Anxiety increased in the quiet house at Nazareth. Mary determined to
go to Jerusalem for the holy festival to offer her sorrow as a
sacrifice to God, to implore Him to enlighten her erring son, and to
restore to Him the faith of His ancestors. As she journeyed through
Samaria and Judaea she thought of the days long past, when she had
travelled that way to Bethlehem with her faithful Joseph, and of the
inconceivable things that had happened since then.
She reached a valley where the earth was grey and dry. It was the
place in which Adam and Eve had settled when they were driven out of
Paradise. She thought of the wayward children of our first parents,
and with her mind's eye saw a dear little descendant of Adam, who was
perfectly innocent, and yet had to share earth's sorrow with the
guilty. The boy stood sadly by a hedge, and peeped over into the Lost
Paradise. A white-robed angel standing by the Tree of Knowledge saw
the child and was sorry for him. He broke off a branch from the tree,
handed it over to the boy, and said: "Here is something for you out of
Paradise. Plant the bough in the ground. It will take root and grow,
and produce fresh seeds until the throne of the Messiah is built out of
its trunk." "O, God! where is the trunk, and where is the Messiah's
throne?" sighed Mary, and she moved away.
When after her tiring journey she reached the town one morning, she
found the people streaming along the roads and streets in one
direction. She asked the innkeeper what was happening. He replied by
asking her if she did not also wish to go and see the execution.
"God forbid!" answered Mary; "happy are all who are not obliged to go."
"Look, there they come!" exclaimed the inn-keeper in glad surprise.
"They'll come past here. I really believe it's the Messiah-King! Oh,
I could have let out my windows for a silver groat apiece!"
The woman from Galilee wanted to go back into the house, but she was
pushed aside and carried with the crowd into the narrow street, where
suddenly she stood before Him! Before Jesus, her son! When He saw His
mother His little remaining strength nearly forsook Him, but He managed
to keep His feet. He turned to her with a look of unspeakable sadness
and love, a brief look in which lay all that a son could have to say to
his mother at such a meeting. Then they pushed Him on with blows and
curses.
Mary stood as if turned to stone. Her eyes were tearless, her head in
a whirl, her heart scarcely beat. "That is what God has prepared for
me!" That was all she could think, as, unwilling, bewildered, she was
carried along by the crowd. Everything seemed sunk in a blue darkness,
yet stars danced before her eyes.
At length the procession emerged through the vaulted double gateway
into the open. A dim, pale light lay over the barren land. The rocky
hill stood out clear on the right. A great stir was there. Busy
workmen were digging deep holes on the top, others were preparing the
stakes for the desert robbers. Those wild creatures were already half
naked, and the executioners were slinging cords round them to bind them
to the wooden frame. They were the lean, brown Barabbas and the pale,
sunken-eyed Dismas. The former gazed around him with his hawk's eyes,
clenched his hands, and tried to burst his fetters. The other was
quite broken down, and his unkempt hair hung about him. The disciples
had come as far as the tower of the town walls, but had withdrawn in
terror, all but John, James, and Peter. For Peter had decided to
acknowledge himself a follower of Jesus of Nazareth, should it cost him
his life. But no one troubled any further about the strangers. The
disciples had seen Judas slinking behind the rocky mounds; he looked
abject and forlorn, the very image of despair, and although their rage
against the traitor had known no bounds, they were softened by the
sight of the miserable creature, regarding him only as an object of
horror.
Simeon carried the cross to the top of the hill. And when he laid it
down and looked once again into the face of the malefactor who had
staggered up beside him, he recognised the Prophet. He recognised the
man with whom he had spoken in the desert concerning eternal life. He
had then paid scant attention to His words, but he had forgotten none
of them. Now he began to understand that whoever lived according to
the teaching of this man must attain inward happiness. And was it on
account of that teaching that the man was to be executed?
The captain ordered Simeon to move away. Two executioners laid hands
on Jesus in order to strip away His garments. He threw one swift
glance to Heaven, then closed His eyes, and calmly let them proceed.
The guards seized His gown, fought for it, and because they could not
agree who had won it they diced for it. Then they accused each other
of cheating, and fought afresh. Up came Schobal, the dealer in old
clothes, and pointed out with a grin that it was not worth while to
crack their skulls over a poor wretch's old coat. The gown was torn
and bloody; it was not worth a penny; but in order to end a dispute
between his brave countrymen he would offer fourpence, which they could
divide in peace among them. The coat was delivered over to Schobal.
He went up and down in the crowd with the garment. It was the coat of
the Prophet who was being executed! Who wanted a souvenir of that day?
He would sell the coat for the half of its value; it might be bought
for twelve pence!
