The Man with the Crown

 

The Man with the Crown

    

     “He says he’s their king,” a soldier said. Claude went on with his work, fingers moving over the woven leather vest until the hole closed up. He nodded in satisfaction. It was finished. The armor was repaired now.

     Laughter burst from outside the courtyard. Claude tried to ignore it. As long as it wasn’t at him, he didn’t mind. Today they had found someone else to torment. Yesterday had been different when one of the big soldiers had taunted Claude about being too weak to lift a spear. Claude had wished he had the strength to stand up to the man. Instead, he had tried to make himself small enough not to be seen. Then the big soldier had stumbled forward as their captain slapped the back of his head. The captain had then reminded the company that Claude was touched from the gods with his talent for repairing the things that they all broke. Those soldiers had the best armor in Jerusalem thanks to Claude so they should show respect, lest their leather weave become weak with holes.

     Claude focused on inspecting his work and heard another eruption of laughter. There was a prisoner on trial who claimed to be the King of the Jews. Another revolutionary, Claude supposed. Just another man trying to lead others against Rome. Just another man who would die on a cross and be forgotten.

     “You,” a voice said. Claude looked up to see his captain grinning at him. “I have a task for you, boy,” he said. “Come.”

     The captain led Claude behind the barracks where the scrub brush grew thick on the slope. He pointed to the dry plants that formed the barb-like thorns that could pierce leather armor.

     “Take some of those thorns there,” the captain directed. “Use your skills to weave them into a crown.”

     “A crown?”

     “Yes, a crown like what a king would wear on his head. Make a crown from these thorns. Do it right away. I want it as soon as our king arrives.”

     Claude put on his gloves and was careful taking cuttings from the thorny plants. He heard more shouts as he carried the items back to his work bench, this time from the crowds. They seemed to be furious about something. Perhaps they didn’t like this man who called himself king. Well, they would be pleased when they saw him suffer and die. Claude didn’t care for executions. He hoped he would be allowed to return to his normal work once his task was completed.

     Claude wouldn’t rush this work. He went slow, bending the sticks and twigs around each other. The thorns pointed in all directions, including inward. This King of the Jews would feel the thorns going into him, but Claude dismissed that thought. The man was a criminal. He deserved what Rome handed down. What’s more, he would welcome death as a release from the suffering.

     A thorn penetrated his glove and Claude winced in pain. He pulled off the glove and sucked at his finger for a moment. There was a drop of blood on the thorn and he cursed at it. Then he sighed and put the glove back on. The thorn was only a dry bit of wood. It had no malice and didn’t know what it was doing. It was one of many thorns being shaped into a crown. He worked at it until it was done.

     Claude smiled at his finished product. His captain was right to charge him to this. This crown was large and sturdy. His efforts had made something good. He stared at the thorns. Once he wiped the blood from the single one that got him, he couldn’t tell one from any other. They were all alike.

     Finally the doors burst open and a group of soldiers marched into the courtyard. They were pulling along a man who held his head up. The man seemed to want to come along. He wasn’t resisting, but they hurried him anyway.

     Claude stared at the face of the man. He didn’t look like a king or even a criminal. He looked like any other Jew in the land. But his face, the more Claude looked at the man’s face, the more the man perhaps did look like a king. What was this? Then Claude realized it. This criminal looked like he knew each of these men’s names. When the criminal’s eyes fell on him, Claude shuddered. This man looked at him as if he knew his name and everything about him. Claude dropped his gaze to his work table. The crown was gone.

     The captain had hooked the crown with the end of his whip and was carrying it to the man. He lifted the end of his whip and dropped the crown on the man’s head where it sat lightly.

     “Hail, King of the Jews,” the captain said, the last words coming out in a laugh.

     Then Claude watched as his captain put his whip on both hands and pressed the crown of thorns down hard on the man’s head. Through the guards cheering, Claude heard the man cry out in pain. But when the captain pushed the criminal to the ground, Claude was astounded. The man looked up at the captain into the captain’s eyes with a look of pity. The cheers died down, replaced by angry shouts.

     Claude was ordered from his workbench to stand in formation. The man was beaten. Claude tried to watch as little as possible. But all the while, he could never shake the feeling that this condemned man was the one in charge. The captain called orders and the strong men worked the whip. But this man who could barely stand after a while never lost the look that he knew everyone’s name and if he wanted to, he could just walk away.

