Week 3 Saturday — That First Easter... I Was There
Day 20: The Soldiers at the Cross
Day 20: The Soldiers at the Cross
Matthew 27:35-36, 45-54; Luke 23:34
Introduction
They were just doing their job.
That’s the most unsettling thing about the soldiers at the cross. They weren’t driven by ideology or hatred or religious conviction. They hadn’t plotted against Jesus or argued for His death or stirred up the crowd. They were Roman soldiers assigned to carry out an execution — one of dozens they had probably performed, in a province where crucifixion was routine enough to be unremarkable.
They did what soldiers do. They followed orders. They drove the nails. They raised the cross. They divided His garments among themselves — standard procedure, the condemned forfeited their possessions — and then they sat down and waited for Him to die.
And while they waited, they gambled for His clothing.
Not out of cruelty. Out of boredom. The shift had to be worked regardless. The hours had to pass. There was nothing to do but wait, so they made a game of it. The dice came out. The tunic went to the winner. And above them, three feet away, the Son of God was dying for the sins of the world.
They didn’t know that, of course. They had no framework for it. To them He was another convicted criminal on another slow afternoon in Jerusalem.
But that’s exactly what makes this the most quietly devastating portrait in the whole Easter story. Not the cruelty. The indifference. The capacity to be present at the most important moment in human history and feel nothing at all.
We know that capacity better than we’d like to admit.
Scripture
³⁵ When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots. ³⁶ And sitting down, they kept watch over him there.
— Matthew 27:35-36 (NIV)
³⁴ Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
— Luke 23:34 (NIV)
⁴⁵ From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. ⁴⁶ About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
⁴⁷ When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”
⁴⁸ Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. ⁴⁹ The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”
⁵⁰ And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.
⁵¹ At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split ⁵² and the tombs broke open. The graves of many holy people who had died were raised to life.
⁵⁴ When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”
— Matthew 27:45-52, 54 (NIV)
Reflection
Sitting Down to Watch
Matthew’s phrase is almost unbearable in its plainness: “And sitting down, they kept watch over him there.”
They sat down. They got comfortable. They had a job to do and they did it without ceremony or feeling or any apparent awareness that something was happening above them that would split history in two. The earth hadn’t shaken yet. The curtain hadn’t torn. From where they were sitting it was just another execution on just another Friday afternoon.
So they divided His garments — fulfilling Psalm 22:18 without knowing it, executing a prophecy written a thousand years earlier without any idea that a prophecy was being executed. They cast lots for His tunic. And while darkness gathered over the land and the Son of God cried out to His Father from the weight of every sin ever committed, the soldiers watched and waited and passed the time.
Jesus looked down at them from the cross and said: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Not after it was over. Not from a safe distance. In the middle of it. While the nails were fresh and the dice were still rolling and the soldiers were dividing up the last earthly possessions of the man they had just crucified — Jesus was interceding for them.
He prayed for the people who didn’t know they needed prayer. He forgave the people who didn’t know they needed forgiveness. He died for people who were too busy with a card game to notice He was doing it.
That is either the most scandalous thing in Scripture or the most liberating. Possibly both.
And then the earth shook. And the centurion — the commanding officer of the detachment, the man responsible for the execution, a soldier who had watched men die before and thought he knew what death looked like — looked up. And something broke open in him.
“Surely he was the Son of God.”
One man in that detachment who let it land. One soldier who looked up from the dice and the darkness and the routine of it all and saw what was actually happening. We don’t know his name. We don’t know what became of him. But Matthew records his words — the first human confession of Jesus as Son of God at the cross — as if they matter. Because they do.
In the middle of indifference, one person looked up. And that was enough.
We Are Like Them
We are not most like the soldiers in their cruelty. We are most like them in their capacity to be entirely present at the cross and feel nothing.
We have heard the Easter story so many times that we have become desensitized to it. We know how it ends. We know the theological categories. We can explain substitutionary atonement and the significance of the torn curtain and the fulfillment of Psalm 22 — and still sit through Good Friday without anything actually landing. We have become, in our familiarity, as numb as soldiers who had seen too many crucifixions to be moved by one more.