A man brought long iron nails in a basket. The Nazarene was not to be
tied, but nailed, because He had once said that He should descend from
the cross. When they noticed that Jesus was nearly swooning, they
offered Him a refreshing drink of vinegar and myrrh. He refused it
with thanks, and when He began to sink down the executioners caught Him
and laid Him on the cross.
Suddenly the crowd drew back. Many did not want to see what was going
on. They were dumb. They had never dreamed of this. The gentleness
with which He bore all the torture, the scorn, the death before His
eyes, this heroic calm weighed like a mountain on their hard hearts.
Those who had formerly despised Him now wanted to hate Him, but they
could not. They were powerless before this overwhelming gentleness.
What a sound! That of a hammer beating on iron! "How the blood
spurts!" whispered someone. Two hammers hit the nails, and at each
blow heaven and earth trembled. The crowd held its breath, and not a
sound was heard from the town. Nothing but the ringing of the hammer.
Then suddenly a heartrending cry was heard in the crowd. It came from
a strange woman who had pushed through it and sank to the ground. The
mass of people drew away more and more, no one would stand in front,
yet each stretched his neck so as to see over the others' heads. They
saw the stake lifted up and then sink again. The captain's orders
could be heard plainly and clearly. Then the cross stood up straight.
At first the long stake was seen above their heads, bearing a white
placard. Then the cross-beams appeared on which trembling human arms
were seen, then the head moving in agonising pain. Thus did the cross
with the naked human body rise in the air. Slowly it rose, supported
by poles, and as soon as it stood straight the foot of the cross was
set so roughly in its hole that the body shook with a dull groan. The
wounds made by the nails in the hands and feet were torn open, the
blood ran in dark streams over the white body, down the stake, and
dropped on the ground. And from the lips of Him on the cross this loud
cry was heard, "O, Father, forgive them, forgive them! For they know
not what they do."
A strange murmur arose in the crowd, and those who had not understood
the cry asked their neighbours to repeat it. "He asks pardon for His
enemies? For His enemies? He is praying for His enemies?"
"Then--then He cannot be human!"
"He forgives those who despised, slandered, scorned, beat, crucified
Him? When dying He thinks of His enemies and pardons them? Then it is
as He said, He is indeed the Christ! I always thought He was the
Christ. I said so only last Sabbath!" The voices grew louder.
Schobal, the old clothes dealer, pushed about in the crowd and offered
the Messiah's coat for twenty pence.
"If He is the Messiah," shouted a Rabbi hoarsely, "let Him free
Himself. He who wants to help others and cannot help Himself is a poor
sort of Messiah."
"Now, Master," exclaimed a Pharisee, "if you would rebuild the
shattered Temple, now's the time. Come down from the cross, and we'll
believe in you." The man on the cross looked at the two mockers in
deep sadness, and they became silent. Suddenly a passage in the
Scriptures flashed into their minds: "He was wounded for our
transgressions!"
When they had all drawn back from the cross, and the executioners were
preparing to raise up the two desert robbers, the woman who had
swooned, supported by the disciple John, tottered up to the tall cross
and put her arms round its trunk so that the blood ran down upon her.
So infinite was her pain that it seemed as if seven swords had pierced
her heart. Jesus looked down, and how muffled was the voice in which
He said: "John, take care of My mother! Mother, here is John, your
son!"
A murmur arose in the crowd: "His mother? Is that His mother? Oh,
poor things! And the handsome young man His brother? The poor
creatures! Look how He turns to them as if He would comfort them."
Many a man passed his hand over his eyes, the women sobbed aloud. And
a dull lamentation began to go through the people--the same people who
had so angrily demanded His death. And they talked together.
"He can't suffer much longer."
"No, I've had some experience. I've been here every Passover. But
this time----"
"If I only knew what is written on the tablet."
"Over His head? My sight seems to have gone."
"Inri!" exclaimed somebody,
"Inri! Somebody calls out 'Inri.'"
"Those are the letters on the tablet."
"But the man's name's not Inri."
"Something quite different, my friend. That is Pilate's joke. _Jesus
Nazarenus Rex Judaeorum_."
"Don't talk to me in that accursed Latin tongue."
"In good Hebrew: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews."
"Now, they've got Him in the middle," said another, for the two robbers
had been hoisted up to the right and left of Him. The one on the left
stretched out his neck, and mocked at Jesus with a distorted face: "I
suppose, neighbour, that you too are one of those who get executed just
because they are weaklings. Jump from the cross, rush among them, and
the wretches will idolise you!"
Jesus did not answer him. He turned His head towards the man who hung
on His right who saw the moment approaching when his legs would be
broken. In the agony of death, and in penitence for his ill-spent
life, he turned to Him whom they called Messiah and Christ. And when
he saw the expression with which Jesus looked at him, a curious shudder
passed through the criminal's heart. How the man on the cross gazed at
him, with His fading eyes--My God!--it was the never-to-be-forgotten
holy look which a little child had given him in the days of his youth.
