I should not be so angry.

“We spit in your King’s face, but he did not get angry!” People in the crowd taunted the knight.

I know. I know. That is why it is so frustrating. I do not want to be angry. But I am. I am angry that they are spitting at me. I am angry that I have not completed my mission. I am angry that I am angry. The King would not be angry. He was not angry. Even when they led him away to this very hill. Even when it seemed like it was the end. The end of everything.

But it wasn’t the end. It was just the beginning. Which is probably why I am so angry. I do not get to continue to carry on the work. I do not get to increase the kingdom. I do not get to fight for freedom. Even though my fighting has been with my words, and not with my sword. And I am angry because the King told us to expect this when he went away. He told us that this would happen.

But he also told us that his peace would be with us.

“Hush. Hush.” A man beside the knight held up his hands to the crowd. They grew quiet. “Look. He’s… He’s smiling.”

Another man, lower on the hill, asked, “How can you be smiling good sir knight? How is it that you are smiling being at the very brink of your execution?”

The knight looked at the man. Then, he looked at the crowd gathered on the executioner’s hillside. Their faces turned from stony snarls to soft questioning eyes. People looked to one another and seemed to wonder what could make a condemned man smile on his way to his death. The knight smiled even brighter.

He addressed the crowd. “I stand before you a condemned man. But I say to you that I am free of anything that could bind me. For I have done what I could for my Master, my King. I have done what I could to expand his great kingdom. And I smile at you this day because I remember the words of my King. I remember that he told me to be of good cheer. I remember that he told me that we would have trials and tribulations. I remember that he told me that I and my fellows should be glad when trials and tribulations came. For it would mean that we were doing good work. We were working for the kingdom and for the King. And that is enough. Enough to make me smile in adversity.”

“Bah!” The first man scoffed. “They killed your King. And now they’re gonna kill you too. What’s to smile about? It doesn’t matter what you do to grow the kingdom of a dead man.”

The knight kept smiling. “That’s just it. Don’t you see? The King is not here. He rose from the grave. And he told us to let people know that there is hope. The King has power over death!”

“Show us this King!”

“He is not here. He ascended on high. His empty tomb and the people who saw him alive are the proof of that. Indeed, I should ask you to show me the body. That should be a simple task. Should it not? When you show me my King’s body, I will renounce his kingdom. I will follow a different way. Just show me his body.”

“You and the other knights stole his body in the night,” came a voice from the crowd.

The knight laughed. “Against a team of Roman guards? Professional soldiers? Like my own executioner? And why would so many of my fellow knights have already gone to the grave at the hands of the Romans? They said the same thing that I say. Our King is alive. He appeared to over 500 of us at one time. There are witnesses who are still alive who saw him. And we will all go to the grave telling you the same thing. Some people might die for a lie, but I know not one person who would willingly face torture and death for something that he or she knows is a lie. The empty tomb is staring at you. Decide for yourselves.”

The Roman executioner grabbed the beam that the knight was carrying. He thrust the knight onto the beam. He hammered a spike through one wrist and then the other. He hammered another spike through his ankles. The knight gasped at each impact of the hammer, but he did not cry out. They raised the cross and dropped it into the prepared hole. The knight finally cried out in anguish when the cross hit the bottom of the hole with a thud.

The knight looked out onto the crowd. And he smiled. He was no longer angry. He had peace. For he knew the truth. King Jesus reigns forever. Even if the kingdom he promised had not yet come. The knight was content. The crowd had spit at him as they had spit at his King. And he, like his King, was not angry. At least not any longer.