Letters from Adina - #34

Letter XXXIV. The Ascent of Calvary.

“Let me bear it alone, Master,” answered the stout Simon.

My Dear Father,

I now resume the narrative of the condemnation, or rather sentencing of Jesus, after He had been brought a second time before Pilate.

When Pilate, after giving the order to release the robber chief, Barabbas, came again were Jesus was, he stopped, and gazed at Him fixedly, and with a look of sorrow and admiration.

The youthful beauty, the dignity even in His anguish, the patience and look of innocence that surrounded Him, deeply moved the Procurator.

Pilate’s brow grew dark. He took Jesus by the hand, and leading Him to the portal,  pointed to Him, and said aloud:

“Behold your king! What will you that I should do with him? Looks he like a man to be feared?”

“We have no king but Caesar!” shouted the crowd. And some cried, “Crucify him!”and others, “To the Cross with the false prophet!”

“Death to the usurper! Long, live Caesar! Death to the Nazarene! To the cross, to the cross with him! Let him be crucified!”

Cries like these from ten thousand throats, rose in answer to the Procurator’s words.

Remembering the warning message sent him by his young and beautiful wife, who held great power over him, he trembled with doubt.

“Why will you compel me to crucify an innocent man? he cried. “What evil hath he done?”

“Crucify him! crucify him!’’ was shouted in answer.

“I will chastise him, and let him go!”

“At your peril release him, O Roman!” cried Caiaphas, in a threatening voice. “Either he or thou must die this day for the people. Blood must flow to allay this tempest!”

When the Procurator saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather the tumult increased, he called for water, which was brought to him in a basin; and, in the presence of the whole multitude he washed his hands, saying -

“I am innocent of the blood of this just person. See ye to it, O Jews, ye and your High Priest!”

“His blood be upon us, and on our children,” answered Caiaphas; and all the people repeated his words. “Aye; on us and on our children, rest the guilt of his blood!”

“Be it so,” answered the Procurator, with a dark brow, and face pale as the face of the dead.

“Take ye him and crucify him, and may the God he worships judge you, not me, for what shall be done this day.”

Pilate then turned from them, and said to Jesus, who stood unmoved, with the same heroic and heavenly patience which He had manifested throughout the storm that raged about Him.

“Thou art, I feel persuaded, an innocent man; but thou seest that I cannot save thee. I know thou wilt forgive me, and that death can have no terrors for one of fortitude like thine!”

Jesus answered nothing; and Pilate, turning from Him with a sad countenance, walked slowly away, and quitted the judgment-hall.

As he went, one of his captains said to him - “Shall I scourge him, my lord, according to the Roman law, which commands all who are sentenced to die to be scourged?”

“Do as the law commands,” answered the unstable Roman.

Not only Aemilius, but John, was now separated from him; for the crowd dragged Him away out of the court of Gabbatha, and so down the steep street, towards the Gate of the Kings, that leads out to   of Calvary, the public place of execution, where the Romans, since they have been masters of Jerusalem, have crucified criminals in their cruel fashion.

At the gate, a Roman centurion took Him into his keeping, and led Him forth, followed by the vast multitude. A cross of heavy cypress was obtained by the centurion from a yard near the lodge, wherein stood several new crosses, awaiting whatsoever victims Roman justice might, from day to day, condemn to death.

By the time the great crowd had passed the gate, it was known throughout all Jerusalem that Pilate had given command for the crucifixion of the Nazarene Prophet; and, with one mind, all who had known Him, and believed in Him, or loved Him, left their houses, to go out after Him, to witness His crucifixion; for I forgot to say that Caiaphas had promised, if Jesus were delivered up, that His followers should not be molested.

Therefore, all men went out of the gate towards Calvary. Mary, His mother, my cousin Mary, Martha and her sister, Lazarus, John, and Peter and Thomas, with some women, relatives from Galilee, and many others also went.

At the approach of Calvary we found that, from some cause, the course of the mighty living current was checked. We soon learned the reason. Jesus had sunk to the ground under the weight of the wooden beams on whereon He was to die, and fainted.

Barabbas, the robber, who had in some degree, taken upon him to the lead of the mob, now, with the aid of three men, raised the cross to the shoulders of Jesus, and the soldiers commanded him to move on. But the young victim sank beneath the heavy load.

