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"I hope this damn thing doesn't last too long. I've got things to do, people to see."

These were my thoughts as I was waiting for the criminals. I am a Roman soldier and part of my job is to help with the crucifixion of criminals. My name is not important, but what happened to me is important, and I'd like to tell you about it.

I remember how they walked along the road with the people watching them. Some of the people looked sorry for them. Others enjoyed the cross-carrying ceremony as much as they enjoyed a parade. "What is that thing that the last man has on his head?" I asked myself. It almost looked like a king's crown, except that it was made out of thorns. All three men looked as if they had been beaten before they began this long walk of death. They looked very tired, but the first two exchanged jeers with the people in the crowd who threw harsh words and jagged stones at them.

I remember when the last man fell. He didn't look like a sissy or a weakling. He was thin, but seemed to possess a kind of wiry strength. The whippings must have been too much for him. Yet, it looked like he was actually reaching for the cross as if he wanted to carry it and be crucified. But his strength had left him. We drafted an onlooker to carry his cross.

"He is more willing to be crucified than any other criminal I've ever seen," said one of my Roman friends.

"He looks like a lamb going to the slaughter." We laughed at the idea. "A lamb going to slaughter ..."

Then we reached Calvary. The common people called it "Golgotha," "the place of the skull." The other soldiers stripped the three men while I prepared the mallet and the nails. The crosses were laid down on the ground and one by one, the criminals were stretched out on them. I drive spikes into their hands and feet. It is my job. It is a dirty job, but someone has to do it, and they deserve it. The first criminal freed himself for an instant and punched me in the head in a desperate struggle for life. I cleared my head and pounded the nails all the harder. I almost enjoyed the pounding after that wallop. The second man also struggled desperately. As I knelt near to his face, he spat at me and then bit my ear. By the time I reached the third man, I was as mad as a bull.

I was ready for anything. We stretched him out on the cross. He was limp. He didn't even struggle to get free. As I raised the mallet to strike the nail, I heard someone behind me talking about this man. "The fool! Look at him there. He could have been a great man, but he was a fanatic who didn't take advantage of his natural control over people. He could have been a king. Look at him there."

As the nail entered his hand, he jumped. It was a physical reaction to pain. But that's all. There was none of the usual screaming and cursing. He almost seemed calm. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. No man had ever received the cross like this man. I began to watch him closer.

As I arrived at the second hand, I heard another man whispering, "Isn't he pitiful? Poor man. He always was so good to everybody. There can't be a God at all if such a good man suffers like that."

As nail met flesh a second time, the same thing happened again. There was a physical reaction to the pain, but this was followed by calm in the face of terrible suffering. And those eyes! They were like canyons. He looked at me, and I had the ridiculous sensation that he felt sorry for me.

I began to wonder about this man. Who was he? What had he done that was so wrong? I began to listen closely to what the people of the crowd were saying about him.

One man wept, saying, "I saw him with the little children." How disgusting! Men shouldn't cry! Another said, "I heard rumors about him, but you know how rumors are. They said that he healed the sick and even raised the dead. Just look at him now. If he could do such great things, why doesn't he help himself now?"

I progressed to the feet. As I drove the nails in this time, I heard the voice of a woman. "My son," she cried. "The son I nursed at my breast. How could this happen to you? And what of the promises of the angel that you would be great among men?" As I finished the hasty job, I inadvertently turned toward the woman who had spoken. I expected revilings and hatred to pour forth upon me. Instead, I saw a woman who, though she wept, showed a kind of inner peace in spite of all that was happening. She too seemed to forgive me. But why?

As I returned to my work, I caught a glimpse of a woman I recognized. She too wept. What was she doing here? How could she show this kind of concern for anyone? I listened intently as she spoke. "I never thought he could look like that," she said. "His eyes were always so bright and cheerful and loving. Now they are so heavy with pain. I knew him to be the Messiah. How could this happen to him?" She was a prostitute. All the soldiers could tell tales about her.

As we lifted the crosses into their holes, I was in a daze. Who or what changed Mary of Magdalene?

