Something told me this one was not the same:
The way the soldiers knocked, their nervous breaths—
Their rough command: “Make up a sign, old man,
The prefect needs it done. Three languages:
The lingua communis, Koiné, and words
As all these sorry fellows mutter here
In such a hell-hole as Jerusalem.”
I rooted through my pile of finished planks.
“Would cypress do?” I hated how my voice
Quavered so, as if I feared them. “It’s fine,”
The tall one said. “He won’t see morning light.”
If Jochebed had been alive to see
The way my brows drew down, a gentle nudge
Had urged me—”Let it go.” I missed her still.
I would have told her they were clods from far
Beyond the empire’s boundaries. Farm boys,
Their sandals still encrusted with the dung
Bequeathed by some North Afric smallholding,
Their Punic accents tarnishing the tongue
That Roman aristocracy employed to keep
Thrall on a mean and lazy colony.
But she was gone, and while I cut the words
An empty place inside me ached to see
Her lonely chair beside the window. “Now,”
The pompous peasant with a spear declared,
“Make sure you get it right: ‘King of the Jews.’“
I glanced up. “Who is he?” The soldier frowned.
“Just write it. Pilate waits, not patiently.”
It was so wrong. Did Yahweh’s eye not see
How grievous was our bondage, how long now
The Goyim’s heel had been upon our neck,
How shameful was His worship? Everything
That graced us as His people groaned. My wife
Had never wavered in her faith: “The Christ
Will come, and with Him our blessed freedom.”
I shook my head. “Here it is.” I stood up
And handed them the board. They briefly scanned—
As if their backwoods eyes could even read—
And hurried out. At least the Romans were
Efficient, in their brutal rule. My thoughts
Went straight to wonder. Who was it this time?
I followed to the Skull, outside the gate.
The Man they had hung up there, one of us,
Was gasping for His breath. A crippling pain
Swept through His brown eyes. But it was not just
The nails, the piercéd side, that wrung His soul.
It took me back to my first sacrifice,
When Father had made me look at the lamb:
Innocence and shock, pure life flowing away.
The temple curtain shorn in two, and all
Around Him dark stormclouds that crashed and churned,
The rocks split open, Earth shattered by grief.
I fell down astonished, my heart broken
As the ground. I heard a voice beside me:
“This was the Son of God!” The soldier wept.
“O God my King,” I cried, and knelt with him.
The dark blood flowed, His head bowed, brown skin torn,
Exhausted, ruined, Death encroaching on
The light that faded in His loving eyes:
We stood and watched the night swallow Him up.
But suddenly a small hand clasped in mine.
“Morning is coming!” And I turned to hear
Jochebed’s whisper, and a living hope.
Jeremy D. Vogan
Good Friday, 2025
Photo Credit: Ralf Meiering