     At last they had enough of the beating. The captain called for assembly to march. Claude looked at the man, torn and hurt, struggling to his feet. The crown was still secure on his head. He had indeed made it well for it to remain on the man’s head. Now the man was beaten and suffering for his crime. It was a harsh punishment indeed. Did this man deserve such torture?

     The captain stepped in front of Claude, blocking his view. “Your work was superior, he said. “The crown is well made. You have earned the right to carry this.” The captain handed Claude a sign written in three languages. All Claude knew was his own, which read King of the Jews.  

     Claude was put out in front and told to hold the sign high. This was the man’s crime. Everyone would see the offence this man had committed and see the condemned man punished severely for it. The population would be taught the consequences of crimes against who ruled.

     They started off through the streets of Jerusalem. It would not take long to reach the hills outside the city, but the condemned man moved very slowly. Claude was astounded at how crowded the streets were. It seemed the whole city and more turned out to see this man. Soldiers were positioned in front of Claude to keep the way clear and he held the sign high for all to see. So many people, and so many who did not seem to hate this man. Women and children were crying for him. Several men too, cried for this criminal.

     The procession halted. The man had fallen. Claude glanced back and saw the crown still on his head. Then his heart pounded in sorrow. The man would die with the crown still on. Claude had only made it thinking about his craftsmanship and how skilled he was. He had never thought about it being the last and only thing a man wears while he bleeds and dies.

     The man spoke to the crowd. Claude could not understand the local dialect. Whatever he said, it seemed to make the women even more sad. Finally another man was pulled from the crowd to help carry the cross through the streets. The walk to the hill outside the city still took a long time.

     Once at the hill the soldiers assembled in formation at the base. Some of the crowd pressed against the line of men. Claude was called to the top of the hill with the sign. He stood and held it, not so high anymore, while the man was laid on the cross and nailed down. Claude handed over the sign and it too was nailed to the cross above the man’s bloody head. Then the cross was lifted. Claude was gestured in and he stepped up to assist his fellow soldiers. The cross rose up and then dropped into place.

     Claude could not stop himself from looking up at the man with the crown. The man was looking upward at the darkening sky. Then in short gasps, he spoke. Claude wondered what the man said. The words were spoken with the same pity the man had carried throughout the beating and procession. What words could this dying man say? Claude felt he had to know.

     Two other condemned criminals hung on crosses and shouted back and forth. At one point, the man with the crown spoke to one of them. When he did that, the criminal, a thief according to his sign, had such a look of peace that Claude wished even harder that he understood the local language.

     Who was this man who could give peace to a dying criminal? Who looked on his tormenters with no hate, but pity?

     Claude glanced around. Most of the soldiers had been dismissed. There was still the small formation at the top of the hill and now several of the locals had made it up with them. Most of them paid no mind to the Roman Soldiers, only a few looked warily at Claude and the rest. Claude recognized one of the men as a merchant from Arimathea who had traded with them. He would know both the language of the locals and of Rome. Claude considered stepping over to speak to him.

     Several of the soldiers shouted up to the man. They told him he may come down now. One of them was wearing the man’s robe. Despite being midday, the sky was growing even darker.

     All at once, the man with the crown cried out. At the foot of the cross an old woman began wailing in earnest. Another man put his hand on her shoulder and spoke to her. She shook her head. The man with the crown spoke once again. His words were pained, but still carried strength.

     Claude slowly stepped over to the group at the foot of the cross. The sky rumbled. He glanced at the merchant who backed away from him. The captain walked up carrying his spear and looked up at the sky and frowned.

     The next time the sky rumbled, the man with the crown cried out. People all around looked up to him and spoke among themselves. Claude looked to his captain who looked concerned. Then the man with the crown shouted and everyone jumped in surprise, even the captain.

     “I have heard cries on the battlefield before,” the captain said softly. “That was not a cry for mercy. That,” he pointed up with his spear. “That was a victory cry.”

     Claude looked from his captain to the man. Before he could speak he was knocked to the ground. People everywhere cried out as the ground underneath shook. Claude heard the city behind him rumble under the earthquake. He got to his hands and knees and looked up, right into the eyes of the merchant from Arimathea.

     The captain offered Claude a hand and pulled him to his feet. The captain’s face was still troubled. Claude reached down and offered the merchant a hand up. Then the three stood together and the captain drew a deep breath.

     “Surely,” he said. “This was the Son of God.”

     Claude turned to the merchant. “Do you know what he spoke?” he asked.

     The merchant looked to Claude and his face softened. “He was calling out to God,” he said.