Dismas began to weep, and said: "Lord, you are from heaven! When you
return home, remember me."
And Jesus said to him: "There is mercy for all who repent! To-day,
Dismas, you and I will be together at the Heavenly Father's home."
"He is from heaven!" was heard in the crowd. "He is from heaven!" One
of the Roman soldiers threw his spear away, and exclaimed in immense
excitement: "Verily, He is the Son of God!"
"The Son of God! The Son of God! Set Him free! It is the Son of God
who hangs on the cross!" The cry rolled through the crowd like the
dull noise of an avalanche; like a shriek of terror, like the inward
consciousness of a fearful mistake, the most fearful that had been made
since the world began. He who hangs yonder on the cross is the Son of
God. Far below in a cleft of the rock is a poor sinner. He struggles
up to his feet, holding on with his lean hands, he looks up to the
cross with rolling eyes. A prayer for mercy wells up from his heart
like a bloody spring. And beside him a woman kneels and folds her
hands against the cross. And she who thus stands under the cross
wrings her hands, and implores mercy for her child.
The letters I.N.R.I, over the cross begin to gleam. And a voice is
heard in the air: "Jesus Near Redeems Ill-doers."
"The Son of God! The Son of God!" The cry went on without ceasing.
"The Son of God on the cross!"
"The Son of God's coat! A hundred gold pieces for the coat!" shrieked
old Schobal, lifting the garment up on a stick like a flag. The dealer
swore by that flag, for its value had risen a thousandfold in an hour.
"A hundred gold pieces for the Son of God's coat!" But it was high
time that the dealer made himself scarce, for the people of Jerusalem
were enraged at a man who wanted to do business in presence of the
dying Saviour. The good, pious citizens of Jerusalem!
Not a High Priest was to be seen. They had all gone away. The
hoarse-voiced Rabbi was still there, reciting Psalms aloud to the dying
man.
"Stop that!" someone shouted at him. "You killed Him."
"We've killed Him? Who do you mean?" asked the Rabbi with well-feigned
innocence.
"Why you, you expounders of the Scriptures, you brought Him to His
death; it was you, and you alone!"
The Rabbi replied very seriously: "Think, my friend, what you are
saying. Can you prove this charge before the dread Jehovah? We
expounders of the Law brought Him to His death! Every one knows who
condemned Him. It was the foreigners. They have ever been the ruin of
our nation! Every one knows who crucified Him at the desire of the
people."
It was high time that he should defend himself. The voices grew ever
louder: It was the High Priests who had goaded on the people and
judges! They are guilty----
"Silence! He still lives!"
All looks were centred on the cross.
Jesus turned His head to the crowd and muttered in His weakness: "I am
thirsty! I am thirsty!"
The captain ordered a sponge to be dipped in vinegar, and reached up to
Him on a stick so that the dying man might sip the moisture.
A young woman with her hair flowing loose lay among the rocks. She
kneeled, and, supporting her elbows on the ground, wailed softly: "O
Saviour, Saviour! My sins!"
He looked once again at His dear ones. Then He lifted His head quickly
and uttered a cry to Heaven: "Father, receive My soul! My Father! Do
not forsake Me!" He looked upwards, gazed at the heavens with
wide-opened eyes, then His head dropped and fell on His breast.
John sank to the ground, covering his face with his hands. All was
over!
* * * * * *
The crowd was almost motionless. They stood and stared, and their
faces were white. The town walls were dun-coloured, the shrubs were
grey, the young buds were pale and closed.
A lustreless sun stood in the sky like a moon, and its shadows were
ghostly. Terrified rooks and bats flew around, and hovered about the
cross in this horrible twilight. Rocks on the hills broke away, and
skulls rolled down the slope. As for the people, they seemed to have
lost the power of speech, they stood dumb and looked at one another.
"Something has happened," said an old man to himself.
The crowd began to move, uncertainly at first, then with more animation
and noise.
"What has happened?" asked a bystander.
"My friend, what has happened now has thrown the world off its balance.
I do not know what it is, but it has thrown the world off its balance.
If it is not the end of the world, then it must be its beginning."
"Inri! Inri!" shouted the voice of a shuddering lunatic.
Then there was a general shout. "What is it? It is dark! I've never
been so terrified in all my days."
"Look at the cross! It's growing longer! Higher, ever higher, higher!
I can't see the top of it! It's a giant cross!"
Then came news. "A pillar has fallen in the Temple. The curtain of
the Holy of Holies has been rent in twain. Outside, in the cemetery,
the tombs have opened and the dead wrapped in their white shrouds have
risen from them."
"The end of the world!"
