Jesus Triumphant (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 8) (27 page)

The sharp iron tip of the scourge hit his back and pulled, ripping off flesh and blood. He yelped in pain and pulled on the ropes that tied him to the flogging post. He was completely naked in humiliation. This was only the beginning of a long day of pain ahead of him. He hoped he would have the endurance.

Demas looked over at his brother Gestas, also tied up to a post in the yard of the Antonia. Their backs were shredded from the scourge. Demas didn’t know if he could take any more. Ironically, the thought occurred to him what a bad aim his soldier was with the whip. Demas could have been far more effective.

Not that it mattered. He was delirious with pain. He saw the soldier over his brother pull back for another crack, when a voice penetrated the air like a god. “Enough! Get these men their crossbars and walk them to the hill.”

He recognized the voice as belonging to Longinus the centurion, their hound of hell.

He felt hands untying the ropes around his wrists. He saw that his brother was barely conscious.

Soldiers brought a wooden crossbar for each prisoner. They placed them on their bloodied shoulders to carry. The brothers both winced in pain.

“Get a move on,” said one of the soldiers. He pushed Gestas forward and they began their journey to the crucifixion posts waiting for them up on the hill, three hundred feet away from the fortress.

Demas marched out of the gates and down the Tyropoean Valley with his brother by his side. The centurion Longinus led them on his horse. The impatient soldier pushed them along. Every step was a jarring pain with the weight of the wood upon their torn flesh. But Demas had faced greater feats of daring in the arena. He had felt the claw of the bear, the teeth of the lion, and the madness of the hyena before. He was determined to make it without fainting from blood loss or pain.

Gestas was determined to keep up with his brother. He had been overshadowed by Demas’ fortitude his entire life. Now, in the face of death, Gestas wanted to match him. As if they were entering the stage, and they would perform this final act like heroes—together.

Gestas imagined himself as Hercules performing a labor. The mental game gave him a second wind. He pictured himself with mighty bulging muscles on his way to meet Cerberus at the Gates of Hades. He managed a small laugh at himself

“Shut your mouth, bandit!” came the voice of the impatient soldier. He slapped the actor’s back with a horse whip. Gestas grimaced in pain.

Demas wanted to throw down his crossbar, pull that pig to the ground, and strangle him.

Longinus looked back from his mount and said, “Leave them be, soldier.”

Strange
, thought Demas.
As ruthless as this centurion is, he goes no further than the law. He seems quite—just.

Longinus was tired. He had been hunting these criminals and their leader for too long. He had immersed himself in their thinking and religion in order to understand his enemy. But something had happened in the process. The zeal of these Jews had gotten to him. At first, he could not understand why they refused to submit to Caesar. Why did they seek autonomy, when they were worse off without the civilized culture and iron protection of Rome? Did they prefer to grovel in the mud and stone with their simplistic religion of a bachelor god? But when he was visited by the god, Zeus, or whoever it was, he could not get it out of his mind that he was merely the pawn of a much greater game being played out by the powers. For the first time in his life, he felt used. Manipulated. Was this what the Jews felt in their longing for a deliverer? Is this what their “Son of God” was supposed to do, free them from the control of principalities and powers? Why then had their “messiah” failed? Or was he just another one of the many pretenders to the throne of this “King of the Jews?”

They arrived at the top of the hill, Golgotha, Place of the Skull. There was a figure ahead of them, being hoisted upon his cross, his hands already nailed to the crossbar. The Nazarene.

The wood was taken from the criminals. They were slammed down on the ground, their hands held tightly, as a soldier pounded vicious Roman nails into their wrists and into the crossbar. They screamed in pain.

Longinus had presided over thousands of crucifixions. He had even performed some of them as a young legionary. He had become hardened to the pounding, to the cries for mercy. Why then was he troubled so? He saw the naked humiliation of the Nazarene, moaning in agony above him, and he suddenly felt a betrayer of the law and justice he had sought to uphold.

What happened next to Demas was all a blur. He faded in and out of consciousness as they hoisted him up on his crossbar. Another explosion of stinging pain in his heels as they were nailed on each side of the vertical post.

He looked over and saw his brother, hanging yards away to his left, and in between them was Jesus. They were all three naked and beaten bloody. Jesus had a crown of thorns on his head, an obvious mockery of the sign nailed above him. It had several languages on it, but Demas strained his neck to see it. He could read the Aramaic that said, “King of the Jews.”

Below him, Demas saw soldiers rolling dice for ownership of the royal robe they must have taken off the poor soul. The centurion stood apart, not partaking.

They stare and gloat over me;

they divide my garments among them,
and for my clothing they cast lots.

But you, O Yahweh, do not be far off!
 

Demas looked down at the crowd standing around. They all seemed to be here for Jesus. Hundreds of them. Morbid onlookers, crying women, mocking scribes and Pharisees.

O you my help, come quickly to my aid!

Deliver my soul from the sword,
my precious life from the power of the dog!

Save me from the mouth of the lion!

Demas barely made out Jesus’s words, mumbled through pain. “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.”

Forgive them? Who could possibly forgive them?

Then Demas caught Barabbas in the crowd. He was staring up at Jesus with eyes of horror. He wiped tears from his face and pushed his way through the crowd to escape.