     A wind was picking up and Claude felt drops of rain, or perhaps hail. “I made that crown,” he murmured. “I made that crown of thorns he wore when he died.” Claude felt his voice break.

     The merchant frowned and said nothing. It seemed the connection between them was done. The man bowed his head. Claude saw his captain raising his spear to the man with the crown. Claude and the merchant both turned their backs. There was a cry of shock from the men and women at the cross.

     Claude began to feel tears in his eyes. He did not feel like a soldier of the Roman Empire then. He felt like someone who had made sure this man died in pain.

     “He said something else,” Claude heard. He looked over to the merchant whose face looked just as pained. They looked to where the cross was being lowered. Rain was falling hard and most of the soldiers were busy. Once the cross was low enough, a young man started to work the crown loose. It took some effort to get it off and the man’s fingers were bleeding when he finally got it off and flung the crown away.

     The merchant looked at Claude as he watched. “He said this,” he told him. “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.”

     The man had spoken words of forgiveness? Could it be that the horrible thing Claude had done was forgiven? He would have to think about this.

     As he left the hill, Claude looked in the direction that the crown had been flung. He couldn’t see it anymore.

         

 

The Miracle Rising

The Miracle Rising

     It hurt when the storm came. I had not felt that kind of pain in a year. It had always used to hurt before the rains came. But when this storm struck so unexpectedly that it did not have had time to hurt before. When the sky darkened and the wind and rains came, I felt that old ache again. It frightened me.

Then I heard what people were saying. I refused to believe it. When they said that The Teacher was dead I almost laughed. I told them what The Teacher had done for me. How could he die on a cross? When I saw his followers, they were crying. That huge man, one of the fishermen, he was almost as big as me and weeping like a child. I felt their anguish. I wept too. The Teacher was dead. I was so sad I almost couldn’t walk.

     Time before, I had gone for years without walking. And then The Teacher came to me. When he healed me, he gave me so much more. More than just by body was changed. I don’t want to ever forget that day.   

I am on the ground, leaning against the wall by the gate. This day my leg and back are hurting more than usual. It must be about to rain. The ruined bones of my back always ache more before a rain. Today, I decide I don’t want alms. I’m too furious. I shout curses at passersby. I curse the donkey that had kicked me and made me like this. People mostly ignore me. They give alms to the women or the elderly. A big man like me ought to be working. I would be working had it not been for that donkey.

Nothing is fair. Nothing is right. I should be walking around earning money. I had been a strong man. I used to lift heavy bails. Now I am starving and in pain against a city wall, relying on the whims of others to be able to live. My anger seethes and boils like burning stew in a cookpot.

Then I see him. The Teacher walking with a group of men. My anger grows even more. These men are laughing and talking. The Teacher must have said something funny because they all stop walking to laugh. Even The Teacher is leaning on his knees and wiping his eyes. When I see this group of men with their friendship and happiness I want to hurl my pain and misery at them. This is what I think: Even if it were to double my pain and suffering, I would share it with others so that they would stop being so cheerful. I want them to be miserable just like me.

Now on this dark day made my back hurt again. They said that the teacher was dead. They told me how he had been beaten and whipped and then nailed to a cross. The pain he must have felt. It would have been so much worse that what I ever endured.

I spoke the words aloud: “How could he have died? He healed me. The bones in my back were crooked and broken. I was in pain. He touched me and healed me. How then, how could he allow himself to be so hurt that he would die, bleeding and in pain on a cross?”

No-one knew how to answer me.

The rain began. This was no refreshing spring rain. This was a cold, bitter rain like the kind that comes and blots out the world, washes away the dirt and dust and then leaves everything bare, cold, wet and lonely. I let the rain fall on me. My bones hurt, but not the way they used to. Perhaps I only imagined the pain from years of it happening. Inside me, the sorrow hurt more.

Other people stood in the streets and let the rain fall. Still others ran for cover. I knew many of the ones who stood and let themselves be rained on. Friends of the teacher, those who had heard his words or felt his touch, including me, we stood in the streets and let the rain hit us. It hid our tears and we all seemed to want to wash away the anguish. His close followers were no-where to be found. Those followers had been with him that day.

I start shouting at The Teacher and his friends. The men look abashed. The Teacher, however, I can’t believe what he does. The man looks at me and smiles, almost laughs again. Youngsters will sometimes point and laugh at me. But a grown man usually doesn’t even look at me, even if he gives me alms. Now this man is looking right into my eyes. And he smiles. He smiles as if I’ve been with his group of friends and I ought to be walking and laughing with them. The insults and curses in me are stopped dead. I try to speak, but I can’t. What can I say to this man? I can’t ask alms of him now after all I had shouted at him. But he looks at me as if I had never said anything to him.

