It was a spring evening. The hot summer sun later would burn off the green and leave the hills barren, but now the grey-tan of their rocky slopes was mottled with sparse vegetation and bright patches of spring flowers. There was a cool edge in the air as the sun drifted toward the far horizon and the company of men walked briskly along the trait that wound northwestward from Bethany to Jerusalem. ...
He walked rapidly, his long robes flowing behind him to be whipped by the brisk, dry east wind. His two servants occasionally quick-stepped to keep pace, their sandals padding softly on the dust of the deserted streets. As they turned eastward from the upper city, the declining, full moon flung their shadows ahead like long moving fingers pointing toward the white limestone buildings of the temple...
In the depths of the night, pilgrims still moved along the streets of the Holy City, streets which normally at this late hour would have been deserted to a lonely Roman guard. But now, for the religious festival of Passover, Jews had come from all the world, more than the city could absorb, and the large, tall man, his robe hooded about his head, attracted no more attention than any other. Peter d...
As the winds rose and the black sky threatened to unleash its wrath the crowd on the hillside began to melt away, small groups and pairs and an occasional individual hurried toward the dark, brooding buildings of the city. Even the morbid attraction of a crucifixion could not hold the fickle mob against the portent of the fury of a spring storm. At the last there were few to witness the deaths of ...
For those who grieve, time is a burden. It moves through emptiness with excruciating slowness, its spiritual malaise aggravated by fleeting memories of joys that never again will be. From sundown Friday when she watched as they placed her Lord in the stone vault until sundown Saturday, the world had stood still for Mary of Magdala. These were the holy hours of the Sabbath when the faithful praised...
Nearly all the morning hours had been exhausted in the trial which left the centurion with the task of crucifying three condemned men. The sun was pressing toward its meridian, and the desert wind from the east which had prevailed during the night was quiet. A tense, hot stillness hung over Jerusalem, harsh as the dust that fogged the air, raised by the feet of thousands of pilgrims entering and l...
Cold, bright moonlight, spilling over Jerusalem transformed the temple area into what might have been a setting out of Roman mythology. Standing on the parapet high atop the Antonia, the Roman Procurator, Pilate, let his gaze drift from the white temple buildings almost directly beneath him to the city beyond, but his mind was seeing the grandeur of Rome and his heart was filled with bitter nostal...
