Pieces of Silver

By Cynthia Winkler

Walking in a winter wonder land was as perfect as the song implied until a corpse is dropped in an outdoor ice cathedral, and Rose is hurled into another set of circumstances that will alter her life forever. Like ripples rising from shadowy depths to stir the surface, everything in Benton begins to change with her discovery of the unidentified body. Secrets buried in an intricacy of deceit and betrayal threatens to destroy more than reputations if truth is exposed to the light.

Someone knows all about the cadaver, and theyre watching.

Another will do anything it takes to keep the secrets locked away and theyve killed before.

Austin knew the trouble was starting when the coins came and based on the ancient inscription that found its way to him through time and space, he didnt let his wheelchair get in the way of helping a friend.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512724677

Cynthia Winkler

Cynthia Winkler is the author of three novels, including When the Manna Ceased and Iron Chariots. She also writes poetry and short stories to share with the First Draft Society in the Foothill Writer’s Guild and expresses her love for the Scriptures as a Bible teacher and as a volunteer in children’s ministries. Cynthia and her husband, Paul, currently reside in Fair Play, South Carolina, where they attend Earle’s Grove Baptist Church.

Book preview

INTRODUCING AUSTIN

P ieces of Silver, like Iron Chariots and When the Manna Ceased are works of fiction. The town of Benton though based on small southern towns that I visit is also fictional. My characters are works of my imagination loosely inspired by people I know or have met briefly and put together to fit roles I’ve needed them to play. All but two:

Austin Gilliam and his mom Shannon, these two are actual people I know and love, and have written into fictional roles in my book. I have kept their names with permission. Why would I do that? I want everyone who reads my books to know about Austin and Shannon.

I thought I would write about the Spinal Bifida that confines Austin to a wheelchair. I changed my mind. The condition may confine him but, it does not define his personality. I encourage you to do the research if you are interested. I met Austin when he was in elementary school. I was working with the school district and was in his school occasionally. What drew my attention to him were the character traits that drew other people to him as well. Even as a kid he was always smiling. Later he joined the Earle’s Grove Baptist Church family with his mom and I got to know them both.

What may be described as handicaps, Austin seemingly views as merely obstacles to overcome.

Much like me at five foot, I would like to be taller. I know it won’t happen so I get a footstool when I need one or call on a taller person to reach the top shelf. Austin apparently views his wheelchair in similar fashion. After you know him a little while the wheelchair is a non-factor in your relationship. It just is, and he doesn’t seem to mind that I’m rather short.

At this writing, Austin is twenty-one and a student at Southern Wesleyan University pursuing a career in the ministry. All three of these things are in defiance of the odds. He lives with both his parents and has siblings, nieces and loves dogs. I narrowed his family in the book because of character space. I have come to appreciate Austin’s love of God and knowledge of scripture as we work together in the Good News Club, which is an after school program for children that meets on school grounds.

I hope you enjoy Pieces of Silver. As you read about Austin, visualize him as an actor on my stage while playing a real part on God’s stage.

PART ONE

DARK DAYS

1: ARE YOU WILLING?

FIRST CENTURY A.D.

I t was Judas… a feeling like an ice dagger went through his brain paralyzing his movements at first recognition. It was Judas who had thrown the coins on the temple floor in anger. The significance pierced his brain again.

Judas was a follower of the rabbi Jesus, and it was Jesus who was in the center of the chaos on the streets. That chaos had caused him to be here hiding in the darkness. Marcus trembled at the memory of Judas twisting the leather pouch before he threw it in the face of the priest standing before him, a priest with as much power as Pilate, the Roman governor, to have a man executed for such an insult. The fear that churned in his belly didn’t blind him to the scene until Judas ran from the temple. The events continued to replay in his mind as the terror mounted on what he feared was the last day of his worthless life. Marcus, commonly known on the streets as the little beggar, hunched lower covering his eyes with his hands and trying to claw the horrifying images away.

Even in his early years on the streets, when a coin dropped he could instantly identify what it was and who dropped it on any street across any courtyard in Jerusalem, like any beggar on the streets. And like every street scavenger he knew silver from metals of lesser value and was drawn instantly toward that sound. The Little beggar knew that the sound still ringing in his ears was silver hitting stone. Over and over it rang like thunder in his head.

The little beggar squeezed his small body further back into the shadows wishing to be anywhere else, waiting for death that would come when he was discovered. Marcus held his breath to keep his weeping and moaning from being heard.

