Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

Through the eyes of Barabas

As I looked up the hill, watching as that man, that man called Jesus stumbled towards the top, a tear ran down my cheek. Why had he done it? I knew he was innocent, as innocent as the whitest lamb. I, I was guilty of so much, so much. It was I who deserved to die on a cross, not him, not him. Why had he done it? He would have been free if he had spoken but once! When we had been brought out of the dungeon, and Pilot had given the people the chance to free one of us, he had looked at me. It was then that I knew, he was choosing to take my place, My place. I who was a thief and a rioter, I who was a murderer. Why? Why had he done it? I can not understand.

I close my eyes, trying to hold back my tears.

“You there!”

The sound on a centurions voice made my eyes snap open. What was going on? Looking I saw Jesus had fallen to the ground. A man is stepping out of the crowd, and lifting the cross. Jesus is so weak.

Slowly I followed the crowd up the mount. Once the prisoners, Jesus and two thieves, reached the top, the crosses were lowered to the ground. The Romans forced the two thieves down to the ground, and held them fast as they drove large iron nails into their wrists. The two thieves yelled and shrieked in pain struggling as much as they could. Jesus, Jesus laid down quietly and calmly. He spread his arms out wide for the Romans. As the nails were driven into his wrists, he cried out in pain, but he did not struggle, he did not try to free himself.

I look down at my hands. It should be my hands being pierced by nails, not his, not the hands of that man Jesus.

As I look down, I notice something on the ground. Bending over, I softly pick it up. It is a rose, or it once was. It is covered with dirt, and trampled down now. It’s petal’s are ripped, and its stem is broken. Obviously it was once among the most beautiful of all flowers, but now is next to nothing.

Looking up at Jesus as he and his cross is raised into the air, my figures run over the rose. He is much like this little rose. He was once looked up to, and greatly admired by the masses, but now? Now he was spat upon and mocked, worth far less to the masses, just as this rose is now worth far less.

Laughing, one of the soldiers lifted up a drink to Jesus. Jesus tasted it, before refusing to drink any. The soldier dumped it out on the ground, and soon the drink of vinegar and gale was sinking into the dirt.

I watch as the soldiers take Jesus clothes, and cast lots for them.

A soldier sets a ladder up against the cross, and climbs upward, a board in hand. As He nails it to the cross, a ripple of laughter spreads throughout the crowd. As I look closer, I read the sign. “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”

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