Homecoming By Dr. Juan Harrison

Not sure how I even had the urge or the gumption to speak to him.  I had watched him silently suffer with quiet dignity as he hung there with us two reprobates.  As my body drained of its strength amidst almost intolerable pain, my life of villainy and uselessness flooded through my mind replaying scene after scene of missed opportunities and wasted actions.  What had always seemed to be the easy way ended in the worst way.  No friend, no wife, no children stood beneath the shadow of death as my slumping physical container destined to become another lonely corpse hanging on a hillside telling others the price of a life of larceny. 

At times I could hear him mumble through the blood draining down his face.  At times he seemed to beg an unseen Father to remove something from him.  I figured He was delirious as he continued on with something about “not my will but thine be done.”  His quiet grace seemed to slowly move outward as I felt a warm glow.  Something warm inside my blood-soaked filthy outer body.  Tears began to dribble down a face only hardened by time and a selfish life of living for the moment, living only for me, not really living at all.

My blood encrusted lips slowly seemed to slide back and forth against one another as my feeble words struggled from a cotton filled mouth of blood and saliva, “Remember me this day when you get to your Kingdom,” as I stared at the words written above his head, “King of the Jews.”

I see them coming now, cudgel in hand, ready to break my legs, causing my body to slump forward and down as the last gasps of breath prepare to make their exit from my body.  Even now as the physical pain and memories of years of emotional emptiness pass through my heart which seems to feel a renewed surge of warmth and hope as my old unbelieving ears help me grasp His reply, “This day you will be with me in Paradise.”

As the cold begins to melt away, the pain I should be feeling seems to be overtaken by a feeling I’ve never experienced, a glow of hope.  Even now as my eyes close for the last time I find myself being lifted up and away.  No pain, no sorrow, no tears.  Only a peace and joy that I had craved and longed for my entire miserable life on this earth.  Invisible shackles seem to fall away.  Loving, welcoming arms seemed to reach out to me.  A voice much more than a voice seemed to pull me closer to it as it said, “Welcome home my child,” words I had not heard on my earthly journey.  How could it be.  The vilest of creatures finally and totally undeserving finding a home and unending joy.  How can it be.  The hand reaches for me.  “Welcome home.”

 By Dr. Juan Harrison