It is, again, what many Christians call “Holy Week.” That world changing week that began with a triumphant, regal procession and ended with a tragic, horrific execution.
For the fourth consecutive year I’ve relived those iconoclastic days with a most gifted writer, Walter Wangerin, Jr. He tells their story in riveting detail on the pages of a book titled, Reliving the Passion. And year-after-year my heart has been deeply moved by his words. Often, in the daily Lenten readings that comprise the book, Wangerin recalls events through the eyes, and minds, but especially through the hearts of people who were there. This year I was especially moved by the experience of the Centurion charged with Jesus execution.
A consummate soldier, as Wangerin so skillfully reminds us, this Officer carries out his duty with precision and dispatch. He could have felt this day’s assignment was beneath him. “Under other circumstances,” Wangerin writes, “this Centurion commands a hundred fighting men, not four at a quick execution. He ranks with sixty brother-Centurions in a legion of six thousand troops. He stands nowhere near the top of that brotherhood, but he isn’t a grunt, he isn’t the boy at the bottom.” He is, though, a Roman Officer. Among the finest warriors of the Super Power of his day he always did what had to be done; he did it unwaveringly; he did it by the book; with skill. On assignments across Rome’s vast Empire he lead men on “forced marches down stone roads,” out-front or alongside; bringing out the best in them when they had, they thought, nothing more to give. He inspired courage in men even when they knew they were going to their death. He saw them die. He knew the sounds and smells of death. Some had begged him to “put them out of their misery.” “‘Kill me, kill me, kill me – ’ And he answered more than a few … The sword can honor a dying man. A dying soldier. Not a criminal.” This was a battle toughened, grizzled veteran. Nothing was beyond or beneath him. “And so he has lingered through a truly terrifying storm, a blackness three hours long, here on a hill, exposed to the wind’s lash.” Standing watch on this another soldier’s day; observing one more crucifixion; things are seeming not quite ordinary. This storm has been like no other; almost cosmic in its magnitude and intensity. And the darkness; blacker than any night he’d lived through. But this man Jesus. He’s different. Who is he? “Whereas his companions have begun shivering and crying in the cold, till now he has held his peace. One curses. One weeps. Common responses. The man in the middle – Jesus – flares his nostrils and groans.” Men dieing on crosses break. He’s not breaking. But then, “just in the last minutes, he breathed deeply, he swelled his chest and bellowed a horse word: ‘Eloi, Eloi – ” the Officer can’t make it out. It’s a different language. But it’s more what he expects. They’re all the same. Oh some are stronger than others. Jesus of Nazareth is a strong one. But he, too, has broken. It’s just a matter of time –
“WHAT WAS THAT?!”
“A LOUD SHOUT! Phone megale! WHAT? … This is not what the Centurion expects! It’s a cry he has heard before, to be sure – but never in defeat and never, never in death … This is a cry of triumph!
The Centurion whirls ‘round to see Jesus: he see eyes like fiery darts in the darkness; he sees a mouth thin and thin, as thin as the blade of a sword, grinning!”
“Then suddenly, he dies … suddenly! That’s what rivets the Centurion. It is as if this man chose to go fully conscious straight to the wall of death, and then to strike it with all his might and, in the striking die. Aware of absolutely everything. … how can a crucified criminal act so convincingly like the victor?!”
Because He is!
Because there, in that darkest of all moments, the greatest of all conquests was “FINISHED!” The cosmic battle against death and all its futile threats has been won. Satan, sin, death – defanged, empty, defeated: not as you pretended “mighty and dreadful.”
At that same moment “the veil of the temple was torn, from top to bottom and separated.” We are no longer banished from the presence of God. We can approach Him now. And His “seat” is “mercy!”
Oh Jesus! THANK YOU!
