An Unexpected Journey

Sometimes it's hidden away in a children's book.  The truth I mean.   We hunt for it like the littles hunt for eggs.  And sometimes it's right there underneath our noses.  Staring at us from the colorful pages as our fingers skim across. The picture shows that hill where Jesus died.  Three shadowy crosses are silhouetted against a dark sky.  And I read about the exchange between the three dying men; the one in the middle is the God-man.  How odd, I thought, that Jesus would share his crucifixion with these strangers.  That God would orchestrate the other men's crosses being forever remembered in books about the resurrection even 2000 years later. What a curious conversation as they hung there with life ebbing away.  The final breaths struggling in and out while voices cracked and blood dripped. One spending the last of himself to ridicule the God-man hanging between them.  The other asking for mercy even as the sun was setting on him...