A barren hill, scraped by a listless wind, bald and white against the black sky.

A rabid crowd, garbed in grey, shouting for death but not yet knowing that for One death brings life.

A rough-hewn cross, etched in blood.

A Man.

But I cannot look at the Man, cannot bear to see that skin blackened with blood, that body so tortured by countless stripes and merciless beatings.

So I wander through the crowd, and I search their eyes for any relief from the dread that is overpowering on this day, but I do not find it.

I see the children, with their huge, solemn eyes, and the echo of their late hosannas cracks like thunder through my mind. Their voices are stilled now. There is no joy left in their faces. I see only fear. Fear, and a numbing knowing. There are the tracks of tears upon their muddied cheeks, and these I know are tears that will never completely dry, that will never be forgotten as long as they live. These are the tears they will find upon their cheeks in later years when they are grown and they awake time and again from nightmares reliving this day. These are the tears that will remind them. . .

I look to their parents, to the frenzied rabble crying, "Crucify Him," and I see anger there, an anger that stems from the same fear their children know but that does not carry the purity of innocence. They are afraid of losing their power, their fame, these Pharisees and scribes with the flowing beards and the darting eyes. Their fear calls for death, for surely the death of that which threatens them will satiate their fear.

Only the soldiers are not afraid. They know nothing of the Messiah. They are servants of Rome, carrying out Pilate's orders. They work mechanically, neither glorying in their brutal task nor despising it. The nails are long and black in their hands, the hammer firm. I look away, away from the nails, away from the arms stretched out on the cross.

And I see her. I wish I could erase that sight. But I cannot. She trembles, crouched as near to the cross as the soldiers will allow her. She trembles, and her eyes brim tears that seep like poison down her cheeks. The soldiers, the rabble, even the children, do not know the Man upon the cross.

But she does. She loves Him, and her love is so tangible that it slashes through my own heart. If she could, she would tenderly lift those bloodied wrists and place her own beneath the nails. She would die in His place without a second thought.

I turn from her, but the fear and the guilt and the dread grip me. She cannot die in His place. No one can. I look into their eyes again, into the eyes of the children, so somber and still, into the eyes of the mob, crazed with blood-lust, into the eyes of the soldiers standing carelessly by, hands upon their spears. My search is frantic, but there is no absolution in this place nor in this moment.

What will be will be.

I hear the ring of the hammer against the nail. I wait for the outburst of agony, harden myself against it, but there is none. I wish there would be, just some small token of an accusation against the tormentors. Perhaps the guilt would not be so overwhelming.

A child stares at me. His hollow eyes fling the accusation I seek upon me, and I fall to my knees and weep. My hands are stained red, though I did not touch the Man, cannot even picture in my mind His face. I do not want to. It would put an identity to Him, would give Him a soul, would give Him worth.

And yet, I cannot erase that broken form from my mind, and I must turn back to glimpse the cross now silhouetted against an ugly sky.

She is there, weeping, and I weep with her as we cower at the foot of the cross. The soldiers have completed their work. They do not mind the blood that covers their hands. They do not cringe at the rasping whisper that comes from the cross.

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

I cannot look, and yet I must. It is all I can do to lift tear-strewn eyes to the Man on the cross. But surely it cannot be a man hanging there. Surely no man could bear such agony and live.

Yet live He does, for I see the lashed ribs rising and falling with breaths that grow fainter and fainter. I see the shredded muscles quiver with exhaustion and a pain beyond words. He lives, though death would surely be a relief.

He lives, and the words on His lips are not those of condemnation but of forgiveness.

It is with disbelief that at last I raise my eyes to His. I brace myself for the sorrow, for the wrath, for the despair. But what I find instead is far more difficult to bear. There is no anger in those gentle eyes, no malice, no thought of revenge.

Love is all I see, love beyond the pain, beyond the grief.

He is no longer simply a man hanging on a tree. Not to me. He is hope, and yet. . .

His last breath comes, and the wind dies with Him, and all that is left is the whisper of rain and a world black with sadness.

Blood-stained hands lift to darkened heavens, and the cry of every heart and every soul that ever lived or ever will live is upon my lips. . . a cry for mercy, for redemption, for life again.

And as the veil of the temple is rent from the top to the bottom, hope steals in on slippered feet to murmur of life that is to come, of life everlasting, and the angels that are quiet now hold back a song that will burst forth in three days. . .

. . . when the Lamb that was slain again walks the world He made.
. . . when the path to the Father is again opened to mankind.
. . . when life proves stronger than death and hope is given to even the most fearful.

The hill is barren. The sky is black. The Man is dead.

But not for long.