes were closed in repose; the face had found peace at last.

  And then the grizzled veteran of nearly thirty years of army service slowly sank to his knees. He bowed his head. “Truly,” he whispered, “truly this man was the Son of God.”

  Chapter Notes

  In 1968 archaeologists found the bones of a crucified man at Giv’at ha-Mivtar, a Jewish settlement just north of Jerusalem. These belonged to a man about twenty-six years old and were dated to the time of Christ. The shin bones had been broken, and a spike was actually still affixed to both heel bones. The lower end of one of the bones in the arm showed the marks of a nail at what would have been the wrist. This confirmed in a dramatic way what was known from other sources, namely, that the description of the crucifixion as given by the Gospel writers is accurate. It is later writers and artists who have assumed that the nails were put in the palms only and not through the wrists (see Connolly, p. 51; Edwards, pp. 1458–62).

  The author debated about how much detail to give on the crucifixion. It was gruesome and horrible, a fiendish way to die. Yet the Gospel writers did not pass over it lightly to spare us the horror. In our secular, modern world, some skeptics have suggested that Jesus didn’t really die on the cross, that he was drugged in order to endure the terrible pain. When the disciples took him down, these detractors say, Jesus was still alive. The disciples nursed him back to health and then presented him to the world as the “resurrected Christ.”

  Partly to show how utterly fantastic such a hypothesis is, and also to help the reader better appreciate the terrible price paid by the Savior for all mankind, the author concluded that there was value in describing what crucifixion was actually like.

  The King James Version of the Bible says that Jesus was given vinegar to drink, which seems odd to modern readers. It was likely a sour wine.

  Also, it seems odd that if the two thieves crucified with Jesus were Zealots, as suggested in the novel, that the one would say that they were being executed justly. However, the author sees two possibilities: (1) He was simply saying that they were being crucified for actual acts they had committed, whereas Jesus was not; (2) That facing death, he wondered if their violent life had been justified after all. The Romans viewed the Zealots as lestai—bandits or criminals—and indeed, the Zealots felt that they should use any means at their disposal, including violence, theft, or murder, to bring to pass God’s will.

  Obviously, Sextus Rubrius is a fictional character in the novel, and there is nothing in the scriptures to suggest that the centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant in Capernaum was the same as the centurion at the cross. But it is recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke that the centurion at the cross, after experiencing all that had happened, declared Jesus to be the Son of God.

  John is the only one who records Jesus’ admonition from the cross for him (John always refers to himself in the third person in his Gospel) to take Mary and care for her. John then adds, “And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home” (John 19:27). One very ancient tradition states that Mary died in Ephesus some thirty years later while still living with John (Fallows, 2:1124).

  John is also the only Gospel writer who gives an account of the spear thrust into Jesus’ side and the resulting blood and water that came from the wound (John 19:34). Evidently this was not just a minor detail in his mind, for after describing what happened, John states: “And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe” (John 19:35; emphasis added). What was it about the blood and water that caused John to bear such a solemn witness of it?

  One medical expert noted the following: “The Greek word (pleura) used
by John clearly denoted laterality and often implied the ribs. . . . The water probably represented serous pleural and pericardial fluid . . . [signifying] acute heart failure. . . . Jesus’ death after only three to six hours on the cross surprised even Pontius Pilate. The fact that Jesus cried out in a loud voice and then bowed his head and died suggests the possibility of a catastrophic terminal event. One popular explanation has been that Jesus died of cardiac rupture” (Edwards, pp. 1462–63).

  The Psalmist, under the power of inspiration, wrote: “Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none” (Psalm 69:20; italics added). Thus, though the form of death, crucifixion, fulfilled one set of prophecies about the Redeemer, how he actually died fulfilled another. It appears as though Jesus literally died of a broken heart.

  Chapter 36

  A man in his wickedness kills another, but he cannot bring back the departed spirit, nor set free the imprisoned soul.

  —Wisdom of Solomon, 16:14

  I

  Bethlehem 5 April, a.d. 33

  In the house of Benjamin the Shepherd, on the hillside overlooking the fields of Bethlehem, the Sabbath day passed with infinite slowness. The family had barely made it back to Bethlehem before sundown the night before. With unspoken consent, they had bypassed the traditional Sabbath day ritual, where the holy day was welcomed like a visiting queen. They had no desire for food. Each couple retired immediately to their assigned sleeping spaces and tried to work through the grief that hung like a great lead weight on their hearts. By full dark, the house was quiet except for the occasional sound of weeping coming from within the house.

  It was late into the night when the family members finally fell into an exhausted, troubled sleep, and the sun was fully up when they finally gathered for a cold breakfast. Since it was the Sabbath, no fires could be kindled. Little was said. Recounting the events of the day before would only bring back the horror with unbearable sharpness. No one was ready for that yet.