The centurion could still feel the burning light from Gethsemane, and now a different kind of burning entered his awareness as he watched a looming darkness spread from Golgotha like scalding tar.
He stood at the top of the hill, below the criminals. The black stain colored the highway and the city walls in the distance. It crept up the angles like angry ivy; it spilled like blood across the tops of the roofs. It hurried toward the Jewish temple. He could see it all from his post.
He turned to look up at the one they called the King of the Jews. The man’s hair was matted and tangled in thorns. His body was sagging, though not yet dead. No, he thought, not yet. The centurion had seen so many dead.
He looked back out into the mysterious ocean of darkness.
He could almost hear the voices as they crept up from the murky fog – but ultimately, they remained hidden:
/Bang bAng, the KinG is dead!! Bang, BANG. He’s DEAD! We hoLd the kEys noW. We’re lOckINg you in. SEal the doors frOm the outside, aIRtigHt, sleep tIGht -/
Bang! The storm broke open like a shotgun; the wind lifted a million poetic particles of dust with its first breath and brought the memories in line with the soldier’s watching eyes:
His own child’s face took shape in the debris, his hair lit by the echoes of the sun behind the clouds. Lost because of me, thought the centurion, because of my constant provocations: almost nothing shapes a criminal as thoroughly as disappointment. And as quickly as it materialized, his son’s face dissipated in the gloom. No, it morphed. Another face, his mother’s, another failed relationship. She didn’t want to lose him to the military, so that’s exactly where he headed. And then her face, gone, up in smoke. And another. And another.
What is this? he wondered. What is this darkness that manifests nightmares of regret?
And although there was no way of really knowing, the centurion with all his knowledge of warfare might have guessed that this was an attack; from hell itself burst the gods of the rebellion, and with Jesus hanging on a tree, they descended upon the city.
/ThE kInG iS deAd/
As the centurion stared into the abyss, the rushing wind grew louder. A storm like none he had ever known before was gathering. Yet, he stayed where he was. He knew his duty, to remain until the job was done. So, when the rain fell first in whispers and then in a wild roar, he stayed. The King of the Jews wouldn’t last much longer anyway, and he was the only one that really…
Suddenly! A ragged intake of breath above him. The centurion spun around to find the King of the Jews facing the heavens, eyes alert and ready. A dripping sound from every edge. A sudden stillness in the rain. Indeed, it almost seemed as if the wind had obeyed his…
“Father.”
And violent shrieks in the darkness railed against this surprising peace. The frozen horror of their voices chilled the centurion to the bone; his hand rested warily on the hilt of his sword – this was a place of danger. The creatures that he couldn’t hear continued howling: /noOo!!! no fAther buT oUrs! NothinG lefT for You but DeAth!!!!!/
“Into your hands…”
The centurion glanced once more toward the city to catch the hasty retreat of the evil rushing back toward Golgotha in what seemed like a last ditch effort to bury the King once and for all; the darkness was moving with direction, and he could sense the chaos. The earth shook with the rage of demons facing God, and losing.
The centurion followed the shuddering blackness as it climbed back up the hill and eventually swirled around his feet. He breathed it in – he nearly choked. He looked up at the King of the Jews…
Jesus was looking at him.
And his face. He looked like the King they’d mocked him for pretending to be. No. Something more. With the wind rushing around the two of them, the black smoke ricocheting like locusts, the earth careening into itself: he looked royal. Majestic. Holy.
“The Son of God!”
Mark 15:39