The Jericho Connection a short story of Good Friday by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson

If you were to ask each man and woman who joined in the death watch that "Good" Friday, each could tell you of some personal connection to Jesus. There's John the beloved disciple, with Mary, Jesus' mother. Here are Lazarus and Mary and Martha, Jesus' friends from Bethany. The woman taken in adultery is here, too, in shock, and dozens of others. Each has a connection to the man crucified on the center cross. Some remember a healing, others his life-giving words by the shore of Galilee. Others recall a second chance the Master extended to them. Each has a connection.


They stand in clumps, here and there on that stark hill, drawn together by the sheer terror of what is happening. Two words describe what they feel: appalled and shattered.


But off by himself, as close as he could get to the base of the cross, is a tall, gangly sixteen-year-old with thick black hair and an angular jaw that makes him appear decisive, though at heart he is a dreamer and thinker.


But now his eyes are hard and narrow, staring at the blood that is dripping from the rough-hewn crossbar above. It has made a glistening pool in the rocky surface below, and each time another drop falls and breaks the surface of the puddle, Jonathan winces.


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