“When the centurion who stood facing him saw how he breathed his last he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!’” (Mark 15:39)

“I’ve watched many men die,” said the hard-bitten Roman soldier.  “My men and I frequently pulled crowd control duty at crucifixions.  It wasn’t pleasant watching men die slowly.  It is much easier thrusting a sword through them.  I’ve done that too.

“But people have to be taught who’s boss, and for better and worse, Rome and Caesar are the boss in the Eastern Mediterranean right now.  A slow, painful, humiliating, public death is a wonderful reminder of who is in control.

“People who are crucified don’t die from blood loss.  They die of exhaustion and asphyxiation.  We place them on the cross in such a way that they have to push up with their feet in order to breathe.  Eventually, when they can no longer push themselves up, they stop breathing.

“Different people don’t die the same.  Some curse, some are silent, just trying to breathe, some plead.  (Most of them eventually plead for death.)  The one thing they all do is die—usually very slowly.  One guy took nine days to die, if you can believe it.

“This man was different.  For one thing, he died fairly quickly.  When I reported his death to Pilate, the governor couldn’t believe it. ‘What!’ he said.  ‘Are you sure?’  Oh, yes, I was sure.  I had seen enough death and inflicted enough death to know.  I don’t know why he died so fast.  It was as if the weight of the world was pressing down on his shoulders.  It was as if that was the reason he couldn’t push himself up any more.

“But it wasn’t just how quickly he died.  It was his overall demeanor.  When two of my soldiers stretched him on the cross to put the nails in his feet and wrists, he didn’t try to resist.  I thought this was very odd.  Sometimes, it takes four men to hold down one of the scoundrels, plus one to drive the nails.  With this man, I think one could have done it with no problem.  It was as if this man knew that he must die.

“Oh, yes, there was pain on his face.  But there was something else that I’d never seen, except in my mother’s eyes when I was very little.  I was playing with some friends, and some bigger boys began teasing us, I decided that I wasn’t going to put up with that.  So, . . . I got beaten up pretty badly.  When I got home, my mother looked at my bloody face with such tenderness that I nearly started crying.  It was the same look that this man gave to the man driving the nails through his flesh and into the wood of the cross.  I swear, this man looked at the soldier holding him down and the one driving the nails with such understanding, such compassion, with (dare I say it?) such love!  I had to turn away.

“Generally, we don’t watch the people we are crucifying.  We don’t need to.  They’re not going anywhere.  What we do is watch the crowd.  Is anyone going to try to rescue the criminals we are executing?  Is the crowd getting unruly?  In this case, the crowd seemed more sad and confused than militant.  Some women were weeping, but women do that.  Some in the crowd seemed to be happy that this man was being crucified.  ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish,’ I heard someone say.

“But whenever This Man spoke, I turned around.  And He said some very strange things from the cross.  He spoke of forgiveness.  He made promises to one of his companions in crucifixion, which only a king could have made.  Even when he accused his God of abandoning him, This Man called him ‘my God!’

“And his final words, with his final breath—what shall I say of them!  ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’  Somehow, it did not sound like a prayer of desperation.  It sounded like a cry of triumph.

“Rumor has it that some of The Man’s followers are claiming that he has risen from the dead.  I’m not sure if I believe that or not.  I’m not into ghost stories.

“But I’ll tell you this: There is something strange about This Man.  And if anyone deserved to be raised from the dead, it was This Man.”