Jesus had taught what men should know; but how many knew it? Even His own Disciples, the only ones to know that Jesus was Christ, had been overcome by the fear of losing this last remnant of their lives; even as they fled away, they had shown that they did not know what they did. And even more ignorant of what they really did were the Pharisees, fearful of losing their preëminence; the Doctors, fearful of losing their privileges; the rich, fearful of losing their money; Pilate, fearful of losing his office; and most ignorant of all were the Jews, misled by their leaders, and the soldiers obedient to orders. None of them knew who Christ was and what He came to do, and why He was killed. Some of them were to know it, but afterwards, and they came to know it only through the intercession of the Man whom they were killing.
Now, at the point of death, He had confirmed His most difficult and divine teaching, “Love for enemies,” and He could now hold out His hands to the hammer. The crosses had been raised; now they were piling stones about them to steady them under the weight, and were filling the holes with earth, stamping it down with their feet.
The women of Jerusalem approached the condemned Man with a pitcher. It contained a mixture of wine, incense and myrrh, which the executioners, out of the goodness of their hearts, imagined would dull consciousness. Those very people who were making Him suffer pretended as a last insult that they had mercy on that suffering, and by reducing it by the merest trifle they thought they had the greater right to demand that the rest of the cup of suffering be drained. But Jesus, as soon as He had tasted this mixture, bitter as gall, pushed it away. He would have accepted a single word in place of the wine, but the only one on that day who could find the word to say was one of the thieves whom they had dragged up to the place of the skull with Him.
The incense and the myrrh which they offered Him on that day were not perfumed like that incense and myrrh brought to Him in the stable by the Wise Men from the distant Orient. And in place of the gold which had lighted the dingy darkness of the stable, there was the iron of the nails, gray now, waiting to be reddened. And that wine which seemed poisoned so bitter was it, was not the genial nuptial wine of Cana, nor that which He had drunk the evening before, warm and dark as blood dripping from a wound.
FOUR NAILS
On the top of the hill of the Skull the three crosses, tall, dark, with outspread beams like giants with outstretched arms, stood out against the great sweep of the sweet spring sky. They threw no shadow, but they were outlined by brilliant reflections from the sun. The beauty of the world on that day in that hour was so great that tortures were unthinkable; could they not, those wooden branches, blossom out with field flowers, and be wreathed with garlands of tender green, hiding the scaffold with verdure, in the shade of which reconciled and friendly brothers might sit down?
But the Priests, the Scribes, the Pharisees, those who gloated over suffering and over revenge, who had come there to satisfy their morbid appetites with the spectacle of three deaths, were stamping with impatience, and jeeringly hastening on the Romans.
The Centurion gave an order. Two soldiers approached Jesus and with rapid, rough gestures removed all His clothes. The criminal condemned to crucifixion must be entirely naked.
As soon as He was stripped, they passed two ropes under His armpits, and hoisted Him up on the cross. Half-way up on the upright was a rough wooden peg like a seat where the body was to find a precarious and painful support. Another soldier leaned the ladder against one of the arms of the cross, climbed up on it, hammer in hand, seized the hand which had cured lepers and caressed little children’s hair, spread it out on the wood and drove a nail into the middle of the palm. The nails were long, and with a wide head so that they could be easily hammered. The soldier struck a vigorous blow, which pierced the flesh at once, and then another and a third so that the nail would hold firmly and so that only the head would remain outside. A little blood spurted out from the pierced hand upon the hammering hand, but the diligent workman paid no attention to it, and continued to hammer away vigorously until his work was properly done. Then he came down the ladder and did the same to the other hand.
All the spectators had fallen silent, hoping to hear screams from the condemned man. But Jesus was silent before His executioners as He had been silent before His judges.