It’s like this: He seems to understand, even feel my pain and bitterness. The rage I show is on the outside. Inside I am hurting and miserable. And he sees through that rage. My insults and curses mean nothing to him. And he smiles at me as if he knows me and I’m his friend.

But this friendliness does not make me feel better. There is still so much darkness in me that I do not take well to his cheerful looks. So I began to try to shout again. The words are stuck in me and I can’t think of what to say. I repeat words and groan. I finally burst out an insult at his mother. One of the men with him lurches forward. And the teacher puts out his arm and stops him.

“That’s enough,” The Teacher says. Even though he’s not close to me, the voice feels like it is spoken next to me. Now he looks at me without the laughter. His look has expectation. He begins to walk toward me. The rage and pain in me seems to cower.  

The hours over the next day were full of sorrow. I met a woman who quietly told how The Teacher had changed her life. The way the story went, He had saved her from stoning. Another man talked of the blind seeing. There were even talks that The Teacher had raised a man from the dead. When I heard that, I was torn. I had been crippled. Then I was not. The Teacher could do these things. But then why was he dead?

The morning of the first day of the week I was bleary-eyed. I had not slept well, despite having a whole body, my bones felt like they wanted to ache. But I don’t think it was that. I think it was my heart that was in pain. I remembered the day He took my hand. I had felt such joy. I thanked him, of course. But as I stepped out into the cold morning air, I wished I had thanked him more.

Something woke me. I thought perhaps the earth had moved. I stepped outside. The sun was about to rise and I looked in its direction. The light blazed out and I shut my eyes and felt the air turn warm. What a simple pleasure. I used to curse the sun for spite. After that I used to enjoy the solitude and warmth of the sunrise. Now the loneliness…

“You’re hurt,” he says. Two words. Those two words spoken to me seem to say everything about me. Not just my ruined back and leg, but all the pain and sorrow that was with it. And he speaks it, not like an observation, but like he is, yes, teaching me something. He tells me I’m hurt as if I didn’t know. And the words startle me. Why, yes. I am hurt.

He is close to me. I don’t want to look in his eyes. I look at his friends milling about the gate. They are not disturbed by their friend stopping to talk to someone. A few friends are closely watching us. He’s standing over me now. I steal a quick glance upward. Had he asked me a question? No, what does he want?

Why can’t he just go away and let me shout in anger at everyone? There are days when the anger and shouting out are all I have. The rage sustains me better than bread. This is one of those days. I want to go back to raging. I need to. I’m beginning to feel out of breath without shouting. I want the man to move on. Instead he stands by and waits for me to say something.

I try to prepare myself to shout at him. I take a deep breath in order to yell at him to leave me alone. I choke out a sob. Inside I scrabble for the strength that comes from the anger. It’s gone. The rage has left me. Suddenly I feel so ashamed and exposed.

“No…” is all I can say. And then I begin to sob. It’s the same pain anguish I had always felt. But now it’s without strength. It’s hobbled, just like me.

He reaches down to my hand. As he takes it I try to pull it away. But I also let my fingers clamp down. His hand is rough like a workman’s. I look from his hand to his face. I have tears in my eyes. What has this man done to me?

Then I’m able to make out his face through my tears. It looks sad too. The man asks me what I want him to do.

What do I want? All I know was that I want my strength back. I used to be a strong man. But now the only strength I’ve known for the past years, all that sustained me through the pain was that rage. I want to hate again so I can ignore the pain.

How can he ask me what I want? And how can I tell him? I want him to leave me alone.

I choke out the word, “Go.”

At that he gently lets go of my hand. And when he does, a cold wave flows over me. The pain in my body sinks down beneath this feeling of loneliness that I’ve never felt before.

But that morning I didn’t feel lonely. Remembering that day was uplifting. For the first time in days, I felt as if I was not alone anymore. It was like the warm morning sun was my friend and had just given me an embrace. That warmth that came from the light was like something I remembered so well. Yes, it was like the touch of The Teacher. I smiled at the sun and thought words of thanks for its reminder to me of the touch of the teacher.

I didn’t retreat into my room. I took to the streets. My bones weren’t aching at all. The cool air and the warm light were invigorating. I almost felt like running. There was someone running in fact. I saw it was a woman. I thought she must be in danger. She was saying something as she ran, something to no-one in particular.

