CHAPTER 5
MY DESTINY
Finally, the Master Carpenter’s work was done. “What have I become now?” I wondered. The anxiety was almost too much for me to bear. I couldn’t wait to find out what the final outcome was and what my purpose would be in serving mankind.
Again, the thought of spending the rest of my days in the Temple of God rose up within me. “Would that be my resting place all the days of my life?” I wondered. Then I remembered how I had become bitter and treated my father with disrespect and disdain. I had not listened to his wise counsel. I had stood firm on top of the mountain in my pride and bitterness.
Then my heart sank, thinking I was not worthy to be placed in the Holy of Holies or the Holy Place. Even the Outer Court of the Temple was too good for me. I was worthy of death! I had no hope left. “Maybe I am doomed to death, and I will be burned in the fire,” I thought.
However, I was glad my pain was now over. I was complete and my destiny was sealed. The Carpenter’s job was finished. My destiny had been sealed, and I was getting ready to serve mankind somehow. I was glad I had not been cut up into firewood and cast into a furnace to be burned. I had seen that done many times before when men would take the old trees that had rotted and died on the mountain. They took them down into the valley-- threw them into the fire and burned them to ashes.
The Carpenter then called for two of the Soldiers who were standing around talking outside the wall of the Shop. They walked over, picked me up and stood me against a stone wall. I thought I must still be very heavy if it takes two men to lift me.
There I stood leaning against the stone wall that stood behind the Carpenter’s Shop. I was so happy, I held my trunk high. I was quite proud that I had found my place in destiny. Just knowing that I would now be something of value made me forget all the pain I had endured.
“Surely, I must be an object of beauty and will be a great benefit to mankind,” I thought. Then the mixed emotions returned and suddenly I began thinking about maybe being burned in the fire. Whatever would happen, I was just glad that my life as an unfruitful Olive Tree was over.
As I opened my eyes to look and see how beautiful I might be, I looked toward the ground and saw below me a vertical shaft resting on the ground. Part of me was some kind of a beam. I followed the beam upward with my eyes and saw that the beam reached up toward the sky. I was about ten feet tall.
I thought the Carpenter had done his job well. “He hasn’t sanded me down yet though because my skin still feels pretty rough,” I complained. “All my bark is gone, but maybe he wasn’t through with me yet,” I thought. I didn’t have much form or shape as a vertical beam, but I was still strong and sturdy.
Then I glanced to my left and saw another beam beginning on my left side. “That is strange,” I thought. I then looked to my right and saw that same beam intersected with the vertical beam and continued on to my left side. I looked to my left again and then again to my right. Then I looked down and up again. The beam on my right side was actually the same beam which was on my left side. I was not just made into a vertical beam, but a horizontal beam also. Then I realized the two beams were connected at the center together and made into what looked to be a Crucifix.
I was made up of two beams—one horizontal and the other one vertical. “What a strange form,” I thought. I glanced over at the two crucifixes leaning up against the wall close to me, then I looked back at myself. “I looked just like they do,” I thought.
“Oh NO,” I cried in horror,” I looked just like the two crucifixes. I couldn’t believe what my eyes were seeing. “My eyes must be playing tricks on me,” I thought.
Suddenly it dawned on me that I too was a Crucifix. “No, not me,” I cried! “Please not me! Please don’t do this to me,” I pleaded. I had become the very thing I detested the most. I had become an instrument of torture and horrible death for someone.
“What have I done to deserve this?” I shouted in anguish. Destiny had played a cruel and terrifying joke on me, except it was not a joke—it was reality now. What I feared most had come upon me. I was to be the instrument of cruel and inhumane punishment. I had become an instrument of death.
Before I had time to gather my thoughts together, I heard someone coming. I recognized it was the same Roman Soldiers who had brought me down the mountain. The two other crucifixes were hauled off first. Later, two of the Soldiers came back, picked me up and carried me off. “Oh my God, where were they taking me?” I wondered. “Oh please, somebody help me, I don’t want to do this,” my heart cried out within me. However, no one listened to my pleas for help.
The Soldiers leaned me up against a wall in an open area near the prison. In an open Courtyard of the prison I saw a man who had been chained to a post. He had been stripped of His garments to His waist. A large crowd standing in and around the area were shouting curse words at the man.
Many people in the crowd consisted of Roman Soldiers and the Priests who served God in the Temple. There was also other religious leaders shouting and calling the man names. I wondered who this man was and what he had done. “Why do the people hate Him so much?” I questioned. From where I was standing he looked harmless to me, but I did not get a very good look at Him. “He must be a very dangerous criminal,” I thought.
Some of the people broke away from the crowd, ran up to him and spit in his face. They pulled out large pieces of his beard and his hair. When they pulled out patches of his hair and beard, He would cry out in pain. A very strong Roman Soldier started lashing the man with a leather whip which had pieces of glass, bone and nails tied to the ends of the straps on the whip. Every time the whip would strike the man’s back, He would cry out in pain again.
With each lashing, pieces of His flesh and blood would fly from the man’s back and splatter on the Roman Soldiers or fall to the ground. Furiously the Soldier lashed at His back. Again and again the Soldier raised the whip and with great strength he would then lower it violently into the flesh on the man’s back. With each crack of the whip I heard Him cry out in pain. It was a horrible thing to watch. I closed my eyes and prayed that God would help Him.
Blood was pouring from each wound in His back. Blood covered the man’s entire back and ran like a fountain to the ground beneath Him. The whip kept cutting deeper and deeper into His wounds. The violent lashing from the Roman Soldier’s whip found its mark every time. I could hear the sound of each lashing. Each lashing sounded like the falling of a great tree in the forest when lightening would strike it. I had heard that sound many times before.
“Who is this poor man?” I questioned. “What terrible crime had He committed?” I wondered. Another Soldier then walked up to the man and placed a Crown made out of Thorns upon His head. The Crown of Thorns was then pressed deep into His scalp. As the Soldier pressed the thorns into His head, Blood squirted out from each puncture wound. His Blood ran down the side of His head into His ears, down on His face, into His eyes and onto His beard.
The Soldiers then beat Him in the face with their fists. One big Soldier had a large ring on His finger which sliced the skin on his face and His head with every blow. There was no place on this man’s entire body His own Blood did not cover.