The Pivotal Thrust | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: The Pivotal Thrust | Previous Challenge Entry
By Asha John
06/12/25
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As the sun’s rays began to pierce the thick darkness just before dawn break, Longinus leapt out of his bed with a cry. A drop of sweat slid down his right temple as he slowly sat back on the sagging wooden bed strung with ropes.

The same distressing dream.

Almost every night for the past few weeks, he was standing at the foot of the cross on the mount of Calvary with his arms poised upward gripping his lance.
Every night he would wake up in a cold sweat just as he was about to lunge forward and pierce the side of the bruised and broken man hanging limply from the piece of wood he was nailed to.
And every night it seemed to him that the sight of the crown of thorns that plowed the man’s brow was beginning to pierce his own soul.

Shaking off the lingering disquiet in his mind had become impossible. It stayed with him throughout the day.

Longinus grabbed his sagum off the wall and strode out of the makeshift barracks to the brisk air outside. Soldiers of his century were hurrying through various morning ablutions before the early morning drill.

At the edge of the camp, close to the shrubbery lining the woods beyond, Longinus paused for a moment to collect his thoughts.

“If only there was someone I could confide in.
Maybe I should slip out at night and find one of those fishermen who followed him around. They knew the man. Perhaps they can help me.”

All on a sudden, he seemed to be transported once again to that day as one by one, the scenes of that particular crucifixion flashed before his eyes.

The ominous clamor of the crowds screaming, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

The unreasonable, injudicious decision of Pilate, the governor, handing over the prisoner to the mob to do as they pleased.

The battered figure of the man they called Jesus bowed down under the weight of the wooden beam he carried.
The crucifixion of that man who seemed unlike any other he had ever seen.
His unbelievably gracious petition from the cross as he lay dying, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”

Once again, Longinus was leaning forward and thrusting his spear into Jesus’s side. Blood and water were spurting out

…and piercing his own soul even deeper.

* a fictionalized account of the soldier (Longinus) who pierced Jesus’s side with a spear according to tradition

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