I followed him, waiting for him to slip up. I knew he wasn't who he said he was. I knew it couldn't be true. He lived on the edge of the Law. He bent everything I knew until I could no longer distinguish the black and white. Finally I saw my chance. It was perfect - it had to work. It could not fail. I knew where he would be. I brought the authorities there and yet he still defied the Law; still acted in that 'I-am-God' tone. I despised his attitude. I was disgusted with the way he carried himself. He spat in the face of everything I knew. He was a heretic and a popular heretic at that. He HAD to be stopped. I HATED him.
I felt smug as I watch the judge conduct his trial - there was nothing to be done - the populace was teetering on civil war over this man. It was noble justice that he should die. I grinned widely as I watched the authorities beat his face in - I would have helped if they'd let me in. I nearly threw up when I watching him walk out, but I wish they'd been able to press him closer to death. The bloody pulp of a heretical, treasonous traitor was then sent out to the gallows. If I hadn't been reminding myself that he was the lowliest scum of the earth, a treasonous radical against God, I would have felt pity for him.
I wanted them to kill the man who carried his bandage for him - to even touch his clothing would make a man in such filthy sin that all the lambs in the world would not save him.
As they inserted the nails into his arms and his wails began to ring out, I gritted my teeth. But I knew this was justice - he HAD to die. He was a blight upon the earth - the worst, dirtiest, filthiest most despicably sinful man ever to walk to the earth. I could literally see the rotten core of his being oozing out of his long, gaping wounds.
As they hauled his carcass up, seething with blood I felt a twinge of vindication. The sky began to darken and the rain began. I saw him crying, wailing, exhaling his spirit. I stood back - I didn't want any of his tainted breath to stain my cloak. Suddenly he looked down at me from atop his cross. Not just at me... INTO me. His eyes pierced my soul. I felt the sin inside and around him - every thought and dream the Satin had ever known was upon this man - the every sin of humankind, from the beginning to the end of time surrounded him, permeated him. His visage wreaked worse than a battlefield that turned to a cesspool in the rain. In an instant, I saw all these things in -me-. Had it flowed into me, tainting my insides, turning my once pure soul into an abomination almost as hideous as this man!? Every wrong thought, every wrong deed churned up in the tumult of that moment. Was there no hope!?
And then I realized as His eyes pierced my soul, turning it inside-out:
He -did- carry the sin of every person of every time. It was the most complete of injustices for Him for to die. But not in the way I would have imagined two minutes before.
He carried -my- sin. Everything. All. From every moment I failed to think of God, to every rape, murder, and theft I ever thought about.
It was injustice because all the lambs in the world could not pay for -my- sin, much less mankind's. It would take the only Perfect Being in the universe to empty his life-blood to cover the depth of my sin.
And He did. I fell to my knees in total and desperate awe, grief, and terror.
The last thought I had before the earth began to shake and I lost my consciousness was a wailing so loud my head could not contain it for forgiveness. Words cannot describe my experience there in the rain.
When I awoke, He was gone. The massive amounts of blood on His cross and at the foot of His cross made me vomit. I caused His death. HE DIED BECAUSE I DOOMED HIM THERE.
I KILLED MY GOD. I picked myself up and returned to the city. Everything was in a gloomy light. All the faces were smiling, knowing, as I had, that we had enacted
justice. A crier in the town rushed by me screaming that the curtain in the tabernacle had been torn in two. The crowds became hysterical. Everyone thought the world would end - and so did I. After-all, we had just killed God.
A few days later, I heard a whisper that he was still alive. I wept for joy. I avidly sought Him out, asking everyone I saw about news.
After many days of nothing, I gave up. I sat in an alley and cried myself to sleep. I awoke to see man with brutal and ugly scares on his wrists. My heart leaped into my throat - all my sorrow and fear imploded in that instant - not even my wish to apologize and ask desperately for forgiveness could be thought, much less said. I understood. And so did He. I murdered Him in hate. Yet He had
risen. And
He had risen in love... love for mankind. Love for
me.