There had been so much commotion out there. He shouldn’t have come down the Via Dolorosa. He knew about the trial of the Nazarene, but the sentence of death was rarely carried out so quickly.

Sweat dripped off the end of his nose. Could they hear it drop in the dust? Crossing over the busy road toward the bridge had been the fastest way back to the temple mound and his place to beg. The Romans were beating everyone they passed in the crowds to make way for the accused men that were going to the hill where they would die. Slipping into the first recess in the walled street to escape the whip, Marcus hoped to go unnoticed, making his small body as inconspicuous as possible. Still, he was brutally pushed and shoved along until he thought he could evade injury by ducking into an alley with others who were doing the same. The alley became so packed with terrified people that he was viciously pressed against the temple wall until he couldn’t breathe.

Before he passed out from lack of air, Marcus felt the crushing weight of the crowd on his chest… then, miraculously, a feeling of weightlessness as the wall behind him fell away dropping him from brilliant day to total blackness on a dirt floor, blinding him temporarily. With relief Marcus filled his lungs with cool air. His first thought was of death, then the smell of earth invaded his nostrils and he was flooded with gratitude to be alive. He had escaped the pressing bodies. He was free … he thought. He lay unmoving in peace until the feelings departed with the panic of confinement. Shivering in the darkness, he stumbling around, seeking blindly until his eyes adjusted, to discover he was in a block room with no obvious exit back to the street. The wall was rumored to have trap doors leading to hidden rooms, was one opened by the press of the panicked crowd?

It was immediately obvious he couldn’t go back the way he came, and he began to hesitantly descend into the cavern. Too frightened to be curious, he decided to ignore the numerous passages leading off in various directions. Chambers and hollows emitted eerie sounds that continually echoed off the walls. Marcus stayed on the most traveled path, hurriedly following footprints dimly visible in the dust until they led him to a curtained alcove. He excitedly exited expecting to come out in the hallway of a rich man or a walled garden.

When he realized he was inside the holy temple of the Jews, he felt his blood curdle. He only meant to go straight through, his mind cried as he swayed back and forth on his haunches. He didn’t want to see anything. He ran down a long corridor toward a light and into the place where the confrontation between Judas and the priests was taking place. Images materialized again in his thoughts. They could have Marcus stoned for being this close to the inner chambers. It didn’t matter what his reason. How would he explain his presence, the son of a prostitute, in the inner court? A woman of questionable origin, even the other prostitutes had scoffed at her claim to be a Jew of the Hebrew tribe of Benjamin. Marcus believed her when she said his father was a Roman, though she did not know his name. The little beggar’s thoughts were a jumble of confused terror.

On hands and knees Marcus crawled along the walls, pleading to every deity he had ever seen a statue of, and they were plentiful in the market. He knew his pleas were not being heard. As this tiny niche presented itself in the shadows, he dived into the darkness. The imprint of the face of Judas made by the sun streaming in the doorway still fixated on his eyeballs and memory. In the dark coolness of the niche he shut his eyes trying to blot out the images. His stomach muscles were clinched so tight in terror that he felt sick. His skin was clammy with cold sweat. He tried to hold the vile vomit back, but it erupted from his insides into the corner with such force it splashed back on his clothes and feet.

Marcus coughed and gagged, seeing flashes of light as the force of the bile erupting from inner parts invaded his nostrils, burning his eyes. It wasn’t remembering the look of distress on the face of Judas that made him sick. Tears stung the back of his eyelids thinking of the look he witnessed on the faces of many men on the way to the cross or post where they would receive their punishment by the whip at a Roman’s hand, their faces begging for a quick death. He had seen that look on the faces of women accused of adultery as they were dragged into the street to be stoned without pity, and the sight caused him to wither inside. He knew it could have been his mother’s face. Marcus never became accustomed to that look. He never learned to turn away, as the other people of the street told him to do.

What truly made Marcus sick was the priest’s face as he looked down on Judas who held the leather pouch stretched out in a trembling hand. It was more than hate, more than a glance of self-righteous piety. It was all that mingled with a stare of triumph. It was the replica of a victorious gladiator who had lamed an unbeaten foe before calling in the lions to appease his thirst for blood and the bloodlust of the crowds. That look struck the little beggar to his core with cold fear, instantly drying the sweat from his hot skin, leaving him with the clammy feeling of sickness.

