As a centurion soldier, it was up to me, To get Him up, and back down from that tree. False is the news, and wrongly accused, as friends of His deny, Their friend, teacher, savior, preacher, afraid like Him, they’ll die.   We thrashed His back, red and black, ripping new flesh free. Mangled whips, cracked against back and hips, brackish the future would seem. As black and sin grew stiller then, and the sun refused to beam.   The cross on His back, no tormenter lack, blood staining the stones under His feet, He stumbles and falls, and almost crawls, down that crooked street.   My eyes—blind to the…