The woman turned a corner toward where The Teacher’s friends were staying. I walked quickly toward the street corner. When I turned it, she was already gone. I found myself running too. Suddenly a group of men, the followers spilled out of a door and came at me. Some looked angry, others confused. The woman was there, and her face looked like the rising sun.

Two men in the front of the group were at a full run and blew past me. The woman followed closely. I stopped one of the remaining men and asked him what had happened.

“He’s gone,” the man said. “They’ve taken him.”

I let the man go. He was gone? The Teacher was gone? He was dead. Did someone take the body? Why?

The men who didn’t run off stood in the street and looked bewildered. I must have looked the same. I looked in the direction the others had gone, toward the tomb. They couldn’t be lying. Was the woman mistaken or mad?

I walked away and wandered the streets, thinking. Somehow, I ended up at the city gate where I had sat on the ground just over a year ago. I found the precise spot against the wall where I had sat with my pain, rage and hate.

“Wait,” I cry softly. And I look, he’s still there. Through great pain, I reach up my hand to his. At that moment, all I want was his touch again. He takes my hand, oh when he takes my hand again, that coldness vanishes. Warmth returns. I don’t want him to leave me alone. I want to feel this closeness forever.

“I want to stop hurting,” I say. That hate and rage that I’ve held onto, it seems so small and insignificant now. I tell him, “I don’t want to hate anymore.”

And then he starts to pull on my hand. What is he doing? Pulling me to my feet? The bones of my back will rub together and I will pass out from the pain. But the strength, the warmth that I feel at his touch, I don’t want it to stop. And I hold tight to his hand.

And then there I am, still holding his hand, crying out, but not in pain. I’m crying out in surprise. I am standing. I can’t speak. The man’s friends are smiling. People around are staring. And the man, the man is laughing again. And then I start to laugh. I throw my arms around him and I lift him from the ground! The man’s friends cheer. The teacher lifts his hands and shouts words of praise to His Father. I have my strength back. It is as if it never left me. I set The Teacher down, throw both hands in the air and shout, joining the man’s friends in celebrating.

He had taken my hand here. I was pulled up out of it all. Not only was my body made whole, but I started a new life that day. He had made me new, saved me. The rage and hate retreated. As I listened to his teachings in the following months, the rage and hate went the way of the pain.

I had puzzled for days over why this man could save me and not himself.

Now his body was gone from the tomb.

Could that mean what I hoped it could mean?

And when the woman’s next news came out, I was one of the first to believe.

Easter Spheres

This week from the “I’m not making this up” department comes a story out of Washington State. A school district came down and declared that students may decorate spring spheres. That is what they wanted them called. Them I am referring to what the rest of the world calls Easter Eggs.

Now I have come out before on my blog and said that I don’t like to write about topical issues. So why don’t I stick to childhood anecdotes and rantings about how much I like coffee first thing in the morning? This story is just a single incident. The morning radio show I heard mention it mostly laughed it off

But I couldn’t get this story out of my head. And I didn’t want to go on some tired harangue about holiday trees and spring spheres and wait a minute an egg isn’t even a sphere, right? And when the morning talk show brought up that an egg is an ellipsoid and how the geometrical community should be offended the host pointed out that if you look at an egg from the top down then yes it at least looks like a sphere.

You just have to skew it and look at it only one way and then it’s the shape you want.

Well I sure do that.

Back to this school district. Do people think that other religions are a study in cultural diversity and Christianity is intolerant so it must be kept out of the schools? Is this the same mentality of another true story about a church that wanted to put an advertisement slide up at a movie theater before the film began? The ad invited folks to church to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. The theatre told them they could only show the ad if the name Jesus was removed. The church invitation was fine otherwise.

Maybe people are looking at Christianity from the top down and only seeing what they want to see. But if you look at an egg or even an ice cream cone and just see a plain circle you are missing something important. And so much of the world is looking at us and only seeing a flat shape.

I take these decrees by the contemporary world personally. I feel attacked when the PC police tries to squash the name of my Lord. I feel I need some strong and witty comeback that will shut them all up for good. But now that seems like sort of a flat way to react. So instead of rising up in righteous indignation I want to consider this:

Jesus showed us that when the population is against you and is insulting you and even physically hurting you that you can pray for them. You can continue to love them and show them the way to God. And this Sunday we celebrate the greatest comeback ever.