That heinous look was why Marcus no longer went with the caravans to ply his beggar’s trade in Rome during the games. That was the look that made him sick. And this time it was not on the face of a Roman gladiator. It was piously balanced above the holy robes of a Jewish priest. The face of that priest was the pit of hopelessness where a race of people had placed their trust. He was the icon of twisted truth. As Marcus watched the scene unfold in the inner court, the screams of humanity being crucified filled his head. Marcus saw the face of corruption in the most holy place, and if they knew, he would die.

Judas had shaken with anger and babbled about the arrest. It was Judas who caused the coins to scatter onto the temple floor. The sound echoed through the temple chambers long after the priest’s slaves had gathered the coins and secured them in another leather pouch.

Every instinct inside him screamed for him to run. Terror crawled up his spine with icy fingers. Instead, like a cornered rat, Marcus crouched in the dark in the stench of his vomit and waited. Hope gave him a dim possibility of escape. The longer he waited the fainter hope became. Trembling with horror he knew that at any moment his secret could be discovered and he would be the next one stripped and nailed to a cross. The odor of the slaughter house drifted through. It pervaded the streets around the temple during the Pesach festival as lamb after lamb was slain for the ritual sacrifices. He closed his eyes anticipating the arrival of the god of death to claim his life, listening for the sound of the oarsman coming through the gates of the netherworld.

Life continued and his breathing slowed. He lingered until the sounds from the street grew quieter and the crowd moved past. Finding the courage to poke his head out of the little recess, he saw no one and began to scurry quickly toward the doorway where the confrontation had taken place.

The resonance of scattered coins on stone still echoed in his brain, so much money… why would anyone throw it away, his calculating wit asked.

Stop thinking and get out. His thumping heart responded sensibly, until something in the shadows overrode the common sense of his heart with a sparkle, a glittery little temptation like a giant finger of light and his greedy mind couldn’t look away. Glancing both ways, the little beggar had no will to resist the dazzle, even at the risk of his life.

Sidestepping, looking around furtively, bending quickly, to scoop up the glittery things with trembling fingers, he put them into his inside pouch and scurried down to the doorway. Flattening against the inside wall he strained his neck to look both ways, slinking around the stone entrance Marcus joined the scattered worshippers in the gentile court as though he had never entered the forbidden place.

When his downcast eyes told him he was outside the temple, and every step took him farther down the road, his mind couldn’t clear away the trauma of coming so close to death. He felt eyes on his back. Fear that he was being followed turned him down numerous paths and alleys, crisscrossing the main road into the city, always looking over his shoulder for someone or something suspicious. Diving into the largest throng in the busiest streets and then ducking into shops that had stairways to rooftops for a better view, he stayed out until the chilling feeling of vulnerability began to recede.

Entering his hovel near the outer wall of the city he noted he was alone. Most of the other hovels were inhabited by other beggars, who were still at their places on the streets, beseeching passing strangers to share their good fortune with the less fortunate. Cautiously, pulling the cover over the door Marcus lighted a candle, though darkness had not as yet settled in the streets. If anyone asked about his peculiar behavior, he could fain illness. He was known to be lazy, and that generally suited his purpose too. If no one expected anything, then they didn’t ask for things he had no intention of sharing.

As was his habit he waited just inside the flap that separated his hovel from the street for the sounds that would suggest it was not a good time to enter the little space. Marcus had shared the hovel with his mother until her death. She had been a beautiful woman, the daughter of a prostitute, and she knew her trade well. Though she was gone now, old habits were still practiced by rote and as a way to honor her memory.

He had grown into the knowledge of his mother’s life and he understood her relationship with the wealthy man that visited the upper apartment where they had lived in a better part of town. Things changed quickly when the rich man’s wife found out his mother had a boy child. They were turned out on the street shortly after. His mother told him he was not the rich man’s child, not to pursue that avenue, for it would only lead to his death.

Her skills in prostitution kept them comfortable however, and it hadn’t been hard for her to find a protector, and a new benefactor. Though he was not as rich as the one before, all had been well, until she met the rabbi. She had been in the crowd the day Jesus prevented one of her kind from being stoned to death.

Go and sin no more. Jesus reportedly said. His mother had become a follower that day, which put her son out on the street to beg. That’s when she began telling him she was of the tribe of Benjamin and because of that Marcus was suddenly Jewish and the rabbi was the long awaited Messiah.

Marcus scoffed under his breath as he took another step away from the entrance. Just another god, another superstition, another charlatan to take her money, he thought.

Inside the closed space, the heat and closeness made the smell of his clothes rise into his nostrils and he gagged again. Not that he was accustomed to being clean but, his mother had insisted he stay cleaner than most of the beggars on the Jerusalem streets. As she insisted there was no need for him to beg, The LORD will provide, she would quote the rabbi.