We take communion and think about lunch. We sing about the cross and compose our grocery lists. We read the passion narrative in church on Palm Sunday and follow along in our bulletin, turning the pages on schedule, and walk out into the parking lot talking about the game last night.
We are there. We are just not present in it.
The soldiers’ sin wasn’t that they hated Jesus. It was that they were so desensitized to the machinery of death that they couldn’t recognize life when it was dying in front of them. They had a framework for execution, for death. They had no framework for redemption, for life.
We have the framework. The Gospel. We’ve just stopped letting it do anything to us.
But the centurion is also in this story. And the centurion is the invitation.
He wasn’t looking for a revelation. He was doing the same job as everyone else. But somewhere between the darkness at noon and the earthquake and the way Jesus died — not cursing, not begging, but forgiving and commending His spirit to the Father — something cracked the centurion’s professional detachment wide open. He looked up. He saw. He said what he saw.
We don’t have to stay at the dice. We can look up. Even now. Even after years of familiarity and going through the motions and sitting through services without being touched. The cross is still there. Jesus is still interceding. The invitation to look up has never been withdrawn.
We were there at the foot of the cross, keeping watch without watching, present without presence, too familiar with the story to let it break us open. We are there now. But the centurion shows us another way: look up. Let the darkness and the earthquake and the way He died draw us to our Savior. Let it do what it was always meant to do.
Grace Note
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” — Romans 5:8 (NIV)
While the soldiers were gambling. While the crowd was mocking. While the disciples were hiding. While we were going through the motions, too familiar with grace to feel it. While. Not after we cleaned ourselves up. Not when we finally got serious. While we were still exactly as we are — indifferent, distracted, numb, going through the motions — Christ died for us. The soldiers didn’t earn His prayer of forgiveness. The centurion didn’t earn his revelation. We don’t earn the grace that meets us at the foot of the cross. We just have to look up.
Prayer Prompt
Jesus,
I confess that I have sat at the foot of Your cross and rolled dice. Not out of hatred — out of familiarity. I have heard this story so many times that I have learned to process it without being pierced by it. I know the words. I know the theology. I can explain what happened and why it matters — and still walk away unchanged because I never really let it land.
Forgive me for the numbness. For the going through the motions. For being present at the most important moment in history and being somewhere else entirely in my heart.
Thank You that You prayed for the soldiers while the nails were still fresh. That You said “Father, forgive them” before they had any idea they needed forgiving. That Your intercession didn’t wait for my awareness or my gratitude or my willingness to be moved.
Make me the centurion. Crack open whatever professional distance I’ve put between myself and what You did. Let the darkness matter. Let the earthquake land. Draw me to my Savior. Help me really see what is happening three feet above my head.
You are the Son of God. Let that be enough to break me open. Amen.
Response
1. Put Down the Dice: What are you using to pass the time at the foot of the cross? What occupies your attention during worship, communion, prayer — the mental noise, the to-do lists, the phone you’re fighting the urge to check? Name it specifically. Not to condemn yourself, but to see clearly what you’ve been reaching for instead of looking up. The soldiers weren’t evil. They were just distracted. So are we.
2. Read It Slowly: Today, read the crucifixion narrative slowly — Matthew 27:32-54 in full. Not to get through it. To let it get through you. Stop at “Father, forgive them.” Stop at the darkness at noon. Stop at the torn curtain. Stop at the centurion’s confession. Give each moment the space to land. This is not a story to be processed. It is a death to be received.
3. Say What You See: The centurion looked up and said out loud what he saw: “Surely he was the Son of God.” Today, find one person — a family member, a friend, someone in your life who needs to hear it — and tell them what Jesus means to you. Not a rehearsed explanation. Just what you see when you look up. The centurion’s confession changed nothing about the crucifixion and everything about him. Saying it out loud has a way of doing that.
To read all the posts in this devotional series, visit: That First Easter... I Was There
© Steve Peschke / This Is The Way