GOOD FRIDAY

GOOD FRIDAY

 

The sun rose higher in the clear April sky and now it was near to noon. The contest between the lax defender and the furious assailants had wasted most of the morning, and there was no time to lose. According to Mosaic Law, the bodies of executed criminals could not remain after sunset on the place of punishment, and April days are not as long as June days.

Moreover, Caiaphas, re-enforced though he was by so many furiously enraged partisans, could not draw a tranquil breath until the Vagabond's feet were forever halted, fastened with iron nails on the cross. He remembered how, a few days before, Jesus had entered the city surrounded with waving branches and joyful hymns. He was sure of the city itself, but at this period it was full of provincials come from everywhere, who had not the same interests and the same passions as the clientele dependent on the Temple. Those Galileans especially, who had followed Him until now, who loved Him, might make some effort at resistance and put off, even if they did not actually prevent, the real prescribed offering of that day.

Pilate, too, was in haste to have that troublesome, innocent man taken away. He did not wish to think of Him again. He hoped that he would forget after His death that look, those words and, above all, his own corroding uneasiness, so painfully like remorse. Although he had washed and dried his hands, that man in His silence, it seemed to him, was sentencing him to a penalty worse than death itself. Before that scourged man, at the point of death, he felt himself the guilty one. To vent his uneasiness on those who really caused it, he dictated the wording of the title or superscription, which the condemned man was to wear about His neck until it was fastened above His head at the top of the cross, as follows: "Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews." (Luke 23:38) The Scribe wrote these words three times in three languages in clear, red letters on the white wood.

The leaders of the Jews, who had remained there, craning their necks, to hasten the preparations, read this sarcastic inscription and protested. They said to Pilate, "Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews."

But the Procurator cut them short with a dry brevity: "What I have written I have written." (John 19:22)

These are the last words recorded of him, and the most profound! I am forced to make you a present of the life of this man, but I do not deny what I have said. Jesus is a Nazarene, which means also, saint. And He is your King, the wretched King who fits your wretchedness. I wish all men to know how your ill-born race treats saints and kings. It is for this I have written these words in Latin and Greek as well as in Hebrew. And now be off, for I have endured you long enough, "Quod scripsi, scripsi."

In the meantime the soldiers had put back on the King His poor man's garments and had tied the notice about His neck.

Others had brought out from the storerooms three massive crosses of pine, the nails, the hammer and the pincers. The escort was ready. Pilate pronounced the usual formula: "I lictor, expedi crucem." And the sinister procession moved forward.

The Centurion rode at the head, he whom Tacitus calls with terrible brevity, "exactor mortis." Immediately after him came, in the midst of the armed legionaries, Jesus and the two thieves who were to be crucified with Him. Each of them carried a cross on his shoulders, according to the Roman rule.

And behind them, the shuffling steps and the uproar of the excited crowd, increased at every step by accomplices and idle sight-seers.

It was Parasceve, the day of preparations, the last night before the Passover. Thousands of lambs' skins were stretched out on the sunlit roofs; and from every house rose a column of smoke, delicate as a flower-bud, which opened out in the air and then was lost in the clear, festal sky. Old women with malignant faces, mumbling anathemas, emerged from the dark alley-ways; dirty-faced little children trotted along with bundles under their arms; bearded men carried on their shoulders a kid or a cask of wine; drovers were dragging along donkeys with hanging heads; children stared with impudent and melancholy eyes at the foreigners who were walking about circumspectly, impeded by this festal bustling. In every home the house-mother was busy, preparing everything needful for the next day, because with the setting of the sun everyone was exempt for twenty-four hours from the curse of Adam. The lambs, skinned and quartered, were all ready for the fire; the loaves of unleavened bread were piled up fresh from the oven; men were decanting the wine, and the children to lend a hand somewhere were cleaning the bitter herbs.

There was no one idle, no one whose heart was not rejoicing at the thought of that festal day of repose, when all families would be gathered about the father, when they would eat in peace and drink the wine of Thanksgiving from the same cup; and God would be witness of this cheer because the psalms of the grateful would go up to Him from every house. On that day even the poor felt themselves almost rich; and the rich, because of their unusual profits, felt themselves almost generous; and children whose hopes had not yet been dashed by experience of life felt themselves more loving; and women more loved.

Everywhere there was that peaceful confusion, that good-natured tumult, that joyous bustle which goes before a great, popular feast-day. An odor of hope and of spring purified the old filth of the Jewish ant-heap. And the great eastern sun sent down a flood of light upon the four Hills.