There I sat, with chains around my feet, in a cold, wet, dark prison cell. The only light came from a small, barred window high above me, far too high for me to see out.
You see, they had finally caught me. It had been good while it lasted. I had been sentenced to death for murder and robbery. I smiled faintly as I recalled the revolt, the uprising I had planned. Everyone else had escaped; I was the only one they had captured, tried, and convicted.
I tried to sleep, but those hellish nightmares kept me tossing and turning. I couldn’t get the thought of my crucifixion, which was only hours away, out of my mind.
Those Romans—I hated them. So many innocent people had been put to death. They lined the roadsides with hundreds of men and women hanging on crosses. They reveled in the spectacle of slow, agonizing deaths that could take up to three days. Eventually, every victim would succumb to asphyxiation. Soon, it would be my turn. A cold shiver ran down my spine.
Through that small window, I could hear voices growing louder and louder. They were shouting my name:
“Barabbas! Barabbas! Barabbas!”
I tried to stand on the bed, to pull myself up to the window, but the chains were too tight. Then I heard footsteps and the clinking of keys in the lock. Two large Roman guards dragged me to my feet, unlocked my chains, and pushed me out of the cell, up a dark corridor, and into the bright sunlight.
As they shoved me through the door, I fell face-first onto the ground. The noise stopped. Lifting my head, I saw hundreds—no, thousands—of people. Then a voice cried out, “It’s Barabbas!” and suddenly the crowd erupted in cheers.
I looked around, dazed and confused, unsure of what was happening. Opposite me, on a raised platform, stood a man. I squinted, trying to recognize him. Could it be? Was it really Jesus?
Then voices in the crowd began shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” They called for Jesus to be crucified and for me to be set free. Pilate, standing nearby, washed his hands in a basin and declared, “I am innocent of this man’s blood.”
As the Roman soldiers led Jesus away, I found myself following at a distance. They blindfolded him, beat him with rods, and mocked him. They pushed a crown of thorns deep into his scalp and laughed as they pretended to worship him.
They tore his clothes from his body and chained him to a post. Then they began to whip him. The first lash of the scourge made me flinch. By the time they were finished, his back was in shreds, his flesh torn to the bone. It looked like a freshly plowed field. I shuddered and thought, That should have been me.
They threw a wooden cross onto his raw, bloody back. The crowd roared as Jesus struggled to lift it, dragging it one slow, agonizing step at a time up the hillside, out of the city. He stumbled and fell face-first into the dirt. A soldier grabbed a man from the crowd—someone they called Simon—and forced him to carry the cross.
The sticky, sweet smell of blood and sweat clung to Simon as he hauled the cross.
I edged closer as they reached the top of the hill, the place where I was supposed to have been crucified. There were three crosses prepared. The other two were men I had worked with—criminals like me.
As they nailed Jesus to the cross and lifted it upright, I heard him cry, “Father, forgive them.” His voice cut through the chaos and pierced my soul. Then his eyes met mine. That gaze hit me like an express train. It felt as though he could see straight into my heart. And in his eyes, there was no anger, no condemnation—only love—pure, unshakable love.
He smiled faintly before breathing his last breath.
At that moment, the sky turned black, as if someone had snuffed out the sun. Everything became still and eerily quiet. In the distance, I could hear a faint cry coming from the temple. The curtain had been torn in two.
Beside me, a soldier dropped to his knees and muttered, “Surely, this man was the Son of God.”