I Was There: Eyewitnesses at the Foot of the Cross

By Peter Falconer Hansen

What if you had been in Jerusalem the day that Christ was crucified? What would have happened to you in the immediacy of those turbulent hours? Let the eyewitnesses tell you what they saw, what they heard, and how they felt. This fictional account, based upon the events recorded in the Gospels, puts you inside the day that changed the path of human history.

See these accounts, not as prophetic utterances, but as one might view a stained-glass image or an icon, a work of imagination that allows you to peer into the hearts and souls of the people who were there.

Through the eyes of nineteen witnessesas varied as the apostle Peter, Simon of Cyrene, Pontius Pilate, Mary Magdalene, Judas Iscariot, and the Lords motheryou can experience the way God transformed the worst news imaginable into the Good News.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490831343

Peter Falconer Hansen

Peter Hansen, an Anglican priest since 1985, has presented first-person accounts of Christ’s crucifixion during Good Friday services for over thirty years. He and his wife of forty years have a son and four grandchildren. Hansen also writes and performs music.

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Copyright © 2014 Peter Falconer Hansen.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Author’s note: Many of the biblical phrases and words in this work have been restated by the author in order to move the reader away from the all too familiar language of our favorite Bible translations. This is done that one’s imagination may recast these portrayals in a more immediate way, without hearing a direct biblical quotation. We don’t speak first-century Aramaic or Greek, nor can we fully comprehend the context of the events portrayed for us in their cultural context, especially when presented to us in English. Our English versions are themselves retranslations of the accounts and conversations that are themselves already translations by the Gospel writers into Greek New Testament scriptures from the original Aramaic, Latin and Hebrew. The lyrical and memorable phrases of the King James Version are so much a part of us, the author feels they are almost to be expected as we move through the drama. Thus, such glorious Elizabethan phrases can’t be used if we are to experience the firsthand accounts presented in this book. Should the words or phrases in any part of this work match or approximate those existent in any published biblical translation version, please be assured that the similarity is entirely unintended. These words are the author’s own recasting of conversations and events told to us in all biblical translations.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-3135-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-3136-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-3134-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014905417

WestBow Press rev. date: 03/21/2014

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Peter: The Outspoken Apostle

Caiaphas: The High Priest

Malchus: The High Priest’s Servant

Pilate: The Roman Governor

Barabbas: The Insurrectionist

Antipas: The King of Nowhere

Mary of Bethany: The Younger Sister

Judas: The Traitor

Claudia: The Dreamer

Simon of Cyrene: The Cross Bearer

Mary of Magdala: The Forgiven

The Centurion: Rome’s Executioner

Martha of Bethany: The Older Sister

Joseph of Arimathea: The Rich Man

Dismas: The Penitent Thief

Nicodemus: The Secret Disciple

Lazarus: The Man Once Dead

John: The Beloved Apostle

Mary: The Mother of Jesus

Epilogue

A Bit of Bone

In Memoriam

Canon Harley Wright Smith and

Canon Boardman Colwell Reed

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

O-ooo-oooh.

Sometimes, it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

—American Negro spiritual (before 1865)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

M Y FIRST THOUGHT OF APPROACHING the cross in this way came in reading the excellent treatment by Jim Bishop, The Day Christ Died (New York: Harper Collins, 1957). In his narrative, Bishop describes the twenty-four-hour period from sundown Thursday—as Christ entered the Last Supper dining hall with his apostles—to nearly sundown Friday, as Joseph of Arimathea hastily organized Jesus’ burial and the heavy stone door was rolled into place. Bishop’s hour-by-hour treatment got me close enough to feel and hear and see, and it put me in touch with an unmet desire of my own, and perhaps of others, in this present age.

I needed to be there.

Mel Gibson’s 2004 film, The Passion of the Christ, similarly draws our attention to realistic details, getting us uncomfortably close to the action as Jesus’ blood spatters from whip thongs and drops from giant nails. It is good for us to feel this, react to it, and reel at the monstrosity of it. Those mere words in Scripture, he was crucified, simply do not have the impact on twenty-first-century Christians that they had on first-century citizens of a Roman world, people who had witnessed these brutal executions in person and had no need for a description of such events in detail.

But we do.

One important inspiration must also be told. My father, Peter Franklin Hansen, enjoyed a fifty year career as an actor on television, stage and screen. His best known character was as Lee Baldwin in the daytime drama General Hospital. As a service to several churches in the Los Angeles area, he and some fellow actors once portrayed biblical characters in a drama called A Christmas Triptych. In these, actors portrayed the characters of inn keepers, shepherds and wise men. I’ve taken up my dramatic heritage by treating nineteen real people who found themselves in or around Jerusalem on that spring day in the first century when Christ was crucified. Thanks to my father, I learned that it was possible to make this approach both entertaining and inspiring.

These sketches have made the crucifixion of Jesus Christ more real in my life. They have also deeply affected those to whom I’ve read them on Good Friday afternoons. I hope that this book helps to further the experience for its readers.

INTRODUCTION

W E SAY THE WORDS JESUS died to save me from my sins. And we don’t know—we can never really know—what on earth we are saying. Without actually going through such a death ourselves, can we understand his dying? Without hoisting on our own shoulders the sins of the entire world, the sins of all time, can we even guess at the suffering he endured for our sake? That weight we have not had to carry, because he died in our place? Jesus bore it alone, received no assistance from his Father, was cursed and falsely accused by his exultant enemies, and was abandoned by most of his friends. Only he knows what that cost him.

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ is perhaps the most frequently sketched, painted, and sculpted event in human history. It is the subject of countless books, essays, and sermons. It’s depicted in dozens of motion pictures and thousands of poetic allusions. Yet, even with all this attention, description, and artistic tribute, we cannot know this tragic and triumphant event enough. It was the saving of us all.

