When morning came, the chief priests and the elders of the nation all met together to plan the death of Jesus. They bound him and led him away, to hand him over to Pilate, the Roman governor.
Jesus was now brought before the governor; ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ the governor asked him. ‘The words are yours,’ said Jesus; and when the chief priests and elders brought charges against him he made no reply. Then Pilate said to him, ‘Do you not hear all this evidence they are bringing against you?’ but to the governor’s great astonishment he refused to answer a single word.
At the festival season it was customary for the governor to release one prisoner chosen by the people. There was then in custody a man of some notoriety, called Jesus Barabbas. When the people assembled Pilate said to them, ‘Which would you like me to release to you—Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus called Messiah?’ For he knew it was out of malice that Jesus had been handed over to him.
While Pilate was sitting in court a message came to him from his wife: ‘Have nothing to do with that innocent man; I was much troubled on his account in my dreams last night.’
Meanwhile the chief priests and elders had persuaded the crowd to ask for the release of Barabbas and to have Jesus put to death. So when the governor asked, ‘Which of the two would you like me to release to you?’ they said, ‘Barabbas.’ ‘Then what am I to do with Jesus called Messiah?’ asked Pilate; and with one voice they answered, ‘Crucify him!’ ‘Why, what harm has he done?’ asked Pilate; but they shouted all the louder, ‘Crucify him!’
When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, and that there was danger of a riot, he took water and washed his hands in full view of the crowd. ‘My hands are clean of this man’s blood,’ he declared. ‘See to that yourselves.’ With one voice the people cried, ‘His blood be on us and on our children.’ He then released Barabbas to them; but he had Jesus flogged, and then handed him over to be crucified.
Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into his residence, the Praetorium, where they collected the whole company round him. They stripped him and dressed him in a scarlet cloak; and plaiting a crown of thorns they placed it on his head, and a stick in his right hand. Falling on their knees before him they jeered at him: ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’ They spat on him, and used the stick to beat him about the head. When they had finished mocking him, they stripped off the cloak and dressed him in his own clothes. Then they led him away to be crucified.
On their way out they met a man from Cyrene, Simon by name, and pressed him into service to carry his cross. Coming to a place called Golgotha (which means ‘Place of a Skull’), they offered him a drink of wine mixed with gall; but after tasting it he would not drink.
When they had crucified him they shared out his clothes by casting lots, and then sat down there to keep watch. Above his head was placed the inscription giving the charge against him: ‘This is Jesus, the king of the Jews.’ Two bandits were crucified with him, one on his right and the other on his left.
The passers-by wagged their heads and jeered at him, crying, ‘So you are the man who was to pull down the temple and rebuild it in three days! If you really are the Son of God, save yourself and come down from the cross.’
The chief priests with the scribes and elders joined in the mockery: ‘He saved others,’ they said, ‘but he cannot save himself. King of Israel, indeed! Let him come down now from the cross, and then we shall believe him. He trusted in God, did he? Let God rescue him, if he wants him—for he said he was God’s Son.’ Even the bandits who were crucified with him taunted him in the same way.
From midday a darkness fell over the whole land, which lasted until three in the afternoon; and about three Jesus cried aloud, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Hearing this, some of the bystanders said, ‘He is calling Elijah.’ One of them ran at once and fetched a sponge, which he soaked in sour wine and held to his lips on the end of a stick. But the others said, ‘Let us see if Elijah will come to save him.’
Jesus again cried aloud and breathed his last. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, rocks split, and graves opened; many of God’s saints were raised from sleep, and coming out of their graves after his resurrection entered the Holy City, where many saw them. And when the centurion and his men who were keeping watch over Jesus saw the earthquake and all that was happening, they were filled with awe and said, ‘This must have been a son of God.’
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What strikes me is how, for the most part, even so it enables us to feel and to share the despair of Jesus’ friends and followers, the dashing of all their hopes. They had believed him to be the Messiah, the one God had sent to set his people free. Now they had to face up to the fact that they were wrong - and yet, how could they be? They had seen and heard such things - and yet, how could God’s holy one be killed, be helpless before the power of the governor and his soldiers? How could he be crucified?
Of course, they were right to recognise Jesus as the Messiah; they were wrong only in their understanding of what the Messiah had entered Jerusalem to do. They had in fact expected too little of him. But it would be a while before they came to see that. It would be a while before they could take in the truth of what had happened on this Friday, and see this day as Good. And for now it is good for us to share their despair and confusion, their sense of failure and loss. A good man, the greatest of all good men, is dying before their eyes, and all they could do was to abandon him. They are helpless, and hopeless, today.
This is our tragedy too. As Jesus says in John’s Gospel, the cross convicts us, it shows us what sin really is and what it does. Our sin: we can’t escape our share of the blame. All are involved, as the nails are hammered in, as the cross is erected, and as passers-by jeer and spit. And yet this is also our salvation. Jesus cried aloud at the moment of his death, and that shout was a shout not of pain or defeat but of victory - and he makes us part of that victory only he could win, in the bread and wine he shares with us, and in the love that draws us to the cross. But not yet; for now, let us feel the pain, and share the despair of this day, as Jesus the man dies the sinner’s death he of all men does not deserve.
Pray for all who share in the sufferings of the cross: for all who are abused, exploited or persecuted by others, and for all who are burdened by a sense of their own failure and sin.
“We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you,
because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world”
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