The guards were selected by drawing lots from the local brigade.  The lots fell on Antonius and Valerius to take the watch from the ninth hour (about six pm) until daybreak.  The intense electrical storm had passed through the area an hour before but gathering clouds left a pattern of light and dark on the crowd as they headed to their homes for Sabbath celebrations.

Greetings.  My name is Antonius.  I come from the borders of the empire in Gaul.  I will serve with you tonight.

Greetings Antonius.  I am Valerius.  This has been a busy week with all the crowds here, the criminals, even a woman giving birth on the Temple steps.

I am glad to get this extra work tonight.  My son at home is sick.  The Legion no longer pays for physicians for our families so I need extra money to send home.  Were you present for this last crucifixion?

Yes, and this was the strangest event I have ever seen in my life.  The Centurion who commanded the crucifixion broke down at the end.  I have seen these guys lose their family in battle.  I have seen them lose fingers and even hands all without flinching or expression.  Yet when this Yeshua character finally died and the earthquake hit with lightning flashing all around, that battle hardened Centurion broke down getting down on his knees weeping and wailing that we had killed the son of a god.

I saw the same thing and wondered why he would want to get himself in trouble that way.  After all, the emperor declares that he is the only Lord and Savior of us while the Jews maintain their god is the only god.  That Centurion is going to get himself in a heap of trouble with one or both of those groups.

What do you think about all the miracle stories circulating around this Yeshua guy?  Do you think they really happened?  Was he a magician?

You know Yeshua has a lot of competition.  Another guy here in Jerusalem named Hanina Ben Dosa performed a lot of miracles too, but he was never able to raise the dead like Yeshua could.

I had some friends in Bethany who told me about Lazarus coming out of the tomb all wrapped in bandages.  The tomb reeked of death when they rolled the stone away and everybody laughed at Yeshua.  He looked like an idiot standing there telling Lazarus to come out.  But the joke was on us when Lazarus, still bandaged and smelling like a dead man, came out of that tomb.  The children ran to their mothers scared to death.

[yawning]  I’ve got to stay awake.  Even after a long week the High Priest told us that we must be able to testify that we were awake at guard all night and that no one disturbed the tomb or the body.

Well I could understand how you could stage the thing for Lazarus.  It wouldn’t be pleasant spending three days in a dark tomb wrapped in burial strips with a dead antelope in there for the smell effect, but how did Yeshua get across the lake that time?  Everyone saw his disciples leave in the boat.  Ten miles across the lake they saw the boat land and Yeshua was with them?  I just don’t understand how he did that!

I’ve seen hundreds of crucifixions.  After a while you can really tell the character of a man hung up there on a cross hour after hour.  It’s too bad the good ones die with the bad.

What do you mean by that?

The worst ones are the ones who protest their innocence to the end.  They get nasty as the pain gets worse.  They curse everyone.  They spit.  Their behavior gets so bad you know they are up there for a good reason.
Then there are the ones put up there for political reasons or so the governor can make an example of them.  They suck it up and die a noble death.  It’s almost like they want to show the governor that they are better than he is  [whispering] (and maybe they are).

The sunlight fades and dark purple clouds seem to descend even lower, enveloping the city of gold in a haze.

[pause] But this Jeshua fellow was different than any of them.  I’ve never seen anyone flogged as badly as him, yet he never cried out.  He took that pain and made centurions look like babies.  He just kept looking ahead right at me, almost like he felt sorry for me.

Usually they’re not beaten as badly so they can suffer even longer on the cross.  I saw one guy who took four days to die.  But with this being the Sabbath and Passover, the priests wanted him dead and off the cross before sundown.But the strangest thing happened to me when I was helping get his body off the cross.  We laid the cross back on the ground.  I Pulled the nails out and I grabbed his arms at the elbows to carry him.  He wasn’t dead, I swear to you.  He opened his eyes, looked at me for a moment, and while he exhaled one more time, I heard him say the word “mercy” to me.  I looked at him for I don’t know how long until the commander barked at us to get moving.

You must have had a hard week.  No one survives a flogging, a crucifixion, a spearing, and removal from the cross.  Are you sure you’re OK?

These men had spilled the blood of many others in close up hand to hand combat.  They had witnessed hundreds of deaths.  This one was different.

You know it wasn’t right what we did.

What?

We let a good man die because of a crazy mob whipped up by the priests.  Even Pilate didn’t want him executed.

I don’t know.  I feel different now.  I used to think I would stay in the Legion forever, but now I am going to do something different when I finish my duty.  I can’t get this guy out of my head.  The way he looked at me with no pain or anger in his face, only sadness, even pity.  And then he said “God have mercy on you.”  I just feel different now.

We all did it.  We all crucified him; the mob, the priests, Pilate, the soldiers, the women, all of us.  And then he looked at us and for one instant we understood the truth about ourselves.  And now …