Yochanan
I ran and hid till morning.
Shortly after dawn I met Shimon on his way out of Jerusalem. He was in great distress.
“I—he—it happened just like he said,” he said, and flung his arms around me.
“Shimon, what’s happened? Are you running away?”
“Yeshua, he—he told me that I would deny him three times before morning.”
I remembered what he was talking about. During supper Yeshua had told us that he was going where we couldn’t follow. Shimon had protested that he would never abandon him, and Yeshua had prophesied.
“I followed them, bar-Kepha and that rat Yudah and the rest, to bar-Kepha’s courtyard. Someone asked me if I was one of Yeshua’s disciples. I wanted to stand up for him, protest his innocence, but they would have killed me, Yochanan. So I told them—I told them, no, not me. Then they asked me again, when I was warming myself by the fire, and I denied him again, but they didn’t believe me, so I repeated myself. Then the cock crowed and I remembered. I betrayed him, Yochanan. I—I’m no better than that bastard Yudah.”
“Shimon,” I said, “none of us is perfect. If Yeshua were here, he would tell you that God is gracious, and to pray for forgiveness. It could have been any one of us: if we don’t lie low now they will kill us like I fear they will him.”
Shimon said nothing, and I watched him walk into the distance. I sat there by the road for a long while. Maryam found me in the late morning.
“They’ve sentenced him,” she said. “He’s to be crucified.”
“What do we do?” I asked. “What can we do now?”
“There is nothing we can do to save him,” she said. “All we can do is go to the place where they will do it and pray for him.”
We sat, not looking at each other, for a long time.
A jeering sound came from the direction of the city, slowly getting louder, and we saw Yeshua walking in front of two other condemned prisoners, and a large crowd behind them.
Even with the heavy burden of a cross, and a crown of thorns that the guards had put on his head cutting into his brow, with the crowd shouting mocking insults, he still had the same quiet dignity. His forehead ran with blood, running in rivulets down his cheeks. My eyes filled with tears. We joined the grim procession, walking beside him, no longer caring who saw us.
A short while later, Yeshua stumbled under the weight of the cross and fell to the ground. I made to help him, but a soldier brushed me aside and picked him roughly up.
Ahead of us was a face I recognized: Maryam bat-Yoaqim, Yeshua’s mother. She ran to him and seized his hands. I tried to imagine what it must be like for her to lose her son like this. She joined us walking with him.
Two people fought their way to the front of the crowd. I recognized them as being among those who had travelled with us near the beginning of our mission. The man picked up the end of Yeshua’s cross. The soldiers conferred to one another, but did not stop him. The woman wiped his face with a fine linen cloth.
Yeshua fell again, his face in the dust. He grimaced, and this time picked himself up without the soldiers’ help. We walked on, until, exhausted and afraid, he fell again and lay prone on the ground. The soldiers shouted at him to get up.
At last we reached the place which is called the Place of the Skull. Yeshua’s clothes were taken from him and we watched, grief-stricken, as he was nailed to the cross. His cross was raised between the other two condemned, and we sat on the ground at the foot of the cross, praying with him.
“Woman,” he said to his mother, “behold your son.” At first I thought he was talking about himself, but I soon realized he meant me, that I should take care of her when he was gone. To me, he said, “Behold your mother.” I swore that I would do all I could for her.
Yeshua’s torture lasted for hours. It tore me up to watch him, but I could not look away. Finally, in the middle of the afternoon, he gave a loud cry. The crowds watching misheard him, or misunderstood him on purpose. They said he was calling for Eliyah, but we heard what he said.
God help us, we heard him.
Beauty from Chaos 