Behind the Cross: The Centurion’s Journey to Faith – Episode #5
The Old Roman Way
Journal Entry – Marcus Aelius Vitalis
Date: Monday, November 2, 26 A.D. (Year of the Consulship of Lentulus and Agrippa, 778 Ab urbe condita)
It has been twenty-two days since the baptism in the Jordan. Since I saw the sky open and heard a voice that shook the air without thunder. Since I saw the man from Nazareth disappear into the wilderness alone, without food, without supplies—without fear.
And yet, for all the silence that has followed, I cannot escape the sound of that voice.
“This is My beloved Son.”
I write those words again now, not with the ease of belief, but the weight of obsession. They have lodged in my mind like an arrow too deep to pull out. I cannot forget them. And worse—I cannot explain them.
I am a Roman Centurion. I do not flinch at the dying breath of a criminal, or the roar of war beyond the walls of Jerusalem. I have stood in the dust of riots and in the halls of power. I have looked gods in the eye—stone or bronze, it makes no difference—and felt nothing.
But this... this is something else.