Free Republic

The Crowning Once they mocked Him with a crown of twisted thorns, the soldiers there, a game to amuse themselves while they passed the time, to prove how secure they were in this foreign land how much stronger, how much in control. No threat, He, beaten, bloody, bound, an interesting toy to play with in the morning. Now they mock Him with a crown of twisted words, those who choose to despise Him, soliders in a different war, yet still in need of games to amuse themselves with, to prove how much wiser, stronger, smarter they are, how they can...

The First Blow The whip travels in a descending arc, three thongs carrying weights of lead double headed cargo to increase the impact. The hand that wields is the rough and calloused hand of a soldier doing a duty, unknowing, uncaring of whose back it was in front of him. Perhaps as he swings, he thinks of all the looks of disdain, the women who turn away, the men who spit when he passes and they think he does not see, this strange people with their strange hates and strange language and strange god, and in retalliation, he swings harder....

Lord, the pain wraps around us, throbbing, throbbing, like the rhythm of the hammer fall piercing, deeper, lodging in the wood. The pain, oh the pain, a woman crying out as her loved one is slain, a child shocked at the blood falling from a beheaded parent, the armwrenching agony as they hauled you, nailed to the crossbeam up up to the drop, white pain electric through your arms as the beam found the mortise, like the pain of the tortured screaming beneath their captor's hands, screaming as the electricity screams through their bodies, throbbing, screaming, the pain of being...