THE GOSPEL OF TRAVIS - Chapter Seventeen

TRAVIS QUICKENS TOWARDS THE LORD AGAIN
By the time he was able to pry open the cabinet door, slide away the filthy platters covered in uneaten horseradish, crawl through the crack and escape out the window, the sun had already begun to set. Travis wiped some charoset from his face and then broke into a run. Though the lanes were partially lit by oil lamps, still the escaped black sheep mixed with the shadows and made his rush to the city gates that much more difficult.

“There’s still time,” he told himself.

Travis hoped that the Roman soldiers would get lost on the way to the gardens. He hoped that the Sanhedrin, distracted with bickering over some business, perhaps another food order, had neglected to send their guards right away. He hoped for some small chance to get to Jesus before it was too late. His future position with the Apostles depended it.

“There’s still time,” he assured himself.

He passed beneath the gates of the Holy City, his feet pounding the paving stones until those gave way to dirt paths. With each step, he pushed down thoughts of failure or of guilt. As he rounded a mighty carob tree, he thought of the many great deeds he could accomplish if he could only replace Judas. But the garden was much further than Travis had anticipated, and with each turn taken down the path he began to worry that his time was growing dangerously short. Though he was loath to exert himself too much and so arrive sweaty, he broke into a run.

“There’s still time,” he gasped in between frantic strides.

Finally, he reached the trellised entry to the garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives, beyond which stood the oil press.

IN THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE
In the open center of the gardens, Travis found the Apostles standing before a troupe of soldiers carrying lanterns, torches and weapons. There was much shouting between the groups, with certain of the Apostles pushing back against the soldiers.

Travis darted behind an olive tree before he could be found out. He sensed that this may very well be the distraction that he needed, for though the soldiers were in the garden they had not yet put hands upon the Lord. If he could only reach the rabbi first, Travis could help shepherd the Shepherd of Men out through a side exit. Travis scanned the garden looking for a way around the fracas that would allow him to stay concealed, however just as he found a path, Simon Peter drew a sword to swing at a guard.

His blade arced through the air but, instead of hitting the guard, it sliced the ear off of the guard’s slave.

“What? Why?!” shouted the slave. “What did I ever do?”

The guards readied their spears, girding for the confrontation that they both longed for and feared, when a loud voice broke through the din.

“Put your sword into its scabbard,” shouted the Lord.

Amazed, both sides immediately lowered their weapons. Travis’s heart sank, for now there truly was no way to salvage his plan. His gut had failed him. Which, upon reflection, seemed to happen more often than Travis was willing to admit.

Jesus walked through the crowd of combatants, each seemingly frozen in place with awe, and then stepped up to Peter. “Shall I not drink the cup that the Father gave me?” asked the Lord. Chastened, Simon Peter put away his sword and then bowed his head in shame.

Jesus turned to the guards. “Whom are you looking for?”

They replied, “Jesus the Nazorean.”

Jesus stepped in front of the Apostles and said to the guards, “I AM. So if you are looking for me, let these men go.”

And so the soldiers and the Jewish guards unhanded the Apostles and instead they seized the Son of Man, restraining him, binding him up and leading him from the garden.

Travis felt a queasiness building within his gut. He never doubted whether or not his plan would succeed, but now that his plot had spectacularly crashed, just as a runaway cart might plummet into a deep ravine and shatter upon the ground, taking several livestock with it, the magnitude of the ordeal Jesus was about to face began to dawn on him.

As the soldiers dragged Jesus away, a Tribune among them turned to the Apostles and asked, “By the way, which one of you is Judas Iscariot?”

Surprised, Judas hesitantly raised his hand.

“Caiaphas wanted me to say thanks again on behalf of the entire Sanhedrin. We truly couldn’t have done this without you. Honestly. Top notch snitching.” Just before he turned to leave, the Tribune cheerfully remarked, “Don’t spend those thirty pieces of silver all in one place!”

The remaining Apostles turned to him, their surprise giving way to burning hot outrage. They manhandled Judas, finding a coin pouch that Judas claimed to know nothing about.

Betrayer. Hypocrite. Monster.

Though there had indeed been some unforeseen turns of events, and though the outcome had indeed been catastrophic, at the very least Travis could rest knowing that part of his plan had worked as intended.

Perhaps his gut was not so unreliable after all.

THE PASSION
Travis made the decision to keep a low profile. The city had suddenly become as the bee hive which has been poked by the stick, with many upset people and many angry accusations flying about the hive. Much like Peter, whom you may remember was Simon at one point, Travis had no interest in being known around town as a follower. Though, unlike Peter, Travis would never put himself in public and risk getting outed by the crowing cock, as had happened that very morning.

And yet, as he sat in his nicely furnished room close to the old palace of Herod the Great listening to the commotion outside, he could find no inner peace. The Father was calling him to bear witness. Or else, his curiosity was getting the better of him.

When he could take no more, Travis donned a long cloak which he pulled over his head to obscure his face and then headed out into the streets.

At the entrance to the old palace, which the Romans were using as their offices, stood a stone paved square with the judgement bench. There, Travis found a great throng of people gathered together, shouting and jeering.

“What’s all of this noise?” asked Travis of the people at the back of the square, as though he had absolutely no clue. “This fracas is very inconvenient for me. I’m trying to rest. I had a long day of not being anywhere near the Gethsemane gardens yesterday.”

“Have you not heard?” said a cobbler. “They’ve arrested a man named Jesus of Nazareth.”

“Nazareth? Never heard of it,” claimed Travis, doing his best to seem nonchalant. “What did this Jessie or Jehu fellow do exactly to deserve such treatment, for I do not know him at all?”

