Jesus’s face twisted in agony, his features changing until he looked like another person altogether. “Father!” he cried, lifting his begrimed, contorted face to the sky. “Why do you abandon me?”
The ragged cry reached the ears of all who stood around that hill, the soldiers and the people from Jerusalem and the valley towns, with startling clarity.
Then all was silent. The sound of the wind was gone, leaving only the brilliant sunlight to shine burningly upon the bare rocks. So quiet it was that Judas half expected to hear the sound of the water lapping against the banks of the distant Jordan.
The vivid blue sky over the river suddenly dimmed. Pilate, searching with narrowed eyes, could see no difference in the sunlight where it struck the land, nor in the contrast between light and shadow, and yet the change was there. A bird began to cry raucously in the distance; shouts went up from the crowd on the slope. Something was approaching swiftly from the far banks of the Jordan, spreading as it came.
Pilate gripped his horse’s reins tightly and galloped down the hill.
A wind, chill as ice, enveloped Golgotha. Now the dimming was clearly noticeable. The brilliant sun faded, and darkness wrapped around the sky. The soldiers standing guard at the base of the cross began to run in a pack uphill. Quickly it became so dark that Pilate thought he had gone blind—he could see nothing, not even the tip of his own nose. Soldiers and spectators alike staggered unseeing, thrusting their arms out in front of them, or crouched and felt their way along the uneven ground.
Startled by the darkness, Pilate’s horse reared high on its hind legs. The prefect had entirely lost track of where he was on the slope.
He heard a scream of terror cut through the darkness with the speed of a shooting star. Loud at first, the scream grew fainter and then stopped abruptly. He heard another. That must be the direction of the cliffs, Pilate thought. Some people must’ve lost their way and wandered too close.
“Miracle! It’s a miracle!” shouted a man through the darkness. “The Nazarene was the Son of God in truth!”
“God judges us!” another voice cried out. “We tried to kill his son! The prefect! The prefect has brought this evil to pass!”
Then the words were lost in a chorus of insane screams and women’s weeping.
Judas stood a short distance from Pilate, though neither man could see the other. The old scholar leaned upon his staff, considering the phenomenon. I wonder what Jesus of Nazareth is doing at this moment, he thought—and with the thought a burning need to know overcame him. Dropping to one knee, he carefully felt the ground around his feet to determine which direction was uphill, then slowly he began to climb.
Bits of dislodged earth and small rocks had begun to roll down the slope. They stung his face, getting in his eyes and nostrils. He covered his face with his hands. Then something else came flying down and struck him hard—a human body. Their arms and legs tangled, and together they rolled down the hill.
Even as he fell, Judas wondered about Jesus. Has he undone his ropes? He tried to grab the other man, but when he reached out, his hands closed on nothing but air. Then he noticed that his rate of descent had accelerated, and despite himself he screamed with fear. Flailing wildly, he scrabbled at the increasingly steep slope, finally clawing his way to a stop. He could hear falling earth and stones and endless screams disappearing below the shelf to which he clung. In the darkness, Judas wiped cold sweat from his brow. Though it seemed his tumble had lasted a very long time, he realized that during the entire ordeal he had only had space for two or three breaths.
All at once Judas was bathed in light. A sudden blue incandescence from somewhere high above his head illuminated the hilltop and cast the land below in shadow, giving the Jordan River Valley the appearance of a vast dark ocean.
Looking upward, Judas saw a swirling column of light atop the hill, like a pillar extending from the layered rock of Golgotha into the sky. Everything, both heaven and earth, was wrapped in a blue, icy light. All things trembled before the wrath of God.
He heard a scream and then another in the distance, sounding horribly far away.
Judas was out of breath, but he forced himself not to gasp, afraid that he might pass out. Stumbling to his feet, he began to make his way up the steep slope again. His entire being was screaming Run! You must run! Get away! And yet another part of him was certain this was not the wrath of God after all—no miracle come down from the heavens. Whatever he was witnessing, it was something of a completely different, if still terrifying, nature.
Now he could see the barren slopes of the distant rocky hills lit by the bluish glow, each individual blade of withered grass standing out with vivid clarity. The light had increased so greatly that it even illuminated the wide flow of the Jordan River below, making it shimmer like a mirage.
Then the cloud of light atop the hill swirled violently and took on the form of a giant figure of a man, nearly half as big as the hill itself. The giant wore a helmet low over the top part of what Judas took to be his head—a helmet not so dissimilar from those worn by the Roman legionnaires. His chest and waist formed one enormous pillar. There were two clearly defined arms and two long legs, the latter planted firmly upon the hill of Golgotha. The giant’s body, wrapped in pale bluish light, was half transparent, like a glowing mist; an unending darkness was revealed beyond.
Within the borders of the brightness, the body of Jesus of Nazareth was floating upward. He was already some distance from the ground.
Then the bluish white light flared in the darkness, forming a ring in the air. Within that ring, Judas saw the giant figure carrying Jesus in his hands.
A sharp tearing sound rent the air, like the tearing of a silk curtain. The earth shook with thunder, a vibration that passed from the top of the hill down to the river valley. Several of the steep cliffs crumbled, their remains tumbling downhill in a landslide. Quakes rocked the darkened land, and the land shuddered and fell.
And yet, despite the apocalyptic noise, all who were there could hear the quiet words of Jesus as he drifted up into the sky: