At the foot of the Cross
Ever since Lucius was a boy, his father believed in Rome.
Not the poets.
Not the philosophers.
Rome.
If there were a sign on their door, it would read “Hail Rome. Hail Cesaer.”
So when Lucius chose to serve the Roman army, his father’s smile felt like a blessing.
“Strength holds the world together,” his father would say, gripping the boy’s shoulder hard enough to leave meaning in the bone.
“Mercy is for the weak. Power is for men.”
His brother Quintus disagreed.
Quintus wrote poems.
Not about conquest or wars.
Not about the strength that overpowered.
About wind over wheat fields.
About the sea at dusk.
About dreams that spoke to the heart rather than swords that pierced it.
Lucius loved listening to him recite in the marketplace after training.
“Your words hold so much power. Use them for Rome. Write about Rome,” said Lucius
Quintus smiled.
“Words built empires long before swords defended them, but what they really do is build people.”
Their father overheard and scoffed.
“Words fade. Power remains.”
Quintus pulled Lucius aside, “Don’t be so blinded by power that you forget to see what it actually looks like.”
Lucius had chosen the path of unyielding strength.
But somewhere beneath discipline and ambition, he wondered if his brother was not entirely wrong.
Years later, Lucius was stationed far east of Rome, among an ancient people who spoke of this one God, whom he thought was called Yahweh, though he could never say it correctly. He found it strange… their One God had many names… and they were in waiting for “this king.”
One evening, he received a letter.
The wax seal cracked under his thumb.
Quintus’ handwriting was hurried.
I had a dream.
Lucius nearly set the letter aside, but kept reading.
I saw you standing beneath a tree.
Not as a conqueror.
As a witness.
And I heard words spoken near you that would echo beyond Rome.
They would not command armies.
They would outlast them.
Lucius folded the letter slowly.
Quintus chased omens.
Lucius chased rank.
Jerusalem was restless that week. It was the Jews festival.
For some reason, they wanted a man crucified.
Lucius didn’t mind. It has Roman authority to do so.
The rabbi’s own religious leaders had handed over a man.
Lucuius thought, “how off do you have to be for your own people to hand you over to us..?”
Some called Him a blasphemer. Others whispered a more dangerous word:
King.
The sign above Him read:
KING OF THE JEWS.
Lucius almost laughed.
He had heard of this rabbi.
He healed the sick. Ate with the tax collectors who Rome had swayed from their people.
Strange stories followed Him.
One lingered.
In the barracks, guards had once whispered:
“Did you hear about that centurion up north?”
“The one whose servant was dying?”
“They said the teacher healed him without even entering the house…”
“Yeah… I heard it was because the centurion said he understood the rabbi’s authority, ‘Just say the word, and my servant will be healed.’”
Lucius had stilled at that.
A Roman officer recognizing authority in a Jewish teacher.
He steadied himself now.
This rabbi was just another failed revolutionary.
He had crucified dozens.
Criminals and zealots who cursed Rome.
Upon the cross, they all broke.
But as the hours passed, this one did not.
When the nails were driven in, Lucius waited for the scream.
Instead, “Father, forgive them.”
Lucius stiffened.
No one forgave executioners.
And no one’s deity was called Father.
The sky dimmed unnaturally.
The crowd surrounding the crosses mocked Him, “If You are the Son of God…”
Lucius watched closely.
This was the moment before death when a man’s true allegiance surfaced.
Some begged.
Some cursed.
Some unraveled.
This man did none of those things.
As He took His last breath, He said,
“It is finished.”
The ground shook.
Stone trembled.
Lucius eyes widened as the earth shifted.
He remembered his brother’s letter.
Standing beneath a tree…
He looked up at the wooden beam against the darkened sky.
This was no oak in a quiet field.
Yet something about it felt older than Rome.
Deeper than the authority his father had preached since childhood.
He heard Quintus’ words again:
Words that would echo beyond Rome.
The man on the cross breathed His last.
Silence fell heavily.
Lucius felt something unfamiliar.
Not fear of revolt.
Not fear of Caesar.
Fear of truth.
The body hanging before him did not feel defeated.
It puzzled him, “how could this holiness come from something dead…”
The air felt strangely sovereign.
The words left him before training could restrain them.
“Surely this man was the Son of God.”
His father’s voice echoed:
Power remains.
But beneath that cross, power did not look like domination.
It looked like absorbing.
It looked like forgiving.
It looked like a surrender that refused to be conquered.
A few nights later, Lucius unrolled the letter again.
One final line waited at the bottom. A line that always troubled him.
In my dream, you were not guarding the tree.
You were changed by it.
He stared until the words burned.
He had chased glory across deserts and provinces.
He thought treasure lay in rank.
Yet beneath that cross, watching a dying rabbi forgive His executioners, something shifted.
The center of the world was not Rome.
It was mercy.
The treasure he had marched his whole life to find had been nailed to wood.
And if the rumors were true,
it had walked out of a tomb.
Days later, whispers filled the city.
The followers of Jesus were bold.
Lucius stood beneath the same sky his brother once described in poems.
He did not know what allegiance would cost.
He did not know how a Roman soldier would follow a crucified Jewish King.
But he knew this:
His father had been wrong.
Empires fade.
But words — and the Word — echo beyond them.
A man’s beginning does not have to be his end.
When we encounter God, we are not merely informed; we are transformed. The past may explain us, but it no longer owns us.
And Lucius walked away knowing that the man who had been raised to serve an empire had begun to belong to a Kingdom that would never fade.
