I.N.R.I.: A prisoner's Story of the Cross

by Peter Rosegger

"What has occurred?" He asked.

Surely He must have heard of Jesus, the Prophet who had done such great deeds, and preached a new and wonderful Word of God: Of the Heavenly Father full of love, of the Kingdom of Heaven in one's own heart, and of eternal life. It was as if God Himself had assumed human shape in the person of this Prophet in order to set them an example of perfect life. And that Divine Man had just been executed in Jerusalem. Since that event they had felt utterly forsaken. That was why they were sad. He had, indeed, promised that He would rise after death as a pledge for His tidings of the resurrection of man and eternal life. But the three days were now up. A story was going about that two women had seen Him that morning with the wounds made by the nails. But until they could themselves lay their hands on those wounds, they would not believe it; no. He must needs be like the rest of the dead.

Then the stranger said: "If the Risen Man does not appear to you as He appeared to the women, it is because your faith is too weak. If you do not believe in Him, you surely know from the prophecies how God's messenger must suffer and die, because only through that gate can eternal glory be reached."

With such conversation they reached Emmaus, where the two disciples were to visit a friend. The stranger, they imagined, was going farther, but they liked Him, and so invited Him to go to the house with them: "Sir, stay with us; the day draws in, it will soon be evening."

So He went with them. When they sat at supper, and the stranger took some bread, one whispered to the other: "Look how He breaks the bread! It is not our Jesus?"

But when in joy unspeakable they went to embrace Him, they saw that they were alone.

This is what the two disciples related, and no one was more glad to believe it than Schobal, the dealer; he now asked three hundred gold pieces for the coat of the man who had risen from the dead.

Thomas was less sure of the Resurrection. "Why should He rise?" asked the disciple. "Did He come to earth for the sake of this bodily life? Did He not rest everything on the spiritual life? The true Jesus Christ was to be with us in the spirit."

The disciples who had accompanied the Master from Galilee went back to their own land filled with that belief. Things had somewhat changed there. The condemnation of the Nazarene without any proof of guilt had vastly angered the Galileans. His glorious death had terrified them. No, this countryman of theirs was no ordinary man! They would now make up to His disciples for their ill-conduct towards Him. So His adherents were well received in Galilee, and resumed the occupations that they had abandoned two years before. John had brought His mother home, and gone with her to the quiet house at Nazareth. The others tried to accustom themselves to the work-a-day world, but they could do nothing but think of the Master, and wherever two or three of them were gathered together He was with them in spirit. One day they were together in a cottage by the lake. They spoke of His being the Son of God, and some who had looked into the Scriptures brought forward proofs: the prophecies which had come to pass in Him, the psalms He had fulfilled, the miracles He had worked, and the fact that many had seen Him after His death.

Suddenly Thomas said: "I don't much hold with all that. Other things have been prophesied; the Prophets, too, worked miracles, and rose after death. What good is it to me if He is not with us in the flesh?"