We turn to the other side of the cross and we meet the soldiers. Who are they and what do they see? We must know that during the days the Roman Empire crucifixions were used as a cruel form of execution that was meant to scare potential criminals from behaving badly.  It really is the opposite of death with dignity. It was perfect humiliation.  Soldiers would always be present and they could not leave until the crucified was dead.  This was not pleasant for them, unless they had particular cruel personalities and enjoyed seeing other people suffer.  There had to be Roman guards at the execution, but Pontius Pilate would have taken a number of Syrian Greek soldiers with him from the Roman town of Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean. They were therefore people from the region.  The text tells us that the legs of the first and second criminal were broken.  Believe it or not this was an act of mercy in a way. The soldiers would want to inflict as much trauma and shock to the body so as to speed up death.  Sometimes they would start a smoky fire to asphyxiate the condemned.  There was a self-serving aspect also.  This would not be a desirable assignment, especially to soldiers from Italy who would have regarded Palestine as a chaotic backwater full of intrigue.  They wanted to get away. And these crucifixion’s would take days. But not in the case of Jesus Who expired sooner.  The text tells us His legs did not need to be broken.  But then we read about the spear in the side that lets out water and blood.   Is it symbolism of Jesus as Rock of Ages and the image of blood and water coming from rock in the Old Testament? That isn’t clear.  But for the soldiers this is a common event. There was no emotional connection. It was just a job.  Then comes the mention of Jesus’ clothes being divided up.  It was a tunic of one piece, seamless, so it would have to be cut. The text says they cast lots for it.  It is supposed to remind the readers of Psalm 22 where the author laments about clothes being divided up.  It is perhaps the final reality check and humiliation. This condemned on the cross won’t be coming back.  Whatever Jesus owned on this earth is now taken from Him divided up.  The soldiers do not have the respect to wait.

So the soldiers, friends, represent the cruel and the indifferent, those who aid and enable the punishment. There is no emotion.  This is troubling to us because it means that not everybody standing face to face with Christ is moved. There is a reason for that: they could not be moved because this has to happen.  This crucifixion must take place for it is the ultimate symbol of God’s love in the world.  This is how a loving God shows God’s love, by suffering. It is the like the great aunt of the teenage passenger on the Korean ferry said just yesterday.  “I want to jump in the water to be with her.”  This is God’s version of jumping in the water with us.  There was no room for unnecessary emotion here. The job had to be done. The world had to move on.  Jesus was gone before they had to break His bones.  The spear in the side, who knows whether that was curiosity or cruelty or just a way of determining if there was more they needed to do.  Perhaps they just wanted to know if He would still move.  If only the other two criminals would go as quickly, then they could all go home.

Not only then do we see God in Jesus on the cross humiliated and suffering, but there is the indifference of the soldiers added to it all.  In the soldiers we see all those who turn away from the suffering of others and from God, Who leave God hanging there literally.  They go home and don’t look back.  It just underscores for us how truly desolate the scene is, but at the same time how utterly engaged God is with suffering humanity, entering into it fully and completely.   Thanks be to God.

Pastors cannot real do Good Friday well. Not as well as lay people. There is a reason for that.  As pastors prepare a Good Friday meditation, they are also preparing for Easter.  So as they go toward Good Friday, they are already thinking beyond it.  They are not standing still, pausing for the moment.  You have stood in front of the cross today and you have stood on both sides of the cross, or imagined that you have done so. You have seen the perspective of the criminal and of the soldier and of Mary. You have heard Pontius Pilate’s side of the story.  Now you stand beside it and you must imagine seeing what a disciple saw, a disciple who was incognito, who was hiding, making sure he wouldn’t be spotted.  The texts tell us there were no disciples, but let’s assume one had made his way in- which is not that hard to imagine- and he looked at the cross from the back, what is going on? 

For one thing, he probably couldn’t see much of Jesus body.  Perhaps part of the head hanging down.  Hair with dried blood from the crown of thorns. Perhaps some of his finger tips were visible or his feet.  Imagine the tornado if emotions that disciple was facing: imagine fear, the fear of being spotted as a disciple.  But that would be the least of it. The fear of Jesus would be greater.  This man had had great powers of healing. He was the kind of person who could take one look at you and  know what you were thinking that moment and many of the moments before that too.  What if he walked up to that cross and there was still just a little bit of light in those eyes, eyes that would recognize him as a disciple.  Before letting out His last breath, Jesus’ final  gaze would be one of disappointment and of hurt.  And the hurt and disappointment would be because of him, he would own this disappointment.  Or would Jesus be happy to see him? Would He be moved that one of His disciples had made it to the cross.  Or could there be a sense of embarrassment in Jesus’ eyes that He couldn’t climb down from the cross and fly off into the clouds?  No more than anything the disciple would be afraid of the women, Mary in particular who might be brokenhearted that her Son’s disciples were nowhere to be seen.  He knew he couldn’t face that look, now as the indifferent busyness around the cross was increasing, a sign that the end had come.  So that fear would be greatest, looking the devastated woman into the eye.  And this fear had a lot to do with guilt.  There is fear in guilt you know.  There is fear in looking so deep inside yourself that you cannot hide from yourself. Looking so deep inside yourself that you cannot buy your own story anymore, the excuses and the reasons why you did not come and stand right before Jesus and told Him how much you loved Him or even climbed of on that cross to tear Him off singlehandedly.  Yes guilt is part fear that you will not be able to sell that image you have of yourself, that your actions have obliterated it. Guilt holds the fear that mirrors become horrible things when you walk past them, that you can’t bear any longer what you see in them. Think of Judas.  The whole understanding of yourself, your whole identity, is no longer valid.  This man Jesus had given people a way out of crippling guilt, through the warm embrace of forgiveness.  Now He was gone or almost gone.

But then there is this creeping sense of feeling betrayed or silly also maybe, a sense that this man Jesus had not been the man that He said He was.  Sure He had told them what would happen in so many words, but He could have done something dramatic. What would become of these oppressed people now?  Would there be more centuries of Roman rule and local corruption?  Had he as a disciple given up too much, had he been too naïve, too trusting, too starstruck? He doesn’t know, but he wonders.  Where does he go from here?  There is only this moment. There is no hindsight. There is no knowledge of the followers of Jesus going from 200 to 2 billion.  There is no next day, or second day or third day. There is Easter, Pentecost, no Paul, no pope, no Billy Graham, no Mother Teresa, no Martin Luther King, just a chaotic scene in a dusty back corner of the Roman Empire filled with paupers at the edge of time.  And so the curtain falls. This is what pastors may miss. Amen.