Your God didn’t provide, I did, from the streets, he argued with her in death as he did in her life… under his breath.

After all those years of being who she was, she had suddenly turned into someone else, changed completely and willing to be stoned for it. He thought of her regular ‘visitor’ who had almost resorted to that when she turned him away from her bed. Marcus’ role changed from son to protector very suddenly, and then as she grew sicker, he became her nurse and then the one who closed her eyes in death. That was the first time he had stolen. He had taken from a blind beggar to pay for his mother’s burial in a tomb. He had not wanted her thrown into a common grave.

Taking the candle he sat on a square of carpet where another tapestry hanging overhead in the crude structure sectioned off a corner from the rest of the small space. Positioned as he was, he could peer through the opening to the street while keeping what was in front of him hidden from any prying eyes that might suddenly appear in his domicile. He had not touched the treasure in his pouch or even given serious consideration to it in his mind while it had been open to theft or worse in the crowded city. Marcus was a superstitious man. He didn’t want the gods or spirits to know what was in his possession before he knew himself. There were talismans to prevent the incursion of such spirits, even the evil ones. They were put in strategic places throughout his space. This was where he felt safe.

He let the atmosphere of safety settle around him and calm his nerves, thinking how close he had been to death. How close he had come to being discovered in the forbidden place. To some of the pious Jews —what had the rabbi called them, white washed walls,—yes, good way to describe them, Marcus thought. To the temple priests, Pharisees, Scribes and the Sanhedrin, he was lower than a Roman, or even a Samaritan. The pious leaders of the Jewish community stayed inside their walls to avoid beggars like him, and other common people of the street. The ones who would spoil their precious robes and send them into a period of purification for touching someone they deemed unclean. People like him had no place inside the temple. If he wanted be a follower of the Jewish God they called Yahweh, he could only come inside as far as the Gentile’s Court where copper pots were placed outside the Beautiful Gate. That was where you cast your coins to pay tithes. You paid the money, you received a blessing.

To him it was all superstitious bunk. What made their god any more powerful than the Greek’s Zeus or Roman’s Apollo? He had his talismans to ward off evil. That was all he needed. To his way of thinking, all gods were evil.

Shaking the morbid thoughts from his head Marcus carefully pulled his treasure from inside the folds of his garment. Heat from his body had warmed the metal, and he spread it out on the small stool covered with an old prayer shawl, another of his talismans. The coins glittered in the candle light.

Instantly, he was entranced with wishful dreams of wealth, seducing him as a woman of the night might dance to steal a heart away from another love. This dazzle was like venom, and he knew if he wasn’t alert it would poison him so completely that he would lose all he had carefully saved in the lust for more. The want for wealth played its own song, and he could hear it play as surely as he could hear the foreign snake charmer in the square weaving a spell for the viper that was curled in a basket in front of him. Marcus thought about the secret entrance to the temple he had discovered by chance. If three coins were overlooked, maybe there were more in the dark shadows.

The lust viper danced… and Marcus dreamed… he could go back and search, who would notice one more beggar on the streets in this darkness. The spell continued to play out the magical melody in his mind as he watched himself slink like a spider down the dim path to the back alley and through the hidden portal. The music of the charmer played as he imagined himself invisible to all who passed by because of his stealth and slyness. Like a cat he went where he pleased inside the temple walls searching for the missing coins, finding all that were left behind. In his growing greed the previous fear and feelings of being followed were forgotten. The serpent swayed out of the basket with the winding dance of seduction, Marcus put away the smell of illness and the hopelessness that had caused the feelings of disgust. He thought only of gain, glitter, maybe gold.

A sudden vision of a cross on Golgotha’s hill took over his mind and Marcus snapped the lid on his thoughts putting the greedy snake back in the basket. These coins were not treasures he could keep. He could never explain how he had come by three coins, much less more. He must decide their value, settle for a little less and be content with what he could salvage. The glitter wasn’t worthy of his bigger dreams or his life. He must also forget about the portal, it was only by the hand of a lesser god that he had gotten out of there with his life, and if anyone got a notion that he knew of that portal, his life would be of less worth than now. The portal must lead down to part of the aqueduct. He had heard water…. No, he shook his head.