Demas knew at that moment what Barabbas had seen. Because he had seen it too. This innocent man who was hanging next to him, was the very incarnation of forgiveness and mercy. The opposite of everything that Barabbas, the revolution and his Zealots, were—what Demas and his brother were. They cried for justice but produced chaos. They proclaimed “No king but God,” but worshipped Belial. Demas had sought revenge on Rome, the Beast that murdered his love, and he had become the Beast.

This was one single, solitary, righteous man, and all the world was evil.

He had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Gestas’s attention was caught by Jesus saying through his own pain, something about taking care of his mother. Gestas looked down and saw Mary Magdalene standing with Simon the Zealot, Jesus’s mother and the disciple John. Gestas noticed that they were the only male disciples with the liver to show up. All the others had run away from the trouble like scattered sheep. They had betrayed their rabbi after three years of following him.

Pathetic cowards
, he thought to himself.
For a pathetic leader. I should have killed Simon after all
.

Hecklers in the crowd hurled curses at Jesus. Scribes mocked him. “He saved others, he cannot save himself!”

“If you are Messiah, king of Israel, come down from the cross and we will believe!”

“You said you would destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days. Ha!”

They were right
, thought Gestas. He remembered the time he had spent around Jesus. All the teachings about the Kingdom of God, the rule and judgment of the Messiah. Jesus had made them believe that he would launch the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness. He made them believe that he was going to call down an army of Yahweh’s heavenly host, to destroy the enemies of God and put all things right. How did it all come to this? The false hope. The lies. How did he ever for a moment believe that this weak worm of a man beside him was a deliverer? How did he allow himself to be fooled? There were no heavenly armies coming to rescue them.

He spit out at Jesus, “Are you not the Messiah?! Then prove it! Save yourself and us!”

Demas shouted back through his own physical and psychic pain, “Do you not fear God, brother? We are receiving the justice we deserve for our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong!”

Gestas sought to spare his energy. He chose not to respond, only to mumble to himself, “You are no brother of mine.”

Demas cried out, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom!” He cried as he had never cried since he lost his beloved wife so long ago. He felt the stinging salt of his tears flowing down his opened flesh—a baptism of suffering.

Jesus raised his head and glanced at Demas. “Truly, this day I say to you, you will be with me in Paradise.”

Gestas heard the exchange. He burned with a rage as strong as his wounds.
There is no Paradise. There is no Messiah. There is only death.

Though it was midday, about the sixth hour, the sky suddenly rolled up like a scroll and all around went dark. Women screamed. Some people fled in fear of impending doom.

• • • • •

Barabbas stumbled through the desert just above Gehenna, the Valley of Hinnom. He had wandered out past some stationed Roman troops and now tread along the precipice of the valley. He couldn’t think straight. He was haunted by the sight of the Nazarene on the cross. Barabbas knew it was he who deserved to be up on that instrument of torture, not the innocent Nazarene. Barabbas had fancied himself a deliverer, trying to act like King David. He had come to believe his own lies.

The voice in his head was not his own.
You fraud. You phony. You are no hero. Look what you’ve done. You are guilty as hell, and yet you walk free, while the innocent Nazarene suffers. You should be up on that cross, but instead you took the easy way out. You coward.

Barabbas looked around. He saw a figure standing at a distance from him. It looked taller than human. It wore a hood. But he knew it was staring at him. Sending him its thoughts. Or was he going mad?

The sky above him suddenly went dark. It became like night, while it was actually mid-day. Was this a sign? He could barely see where he was walking.

Yes, this is a sign, you fool. It’s a sign that you should be in darkness. You should end it all. Be a man and take upon yourself the just punishment you wormed your way out of
.

Barabbas shook his head, trying to get the voice out. He heard a ringing start in his ears, ever so low. It increased. It became intense. Painful.

The voice continued.
Just do it. Stop waiting around for some kind of atonement. There is none for you. There is only darkness. You have lived a lie and there is no redemption for what you’ve done. Just end it all. Just step off that ledge
.

He looked down into the valley. He could not see much because of the darkness. But it was high, maybe a hundred feet or more with jagged rocks below.

The ringing stopped. The voice turned soft and gentle.
One step and the pain will stop. Forever.

The thought of Azazel came to Barabbas. What the Nazarene had said.

He turned to see the shadowy cloaked figure closer now.

Azazel.

It raised its hand and pointed at him.

Azazel.

Was this the angel of death?

Jump. Jump. Jump. Jump. Jump
.

Barabbas jumped into Gehenna.

• • • • •

On his way back to Golgotha, Belial stopped by the body of Iscariot, hanging from a tree in a deserted field outside the city. It had been there for hours already, still undiscovered. He could smell the rot like perfume in his nostrils. There were no maggots yet. That would take another day or so. The eggs were only now gestating. But what had happened with delicious irony was that the branch that held the rope around the betrayer’s neck had eventually broken under the weight of the body. It fell to the ground and Iscariot’s bowels split open.

Belial bent down and licked up some of the blood and excrement that had leaked out. The rancid decay was the bread of life to him, the blood like wine, his own sacrament, a sacrificial offering. The betrayer had become so overwhelmed with guilt that he returned the blood money to the Sanhedrin for handing them Jesus. But rather than repenting, as that pond scum Peter did for his betrayal, Judas took upon himself the price of his own actions.
Ah, to pay for one’s sins. The ultimate delusion
. There is only one price for such pride: perdition.