My eyes and ears were open to anything that might give answer to my many questions. "Look! His lips are moving. Now we will hear the cursings of a man in the pains of death. At last he can't stand it. He's not so different after all; it just took him longer than the others. These Galileans are tough and they don't feel things like normal people, but at last it has the better of him. At last he will curse us all and I'll feel better when he does." Those were my thoughts in the split second between when his lips first moved and when those unbelievable words were spoken, "Father, forgive them," he said, "for they know not what they do."

A dumb silence fell over the crowd. Everyone had heard those words. No one believed what he had heard. If the sun had risen at that moment, it would have made a noise - it was that quiet. It was as if the whole world had stopped breathing and I stopped right along with it. The thief on the right had a strange sparkle in his eye.

A Pharisee standing in the crowd broke the silence by whispering to his companion, "See. He tears down our religion. He prays that those who kill him be forgiven. He seems to put Romans and Jews into the same class. He always did associate with sinners. Where would a religion like ours be if we followed him? It is a good thing that the Romans kill him. He would have destroyed our religion."

This worked like a chain reaction on the crowd. The silence was broken. The whispers soon turned to talking, then to loud talking, then to shouting. "Come down from the cross if you can, Miracle Man," they yelled. "He saved others but himself he cannot save," they chanted. The soldiers and the thief on the left joined them.

The other soldiers were getting into the spirit of things. They divided the clothes of the three criminals, but there was one robe left which belonged to the man who was stirring up all of these comments. As they threw dice for it, the robbers were speaking to one another. "If you are the Christ, save yourself and us," said the first. The man on the right was filled with horror at this insulting manner and replied, "Be still. We are guilty. He is innocent." Turning to the man they had called Christ, he said, "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom." The reply which he heard caused him to die of sheer joy. "Verily I say to you, today you shall be with me in Paradise."

The long hours of suffering continued. It seemed as though hope itself was dying. Even I had come to see this. The man in the middle was all but dead. Crucifixion is slow suffocation. The criminal pushes up on his feet because of the pain in his hands, then lets down because of the pain in the feet and slowly suffocates.

His cheeks were hollow. His skin was dry. He made convulsive efforts to breathe. The bloody hours of pain passed slowly by. It began to rain.

The one who appeared to be his mother and a young man approached the cross. I didn't quite hear what was said, but it was something about caring for one another. As they departed, it grew very dark, though it was only noon.

Most of the spectators began to leave, but some lingered long enough to hear more from the mouth of this so-called prophet. "Eloi, eloi, Lama sabachthani," he cried with a voice so horrible that it defies description. "He calls Elijah," said one man. But I knew the awful truth. I knew enough Aramaic to translate his words. He had said, "My God, My God, Why hast thou forsaken me?" and it struck terror in my heart, because I felt that I was part of the reason for this forsakenness. The words were like a loud blast in a canyon, so loud, yet almost inaudible. Lightning ripped across the sick, angry heavens. The earth shook.

Time passed slowly. It seemed as though I too was being crucified. The words he had spoken, the things he had done, the people who were there - these things had somehow changed me.

I was so deep in thought that I hardly heard him when he said that he was thirsty. One of the other guards offered him vinegar on a sponge.

When he said, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do," he was praying for me. I was locked in thought.

In a soft whisper which nevertheless had great resonance, he spoke his final words, "It is finished. Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." He was a corpse. Again the lightning ripped across the sky.

Several men from the Sanhedrin stayed around to watch one of the guards pierce his side to assure death. Then they too left to report the good news to Caiaphas and Annas.

Something was swelling up inside of me. As I watched this man die, as I heard his words of love and forgiveness as we crucified him, as I watched Mary Magdalene and the man's mother, something was inside me which seemed too big to come out, but too big to hold down.

The soldier at my side was telling me about the beautiful woman he had been with last night. I heard little of what he said. Suddenly my face lit up. He looked startled, then embarrassed, as I spoke those words which would not be contained within me another split second. "Indeed this was the Son of God." My friend politely excused himself and began talking to the other soldiers about me.

"He must be drunk," they said as they watched me kneeling at the foot of the cross.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord? I was. I did it. And so did you.

But with God there is forgiveness, even for this.