"The beginning of the world!"
"Jesus Christ!"
* * * * * *
"JESUS CHRIST!" rustles through the crowd like the spring breezes over
the desert. The words sound through the whole of Jerusalem, they sound
throughout the broad land of Judaea, these words of all power. They
kindle a fire which has lighted up the universe until the present day.
His dear and faithful ones assembled at the cross where the dead Master
hung. There are more of them than there were yesterday, among them
even some who had shouted in the night: "Crucify Him!" The disciples
stood there silent, making no lamentation. Mary, the mother, stood by
John's side, and Magdalen by him. A marvellous quiet had come over
their hearts, so that they asked themselves:
"How can this be? Is not our Jesus dead?"
"My brothers," said Peter, "for me it is as if He still lives."
"He in us, and we in Him," said John.
Only Bartholomew was restless. Hesitatingly he asked James if he had
not also understood Him to say: "Father, do not forsake Me." But James
was thinking of another word and of another of the brothers. He went
away from the cross to seek out Judas. He would tell him that in dying
the Master had forgiven His enemies, he would tell Judas of the
Saviour's legacy: Mercy for sinners!
Since the early hours of the morning when the Master had been condemned
to death in the Governor's house, Judas had wandered aimlessly about.
He tried to surrender himself to the captain as a false witness and a
spy, as one who sold men for gold. He was laughed at and left alone.
Then he went to one of the High Priests to swear that his statements
had not been so meant; that his Master was no evil-doer, but rather the
Messenger of God, who would destroy His enemies. He had not intended
to betray Him, and he would return the traitor's pay to the Pharisee.
The latter shrugged his shoulders, saying that it was no concern of
his; he had given no money and would receive none. Then Judas threw
the silver pieces at his feet and hurried away. His long hair waved in
the wind. He slunk along behind the town walls in order to get in
advance of the procession and let himself be impaled at Golgotha
instead of the Master. But he was too late; he heard the strokes of
the hammer. He went down into the valley of Kedron. Not a soul was to
be seen there, every one had gone to the place of execution. Judas was
thrown aside, even by the gaping crowd, abandoned as a traitor.
Frightful, inconceivable, was the thing he had done! Alas! why had He
not revealed Himself? He stood patiently, gentle as a lamb before the
judges, and bore the cross as no one had ever done before. Could that
be it after all? Not to strive against one's enemies, to suffer one's
fate as the will of God, to lay down one's life for the tidings of the
Father--was that glory the mission of the Messiah? "And I? I expected
something else of Him. And I made a mistake, greater than all the
mistakes of all the fools put together. And now I am thrust out of the
fellowship of righteous men, and thrust out of the fellowship of
sinners. There is pardon for the murderer, but not for the traitor.
He Himself said: Better that such a man had never been born. Others
dare to atone for their sins in caves of the desert, dare to expiate
their crimes with their blood--but I am cast out of all Love and all
expiation for ever and ever." Such were the endless laments of Judas.
He wandered to and fro behind walls and among bushes; he hid himself in
caves all the day long. Then suddenly it flashed on him: "It is
unjust. I believed in Him. I believed in Him so implicitly. Is such
trust thrown away? Can the Divine Man cast aside such a trust? No, it
is not so, it is not so!"
His fate was decided by this shattering of his last hope. When it was
dark he slunk past a farm. Ropes hung over the walls; he pulled one
off and hurried to the mountain. The sun was setting behind Jerusalem,
over the heights, like a huge, red, lustreless pane of glass. Once
more for the last time his eye sought the light, the departing light.
And a cross stood out large and dark against the red circle; the tall
cross at Golgotha right in the centre of the gloomy sun. Gigantic and
dark it towered against the crimson background--horrible! The
despairing heart of Judas could not endure it. With a savage curse he
went up to a fig-tree. James was behind him. He had seen Judas climb
the slope, had waved his cloak and cried to him: "It is I, James.
Brother, I come from the Master. Listen, brother, mercy for sinners.
Mercy for all who repent. Listen." Almost breathless he reached the
fig-tree. Arms and legs hung down lifeless, the mouth drawn in, the
tongue protruding from the lips. The body swung to and fro in the
evening breeze. The wretched man had not waited for the Saviour's
pardon.
Towards the end of that same day the old man of the East, who came from
the desert where great thoughts dwell, the weary old man who called
down twice the curse of everlasting unrest on the grandson of Uriah,
went to a stonecutter in Jerusalem. He thought it time to order his
tombstone. And on it were to be cut the letters "I.N.R.I."
"Did you also belong to the Nazarene?" asked the stonecutter.
"Why do you ask that?"
"Because it is the inscription on His cross."
"It is the inscription on my grave," said the old man, "and it means:
'IN NIRVANA REST I.'"