Pictures of Mercy

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Prison? That’s an awful place to be, and something we will hopefully never have to experience. Although … until that glorious day when Jesus knocked on our hearts, we were not much better off than Trent Maddox, the man at the center of our next Story of the Week.

There he sat deep within the stone corridors of an old prison, a condemned man alone with nothing but time, memory, and the fearful knowledge that his future no longer belonged to him. Yet hope has a way of slipping through even the smallest cracks. None of us deserved it, and neither did Trent. But grace came anyway.

I hope you enjoy this Story of the Week.

By J.K. Stenger

Trent Maddox counted the days.

Only a few more to go, and he would be no more.

It was a strange thought. Even though he knew exactly what waited for him, he could not picture it. He could not imagine the world going on without him in it. He still felt very much alive. Death did not scare him; everyone had to face it sooner or later, but he could not give it a proper place in his mind. It sat somewhere just out of reach, like a shadow he could sense but never touch.

He would not miss this world; he had never felt welcome in it. Everything about it had been cold, almost as if it matched the judge’s hopes for the day they chose to hang him, the very first day of winter. A neat little cruelty, a final effort to make sure his last morning on earth would bite as sharply as the rope itself.

If he was perfectly honest, he had to admit his execution was only right. At least, that was how the people he had wronged would see it. They claimed the world would be a far better place without Trent Maddox.

It would not.

People liked to pretend otherwise, but deep inside everyone was cut from the same cloth. They had the same hunger for a little more money, a little more comfort, a little more praise. Even the Saints chased those things. Anyone who denied it was lying, or simply blind.

He thought of the clergyman who had stepped into his cell yesterday, hands trembling as he begged Trent to make peace with the Creator. The man had spoken softly, with wide eyes and a quivering smile, as if hoping he could drag one more soul into heaven to make the tally look better. To Trent, it had sounded like fear dressed up as faith.

No, he would not fall for that. He would not cling to some last-minute anchor of hope just because his time was almost up. He would die the same man he had been while alive. A criminal perhaps, but an honest one.

A faint rustle near the door of his cell caught Trent’s attention.

Maybe it was a mouse.

He hardly cared. He was leaning against the cold stone wall, eyes closed, enjoying his own thoughts. Still, curiosity won and he opened them.

His eyes widened. It was not a mouse. It was a cream-colored paper, lying half under a tattered cobweb that hung like a curtain in the corner. The web, home to a spider that had long ago given up on a better life, trembled slightly.

Somebody had slipped a paper underneath the door.

A message, perhaps? From whom, he could not imagine.

He rose from his bench and brushed off the dust. The paper crackled between his fingers. It was thin and dry, like it might tear at the slightest touch.

It was a drawing.

A bit messy, but precise and detailed all at once. He stared at it, unblinking, and then he realized what it was. A religious picture.

Three crosses on a mountain. Three criminals, condemned to die, just like him.

The man in the middle was obviously Jesus Christ. Trent closed his eyes for a moment. His heartbeat quickened. Anger welled from deep inside.

Who could have slipped this under his door?

His eyes returned to the paper. He looked again, making sure he was seeing correctly.

That man hanging next to Jesus … it caused his heart to skip a beat.

The face was unmistakable. It was his own.

He stared. His chest tightened. The man on that wooden cross, condemned and suffering, next to Christ, was a clear picture of himself.

He let out a low, ragged growl as bitter anger rose. His fingers crushed the paper into a tight ball and he flung it into the corner. The spider scuttled away, disappearing into a crack in the wall.

He walked over to his cell door and cried out in a loud voice: “No more, you hear me! I don’t want your pictures!” In a rage, he kicked the door with his foot. The echo rolled through the prison.

As he sank back onto the hard bench, his fists tightened. He had only a few days left to live and he would not let them be wasted on religious lies. He had screamed he did not want more of the same, and thought that would be the end of it. But the next day another paper, just like the first one, was slipped under his door.

“No more!” he screamed. As the paper arrived, he jumped from the bench, slamming his hand against the door, but nobody answered.

Silence pressed against him from all sides.

He sighed, trying to get rid of the unpleasant taste that had somehow worked its way into his mouth and stared at the paper on the ground.

He hated it. And yet… curiosity pricked at him.

