Two sturdy boys trudged up a long, winding road that led from the seaport of Joppa toward the great city of Jerusalem. They were tired. The journey had been long and arduous. But, despite their weariness, they were excited. This was the first time the two brothers had been permitted to accompany their father on his annual trip to the Holy City. Their father walked some distance ahead in the company of older men, while others followed behind. They were part of a great company going up to the city for their annual pilgrimage.
“Oh, Rufus,” said the younger brother, “what a thrill to be going at last to the city of Jerusalem! I’ve imagined so many times what it must be like. I wonder if it will really be what we have always thought?”
Speaking with the superior wisdom of a year’s seniority, the older brother said, “No doubt there will be many things that will be surprising to us. Yet I think I know what the temple will be like because we have read in the Holy Scriptures exactly what the specifications for it are. Even then I think there will be splendor beyond our imagination.”
The boys were dreaming as they walked and talked. Sometime later, as they at last came in sight of the great city, they were walking closer to their father and noticed that a great multitude of people was emerging from one of the gates of the city. The crowd was shouting with a fervor. It seemed that they were bent on some hasty mission, some matter of great importance.
The boys began to speculate concerning the significance of what they saw. The crowd, having come out of the gate of the city, was making its way out to a little knob-shaped hill some distance from the city. As they came closer, the two boys noticed that in the center of the crowd, a man was walking very slowly, His shoulders bent under a load which seemed extremely heavy. The load was a great wooden beam to which was fastened a cross-beam.
“Oh, yes, Alexander,” the older boy said, “this is how the Romans punish their criminals. Surely that man has done some terrible deed and is going out of the city with the soldiers.”
“What will they do to him?”
“They are going to crucify him.”
“How do they do that?”
“They lay the cross down and nail him to it, I think, or perhaps tie him to it with throngs. Perhaps we’ll have a chance to see.”
“But look at that man, Rufus. He certainly doesn’t look like a criminal. Can you see his face?”
The boys were close enough now to see the face of the man. Simon, their father, tall strong, and broad-shouldered had also seen the man who bore the cross. In fact, he had seen his face and was so impressed with what he had seen there, that Simon stood still in the road. Those he had been conversing with had gone on ahead in their excitement to reach the city of Jerusalem. But Simon had forgotten all about his mission for the moment because the look he had seen on the face of the man who bore the heavy cross was something that he could not explain, and it reached into his very heart.
The boys came closer to where their father stood. They stopped too.
“No, Alex, he doesn’t look like a criminal. The soldiers are taking him, but it seems to me that he looks like the conqueror and that they are the captives.”
As they looked, the boys noticed that the man who bore the heavy beam stumbled in the road and fell. As he did so, they saw blood gush from wounds on his back. They saw the weight of the heavy beams bear down upon him. With great effort he struggled and stood, taking one labored step then another. The older boy looked with admiration at the man.
“There’s a strong man,” he said.
But as he spoke, the man fell again then struggled to his feet once more, staggering on up the incline. In this way he came to the place where the man and his two sons stood watching, amazed at the spectacle which met their eyes. One of the soldiers, seeing strong
Simon standing in the way, seized him by the arm and said, “We’ll never get there this way. Here’s a strong man, let him take the cross.” Simon hardly realized what was happening. Another soldier grabbed him by the other arm, and another pushed him from behind. He was projected into the center of the swarming crowd. They took the heavy cross-beam from the shoulders of the bleeding Man. Simon was not altogether unwilling to take the burden, because he was glad to see the other relieved, and yet he had no choice—he was compelled by the soldiers. At first, he struggled, but looking into the eyes of the wounded one, he stood tall and carried the cross, heavy though it was. The boys were lost in the multitude, but they tried to stay close to their father in the crowd and be near the man whose gaze had so impressed them.
They reached the top of the little knoll. There they saw that someone had dug a hole deep in the ground. On each side of this hole two crosses stood erect, each bearing its prisoner. Looking into the hard faces of those who hung in agony on the two crosses, the two boys realized that these two were criminals indeed.
“That’s the kind of man you expect to see crucified,” said Rufus, “but what about this one?”
The one they referred to was firmly gripped by the soldiers, his garments torn from him and then, when the cross that this man and Simon had carried up the hill was laid down, the bleeding man was stretched out. A great burly soldier took a heavy mallet and drove rude nails which tore into the flesh of the wounded one’s hands and feet, nailing Him to the cross.
As the two boys watched, it seemed to them that each blow of the mighty mallet caused a shiver of pain to go through their own bodies. They watched the face of the man who was being so ill-treated. They did not see what they expected. Instead of a wince of pain, although it was evident that he was feeling great pain, there was a look of great, deep sorrow, as if He were more concerned for those who nailed Him to the cross than for himself. That’s what the two boys came to believe as they watched.
