Simon, who carried a cross

(1)

All innocent of events in the city, he is coming up to Jerusalem from Cyrene.  A foreboding slows his usual pace; his legs are heavy with it.

Nevertheless he would never dream of missing the Passover sacrifice at the Temple.  He presses on, but keeps his little son in close reach.  He feels somehow that his son is in danger.  Rufus is his youngest, the son of his heart.  He is Simon’s last connection with his beloved wife.  

Rufus is wondering why his father seems so clinging today.

When they reach the walls of the city, dread mounts in Simon with the noise of a discordant crowd.  Something is happening. Again. An uprising, some act of retribution from the Romans.  It’s been a violent time all through Judea and Galilee.  Everyone is tense.  Everything is waiting. 

The buzz he hears is Evil, now abroad in the land, no longer biding its time, though he can’t quite put his finger on how he knows that for certain. 

Simon and Rufus pass through the city gate.  Simon doesn’t let go of his son’s shoulder now.  The buzz is getting louder.  He hears it up ahead and wants to steer his son around it, but he doesn’t know the side streets and alleys well enough.  Soon the mob is right in front of him, blocking the way to the Temple.  His heart is skittering for his son.  He skirts the crowd and thinks he sees a way to get through.  Crabbing around the edges, he drives his son in front of him with a strong hand, ahead of the danger.  He is just beginning to think they may make it, when a Roman soldier picks him out, “Hey! You!” He keeps pushing Rufus ahead, hoping the soldier means someone else, or that even if he does mean Simon, he will pick another pigeon once Simon gets past him and disappears into the crowd. 

But no such luck.  The soldier grabs him, and Simon feels like every evil thing in the universe has suddenly got hold of his arm. Mobs are no rare thing in Judea; he tries to shake off the dread.  He will just do as he’s told and escape at his first opportunity.  He doesn’t want his son witnessing the ugliness of a Roman soldier disobeyed, or a mob gone ugly.  He is still hoping he can protect Rufus, even with the Roman clamping down on him. 

The soldier yanks Simon into the street and pushes him towards the center of the noise.  Good Lord!  There is a man lying on the road looking like he’s been run over by an entire cavalry regiment. He is a monstrosity, his skin is so ground up and his features so broken and swollen. He must have done something abominable.  Simon has never seen the like.  The cattle he butchers back home look better.  Will he have to touch him?  Why has the Roman thrown him together with a criminal?  He is as frightened as he’s ever been in his life, but he keeps a stolid look on his face to avoid alarming Rufus.  He looks back to tell him, “Don’t move, Son.  I’ll come back for you.”  Inside, he’s afraid he might not. 

The soldier flings Simon towards the prisoner on the road.  The only thing about this bloody pulp of a man that still appears human is his eyes.  As Simon looks down in horror, their eyes met, and their gaze becomes a bond of knowing, a recognition between strangers.  From all the blood and spit and dirt, shines the most calm and patient look Simon has ever seen.  It’s not possible that this man has done anything truly vicious. Is it? How could love be present in a criminal of such magnitude?  Something is very wrong here. 

But there is no time for Simon to think.  The Romans have whips, and whereas they were previously using them on the prisoner, they now feel free to turn on Simon.  He is a Jew, a man of no rights, and he knows he can expect no help from the crowd.  They are beyond reason now, howling like animals, more frightening than the Romans. At least with the Romans, he knows what to expect, but this mob is blood-crazed. 

Along with the blows of the Roman whips, Simon is now soiled by the filth and garbage being thrown at Jesus. He is suddenly enraged.  He is a hard-working man who has always tried to do the right thing.  He has a beautifully tended farm back home, a tidy house that he built with his own hands when he took his bride, his dear wife who left this world before him.  He’s raised his sons with love, trying to be both mother and father to them.  This has made him a tender man, more affectionate and sweet than most farmers would ever allow themselves to be. 