Shuddering he drew back to reality and did a closer inspection of the coins, determining they were indeed part of the contents of Judas’s pouch. He knew because they were temple coins, or Antiochan staters, rather than the Roman coinage which were minted with less silver. This time of the year the value of these temple coins was even higher. The demands of the festival made them more valuable than the weight of silver they contained. They were the only coins the Jews could use to pay their temple taxes. During Pesach the money changers worked the tables from sunup to sundown changing common Roman currency into Antiochan staters or Tyrian shekels. The exchange wasn’t cheap. So it was another mystery why Judas, the rabbi’s treasurer, had been so careless with the group’s money. Had he overpaid their taxes? Was he trying to reason for an exchange to get some of the money back? Not likely. Not from what he’d heard about Judas Iscariot. His reputation was one of greed and lust for gold and power.

He wished he had heard more of the exchange between Judas and the priests but, it had only been snatches of conversation, the argument heated and muffled. Judas had hurled the pouch down with such power the coins bounced several times before they scattered to every corner. He remembered the slaves that attended the priests were hurrying to pick up the money when he had ducked into the alcove. After he had taken a look at the Priest’s face. What had Judas said? What were the words spoken?

The little beggar focused on the scene that was still burned into his memory and felt his stomach convulse again. Then the sentence came back…the sound of a man’s trembling voice was forming in his head as Marcus fingered the coins.

The candle flickered… and went out. Marcus fearing the dark clutched the coins as it descended around him like his own cloak. It was only the sixth hour. The day was not over. Stumbling to his feet he clutched the gain to his lagging fortune, quickly shoving it back inside his clothing, not willing to let the coins out of his hand. It was only one step to the hut’s entrance and the drape that divided his quarters from the street. In confusion, he couldn’t decide if he had taken that step. Was he inside or out? The density of the darkness was so complete it felt like it had weight. He held out one arm… delicately touching the thin wall… successfully finding the opening.

The sounds coming from the street were a cacophony of terror. Animals and people alike were screaming and running in panic as the ground began to shake. When his eyes became somewhat adjusted, what he saw only made the situation worse and he wanted to return to his shelter. Marcus knew how close his little hovel was to the wall of the city and that the shaking might loosen a stone. His roof barely protected him from dust. A block falling from the wall would crush everything including his body. Hurrying as fast as the dark would allow into the center of the market place he slid in a pile of dung and landed on his backside in a puddle of animal excrement. Could it get any worse he thought and watched as many of the wooden structures around him collapsed, landing in heaps in the midst of fleeing people. Risking an encounter with an unknown power, he felt for the firm presence of the silver in his cloak. If he lost his living space to the shaking and eventual looting, what he had in his hand and his now soiled cloak was all he would have in this world, and, if discovered, the possession of them would probably send him to his death on a Roman cross. The coins quivered when he touched them as the darkness thickened even more.

Superstitiously he wondered if he had brought the wrath of the gods down on his head by stealing the coins from a sacred place. In the words of a beggar his mind argued with his heart, that he hadn’t stolen the coins, he had found them, and a beggar had every right to claim what was left behind. The heady argument didn’t remove the guilty fear from his heart, and he trembled in the untimely darkness.

Without willing his feet to move… they moved, with their own idea of a destination. The coins were still tingling inside his clenched fist, and Marcus knew he was being compelled by a force from the spiritual realm. This didn’t come as a surprise. To Marcus the whole episode of darkness was somehow related to the spiritual world. He felt this in his core. He decided he would let it play out and hope for the best. It was as if his life had been waiting for this to give him direction, and now that it was upon him he was terrified … and relieved.

Although more direct than his trip home earlier, his destination was unmistakable. His feet were taking him back to the temple.

Marcus, Marcus.

The call came from the darkness on all sides and his feet stopped as he searched for the source of the voice.

Marcus, wait. In seconds the sound of running steps accompanied the voice and out of the darkness, ahead of him the image of a man he had never encountered before materialized out of the gloom.

Ahhh Marcus, how good to see you at last, the stranger shouted joyfully as though all others in the darkness were going about their business in a normal manner.

It was a strange sight to see an elderly man, clutching his robe in his fist, causing it to be raised above his ankles. In his haste, an occasional knobby knee appeared between the folds of his tunic, as he ran to catch up with Marcus. If the darkness hadn’t been fearsomely depressing, the sight would have been so undignified it would have been … funny. Not knowing what to do with his emotions, Marcus stood spellbound watching the man advance quickly toward him, his right arm extended and Marcus realized that the gesture was going to be an embrace. He was just past his seventeenth year and he had never received an embrace from anyone other than his own mother that he could remember, and she hadn’t embraced him in this manner since childhood.

