“What’s the matter, Papa?”
“Nothing, Child. Go drink your tea.”
But Longi could tell something wasn’t right with Papa. He’d just shut the door against another guest, this time a young man and a girl.
Papa was always frustrated that he didn’t have more room in his inn. Everyone was always cramped and told him so.
“Who was at the door, Papa?”
“Just a couple of gypsies, Longinus. Hush now and get to bed.”
Longi knew that when Papa used his full name that the conversation was over. He climbed the stairs and prepared for bed. He wished his father would let him help more. Ever since Longi’s mother died in childbirth last year, Papa had been so tired, so easily irritated by little things. Longi wanted to help with the management of the inn but Papa would not allow it. “You must be a child for as long as this world allows,” he would tell Longi. And then he would sweep him out the door with simple instruction: “Go. Play!”
That night, Longi could not sleep. The night stars always cast a glow into his room but on this evening, the beams seemed to illuminate the entire upper level of the inn. No matter which way he turned on his mat, Longi couldn’t escape the light. And then quietly, a low whistle blew through the air. Longi sat up and leaned toward his window. What was making that noise? It was strangely quiet yet forceful at the same time. Insistent, even.
He waited until he heard Papa's deep breathing before he slipped down the stairs and outside into the cold night air. For a reason he did not understand, Longi felt pulled to the lower field. There was nothing in the untilled field other than his uncle’s old stable. It was Longi’s favorite place to hide from his cousins when they played together. It had long been forgotten by the elders and was uninhabited except for the few sheep and goats that sought shelter there during storms.
Longi crept towards the old stable, moved by an uncomfortable sense of urgency. He quietly slid around the side of the building and abruptly stopped. There in front of him, curled in the hay, was a girl arced over an infant.
She positioned her arms to cradle her child.
Longi’s knees loosed and he fell to the ground. He was overcome with a fear and awe that he had never known. He watched as a young man stroked the girl’s head gently as she coiled inward to protect the baby from the cold night air.
And then the baby cried. Powerful and clear, the cry penetrated the night’s silence.
As if struck by an invisible gust of wind, Longi fell backwards. Unable to breathe, he clutched his chest and scrambled to his feet. Running, falling, crawling he made his way back to the inn.
As he fell onto his mat, he tried to calm his heartbeat. He was overcome by a terror that he could not explain. He kept seeing the infant’s small features in his mind but could not shake the feeling that he had looked upon something much greater than a simple baby. A baby!
He reached for Papa but he grumbled and rolled away from Longi. In that moment, Longi- more than ever- missed Mama.
There was something about that girl, that young man, that child.
Longi shivered and closed his eyes.
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Like his father, Herod Antipas was proud of his army. Jews and Gentile mercenaries, they were a homegrown force that did his bidding easily.
Longinus was proud to be selected as part of the centurion cohort tasked with finding the Jewish man proclaiming to be a king and creating civil unrest in Jerusalem. Although his eyes were failing him, he had earned the respect of the senior officers and the high priests. Jewish himself, Longinus understood the risk that civil unrest posed at Passover. The arrest went quickly.
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A heavy unease came over Longinus and all of Jerusalem in the next few days. The Man’s arrest was creating a deep fissure in the Jewish community and it was spilling out onto the Roman Guard.
A Sanhedrin trial was called and, watching from his outside post, Longinus felt an uncomfortable stirring in his heart that made him feel both ashamed and frightened at the same time. He couldn’t rid himself of the notion that something was very, very wrong with this Man’s arrest.
Eventually, the Jewish elders turned the Man over for condemnation, sentencing.
And death.
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The wind suddenly turned very cold. Longinus tried to shield his cheeks by turning inward but the scene before him was too much. He did not know this Man, why was he unable to turn away? The wailing of the women was loud, to be sure, but this was not uncommon. The lowly always came in throngs to bemoan the crucifixion of their criminals. But Longi felt an inner chill that he couldn’t shake. He sat on a nearby rock ledge and waited for the Man to die. The air itself seemed heavy with grief. Who was this Jew?
It started with a slow, low-pitched whistling. Because his eyes did not work well, Longinus’ hearing was keener than most. He turned toward the sound.
“What is that noise?” he asked the nearest soldier, Septimius, who looked at him blankly.
“What is what noise, old man? I hear nothing.”
Longinus turned into the wind and walked forward a few steps.
“That sound. Listen. Listen.”
As Septimius scoffed at the empty air, Longinus became increasingly agitated. He became consumed by a deep sense of foreboding. He tried to speak but could not.
Longinus turned slowly toward the Man on the cross and looked upward. Death was clearly near.
The whistling sound was growing louder and gaining intensity. Longinus lifted his hands to his ears as he tried to block the noise.
He felt dizzy, weak. Stumbling toward Septimius, Longinus held out his arms as if grasping for a light in the midnight.
“Longinus!”
The voice pierced the air and awoke Longinus from his stupor-like trance.
“Stab him,” yelled the Commander of the Crucifixion Guard.
Longinus looked up at his commander. Blurred vision obscured his sight and it was compounded by his vertigo of whistling, dizziness and fear.
“Longinus, pierce that Nazarean! Make sure he’s dead. Now! A storm is coming! Waste time no more!”
The icy wind bellowed behind the commander’s words as if to herald the arrival of evil. Longinus walked toward the Man. He understood the directive but moved slowly. He trembled as he raised his spear and angled it at the Man’s right rib.
Longinus plunged his weight into the Man’s side. As the blood streamed forth onto and into his shadowed eyes, he saw himself as a child, falling backwards into the lower field. The earth rose up and met Longinus at his knees. He tried to scramble to his feet but, betrayed by his spiraling eyes and admonished by a Voice only he could hear, he fell. Instinctively, his hands met his eyes and rubbed with a ferocious incessancy.
Light. It seeped in slowly but then more quickly. Longinus’ eyes hadn’t known light for years. Yet, suddenly, he was seeing rays of gold, orange, yellow. Color consumed him. Images emerged. He saw his mother. He saw his father, the innkeeper. He saw a baby who, from the deep recesses of his mind, communicated a familiarity and then… he remembered.
The inn, the stable, the young man, the girl, the infant.
Longinus’ heart flooded with a rush of love, the kind of which he had never felt. He began to weep, first quietly then uncontrollably. He knelt on the stony ground and stared up at the Man who he now understood was the infant he had seen so many years before in that old stable. Whoever this stranger was seemed suddenly like no stranger at all but rather a friend betrayed by his, Longinus’, own spear.
An immense surge of comprehension washed over Longinus.
“This man was the Son of God! Surely this man was the Son of God!”
The wind grew stronger and he struggled to his feet. The earth began to shift and tremor. He tripped and fell but rose again not knowing where he was going but following the urgent sense that he must go. Lightning bolts and cracks of thunder surrounded him on all sides as he skidded and slipped his way down the hill.
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The Man’s Mother slowly turned and watched as the centurion ran across the hill. She had witnessed the miracle upon the soldier’s eyes.
Grieving, she turned back.
And, once again... she positioned her arms to cradle her child.
