The Guard

It has been a long, boring night. In just a little bit the sun will rise.. My squad of men are highly efficient battle tested soldiers. Some might even call us cold and cruel, but I prefer the words deadly efficient. We are on guard duty. It is never a good idea to take duty lightly. We are not going to let people get to our prisoner; and we definitely are not going to sleep on the job. Those who fall asleep on guard duty or let their prisoner escape are never given a second chance. Failure was unthinkable. Death in battle is much more preferable to capture by the enemy, or "discipline" from the general staff. When "disciplined" it sometimes took a man days to die. The condemned man was usually out of his mind before the second day; but they could go on gibbering for up to three days or so. No, we aren't going to fall asleep. No one, and I mean no one, was going to take the prisoner from us.

Someone has said that a squad of soldiers, like us, could hold off a group many times their size. Our standard approach was to form a square with our backs toward the center, our shields at our front, and our spears in our stronger hand. We don't speak while we're on duty. That way we can hear what is going on around us. A trained group of soldiers would find us difficult to move, and a group of unorganized rabble wouldn't have any chance to move us. Rabble! That seems to be almost all that the fringes of our empire can grow. Well, we won't see them tonight. They know we're here, and they don't know how to move quietly or in a coordinated fashion. Besides that they're having one of their religious days today and by their own rules, they can't do anything that is work. They are so insistent about not working on religious days that our leaders have even decided that they can't be conscripted into the army! They won't fight on a holy day. In our culture we have so many god's and goddesses that it's hard to find a day that isn't a holy day for someone. But that's another matter..... I'd sure like to be at home in our capital tonight. They roll up the streets around here after dark, and they don't have some of the more enjoyable diversions that we have at home. Their wine here is weak, and they don't have temple prostitutes, or many regular ones, like we have at home.

Actually, this duty tonight is extremely strange. If we were protecting an important man, or holding a real prisoner, the duty would make sense. But the man we're guarding has been dead for a couple of days or so. It's not like he was faking death. Before we executed him we beat him up rather well. We even ripped out most of his beard. Then he was whipped. We use a whip of many leather thongs with bits of bone, metal and stones set in or attached to each thong. The local inhabitants here won't give a man more than thirty nine lashes with such a whip because forty is considered deadly. We lost count of how many we used on this guy. You could even see bone through the flesh in some places. He didn't even look human when we were finished. His face, back, and the backs of his arms and legs looked like chopped meat. Maybe that's why he died in such a short period of time. I've never seen a person die like he did. He didn't scream, he didn't plead for mercy, he didn't swear at us. It was most strange. And speaking of strange, I've never seen weather like we had that day. It started out like a normal day, the sun came up, it was hot, dry, and dusty with no wind to speak of. Then, about noon it became very, very dark. I've seen moonless nights with more light than we had. Then, about three o'clock the ground shook very badly and there was a violent storm. Then the sun came out! It's funny, the darkness ended about the same time this man died. Anyway, the tomb in which he's been placed has a string across the stone door and an official wax seal has been put on the string at both ends and on the stone. Whoever breaks a seal or string looses his life! That's the law.

We're here because some of the local religious leaders are afraid that this guy's friends are going to come and try to get his body. It seems that someone said that they heard that this man was going to come to life again. I've got news for them. When we kill someone, they die, and stay dead! There is nobody in the world who knows how to dispense death like we do. You know, those religious leaders are some of the most corrupt people I've had to work with. They put on pious faces in the presence of their countrymen, and then they cheat them in their temple market and then cut deals with us for political advantage. They're trying to work both ends against the middle, and the poor people are in the middle. The regular people hate us, but they seem to be decent, hard working and honest. So what's new? It makes no difference to me, I get paid anyway; and I'm going to retire and go back home in another three years.

We've only had one bit of excitement tonight. Around sunset there was a brilliant flash of light around the tomb. It was brighter than the sun at noon, and only lasted for a brief moment. There was no thunder. It was there and gone like lightning. We went over to the tomb and checked the seals, they were still intact. Nothing seemed disturbed. I've seen stranger things. We think that it must have been some kind of lightning that we're not used to. Still, it left us a bit jumpy for the next hour or two. Ha! maybe one of the gods was bored and decided to see if they could get a rise out of us. As if any of us believed in any god, including our fearless leader back in his comfortable palace.

It will be day soon. The sky to the east is beginning to glow. We'll be relieved by the new watch soon.

What is that? There's a man standing at the stone door of the tomb. He's wearing clothes that look as bright as it is at noon! And his face is brighter yet. He's looking at us, and doesn't seem at all concerned.

It just dawned on me that I'm watching this from the ground! I can't move, but I've got to stop him ... it's my duty to stop him ...Wait, he just pointed to the stone door and it flew off, up the hill, like it had no weight. I can see the inside of the tomb in the light coming from this man like thing, and the tomb is empty. The body we were guarding is gone, and the door hasn't been opened until now! Maybe that flash of light had something to do with the body being gone.

I now think that maybe I am just as happy that I can't move. What would my weapons do against a man who points to rocks weighing a ton or more and throws them around. Suddenly there is a second man standing next to the one in the brilliant clothes; and the one in those clothes is bowing down with his face to the ground. The man who is standing now is the man we killed!!! Although his wounds are closed up with scars, you can still see what we did to his head, face, hands and feet. He talked briefly with the bright being that opened up the grave. The bright one spoke to him while bowing down to the ground. Then, the bright one disappeared. The man who had been dead is looking at us. Instead of anger there is a look of pity in his face. ... Now he's gone.

I'm beginning to think that this man Jesus that we'd been guarding wasn't just a man after all. Maybe there is a real God. Maybe He is the Son of God as His followers said. But if He's real, after what we've done to Him, what will He do with us?