He bent low to pick it up. Similar cream-colored paper, thin and brittle, trembled under his fingers. As he had expected, it was another sketch.

This one was not about the cross, but nevertheless religious.

It showed Jesus with His hands raised, standing before a tomb. A man wrapped in burial cloth stepped out into the sunlight.

He knew the scene. It was about a man called Lazarus who had been dead for days yet lived again when Jesus called him. Trent’s mother used to tell him that story when he was a boy. Strange, how her voice returned to him now as he studied the picture.

He shook his head. Impossible. Still, the drawing held him.

Whoever had made it had skill. More skill than he wanted to admit. Every line felt deliberate, almost alive.

At the bottom of the page, a few words had been hurriedly scratched in.

Trent narrowed his eyes and read, “I am the resurrection and the life. He that believes in Me shall never die.”

Never die?

How was that possible? It just wasn’t. Death came to all, and he was about to prove it.

As he stared at the drawing in his hands, he wondered again who had made it. The clergyman perhaps? The one who had supposedly graced his cell with his holy presence a few days earlier?

Highly unlikely. The man did not really seem to care. He had been barely aware Trent existed.

But who else would show any interest in him?

Again, he read the words beneath the drawing and felt a scowl tighten his face. Something in him urged him to tear it up and toss it beside the one he had thrown away yesterday.

Get rid of it. It poisons your soul. Religious superstition.

Just before he gave in to the impulse, his gaze drifted to the face of Lazarus. He leaned closer and studied the lines more carefully. A sudden jolt ran through him. The face, just like the thief on the cross from the previous drawing, was one he knew far too well.

There was no doubt about it. It was his own face.

The artist had done a good job, he could appreciate that. He himself had once loved to draw, even been quite good at it, but that was long ago and he hadn’t picked up a pencil in ages.

Even the scar in the picture, the one above his left eyebrow, looked almost real. Incredible.

He touched the spot absentmindedly. That scar had come from a knife in a bar fight and, come to think of it, that night had marked the beginning of everything that followed. He had been drunk, and so had the other fellow. But even in that fog he had shown the world that nobody should mess with Trent Maddox.

His opponent, a loud and boorish man, had reached the end of his earthly road that night. Trent had fled into the darkness, and life had never been the same.

A strange curiosity pricked at him.

Should he uncrumple the drawing he had thrown into the corner yesterday?

Would that scar, the one only he carried, be there as well on the face of the thief beside Jesus Christ?

He hesitated. He should not give in to weakness. Not at this hour when he needed to be strong, so he could laugh at the face of the executioner. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to look.

Nobody needed to know.

He walked to the corner and picked up the tight ball of paper. Carefully, he began to unfold it. The page had torn in several places, but the drawing was still clear enough.

When his eyes found the face of the thief, really his own face, his breath caught.

The scar was there. The same one.

Amazing. Utterly absurd, in fact.

Hardly anyone even knew about that scar. He kept it hidden beneath his hood most of the time.

Which meant something else too.

It ruled out the clergyman. The man had never even seen his face without his hood.

A thousand questions stormed through his mind. It felt like a dam had burst, sending a flood through the dry, parched fields of his heart.

Would another picture appear tomorrow?

He almost hoped there would be, though admitting it to himself felt impossible. It struck him like strange, how something as small as a simple drawing could unsettle a man. Here he was, a strong man, master of his own fate, not one to yield to anyone, and yet secretly hoping for a foolish, religious picture slipped under his door by some stranger.

That night as he closed his eyes, he realized he was looking forward to the morning, in case another picture came.

Morning came.

The guards shouted, and wake-up time arrived. And there it was; another paper had been slid under his door. Trent threw off his coarse blanket, letting it fall to the cold stone floor, and strode toward the paper.

Would it be another drawing, showing his own face in some biblical scene?

It was.

Jesus Christ appeared again. In this one, He was speaking to a disciple, who was once more depicted as Trent. The scar was unmistakable. Jesus held the disciple’s hands and looked at him with a tenderness that seemed almost alive.

Yet the disciple wept. Desperate. Inconsolable.

What was this supposed to mean?

Thankfully, words were written beneath the picture again. Trent read them as if he were a man in the desert, parched and dying of thirst while the drawing offered him life-giving water.

He read: “Do you love Me? Then feed My sheep.”