“Poor sick bastard claims to be King of the Jews, I hear. As though we needed another king running around here. One Caesar and one Herod is enough for me. Anyway, I hate the bloodsport of it all, but a public trial is a good way to break up all of this holiday family time. Don’t get me wrong. I love my cousins. But I’m ready for Passover to piss off.”

Just then, the crowd stirred. At the front of the square, a procession of Roman soldiers accompanied the Roman Governor, one named Pontius Pilate, as he brought Jesus out before the public.

Jesus appeared bruised and bedraggled. He was naked except for a really nice purple cloak that draped around his shoulders and a crown of thorns that dug into his forehead. Spatters of blood fouled the excellent quality of the cloak’s fabric. A real shame, thought Travis, to wear such a nice item in such a pitiable state, for he really liked that particular shade of Tyrian purple. He made a note to go shopping for cloaks before heading back to Tiberias.

“Behold, the man!” announced Pilate. “I bring him before you, freshly scourged, but I tell you now that I have found no guilt in him.”

With that the Pharisees, who were collected at the front of the masses along with the guards and the high priests, called out in unison, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

“Not these guys,” said the cobbler with a roll of his eyes.

Travis witnessed some back and forth between Pilate and Caiaphas and the rest of the Sanhedrin, although they spoke low enough and he was far enough away that he couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. At one point, it seemed that Jesus said something to Pilate that gave the Roman prelate pause. Travis wished that he could be closer to hear what the rabbi had said, although he noted that the precious Apostles were no longer at the foot of the Lord so at least he was no worse off than them. In fact, Travis saw no Apostles at all, although they very well may have been hiding among the crowd. He had noticed a couple of people wearing conspicuously inconspicuous cloaks similar to his spread around the square. Perhaps they had not all yet gone into hiding.

After a moment’s thought, Pilate motioned for his guards to release Jesus. However, just as the soldiers began to unshackle him, the crowd rose in such an uproar that the soldiers stopped in their tracks.

Pilate called out, “Would you have me crucify your king?”

“Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar!” called out the Pharisees in one voice. “If you release him, you are no friend of Caesar.”

“What is the deal with this chorus?” wondered Pilate aloud. “Are we performing an Euripides drama? I need quiet to think.”

But he would have no such quiet, for the throngs of people made a fearsome noise. Pilate listened as the crowd chanted “We have no King but Caesar.” It was as though the whole city was suddenly overcome with a fever. Travis even found himself whispering the chant along with the rest. “No King but Caesar” seemed to roll of his tongue.

Finally, Pilate had a shallow bowl of water brought to him which he used to wash his hands. It was the sort of symbolic gesture that made Travis wonder if the Romans kept bowls of water around for just such an occasion. Say what one will about the Romans, for they often behaved brutishly and with a disdain for the Jews as well as for all non-Latin lives, but they had a special talent for making statements. He imagined what other props they might keep around for the purpose of symbolism.

Then, having dried his hands, Pilate motioned to hand Jesus over to the soldiers for punishment. The crowd roared its approval, and even Travis politely clapped beneath his cloak. The outcome was certainly not ideal, but he had to pay respect to an effective display of power whenever he saw one.

“What a shame,” remarked the cobbler. “I don’t know what terrible things he said or did but I do not get the sense that man is dangerous. It seems a waste of life. Still, a crucifixion should fill up another couple of hours. If we keep this up, maybe my in-laws will have left town before I ever get home.”

THE CRUCIFIXION
Travis followed the crowd, which followed Jesus as he carried a large wooden cross towards the Place of the Skull. The people jeered and they laughed, as though a brand new festival had broken out in the midst of Passover. Only one man bothered to help the Lord shoulder his cross, a completely unknown out-of-towner no less, such was the sudden lust of the city’s inhabitants for punishment. Indeed, Travis was as the grain of sand caught in the undertow of a great ocean, shifting about under the sway of a power that he did not understand.

Once set up on the hill, the soldiers stripped Jesus and laid him down upon the cross. They affixed him to the wooden beams by driving great spikes through him. They raised him next to two criminals, then rolled dice to divide up his possessions.

Pilate had written a sign that read “Jesus the Nazorean, King of the Jews,” which he then ordered placed upon the cross. Caiaphas and the temple priests objected, but Pilate refused to hear them.

And as Travis watched from afar the life draining from this itinerant preacher, this one-time healer and miracle worker, he was overcome with how strange it all seemed.

Here was a man, this supposed Son of God. He should have all of the power that any wealthy son would have and more, for his father was none other than the creator of the universe. He could have gone anywhere and done anything, but he came to them in that place at that time with a message he felt was so crucially vital that it was worth suffering an unimaginably painful and humiliating death to share:

Love each other.

And now he hung there on a cross between two common thieves, dying in the noonday sun.

It perplexed Travis. What an immense opportunity, squandered all for the sake of words. A true tragedy.

Before too long, the crowd began to dissipate as their attention shifted elsewhere or as the barbarity of the situation finally snuck into their formerly bloodthirsty consciences. Eventually, there was nobody left on the hill who did not know Jesus. And indeed, at the foot of the cross stood Mary, Jesus’s mother, and Mary from Magdala, and even a third Mary that Travis didn’t even recognize.

“Typical,” thought Travis as he spat on the ground. Surrounded by women to the very end.

Finally, Jesus called out for a drink. The King of the Jews was fed with a sponge on a stick. He whispered something, his voice too hoarse for Travis to hear, and then his head slumped down against his chest.

So passed the itinerant preacher, this Son of Man.

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