Before he could give a warning about the condition of his garments, the elder man enveloped him in both arms, giving him a kiss of greeting. It was the first one he had ever received from a man. These were usually reserved for relatives or between brethren in the same synagogues. Marcus was so astounded that the expected awkwardness didn’t develop.

I have been sent to you at long last to tell you of this great love, Marcus, look, look! The stranger spoke with urgency, There isn’t much time.

Enfolded in the robes of the man’s sleeves and still in the opaque midday darkness, anything Marcus might have seen was obliterated from view until the elder pointed towards Golgotha and the darkness faded away like layered veils being drawn apart. It was not a direction many Jews, Romans, or any visitor to Jerusalem lifted their heads to see, and they shouldn’t have been able to see in this peculiar darkness, but the panoramic view was spread before them driving Marcus to his knees.

He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by his stripes we are healed.

The man was whispering text from the prophet Isaiah. Marcus knew this because of his mother’s insistence that he take Hebrew instruction, as well as Roman when she could make it possible.

Marcus tore his gaze away from the scene on Calvary’s hill to look at the man whose arm lay heavy on his shoulders. Who are you? he uttered on the verge of tears.

I was about your age when the Lord God gave these words to the prophet Isaiah over four hundred years ago. He spoke of this day, and of God’s only Son, Jesus of Nazareth who hangs on a cross. He is the one of whom your mother spoke, the one in whom she believed.

How do you know of my mother and what she believed?

I’m not of this world anymore, in the Father’s house we know as we are known. Marcus, do you believe as your mother did that this man is the Messiah?

Marcus gasped at the audacity of the inquiry, and his statement. Not of this world, know as he is known… of mother? What was this darkness and who is this Jesus if he isn’t merely another radical rabbi? The questions crowded his mind as fear stole his breath and the strength from his knees. He sank to the ground feeling a weakness in his whole body.

If the statements Jesus made are true — not blasphemies as the Pharisees claim – why would God let his son die like this? Only sinners, thieves, murderers, evil men, deserve to die like that. Why doesn’t he scream in agony? If he is the son of God why doesn’t he curse those who have mutilated his body? Marcus was weeping. Not even at his mother’s grave had he wept, but the sight of this man… and the torture he had endured was so horrific… it was this man the Romans had beaten, and was leading to the cross when he had hidden in the temple. It was this man that had lost so much of his flesh in the scourging that he didn’t look human. It was this man…that had raised his head under the burden of his cross and looked at the mockers in pity as his own blood splattered the stones. This man was the reason Marcus had been caught in the crowds running in terror. Jesus had looked at him… in pity. Jesus was the one being crucified, and he had pity for me… Marcus was reeling. As all Jews did, he feared the place of the skull, knowing he was but one small infraction away from its grip of death. He had not wanted to believe his mother’s words. He didn’t want to be a Jew.

All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.

Benjamin’s whispering continued in reverence.

The words burned inside Marcus’s brain, …laid my iniquity on him!!! How can it be that He can die to pay my sin debt? Marcus struggled to understand, to put it together with the things his mother had tried to teach him, all of which were still emblazoned in his memory. For a year he had blamed her ‘change of heart’ as being the cause of her death.

He shall see the travail of His soul and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many And made intercession for the transgressors.

With the kindest of intent the stranger knelt beside Marcus on the street, oblivious to all things around them. "These words are recorded in the book of Isaiah and transcribed by the scribes. These are prophecies that are coming to fruition on this day. He can pay the penalty for your sin on the cross because He has no sin of His own. Not the sin of Adam, or any sin that He committed while in the flesh though He was tempted as any man. Time is fleeting Marcus, I ask you again. Do you believe?"

The cross and The Man of Sorrows became predominate in his sight and he openly wept. Yes, Marcus whispered to his God, I believe. I don’t understand why You, God love me so much, or why You have sent this man to me today, but I believe.

Lifted to his feet, the robed arms again enfolded him. When they dropped to the man’s side, the curtain of darkness had closed around Golgotha’s vista.

The events are still happening as prophesied, but you have another calling Marcus. Are you willing to follow?

Overcome with emotion, Marcus could only nod.

"You have taken three coins from the temple, there were originally thirty pieces of silver and there must be thirty pieces again. I’ve been instructed to give you three more coins like the originals to take back to the temple before the sun shows light again. You must place them where you found the original three. The originals will be marked so you will not confuse them. If you follow the path chosen for you, four others will assist you on the way. You will enter the temple before the darkness ends and no harm