He read the words again and again. His chest tightened. He wanted to scoff, to dismiss it as nonsense, yet something inside refused to look away. His heart, usually so stubborn and defiant, longed to embrace what he saw on the drawing.

But it couldn’t be true… and yet it was. His hands trembled as he held the picture and his breath came in short gasps. And then, as if a curtain was slowly pulled away from before his eyes, the light of truth poured in.

A flicker of understanding shivered through him. Then it hit, all at once. Everything Jesus Christ did or said centered on love, on forgiveness. Life was all about feeding people, caring for them, helping them… that was the message. It was the very truth his mother had tried to instill in him. But he, like a wayward sheep, had turned aside and followed his own rebellious path.

Instantly, images of those he had defrauded, abused and harmed surged up, flooding his mind. So many faces… so many people he had wronged.

Oh God, what have I done?

“Do you love Me? Then feed My sheep.”

But it couldn’t be true… and yet it was. His hands trembled as he held the picture and his breath came in short gasps. And then, as if a curtain were slowly pulled away from before his eyes, the light of truth poured in.

And soon he would die. The thought hit him with a cold finality.

He was too late to make things right. Too late to undo the damage. Too late to return what he had stolen, to restore what he had shattered, to heal what he had wounded.

There was nothing he could do anymore.

And yet … there was.

As he sat there, an idea came to him. He could draw too. He would ask the warden for paper, pen and ink. One picture, a big one, and on it he would depict a happy scene, a heavenly one, if you will. One that depicted all the people he had ever wronged. Everyone he could remember would be around the throne of God in heaven, their faces bright with smiles and serene, ethereal expressions.

He would not include himself.

He did not belong in such a picture. But at least he could give form to all the evil he had done and tell the world he was sorry.

Once it was finished, he would ask the warden to deliver it to the artist who had been slipping the drawings under his door.

At least that man, whoever he was, would know he was sorry.

And that he did. That very day he began his picture, since he had little time left. He wracked his brain to remember everyone he had wronged, determined to include them all. In the background, he sketched the faces of unknown people. No doubt he had harmed countless others he would never know. Everyone needed to be there, their faces radiant with heavenly light.

When he finally set down his pen, Trent sat back and stared at his picture. His chest ached with a strange mixture of sorrow and relief. He had captured it all. He had said what he could not speak aloud.

Then he handed it to the warden, who promised to deliver it to the unknown artist.

And that was it.

Only one more day remained now, before his well-deserved execution.

Trent sat there in silence, trying to make sense of the strange weight that had settled in his chest.

Then the cell door creaked open. A young woman appeared. Trent instinctively stepped back. She was pretty, clean, beautiful. Not the sort of person who should ever be touched by the likes of him.

“W-Who are you?” Trent muttered, his voice trembling. He almost feared the light she seemed to carry with her.

“My name is Hannah.” Her words were soft like music. She paused, stared at him for some time and then said. “You don’t know me, but I know you.”

“You do?” Trent asked, barely daring to lift his eyes. “Did I… hurt you too?”

She nodded. “You did. And for a long time, I hated you. You killed my father in a bar fight.”

Trent’s mouth dropped. “Are you… the daughter of the man who gave me the scar above my left eye?”

She nodded again, solemnly, but said nothing.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I was horrible. Wicked. And soon justice will be served. I’ll rightfully die.”

She nodded again, and after a long pause whispered, “I wanted to see how you were doing… and whether you were repentant. I made—”

“I am,” Trent cut in, his voice cracking. “I’m so very sorry. Someone drew pictures for me. Biblical pictures… with my face in them. And…” Tears welled up, blurring the floor beneath him. “…I’ve asked God to forgive me.”

“I know,” Hannah said, her voice as gentle as dew on spring grass. “I was the one who made the pictures for you. And yesterday, the warden gave me this.”

She reached into her bag, pulled out a tightly rolled sheet of paper, and held it out for Trent to see.

He gasped. It was the picture he had drawn, but now, right before the throne of Jesus, several faces had been erased and were replaced with a new figure.

Trent blinked. There, complete with his scar but with a joyful, radiant face, was an image of himself, singing God’s glory.

Beneath the picture, in the familiar handwriting, were the words: “And Christ has forgiven you.”

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