Imagine being one of the Roman soldiers though. Imagine having to do what you thought would be a normal execution one day.
Three convicts, two of which are thieves. As for the third… I mean, yeah some people say this guy is the “messiah” (whatever that means, you’re no Jew) and there is talk of miracles and the religious nuts really seem to hate him, but you have him nailed to a cross all the same, so what? If he is a god then he can join the club; Caesar knows that the Romans have enough gods to fill their pantheon and then some. Most likely he’s just a man with some hefty delusions that cost him his life.
But then earthquakes happen. Weird but can be written off as chance, right? Then the sky goes dark midday. A blood moon rises.
That ain’t normal.
Feelings unlike anything you’ve ever felt arise in your gut. The man cries out with a loud voice “It is finished!” and dies immediately after. You shiver. Uncanny, that is.
“Surely this Man is the Son of God,” a fellow Soldier exclaims beside you. At this point you might agree, but the spear still pierces through his skin all the same and you think (hope) that whoever this God-Man was that he isn’t your problem anymore, seeing as he’s dead. Hopefully you can forget the whole thing. (Somehow you feel that this scene will haunt you for a long time)
But the debacle is not over with the burial, as you had assumed. The religious nuts get real anxious and noisy, so to shut them up Pilot has a watch set to guard the body of a dead man. A dead man.
You personally have seen many dead men in your time, but never have you seen one move. Never have you seen or heard of people particularly wanting to touch dead bodies, either. You almost say as such when you are one of the men assigned the last watch, but decide you’d rather like to keep your tongue than chance losing it. You expect it to be rather a boring job, all told.
And it is. Until these, these beings of light and lightning descend on top of you from the Heavens and the last thing you can think before you know no more is whatever god whose body I’ve been guarding please spare me
You wake up, despite all your expectations to the contrary. You almost wonder if it would have been better if you died.
Those religious nuts come to you and your fellow guards and give you some coin along with a fake story to tell. They offer to save the skin off your back so you are not put to death like others who’ve been killed for less. You go along with the story because to be honest there is still a part of you that hopes this was all a dream. But the borrowed words taste like ash in your mouth and the coins jingle in your pockets with all the weight of a chain.
You go through the rest of the day (and night, and the next day and night) after the event in a haze. Your feet walk where you know not and you don’t care to correct them.
But then you see Him.
The same Man you saw die.
The same Man whose body you guarded.
This Son of God, in the flesh, you see stand in front of a crowd with your own two eyes and you can scarce believe it but all the same you know more than you’ve ever known anything before that this is real, that this Jesus is truly not just a god, but The God.
And so you decide to follow Him.
Just imagine that for a minute.
