Matthew 27:54

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!”

From Background Notes [BN] for March 17^th/18^th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

We know that Roman soldiers tended to embrace Stoic philosophy which accepted the idea of a universal Fate that governed the world and that assigned unique roles to human beings…

 
Perhaps the dramatic events in nature that surrounded the crucifixion placed Jesus within a wider context for the centurion, and led him to suppose that a greater purpose was unfolding that day on Mount Golgotha.

For soldiers, attending a crucifixion was not especially unusual, since they witnessed plenty of brigands and rebels put to death over the course of their professional lives. Rome did not normally crucify people for ordinary crimes, but reserved this form of capital execution for enemies of the state. As we have noted in previous studies, the upright posts used in crucifixions dotted the hills around Jerusalem, the constant reminder of Rome’s control over its subject peoples. Israel was no exception, even though compromise and soul-selling by its puppet rulers prevented widespread abuse of Roman justice toward the Jews. Still, Rome would not put up with revolutionaries threatening the peace of Rome (Pax Romana). The centurion mentioned in three of these accounts had no doubt watched many men die. What was different in the case of Jesus was how he died and what he said and what happened around him when he died.

What this incident teaches us is the witness of Jesus’ death on the cross and its impact on persons who  ordinarily wouldn’t give the event a second look. If scholars like Dominic Crossan are correct, most persons who died under these circumstances were left on the cross for the scavenger birds to pick clean and then were tossed into a common grave where their remains were ravaged further until nothing remained. Rebels caught by Rome ended up in oblivion, never to be found or remembered. The record of the Gospels tells a different story in the case of Jesus (contra Crossan, as well!). [BN,11 & 12]

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