When he looks down at Jesus, torn to ribbons and struggling to get up, he suddenly sees in him his son.  Rufus has the same patient, accepting eyes.  When his mother died and his heart was breaking, Rufus had that same look of calm resignation.  Simon worried a lot over that in the months following his wife’s death.  Had his son been broken by too early an encounter with tragedy? Was the resignation really a defeated spirit, a readiness to be beaten by life’s blows? Why did Rufus accept it so calmly, when Simon himself, despite his maturity, raged and railed over the loss of his beloved? 

As time passed, and Simon began to find his way back to God, he understood Rufus a little better.  His son’s spirit was never in danger; he was simply a trusting soul.  Rufus dwelt in the hands of God, and he never doubted God’s providence.  He was so young when it happened, his faith in God was innocent and full, and once he had passed beyond that early testing, his faith remained young.  Simon envied the trust in his youngest son.  

And there was that same trusting, guileless look in the eyes of the mutilated prisoner.  Simon’s heart beat fiercely with fatherly protection.  That rush of love gave him more strength than he’d had before.  He felt he could do anything to protect this poor lamb of a man.  He put out his hand to the prisoner and hauled him to his feet, nearly a dead weight.  As Jesus stood, waving like a reed in the wind, Simon bent to shoulder the cross and put out one hand to steady Jesus.  Together they began to take the first steps. 

But it was clear Jesus would never make it.  They still had a way to go up the hill where the Romans were preparing the site of crucifixion.  Crucifixion!  Simon’s heart failed for a moment.  What if he were forced to take a share of this man’s full punishment?  It was all a game to these Romans; what would they care? It would be a good chance to get rid of one more troublesome Jew.  No one would stop them if they took it in their heads to make an example of him.  Oh, Rufus, my poor orphaned son!

Somewhere, a father was lamenting over this poor broken man, too.  The thought gave Simon strength.  He could not protect his own son; God knows he would have done anything to spare Rufus the loss of his mother, and for years after her death, he wept, not for his own loss, but for his son’s.  Now he could at least protect this one, this son of some father grieving somewhere.  And at all costs. 

The prisoner was barely able to put one foot forward, and he fell repeatedly, making Simon’s work heavier as he had to bend to help him up without dropping the beam again.  The Romans were merciless with their whips as the gruesome procession halted every time the prisoner fell.  They seemed to consider it Simon’s responsibility to keep things moving along.  Whenever they stopped, the baying of the mob escalated.

Simon tried to take all the weight off the prisoner.  The man was barely alive.  It would be a mercy if he died before they reached the hill of crucifixion.  Simon willed him to just stay down on the stone pavement and let it be over, but the man seemed possessed of an unearthly resolve.  When he should have just lay still, instead he struggled grotesquely to his knees, and then to his feet again.  Simon saw that the man would not give in.

If he would not yield, then it would be better to get him to the hill quickly.  Simon’s lifetime of physical labor gave him strength and he carried the cross with one arm, holding the prisoner up with the other.  He’d carried plenty of newborn calves this way.  He would relieve him of every tiny bit of pain he could, though it wasn’t much.  He looked at Jesus, into the enduring eyes of suffering, and said the only words left to him, “O my son, my son.” 

Jesus loved Simon with his eyes, and they labored forward.  Coming closer to the hill, Simon’s heart was emptied of everything but his torturous walk beside this man.  He became one purpose.  Every loss, every pain, the grinding years of lonely sorrow after his wife died, his hope for the lives of his sons, the longing for happiness and an end to suffering, all the joys and sorrows of his heart came together in one consuming desire: to help this man.  It seemed the culmination and perfect end to his whole life. 

They finally reached the hill.  Tools and soldiers waited.  Simon was still holding Jesus up with one arm when the Romans tore him away.  Two soldiers took the beam off his shoulders and dragged it closer to the prepared site.  Simon suddenly stood free, with no burden at all.  But no, he didn’t want to be free of it.  He stumbled after the soldiers, but the cross was already prone and Jesus thrown atop it. 

