Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: GRACE (08/24/23)
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TITLE: Thief | Previous Challenge Entry
By Douglas Knight
08/31/23 -
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Titus stops dead in his tracks momentarily. His heart pounding rapidly as his head pivots quickly back and forth scanning the streets to find an alley or open door to duck into and evade capture.
Suddenly, a crowd of people miraculously gather along the street between Titus and the two pursuing soldiers. Another ban of people enters the great city cheering and singing, some lining the street with palm branches or outer garments. Titus meshes with the crowd of onlookers as they question each other about what dignitary is honored.
“Sir,” a small girl tugs on Titus’ cloak, “what is all the noise about?”
Titus jerks free of her weak grip and grunts. He has no time to investigate. He has only a small window of time to escape the Roman soldiers’ apprehension.
The throng that hides him is also blocking his view of the soldiers. The professional highwayman elbows and shoves his way through the crowd of onlookers to envelop himself among the cheering crowd parading their way down the street.
Titus dodges and weaves his way through this raucous crowd heading his way opposite their advance hoping to escape unseen out of the city and be lost in the terrain outside.
Titus continues to look for his pursuers, his pulse rate climbing with every step toward his goal of freedom. He can see the end of the cheering crowd.
He finds himself in the midst of the parade surrounded by a motley bunch of men and women of diverse age and wardrobe who appear as bewildered as the onlookers and as nervous as he is. Their attention focuses on an ordinary looking and plainly dressed Nazarene sitting on a donkey.
“What is so special about a Nazarene?” the question pops into Titus’ head for a split second.
He cannot waste precious moments contemplating the silliness of the common people. He pops out of the parade and into the crowd of onlookers.
“This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee,” Titus hears one of the onlookers tell another.
Still planning to avoid arrest, he is just yards from the open gates of the city. There is only open space between he and freedom.
He starts to run towards the gates, but his stride is impeded by a firm grip. Looking around to determine who clamps tightly onto his right arm halted in midair behind him, he hears the sound of a sword sliding through leather followed by the ringing of steel slicing the air.
“I have him, Silas,” the voice is as strong as the grip.
Titus twists and jerks to free himself but to no avail. He surrenders to avoid more intense pain coming from the sting of cold steel which now shoots flashes of sunlight into the air.
The larger soldier twists Titus’ arm behind Titus’ back and the broadside of the sword against his chest and under his chin. The other soldier begins to bind Titus’ left hand tightly to his right at the wrists. Titus will spend the next week in the custody of a Roman jail.
Trial, conviction and sentencing happens quickly. Titus realizes that his theft of Roman possessions angers and attracts more attention than highway robbery of Jews.
His crime also includes physical harm to a prominent Roman citizen. Titus is sentenced to the worst imaginable punishment – the slow, agonizing death on a Roman cross. His day on the cross comes swiftly.
After a violent flogging, Titus and two other thieves carry the heavy wooden cross on which they will hang until dead. The Roman soldiers are especially aggressive to one of the three convicted criminals.
Titus experiences the most excruciating pain than he has ever experienced in his life. He finds he is swooning in and out of consciousness. His senses, especially hearing and feeling are heightened. He wishes he would die.
The soldiers and much of the onlookers and passersby hurl insults and slurs at him and the other thieves.
Titus and the criminal farthest to his left scream curses back to the mocking crowds. The thief in the center has said nothing as far as Titus can tell.
“If you’re truly the Messiah, save yourself,” a bearded man adorned with ornamental trappings of his high priestly position mocks the man in the middle.
Titus watches as the Roman soldiers argue and gamble for their clothing as the three hang nearly naked before women and children. Titus feels the humiliation of being something less than human as an object of physical and verbal abuse.
“If you’re sent from God, why can’t you stop this from happening to you,” Titus hears his own voice mingling with the noise from the crowd.
Through tears brought on by his own suffering, this thing next to him, suffering with him appears as a blurry unrecognizable flesh and blood colored blob. In some cruel way, it makes Titus feel more human – less criminal. His tears subside and his vision becomes clearer. He can even see this man’s face.
It is a common face, not especially beautiful stained by globs of fresh and coagulated blood.
Titus is drawn to his eyes. There is a calming gentleness about them. While looking into this man’s face, he sees his own reflection. As he continues to stare into those eyes, he realizes that his life as mocked the humanity of all those robbed, thinking he deserved what they had more than they. His reflection in this man’s eyes appears distorted and ugly as it hangs on his cross.
“Father,” the man cries, “forgive them because they don’t understand what they’re doing.”
Titus hears an elderly woman nearby call him Jesus. He then recalls that on the day of his arrest, the man on the donkey was called Jesus the prophet of Nazareth. He heard how the Pontus found no evidence of guilt in Jesus the prophet but the holy leaders wished him dead.
Barabbas, a more dangerous criminal than Titus was to be hanging on that cross.
“How could Jesus want The Lord’s forgiveness for this injustice?” Titus wonders. “Could he truly be Messiah?”
“Are you or are you not the Christ,” the other thief shouts, “Save yourself and us.”
“Do you not fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?” Titus yells back to the man farthest to his left. “And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due rewards for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.”
The other snarls and curses both Titus and the prophet. A Roman soldier walks away from the others to go and console a small group of women and a young man standing and weeping nearby.
“Jesus,” Titus pleads, “please remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
And immediately Jesus responds, “Today, you shall be with me in Paradise.”
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”
Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV
(Fiction)
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