Four Hearts, One Song - 4

The road had been a long one for Micah; glad he was to put it behind him. At this spot, he would lay down the weight that he had carried for so long. It was nothing more than a hill, but for him, it was the succor he had desired for what seemed an eternity. He thankfully fell to his knees, relishing the cool earth that yielded to him, coddling and caressing his aching muscles. The peace of this moment surpassed his expectations. With a groan, he let the beam of the cross slide from his shoulders.

The thud of the wood hitting the ground lightened his body and awakened his mind. He remembered now where he was and what he was doing. The malicious accusers behind him would not let him forget that. They hurled their insults and their anger at him as poisoned darts, their hateful faces contorting into grotesque shapes that would barely seem human to an observer. But to him, these were the faces that they always had, whether they were mocking him viciously or pleasantly greeting him like an old friend. This was how men were really. When the façade of charity and human kindness was taken away, the true face appeared and it was loathe to behold.

In some part of his heart, he had secretly feared this day’s coming. It must have been the condemned criminal in him. He could not deny that part of him, and it was ugly and cowardly. The other part of him, however, had longed to be caught, longed to be free from fear, longed to feel the harsh embrace of the cross. He stretched the length of his body along the beam, laying each arm out as far as he could. When the day had begun, the pain had been nearly unbearable. Still he could feel the bite of the lash across his back and the taste of sweat on the knuckles of the Roman guards was on his mouth.

He had always taken some amount of pride in knowing that he was a little different than the rest of the vagabonds he associated with. They were cruel and cold, thinking that the world owed them something for their suffering and it was their right to take by force what had been denied them by fate. He had never deluded himself with such idiotic notions. He did what his nature dictated because he was too weak to deny it. That was all. The truth of this had been with him since he was a boy. Pilfering from neighbors as a child, selling away someone else’s sheep for pocket change when he was a shepherd, it had all been so easy, so common. The descent to decay is often a pleasant trip. He might have changed the road he had begun to walk down had he ever bothered to look at his surrounding, but he never did. Save for that one night.

The terror of that night is what stuck with him the most. Naturally, he had feared the appearance of the angels as some sort of supernatural executors of the divine judgment of God for his wrongs. His three friends had nearly dragged him to the barn the angels indicated. Even then, he could have changed the momentum of his life, but the fear of reprisal drove away such hope. The compassionate eyes of that woman cradling her child had laid him bare, open to the attacks of the world. She saw everything that was in him, and he saw the fear that in her. But he was beyond redemption.

The convict’s wrists throbbed with pain and the familiar feel of warm blood trickled down his arms. He was hanging upright now, though he had not noticed the nails being driven into his wrists. The whole crowd stood before him now as a jury -- the verdict condemnation. The dejected criminal would make no plea for penance or forgiveness, knowing that he was well beyond hope of either. The pain started to push to the surface again, stifling him with aching spasms. He tried to concentrate on the world around him to block out the torture inside. He picked out several jeering voices, “What now Jesus? Hail the King of the Jews!” The name spoken startled him so badly that he lurched forward, straining his arms against the nails uselessly. It couldn’t be.

He realized now that two more men were being crucified alongside him. One man he recognized, an associate of his whose name escaped him. He was a murderer. The other was set slightly in front of him, giving him a view only of the back of the cross. The taunts of the crowd lessened over time, but the impact of their words accomplished more than they could have realized. The criminal gaped and gargled, laboring to see a face that was impossible to see. For the last few years, he had heard rumors of the prophet Jesus, and they had always reminded him of that night in the barn. But he could not fathom the idea of this man Jesus hanging on a cross alongside convicts.

Eventually, the other man joined in the flurry of insults raining down on Jesus, “Come on, Son of God! If you are so powerful, why not bring yourself down from there? Take me with you while you’re at it, I’m sure it would be no problem for you.” The first criminal began to feel his blood boil. The impertinence of such crudeness towards a holy man infuriated him. This was at least a decent man. This was a good teacher. This was a prophet. This -- the words of Mary returned to him out of the tender blue sky, “This is Jesus, he is the Savior of the world.”

In a voice that was not his own, then enraged convict denounced his jocular companion, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? We are judged justly, for we receive the due reward for our crimes, but this man has done nothing wrong.” The jester was thunderstruck a moment, then began to howl maniacally with laughter. It was unimportant. Turning from the lunatic, the man tilted his head and faced the back of the man in front of him. With stinging tears in his eyes, he spoke again, this time with a timidity and trembling that had hitherto never appeared in his voice, “Lord ... remember me when you come into heaven.”

It was a cry from his heart, a desperate plea hoping beyond reason, and despaired of as soon as spoken. There was no redemption for demons like him. There was only the licking, consuming fire of Hell. He hung his head, realizing now the pit of agony that awaited him. Suddenly, he was not eager to die. There would be no freedom in death, only the just and merciless payment for his deeds. He trembled. A rasping sound responded to his dejected heart from the direction of Jesus. The sound of it was as though from beyond the grave. He had never before heard anything so laden with torment. The frightful sound twisted and grew, formulating into shapes and colors before the convict’s eyes, each apparition more disquieting than the last. The shapes danced around him, coalescing into one horrifying form, the sound reaching a crescendo of abjection in sorrow that bore the accumulation of the whole of mankind’s suffering. The voice of Jesus pierced through all these ghastly phantasms, chasing them furiously away into the ether of the sky, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

Jesus said no more. No more needed to be said. The impossible gift had been given. Would he truly be able to receive it? Forgiveness? Salvation? They had always been more fanciful dreams to him. Now he could taste them and touch them, and he reveled in it. His eyes were blinded by his tears, but still he seemed to be able to see beyond his normal scope of vision. The face of Jesus loomed up before him, torn and battered ... and utterly flawless. The crowd was still there for the most part, but the hideous masks were gone and he finally saw what people truly looked like. And then he spotted someone, or to be more precise, three someones he had never anticipated seeing again. It was his friends that had dragged him that night to the barn and had each shared in that glimpse of truth to lost souls. They switched between gazing at Jesus and the convict. When their eyes met, an understanding was exchanged. After more than thirty years, they had all ultimately come to the same conclusion. Jesus, Savior of the world.

The voice of Jesus boomed in the stillness of his heart, “It is finished!” Ah yes, Micah, the redeemed convict, closed his eyes to the stupor invading his body. A smile crossed his blood-soaked face, so it is.