NEVER FORGET

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There are over 600 stories and commentaries on this blog that began Nov 24, 2009. It is added to daily.

 

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No one who visited Golgotha walked away the same. Certainly, a little boy, whose curiosity placed him in harms way would NEVER FORGET. And from this premise I wrote the following story.

 

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They were three figures silhouetted against a sky where clouds increasingly blotted out the light. He had followed the crowd since the Antonia gate and now was trying to decide whether he wanted to continue or go back home. “Is it too heavy for you, King?”

The little boy cringed at the contempt he heard from the angry man in the gathering horde. Often had he skipped playfully along this Via Dolorosa. It would never be the same for him again.

A Roman soldier beat back the crowd to make way for another soldier with a whip. The one they called Jesus had fallen.

The child wanted to help this one with the kindly eyes, but he was afraid. After all he was just a little boy.

Thirty pounds of cypress grows no lighter when it is carried after a heavy beating. “The Intermediate Death, forty stripes save one,” he had heard someone explain. The little boy began to cry.

“Who does this Pilate think he is, following our custom of washing his hands. He is asking for trouble, and either Rome or we will give it to him.”

“Or both,” came back an overconfident reply. “Pilate is a fool,” complained an elderly man as they drew closer to the place of the skull.

“The journey to Golgotha I think will become in the memories of men a journey that began in creation and stretches to eternity.”

“Listen to our philosophical friend. Now you are a theological authority?”

The little boy remembered what he had heard this Jesus say. “Suffer the little children to come unto me…for of such is the Kingdom of God.”

Now he listened to those around him. “I do not like these crucifixions. They should be outlawed.”

“I agree.”

“Then why do you come, good sisters?”

 

“They will have them whether I watch or not.”

 

“And that makes your attendance at such events right and proper?”

“I notice that you seem to be walking in the same direction as I.”

“You are right, but you see a long time ago I killed my conscience. I am only inquiring as to when yours will die.”

Jesus had not risen, and a soldier shouted a command to a black man in the crowd. Simon the Cyrene, a prosperous farmer, now cursing his curiosity, knelt low and put the cross to the strength of his shoulder.

He heard a gasp behind him as Jesus was jerked to his feet.

The ceremonial hats of the high priests mingled with the less conspicuous dress of the circling mob.

At one side the little boy peered between two tunics and thought, “I would carry the cross if I could.”

 

The Genneth gate held the announcement of who would be executed this day to the pleasure and glory of Tiberius Caesar. For the purpose of Roman justice, the crimes were always listed. Jesus’ crime was written in Aramaic, Jesus han nostri malka dibudaey. Blasphemy. It was also written in Hebrew and Latin.

It read “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”

The little lad could not yet read but he had heard someone read it aloud.

It did not seem a crime worthy of execution. Simon of Cyrene, having completed his task, waited hopefully for permission to leave. “Go!” It was short and without sympathy, but quickly Simon melted into the crowd.

For the rest of his life he would feel the weight of the cross on his shoulders. “Boy, you shouldn’t be seeing such things.” The words came from a gray-bearded merchant who smelled of wine. The little boy, who had watched it all, never answered.

 

It was then he saw them.

They were five standing as part of, but slightly apart from, the crowd. Mary, Jesus’ mother, leaned against John. Mary Magdalene wept unashamedly. Mary, mother of the younger James, and Salome, wife of Zebedee, all gazed in muted shock at the scene being enacted before their eyes.

“No! Don’t! I’m innocent!” The thief’s cries were shouted in a half frenzy as he watched the soldiers ready the nails.

 

“Quiet, thief,” jeered one soldier.

Jesus knelt now and calmly prepared to do the will of his Father.

A crucifixion was a practiced art and did not allow experimentation. A five-inch nail was driven into the hollow cavity of each wrist while the condemned still lay upon the ground. Once the cross was raised, the right foot was crossed over the left and a third nail completed the task.

As the cross of Jesus was lifted, the little boy thought of how his mother was always getting after him for forgetting things. This he would never forget.

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STARTED WEEK on his other blog WYRICK’S WRITINGS…MARCH 5, 2011 Serialization of another of his books SIXTY PLUS AND NOT HOLDING To read this book

 

CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING URL

 

http://wyrickswritings.blogspot.com

Each week there is also a serialization of his novel RUST ON MY SOUL and serialization of another of his books 60 PLUS AND NOT HOLDING MANY OF THE IDEAS IN THIS BOOK FOR BETTER LIVING ARE GOOD FOR ANY AGE. (This book is about dealing positively with the challenges of getting older and fosters the belief that “If we would have new knowledge, we must get a world of new questions.” (Susanne K. Langer)

 

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TO VISIT Neil’s other blog WYRICK’S WRITING (A variety of serializations; a novel on Sunday and Tuesday and Thursday varying subjects) (3 times a week added to)

 

CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING URL

 

http://wyrickswritings.blogspot.com

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To view his One Man Dramas on film (see by millions, live and on film and on video)(Martin Luther, Ben Franklin, Charles Wesley, Abraham Lincoln)

 

CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING

 

http://www.speakerneil.com/

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A quote below from tomorrow’s ONE A DAY blog entitled God Know Our Present and Future Needs “He was a young man, in his mid-twenties and not long out of seminary. He received a “call” to a ministerial challenge, the starting of a new church. It was what he had always wanted, but the timing didn’t seem quite right.”

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