Crucifixion was nothing new to him.
Rome crucified somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 people during their reign. He wasn’t a stranger to driving the nails through hands and feet.
He wasn’t unfamiliar with the sound the bones made as they were crunched beneath the hammer.
He was likely unmoved by screams and wails of those who were being crucified. This was nothing new.
Just business.
But he had never had someone lay down on a cross, and lay their hands and feet out to be nailed. It was always a battle, the prisoners hands had to be held still, as they fought what they knew was coming.
But this man.
He willingly laid down.
He never fought.
There was something about his eyes, they were so compassionate, even as his already battered body was hoisted in the air.
How he had lived through the beatings he was given, the soldier wasn’t sure.
But here he was, laying down, in total surrender.
He listened to his conversation with the thief, and the promise of paradise.
He listened to him cry out “forgive them.”
His chest ached at that sentence.
He had brought this man so much suffering, and now he was crying out “forgive?”
He listened to him cry out and ask his father why he had forsaken him. He could hear the utter abandonment in his voice, the sorrow.
And then he cried “it is finished.”
This soldier’s heart broke as those eyes of compassion closed.
Roman soldiers were normally not allowed to speak while on duty.
But he couldn’t help but break protocol and say: “…Truly this man was the Son of God.” Mark 15:39
He risked disciplinary action to confess that this WAS, in fact, God’s Son. None of the Jews had ever looked on him with compassion or love, but this man did. No crucifixion ever changed his life, but this man’s did. No death had ever breathed hope into his soul, but this man’s did.
There was forgiveness for him there, at the foot of the cross. All because of this man, who willingly laid down on a cross, to take someone else’s punishment.
This man changed him forever.
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