After the earthquake
and you got up off your knees, Centurion,
as your men remembered who they were --
soldiers, and not frightened children, and took their places back --
did you look long and hard
on that limp, empty body hanging there on the cross,
battered and beaten at the hands of your men,
and think about the stories about him you had heard?
Had it bothered you as the day wore on,
the impassioned politics of this day screaming for blood,
winding about their strange God in this strange land,
in ways you didn't quite understand?
But you had seen the amount of hate he had generated
in the shallow, grasping power plays
by men who would spit on you if they thought you weren't looking.
Jerusalem,
a city smoldering with tension
as the festival peaked,
threatening to blow up in a conflagration -
and as he hung there like a blood sacrifice designed to appease something unseeable,
did it dawn on you that you and your men were the tools
in the hand of forces beyond your vision,
that painful march from palace to execution site
a dark lustral procession
with you as master of ceremonies?
Such a day.
Standing there, transfixed by his dead gaze,
the blood-streaked face,
the blood-wetted hair
as you looked up into a face touched with no anger, no hate,
but a weary bloodied acceptance,
and a certain, strange peace as in a job well done.
After it all,
after the mockery and the forgiveness,
after the darkness,
after the last drawn out cry,
after the earthquake,
you no longer questioned -
you knew that you had been touched by the hand of Heaven.
.
"Surely this man,
this righteous man
was the son of God."
you said loud enough to be heard.
Would you have been amazed to know
how long those words have been remembered?
KAC
How hard that final rise was,
Step by step up the hill,
how hard you had to cling to life,
how hard you had to cling to consciousness,
hard hard each breath,
each jarring step.
Even with Simeon carrying your cross,
the ground came swoop up,
and you tasted the dust,
felt the pavement one last time,
falling one last time
to panic the centurion
into thinking you would die
before they could kill you..
Only your burning love
burning like an eternal flame
echoing down the ages
stood you up that last time,
pushing away
the effects of shock,
and dehydration
and beating,
to crest the hill
for your final glorification.