When he scrabbled to get closer, the Roman guard shoved him back, they bunted him with their shields, then finally wielded their swords.  Nothing stopped him fighting to get past.  He was of undivided mind, to help the prisoner, and he wasn’t finished until one or the other of them was dead.  Finally, a Roman soldier, out of all patience, struck him on the head with his sword and Simon fell, losing consciousness. 

(2)

When he came to his senses, it was raining.  Three crosses stood above him; corpses hung on two, but the cross in the center was empty.  It was quiet. Everyone had gone.  He hurt all over; he was exhausted.  He  wondered where he was, and it took a few minutes to get his bearings.  He felt battered, yet calm.  Washed somehow, as though nothing could disturb him again. Peaceful, like a weaned child on its mother’s lap. 

In the aftermath of the rain, evil didn’t hang so palpably in the air; it was almost as if evil was holding its breath. Everything seemed a little less than real.  He had a cracker of a headache from the blow he’d taken from the soldiers, and was immediately sick when he stood up.  He gingerly began to pick his way down the hill and back to the city, as the nausea passed.  He had to find his son.  He knew Rufus would have waited exactly where he told him to wait, no matter how long, no matter what the crowd had said or done.  He was a meek lamb of a boy, but he had the heart of a lion.  He would be there.

Tracing his way back along the road they’d taken, he felt sick again at the filth that still lay in the streets.  The frenzy of the crowd had unleashed the demonic in them, and the things they’d thrown at the prisoner went beyond rotten vegetables.  But the crowd was nowhere in evidence now; the streets were empty.

Retching, he leaned against a low stone wall.  He was wishing he’d never left home.  If he’d missed Passover one year out of his whole life, the Lord would surely have forgiven him.  But it wasn’t in Simon’s nature to neglect his duty as a son of Israel.  So he’d find Rufus and they’d get to the Temple and observe the Passover somehow.

When he came to the street where he’d been conscripted by the Roman soldier, Rufus came flying to him without a word.  Just as he’d thought, the boy had stood rooted to the spot for hours.  There was no telling what he’d witnessed in that time.  For a little while, Simon just held him.  When he set Rufus back down, he let one hand remain on his shoulder, to reassure himself.  Rufus, for his part, kept looking up at his father, assuring himself of the same thing: we’re all right.  We’re together.  

But somehow, Simon couldn’t recover himself.  He could pick up his actions where he’d left off, but he himself wasn’t the same at all.  He knew they needed to hurry to the Temple, to join the sacrifice before the sun went down, but Simon was troubled.  He’d seen jeweled priests in the frenzied crowd, looking alarmingly comfortable amid the chaos of evil, looking almost as if they were directing it.  Why were holy men in attendance at a criminal execution, and during the sacred week of Unleavened Bread?  They should not have been anywhere except the Temple.  There was no one else who could perform the priestly duties, so if the priests were at the execution, then who was attending to the Passover sacrifice?  Simon felt the rumble of trouble in his mind, and thought again of just going home.  Home, where things made sense.  But it was a pilgrim feast and a solemn one.  He had to do his duty.  It was Passover. 

Staying close together, he and Rufus rejoined their route, ascending to the Temple of the Lord.  The empty streets felt ominous.  There should be Israelites going back and forth to the Temple, processing in noisy groups to the sacrifice and carrying the meat back home for the feast.  He knew that many in Jerusalem had celebrated Passover the day before, those Israelites disenchanted with the priests. Even so, the Sadducees administered the Temple rituals, and most pilgrims would be sacrificing on this day.  But the streets were empty of the usual air of celebration, as if people were in hiding. 

Even the approach to the Temple was deserted.  Oh, there were a few beggars skulking about, maybe even more than usual, but they also were nearly silent.  And of the Temple officials and merchants, there were none.  Of the myriads of pilgrims who had streamed into Jerusalem for Passover, there were none.  And there were none of the Roman oppressors whose job it was to circle every gathering and event in the city, sniffing dissent.  Anyone with any significant role to play in the life of the city was absent, behind closed doors.