Then when the cruel nailing was finished, all the soldiers together lifted up the great cross with its burden, putting the foot of the upright beam into the top of the hole that was dig. Then they let it fall. With one great thud the cross stood erect. They watched as the body sagged, and all the joints were pulled out. He hung there, a shapeless form. Even then his face was that of a conqueror. The man’s eyes met the eyes of the boys and their father. The eyes of a victor, not of one who was vanquished.
The events which followed greatly impressed them all, things they would never forget—how the very sky seemed to go into mourning. They heard the captain of the soldiers cry out, “This, indeed, was the Son of God!”
The boys talked for many days afterward. They wondered, “Who could he have been? He was, indeed, no ordinary man. Who could he have been? Who was the man on the cross? Who was he?
When Simon and his two sons went into the city of Jerusalem that evening, the questions concerning the man on the cross were the subject of all their conversation and thought.
They knew they would not forget what they had seen that afternoon. In ensuing weeks, the two boys often thought of the events of that day, even though their time was filled with the exciting adventure of exploring the city of Jerusalem and seeing with their own eyes the things of which they had read throughout the years of their young lives.
Simon, their father, had often visited Jerusalem before from his home in faraway Cyrene. Still, this visit was different for him too from any other. As he went about the routine of his religious observances, his mind never wandered far from the man on the cross. He heard men talking of Him in many of the small places that dotted the city of Jerusalem. Simon learned that there was a group of simple country Galileans who had banded together in the name of the man on the cross. They believed that this one was the very Messiah who was to come to save the people from their sin. Could it be true?
He sought every opportunity to talk to these Galileans, and frequently in the early evening when he and his two boys would sit together discussing the events of the day, Simon would bring them news of his conversations with the men who believed in the man on the cross.
“But Father,” asked the older boy, “ how could it be that he is the Messiah, when he died, and he died the death of a slave?”
“Well, my son, the Galileans teach that although he died, He also arose on the third day, and walked upon the Earth again, and then ascended into Heaven.”
As he talked of these events, he marveled at the way these things fit with the Scriptures, and the prophecy which said his hands and feet would be pierced, with the prophecy which said the chosen one would be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and with the prophecy stating that he would suffer, and by suffering, he would save his people.
Days went by and Simon grew to take more and more interest in learning from these Galileans about those things which concerned the Man who had died on the cross. Sometimes Rufus and Alexander, the boys, would go with him to that great barely finished upper room where these men gathered.
Then the day came when as they were all gathered together in the upper room, praying and speaking of the things of this man whom they called Christ, suddenly something happened that was very difficult to describe or explain. There was a great sound as of a voice, and yet it didn’t seem like a voice but more like the sound of a mighty, rushing wind. All of these men waited expectantly for some manifestation of the power of God. They realized that this indeed must be the comforter, the Holy Spirit, would come and give strength.
The boys, sitting in the corner, saw that their father was deeply moved and all the other men with him. These men, who had been speaking of the things of Christ heretofore only in secret in whispered conversation, now seemed mightily changed.
One of them, a rough fisherman called Peter, stood up and spoke. As he talked, it seemed as if his voice had the power of fire, and he began to tell them clearly and in a way that was very plain just what the truth was concerning this man who was called the Christ.
“Listen to him talk!” said Alexander to his older brother. “He’s talking our language!”
“Yes, it’s extraordinary,” replied the older boy. “Look over there. Those men are from Arabia, and they don’t know our language or the language of the Jews, but they seem to understand this man too!” Then, as the boys watched, it was clear that by some great miracle power of God, every man and boy in that whole large room heard Peter talking as if he were talking to each of them in his own language.
As soon as the wonder of this miracle was over, the boys focused their eyes on Peter and listened closely to the words that he was speaking. Peter talked of Jesus, the Son of God. He told them how He had been crucified and had been slain. The boys remember well the very sight that they had seen. Then Peter told them that, according to the prophecy of the Old Testament, the crucified one did not stay in the grave, and appeared to one and another of those who believed in him. Then he ascended into Heaven, leaving the promise that the Holy Spirit would come in power.
As Peter spoke, all the people who heard him felt as if a great piercing sword of truth had struck to their very hearts—and it was the sword of truth of the Word of God.
Then it was that the man Peter said, “Repent and be baptized every one of you for the remission of sin, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”
In the days following, the boys accompanied their father to their own town.
They went with hearts full of joy because they had come to know Christ and the power of his Holy Spirit, and now they were going back to their own people to make him known.