While we lack any ability to know Christ’s passion as he experienced it, every human heart is nevertheless moved by these portrayals, signs, and icons of the man on the cross.

The crucifixion is a crime of infinite malevolence. It is a defeat that sends Christ’s enemies into a convulsive celebration. It is an injustice of proportions far beyond that of any massacre, atrocity, or brutality done to any number of victims. And, it is the victory designed and anticipated by the Creator before creation. On that day, at ground level, on the scene, the witnesses of Jesus’ crucifixion watch what might pass for an everyday Roman execution. Jesus could seem just another man claiming to be the Jewish Messiah and receiving his just recompense. The witnesses, in turn, come to their own unexpected, sometimes unwelcome, realizations.

A violent event or major disaster often has numerous witnesses, all whose stories may somewhat appear to clash; the descriptions and details they report differ from one another. But in the aggregate of these eyewitness accounts, our minds’ eyes bring into focus a real, three-dimensional, and true account. Profound and shattering truth dawns on the hearts and minds of the witnesses as a darkened sun sets over Jerusalem.

The New Testament documents were selected by the early church and named as canonical Scripture for one feature that was common to them all. They were eyewitness accounts. Some of the documents—the Gospel accounts of Mark and Luke, for instance—were most likely written by those who recorded the accounts of other witnesses with whom they worked closely, acting on behalf of the eyewitnesses as scribes. Matthew, John, and Peter were there all the time. In his epistles, Paul confines his references about Jesus’ life to those few hours around the crucifixion and resurrection. Paul was taught directly by Christ in visions and solitary instruction, so his writings have that same authenticity as an eyewitness report.

Many other Christian writings existed by the early second century, proclaiming in various, sometimes specious, ways the Christian Gospel. But the eyewitness accounts were chosen for our New Testament because they had unimpeachable authority. These witnesses wrote what they had seen themselves, and thus they were willing to die rather than deny it.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life … we have seen, and bear witness. (1 John 1:1–2 NKJV)

This is the disciple who testifies of these things, and wrote these things; and we know that his testimony is true. (John 21:24 NKJV)

For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain. (2 Peter 1:16–18 NKJV)

Scholars, bishops, and biblical archeologists have filled libraries with well-researched and academic studies regarding this crucial moment in world history—the point where the eternal intersected our human timeline and penetrated all of our lives. But today, do we hear the voices of the eyewitnesses as clearly as they once did in Antioch, Ephesus, Alexandria, or Rome? The Gospel accounts are altogether brief, and they make no attempt to relate in detail all that happened or that the witnesses saw and thought and felt in full. Such was not the purpose of the Gospel accounts. Many other witnesses were present at Golgotha from whom we get no testimony at all.

Theologians describe Christ’s atoning death systematically, carefully shaping the dogma needed for our knowledge of this magnificent sacrifice. Their clear doctrines are expressed in the third person, simple past.

But that day needs also to be experienced in the first person present.

This collection of sketches is how I attempt to capture and convey the immediacy of the drama as it unfolds and as it might be told to us by the people we know were standing by.

I hasten to add that these are works of fiction and, as such, do not pretend to relay the actual words of any of the people who were there, unless they are paraphrased quotes from the biblical narrative. But wherever these reenactments touch upon the facts offered in the Gospel accounts, I have endeavored to maintain close adherence to the biblical details of events, characters, conversations, and actions. Where I theorize, please take it not as prophetic utterance, but as one might view a stained glass image or an icon, a work of imagination through which we peer into the souls of those who were there on the day when they crucified my Lord.

Because parts of this narration come from my imagination and are from my own suppositions, they will undoubtedly differ from the personal ideas that others have used to flesh out the Gospel accounts. Take Mary Magdalene, for example. She has been connected by supposition with the woman taken in adultery, the Samaritan woman at the well, or a prostitute, in sermon, motion picture, and song. We forget that she is only biblically described as a woman Jesus delivered from seven devils. We can’t help having our favorite theories, as we do with the number, names, and nationalities of the magi. With this much liberty we all employ to embellish the story of Jesus, I ask that you be charitable with my own suppositions.

For us who wish to hear it again today, even at such a distance in time, place, and circumstance, these face-to-face accounts help to make the scriptural crucifixion real through encounters, character studies, and remembrance of events. This book is an effort to give living voices to the men and women who were there, in Jerusalem, on that Friday afternoon two thousand years ago.

It moves in agonizingly slow motion. We, the watchers, sense we are waiting for something. We stand in company with fisherman Peter, merchant Joseph of Arimathea, former demoniac Mary Magdalene, and African traveler Simon of Cyrene. Until the end of our vigil, we will wait—with them.

It may surprise the reader to find amid these Good Friday saints a number of real villains: Caiaphas, Barabbas, and even Judas the traitor. They too have views and contributions to make on this day of days. For this is the ultimate showdown when all evil—every human sin and all the diabolical envy of all time—gather their dark forces to confront and defeat the infinite good that is the Son of man and Son of God.

And the good wins.

Jesus’ victory through such sacrifice declares to us the depth of his love.

I don’t attempt to portray Jesus in these chapters from his own point of view. These are witnesses to him, not the other way round. I’ve scarcely been brave enough to attempt a sketch from the mind of the Virgin Mary, Mother of our Lord. With my wife Giti’s inspiration and suggestions, her voice is added to those in this volume.

Christian printers sometimes use the capital letter H in pronouns for Jesus (He, Him, His), but I have intentionally left them out of this work. Some of the witnesses portrayed would not attribute divine status to Jesus, while others only come to their conclusion as their narrative unfolds. To avoid confusion, I leave the letter h small, but in so doing I ask the reader not to draw any inference about my faith from this. He is always He to me.