The sheepfold behind the Temple, where the temple lambs were kept for sale to pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem for the feast were empty, too.  How would he complete his Passover without a lamb?  There had always been hundreds and hundreds for sale in prior years.  And where were the priests who would officiate the sacrifice?  Unthinkable.  Priests were always, always in attendance in the Temple.  Had the world ended?

There were crumbled stones all over the courts which were usually immaculately clean.  The Temple functionaries would never have allowed this chaos to occur.  Simon and Rufus ascended the long flight of steps into the Court of Gentiles then past the Nicanor Gate into the Court of the Israelites.  Meeting no resistance, they continued to pick their way through the debris, approaching the sanctuary.  The sanctuary lights were extinguished and urns lay overturned on the altar of incense.  Simon’s alarm was finally penetrating through his torpor.  The Temple had been sacked!

Within the holy sanctuary, Simon stood stock still at last.   The veil of the Temple, guarding and hiding the Holy of Holies where only the High Priest could enter only one day of the year, lay smoldering on the flagstones.  The veil was made to hang at the height of three tall men, and was as thick as a full-grown cow around its middle.  It was more of a wall than a veil, and would have taken many men to dismantle, but no one was in sight.  It appeared as though a bolt of lightning had split it down the middle and laid it out flat, the smell of smoke still wafting up from its torn middle. 

Simon was more than alarmed now; he was spooked.  Sacred things that were inviolable to man lay in ruins with no witnesses.  It was as if the Temple itself had been defeated in some silent, cosmic battle. 

With the veil in ruins, Simon averted his eyes from the Holy of Holies.  It would have been like looking upon his father’s nakedness.  He turned away in sorrow for the violation.  Although it had been hundreds of years since the holy Ark had resided in the Temple, the innermost sanctuary nevertheless was not the provenance of anyone but the High Priest. 

Rufus had been silent for hours now.  Shock, most likely.  What more could happen?  Would the sun roll backward, the sky split in two and the earth open up like a ravening mouth?  Simon led his son back down the deserted steps.  There was no question of celebrating the Passover now.  Everything was in shambles. 

It was time to get back home. But he couldn’t turn his back on the Temple in distress, the Holy of Holies laid open to the world like a ravaged virgin.  He tried to stop a few of the beggars hanging about, but they backed away in fear from him. Some of them were mumbling nonsense.  Whatever had happened earlier in the Temple had struck them silly.

Descending the hill from the Temple, Simon and Rufus headed for the quarter where they had cousins, near the old city wall.  The sun was setting now, blood-red in the western sky.  Simon felt that if he could get to family, he could finally rest.  Rufus would be fussed over by the women, and he could question the men and decide what to do. 

Hurrying now, to beat the sunset, Simon almost passed a woman standing by herself at the entrance to the old city.  She was as still as a statue, both hands clasped in front of her.  Something about her.  Simon started when she spoke.  “I saw you there.  You carried his cross.” 

From the dark pane of a day entirely devoid of joy, this woman smiled, a brilliant, quiet smile.  He nodded and held out his hands, as though giving himself up.  Instead of grasping his hands, she placed in them a cloth, a linen veil soiled with the dust of the street.  He stood frozen, not sure of her intent.  She reached for a corner of the cloth and revealed slowly the contours of a face drawn in blood and dirt on the veil.  The prisoner.  What should have been a horror, the gory outline of a tortured victim, was instead breathtaking.  Beautiful.  His heart pounded, and tears started to his eyes at the sight.  Seeing the man’s face in repose, even through blood, washed him in a draft of peace.  Peace beyond understanding, peace unfathomable on such a frightening, hideous day.  But strangely, the day no longer seemed hideous. 

They would not be returning home after all.  Not until he knew everything, and the reason for this strange hope, when everything that could possibly be wrong, was.  It seemed, by her quiet joy, that this woman might know. Together, he and Rufus turned, and began to follow her through the old city, to break bread as the night came on

.