The Cross

 I was a Dogwood tree standing near the deep valley of mount Olives. I stood with a pride spreading my twigs across and they were often covered with crimson flowers. Migratory birds and wild doves found shelter in my branches. Beetles and bees had their fill savoring the nectar found abundant in my flowers. The bark of my body had the reminiscence of the wool deposited there by the sheep, while brushing on them. Busy bees, sheep, birds and butterflies were always in my vicinity. The winter transformed in me with snow-capped leaves, the roaring rains of the season washed my stained leaves clean and the hot sand storms from the Arabian deserts made my bark robust. These familiar experiences made me firm as the seasons took their turn unleashing contrasting weathers while hardening me further.    

My inception marked its beginning in the belly of some strange bird who gulped me in the form of a seed from my mother’s crown. With no birth pangs from the bird’s belly I had to enter into the mother earth’s womb to be born again. The warmth, dampness and fertility of the soil prompted my roots to burst out as though in birth pangs. On the day when the first sprout peeped out in a yellowish green, the sun’s golden ray faded it slightly. It didn’t take long for the roots to get sucked into the water and the scorching sun couldn’t beat my growth. I was spared form being eaten up by the herds of the sheep and uprooted by the farmers while searching for a cultivable land. Let me credit it to the care of the gods.

But today I am lying down on the backyard of carpenter’s workshop in Jerusalem, in the dark, rotten and awful state. My pealed rotten skin began emitting strong stench keeping away the passersby from the yard. The leaves and branches were removed mercilessly and I was stripped off my skin. Here I am orphaned as a naked fine trunk for someone’s use.

It was a week ago, on a regular afternoon and as customary I was in a short nap. Suddenly I woke up in unbearable pain. Initially I thought that some farmers must be dashing their spade against my trunk to shake off the mud, or that the rams rubbing their hones against my rough bark. No, it’s not, the sharp silver axe had already inflicted a deep wound in my strong trunk making me helpless. The woodcutters took turns to cut deep into my trunk expecting a great timber out of me. They were constantly guided by a man who resembled to be a proficient carpenter. The woodcutters were flanked by King Herod’s soldiers. The woodcutters were seen constantly wiping off the sweat from their forehead approving the hardness of the task. However, they proved their proficiency in their job by felling me shortly with a great accuracy. I almost gasped for my life and before I could do anything to retaliate, my roots were plucked off, branches were broken apart and I surrendered before them broken and shattered. When the carrier donkeys dragged me from my abode to an unknown terminus crushing past all the white eggs that fell off my branches, I heard from afar the cries of the doves and their mates crying over their broken eggs and bidding me farewell forever.   

On the way while being hauled by the donkeys, I began to realize my life’s destiny from the conversation between the carpenter and King Herod’s soldiers. I was not taken to be converted into King’s bed or throne in his palace, but to be made into a cross!

I wondered! “But why me? They could have chosen better trees, there were Babylonian ciders, Jerusalem Cypresses, Palestinian Olives?

My task is to bear the body of a carpenter who blasphemed against God, questioned the king and the priests. An ordinary carpenter who was born in Nazareth and walked along the streets of Jerusalem with the abandoned. I had never heard of him, but the soldiers referred him as ‘notorious’. For the first time ever, I was despised even by my birth.   

After a long journey I was dumped at the backyard of the carpenter’s workshop. I waited there for my turn to be transformed into that symbol of disgrace, the cross! The day is here, the carpenter came in with the measuring stick and began marking across my bare body. I hardly had any sap to spill out, for it had already been exhausted well before. I was cut into two halves and the carpenters began smoothening my surface. They talked hardly, all of them bore a mysterious expression, as forced to hasten their work. Owing to the commotion of cutting and chiseling in the workshop I could hardly hear them mumble at each other. I grew more suspicious and fear struck my broken heart.

