Good Friday: St Longinus

‘When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, ‘Listen, he is calling for Elijah.’ And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, ‘Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.’ Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion , who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was God’s Son!’’

[Mark 15.33-39]

 

- Ancient tradition names the Centurion on duty at the time of Jesus’s death as Longinus. He is the first gentile to acknowledge Christ’s divinity proclaiming in best first century John Wayne English 'truly this man was the son of God!'. Tradition also tells us that he was blind, but was healed by the blood which flowed from Christ’s side. He was later acknowledged as a saint of the Church. The name Longinus comes from the Greek word for spear.

 

My men and I have executed many prisoners. We’re past masters at it. Know just how to hang a man in order to degrade him, and extend his agony until the last moment. This then was just another day, though a rushed job as the Governor had made it clear that we needed them dead before sunset, something to do with a local religious festival.

 

They all succumb in the end – it’s usually the big men, filled with braggadocio who fall first. They see the cross and that’s it, they’re wetting themselves, and who can blame them, it’s a horrible way to die: no dignity, just prolonged suffering. This one though, he was different. He suffered, oh yes, you could see it in his eyes, but there was something more, a quiet dignity. It was as though he had chosen to do this. As though he were in charge, and we were doing exactly what he wanted. Weird!

 

Of course, he suffered like the rest, you can’t hide the pain no matter how hard you try – it shows in the eyes, and the sweat on the forehead. And yet … I go this feeling that he was in charge, despite the agonising, excruciating pain he was the one who knew how and when it would come to an end. And there was the comforting words he spoke to one of the other bandits, ‘today you will be with me in paradise’, then to what I am guessing was his mother ‘mother behold your son’. No something was definitely not right here.

 

…

 

However, things went as they should in the end, and he died in good order as did the other two. (Though I gave to admit that even to the end it seemed that he, and not death was in control, almost as though he were submitting himself to death, giving himself up as it were.) That said I can’t help but feel that there is something special about that man, perhaps he was, as they were saying, God’s son. Who truly knows?