Upon this they were at a loss what to do; for it is an abomination for Jew or Gentile to help in bearing a malefactor's cross.

Not a Roman would touch it; nor would the Jews for fear of defilement, which would compel them to be set apart afterwards for many days’ purification.

Barabbas again raised Jesus to his feet, and began to scourge Him, to make Him drag the heavy cross up the steep of Calvary.

But he had no strength to advance with it, though He strove to obey His tyrannous executioners.

But now they saw a Syro-Phoenician merchant, Simon of Cyrene, a good man, well-known to all in Jerusalem, and father of the two young men, Rufus and Alexander, who were followers of Jesus, for they have sold, the last year, all they had, that they might become His disciples, and sit at His feet, and listen to His divine teachings.

Their father was, for this or some other reason, hated by Abner, who, on seeing him, pointed him out to the centurion as one of the Nazarenes, and asked wherefore he should not be compelled to bear the cross after Jesus.

Immediately the Cyrenian merchant was dragged from his mule and led to the place where the cross lay. He believed he was about to be himself executed. But when he beheld Jesus standing pale and bleeding by the fallen cross, and understood what was required of him, he burst into tears, and kneeling at his Master’s feet, said - “If they compel me to do this, Lord, think not that I am consenting to Thy death! I know that Thou art a Prophet come from God!”

“If Thou diest to-day, Jerusalem will have more precious blood to answer for than the blood of all her prophets.”

“We brought thee here not to talk, old man, but to work,” cried the chief priests. “Thou art strong-bodied. Up with this end of the cross, and walk thou after him!”

Simon, who is a powerful man, raised one end of the beam, and Jesus essayed to move under the weight of the other; but he sank down.

“Let me bear it alone, Master,” answered the stout Simon; “I am the stronger. Thou hast enough to bear the weight of Thine own sorrow. If it be a shame to bear a cross after Thee, I glory in my shame, and my two sons would glory likewise were they here this day.”

Thus speaking, in a courageous and bold voice, and looking as if he would as gladly be nailed to the cross for his Master, as carry it after Him (for Simon, as well as his sons, had long believed in Him), the man of Cyrene lifted the cross and bore it on his shoulders after Jesus, who, weak from anguish  and from loss of blood, and weary unto death, had to lean for support against one arm of the cross.

At length we came to this place of death, where five crosses were already standing. There was an empty space in the midst of this Golgotha; and here the centurion stopped and commanded the crosses to be set in the rock, where deep holes had been already been cut.

The crosses carried by the thieves were now thrown down by them : one uttered a curse, while the other sighed, as if he feared the anguish he was to suffer upon it.

The larger cross of the three was that for Jesus. It was taken by three soldiers from the Cyrenian merchant, and cast heavily upon the earth.

The centurion ordered his soldiers to clear a circle with their spears about the place where the crosses were to be planted. But John held his place close by his Master.

He tells me that Jesus continued to manifest the same fearless patience when the centurion commanded the crucifiers to advance and nail the malefactors to their crosses.

The Centurion, who was a tall man, with a grizzly beard, and with the hardy look befitting an old Roman warrior, looked upon Him with a mournful gaze, and said: “I do not see what men would hate thee for, for thou seemest rather to be a man to love; but I must do my duty, and I hope thou wilt forgive me for what I do. A soldier’s honor is to obey.”’

Jesus smiled forgiveness upon him so sweetly that the stern Roman’s eyes filled with tears, and he held his gauntleted hand before his face, to conceal how much he was moved.

This was spoken in a low tone to Jesus, who made no reply; for at this moment the crucifiers drew nigh, to nail Him to the cross that lay at His feet.

But, my dear father, I can go on no longer now with my narrative. I am weary of weeping at the recollections it brings before me, and at our present affliction.

Your loving daughter,

Adina.

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The new Lady Donna Immersion in Spirituality, Academics and Citizenship @ the "I AM" School will study abridged excerpts of the Letters from Adina taken from Reverend Ingraham's original edited version of 'The Prince of the House of David', published by Cassell & Co. Ltd (1903), that reveal remarkable insights into the Living Etheric Record left by Beloved Jesus's Ministry in the Holy Land.