“The hero whom I am to carry is a self-proclaimed savior, the leader of the fishermen and the poor, he even called himself as the Son of God”

 “Blasphemer! Sheer stupidity”

I wished the carpenters refrained from polishing me further, after all I would be bearing a ‘blasphemer’, let my surface remain coarse. The carpenters reduced me into horizontal and vertical pieces to be assembled as a cross, and I was ready to symbolize the height of shame.

It was a Friday; the carpenters took me out in the morning and wiped me off clean. The one who has to be crucified must carry the cross by himself, that used to be the custom. I was taken to the Praetorium, I was anxious to see the unfortunate man who would embrace me shortly. After a while the soldiers accompanied by cheering crowd brought out a pale figure in scanty clothing. He stooped his head down as if hanging it in shame, while I could see his robe was drenched in crimson blood. His long hair and golden beard were spotted thick clotted gore. The whip lashes had already torn his flesh in pieces spilling warm blood all around. He leaned against the stone wall hushed and composed. I could see the tranquility wreathing him graciously. He stood there like a lamb to be slaughtered amidst the earsplitting uproar of his accusers. His silence surprised me!

“Will this man carry me to Calvary? I don’t think he will make it”, I giggled sarcastically.

Mounting Calvary was a tedious task. But to my surprise, initially the carpenter effortlessly carried me to the uphill. I didn’t weigh him down for about a furlong. Sooner he began stumbling weighed down by my weight. The carpenter began stumbling, the cold pale body, started giving up soon. The deep scars on his forehead carved by the thorny crown further split opened. His soft hands seemed to have hardly used to the chisel for they broke opened randomly. He fell flat to the ground stumbling over sharp stones while crushing under my weight. In the fall, the soldiers unleashed their whips further inflicting deep scars on his back. Often, I had to take the lashes upon me defending the carpenter’s shattered body.  

The lashes desperately searched for a neat flesh on carpenter’s back to split them open and ooze out the remaining blood. When the man fell to the ground for a third time bearing me on his trembling body, the soldiers decided to hand me over to a strange pedestrian; Joseph of Arimathea. Now, resting on the shoulders of Joseph I could clearly see the mind bogging seen of the carpenter dragging himself to the uphill. The street kids pelted stones while the elders and the priests flanked by the Pharisees yelled and cheered in wild frenzy. But I could see the common people and the women weeping bitterly. Silence in the blood-soaked face, and the serenity in his broken body resembled him to be a mysterious man. His eyes conquered my mind freezing my thoughts for a while. I wished I could have more whips for he could endure less lashes from now.

It had been hours since he began hanging on the cross between the sky and the earth. At first, he was calling his father gazing at the sky above. There were no replies. He was flanked by two thieves who kept cursing their life. When he asked for a drop of water to wet at least his dried tongue, I wished if I could fetch him some, but I was helpless. His mother and dear ones stood beneath looking at him gasping for his life. The crushing sound of the ribs and the bones pierced my ears and trembling my body. His blood-drenched bare body embraced me in excruciating pain.

“It is finished…Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit”, Yes, I heard it clearly, they were his last words. Having said this and hanging his neck down he gave up his life. His badly severed body stopped moving forever. The raised heart beats still heard aloud, and it took me a while to understand that they were my heart beats as though beating for the innocent carpenter who was hanging dead. From the moment I was laid on the ground and his hands and feet were nailed onto me, it turned out as my pain too. The moment when the nails drove into my body along with his hands and feet on them, I could feel his warm blood filling and chilling my nerves. I bore him in deep pain and distress, as the innocent man’s pale body adorned me instead.

Finally, when the carpenter's corpse was stripped off from my body, i felt bruised and orphan. When the carpenter returned from the bleeding ground leaning me behind, i realized that i was indeed crucified with him. the ascending spirit of the carpenter and my body were in crimson red, as my flowers used to be. Why did the soldiers leave me alone, not minding to pierce the lance into my bare chest to confirm my death as well, as they did to him? 

I got no answer!