The Adventures Of The Thirteenth Apostle

Chapter 8 Finding Jesus in Jerusalem

It was exciting for me, but even more exciting for Justin. He had never been to Jerusalem before. He was amazed as we saw it from a distance and only grew more excited as we drew near. It was midday when we arrived in the city, and I was surprised that there were so few people on the streets. Usually some merchants and lots of shoppers walked about at the market, but today there was just venders sitting, doing nothing. At that hour almost all the activity centered on the marketplace, but it was almost deserted. I stopped at a vender and asked him where everyone was. He looked at me and responded gruffly, “Where have you been? They are all watching the crucifixion.”

“We are from out of town and have been on the road for three days—we know nothing of what you speak.”

“Everyone else has gone; you may as well go too.”

“Why would the entire town go to watch? It’s common enough for Jews to be crucified.”

“It is that holy man they are all talking about, and they want to see if he will save himself. He is some kind of prophet, or something like that and people flock to see him. Today is the last time they will be doing that, if he is not already dead.”

“Sir, please can you tell me his name?”

“They call him Jesus.” My stomach sank.

“Where, sir, please tell me where he is at!”

“You might as well join them too, everybody else is there, and you can see how empty it is here. How am I going to make a living if all my customers leave just to watch some execution?”

“Sir please tell me quickly, what direction?”

“I don’t know what your hurry is. This has been going on since this morning and he is sure not going anyplace. If you go two blocks that way and turn to your right, staying on the road until you see or hear all the noise you’ll surely find him.”

“Oh Justin it’s him. I know its Jesus.” The words ripped my heart and my throat as I got them out.

Justin asked in panic, “Matthew, what will we do when we get there? That kind of death is only by the Romans, we can’t fight them.”

“Right now I know nothing, but I have to go to him, even if it means going to my death. You may stay if you want. I won’t ask you to endanger your life.”

“I told you, we succeed or fail together. Lead the way, and if we die today we will do it together.” We rushed to get to the hill, and were stunned when we arrived there. When I looked up at that hill it was bright day light all around us, but it was dark as midnight inside of the cloud that blocked our way. I stuck my arm into the cloud and my arm disappeared from our sight as it entered the darkness.

“Justin we cannot find our way through that darkness for my hand disappeared as I put it into this dark vapor, we have to find a torch light to be able to see. Try and find anything that we may use to guide us through this terrible darkness.” Justin went right and I went left looking for a light to guide us. Then I saw Justin inside the darkness beckoning me to follow him. As I stepped into this cloud or whatever it was, the light fled and except for Justin’s light I could not see anything. If Justin got ahead of me the light would fade so quickly I had to run to catch him. As we moved forward there were terrible noises all around me, and I felt people near me but they were not visible. Then I began to see what looked like sparks shooting into the air, but they only went a few yards before they were gone. As I looked I could see darkness darker than dark if that can be imagined. Whatever it was moved as human, but it removed all light and the darkness was so intense that their darkness gave light to the surrounding darkness. Justin began to fade and I heard him call to me, “Come.” As I turned to follow him I made out the image of a large man on the back of the biggest horse I had ever seen. There was noise around me as a wind or a river that is raging in a winter flood as it cascades through a great fall. So many people were there, or what looked like people, it was unreal, but I needed to get out of this and reach Jesus to do whatever I could for him. Finally light was spreading before us, and as I came out into the light Justin was in front of me. “I am sure glad you found a light and knew the way up here, it would have been impossible otherwise to get us through whatever it is that is in there.”

“Matthew I found no light, and I followed you up here. If you did not have the light, and I did not have the light, then who brought us through there?”

That was when I looked up and saw the three crosses in front of me. From where we stood, I could not see clearly who was on them, but three women and a man were close at the base of the center one. It was not until the man turned that I realized it was John, supporting and protecting the three women that were weeping there. I recognized John, the disciple, but where were the other eleven?

What I saw made me quiver inside. The one thing that gave me a slight glimmer of hope was I only saw one of the apostles there, so maybe the vender was wrong. I forced myself to move forward, and then I saw him. I don’t know why I did not die with sadness, looking up to see this man from God that loved so many and did so much good there in front of me, bleeding and mutilated, nailed to a cross. I wept openly as I looked. If it were possible I would have traded places with him right then, that he might live. I could barely get out the words to Justin, “The center one is Jesus.” Justin was weeping as hard as I was.

Justin choked out the words, “Can we do nothing but stand and look?”

“If we got him down now, which is impossible, he will die anyway.” With Jesus hanging there all we could do was stand there and do nothing. No thought, no plan, no option existed that could turn this around. Never had I felt so helpless, so lost and so angry in all of my life. I was angry with the priests, with the Romans, and the men that were cheering as he hung there. I was angry even with myself, for being unable to do anything to stop his death. What if we had arrived a day earlier, maybe we could have done something to stop this wrong. As we grieved, some men came up from behind us and began throwing stones at Jesus as he hung there. What surprised me was that none fell to the earth, though we saw them hit him. “Sir, why would you do this to a defenseless man? What has he done to you to deserve this disrespect?”

The man snarled at me, “You have no idea just what he has done to us.”

“I ask you to tell me what it is that he is guilty of that he should be treated this way.”

Again in disdain he said, “If I told you, you would not believe it.”

“Please, I will listen and not judge you if you will tell me his crime.”

“If you want to know I will tell you what he did to us.” He turned to the men with him and told them, “I am going to tell him just why we hate this Jesus so much. I will tell him the truth and not lie, and if I do lie he can with my own knife slit my throat.”

His friends said, “If he doesn’t want to we can do it now.” (I wasn’t sure they were jesting.)