Then
Jesus went out and made his way, as he customarily did, to the Mount of
Olives, and the disciples followed him. When he came to the place, he
said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.”
He
went away from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed,
“Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me. Yet not my
will but yours be done.”
Then an angel from
heaven appeared to
him and strengthened him. And in his anguish he prayed more earnestly,
and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. When he
got up from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping,
exhausted from grief. So he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up
and pray that you will not fall into temptation!”
While he was
still speaking, suddenly a crowd appeared, and the man named Judas, one
of the twelve, was leading them. He walked up to Jesus to kiss him. But
Jesus said to him, “Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?”
When
those who were around him saw what was about to happen, they said,
“Lord, should we use our swords?” Then one of them struck the high
priest’s slave, cutting off his right ear.
But Jesus said,
“Enough of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.
Then
Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and
the elders who had come out to get him, “Have you come out with swords
and clubs like you would against an outlaw? Day after day when I was
with you in the temple courts, you did not arrest me. But this is your
hour, and that of the power of darkness!” Luke 22:39-53 (NET
Bible Translation)
O Lord,
how the garden was filled
with moonlight peaking through the shadows
that last night.
How you suffered -
your desire to escape,
your grief,
your sure knowledge was in store,
the weight of sin,
all shadows trying to wrap themselves around you,
and yet you stayed,
obeyed the Father's will,
and saved us all.
O Lord,
how today my life is filled
with dark shadow trying to cloak the light
you give me,
my garden experience.
O Lord,
I offer you up my sorrow,
my pain,
my grief at sin, and failure, and weakness,
my groaning under loads I don't know how to bear,
my forgetfulness of your kindness,
my longing for escape.
O my Lord,
I am such a weak person.
Hold my hand each step of the way
as I walk through this valley of the shadow of death,
and though I sorrow,
I will fear no evil
for in the end, I know the light,
your light,
will lead me home to you at last.
2. Jesus Is Scourged
So Pilate went back
into the governor’s residence, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you
the king of the Jews?”
Jesus replied,
“Are you saying this on your own initiative, or have others told you
about me?”
Pilate answered,
“I am not a Jew, am I? Your own people and your chief priests handed
you over to me. What have you done?”
Jesus
replied, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from
this world, my servants would be fighting to keep me from being handed
over to the Jewish authorities. But as it is, my kingdom is not from
here.”
Then Pilate said,
“So you are a king!”
Jesus
replied, “You say that I am a king. For this reason I was born, and for
this reason I came into the world – to testify to the truth. Everyone
who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
Pilate asked,
“What is truth?”
Then Pilate took
Jesus and had him flogged severely.
John 18:33-38,
19:1 (NET Bible Translation)
The First Blow
The whip travels in a descending arc,
three thongs carrying weights of lead
double headed cargo
to increase the impact.
The hand that wields is
the rough and calloused hand
of a soldier doing a duty,
unknowing,
uncaring
of whose back it was in front of him.
Perhaps as he swings,
he thinks of all the looks of disdain,
the women who turn away,
the men who spit when he passes
and they think he does not see,
this strange people
with their strange hates
and strange language
and strange god,
and in retalliation,
he swings harder.
Yet his hand is not alone
on the braided leather of the handle,
his hand,
shadowed by every hand,
my hand,
my arm swinging the leather,
my sin adding to the agony
of that blow,
my darkness slapping against his skin,
causing him to gasp for breath
as it bites
my weakness the lead gouges digging.
Mea culpa,
mea culpa,
mea maxima culpa.
3. Jesus Is Mocked and Crowned with Thorns
Then
the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the governor’s residence and
gathered the whole cohort around him. They stripped him and put a
scarlet robe around him, and after braiding a crown of thorns, they put
it on his head.
They put a staff
in his right hand, and kneeling
down before him, they mocked him: “Hail, king of the Jews!” They spat
on him and took the staff and struck him repeatedly on the head.
When they had
mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own
clothes back on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.
Matthew 27:34-52
(NET Bible Translation)
The Bridegroom
O my Jesus,
I contemplate your poor battered face
after the soldiers had had their way with you,
Your hair sticky and wet from the blood beneath your crown,
your cheeks bruised and bloodstreaked,
your nose swollen.
I behold you, my King on his way to his betrothal,
in just those garments that show
the depth of your love,
how far you are willing to go
in pursuit of you bride,
what a bride price you are willing to pay
to dress her in the dazzling white you promised.
Let me contemplate this gift,
and not forget the pain throbbing through your body
because of me, and all like me,
brother and sister in our lack of holiness,
pain you bear willingly,
pain rooted in our lack of perfection,
and our turning away from your light,
pain rooted in our hunger for good twisted into things we should not
want,
all braided together like the thorns you wear around your head.
How heavy this burden you carry
on that abused but precious head, O Lord,
and I, with all of mankind, heaped that burden on you,
hammered the thorns into your flesh,
mocked you for who you are,
King and Bridegroom for an unfaithful world.
What reparations could I make
that would make this reality go away?
Nothing.
But, pricked to the heart,
I offer you my tears,
and grief at the necessity,
and bowing before you,
offer you the little love I have,
my heart,
my abject sorrow,
and eternal gratefulness at your willingness to love.
Amen.
4. Jesus Carries His Cross
Pilate addressed them
once again because he wanted to release Jesus. But they kept on
shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!”
A
third time he said to them, “Why? What wrong has he done? I have found
him guilty of no crime deserving death. I will therefore flog him and
release him.” But they were insistent, demanding with loud shouts that
he be crucified. And their shouts prevailed.
So Pilate decided
that their demand should be granted. He released the man they asked
for, who had been thrown in prison for insurrection and murder. But he
handed Jesus over to their will.
As they led him
away, they
seized Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country.They placed
the cross on his back and made him carry it behind Jesus.
A great number of
the people followed him, among them women who were mourning and wailing
for him.
But
Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for
me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For this is certain:
The days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the
wombs that never bore children, and the breasts that never nursed Then
they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and to the
hills, ‘Cover us!’ For if such things are done when the wood is green,
what will happen when it is dry?”
Luke 23: 20-75
(Net Bible Translation)
Glorified
Each step, each breath, each beat of your heart - pain.
The weight of the cross so heavy,
each step a small miracle of your perseverance,
the determination to pay that price,
no matter how shaky the legs,
how short the breath,
how much it costs to make each step.
Glorified.
This is how the Father does it,
the way he did not ask Abraham to take,
no sacrifice of the firstborn for his chosen people,
sacrificed by blood and fire.
No.
But through you, his only-begotten,
laboring there beneath the crossbeam,
Your hair and face streaked with blood beneath the thorny crown,
face beneath the smears ashen with pain,
and the gathering doom in your chest,
already making you hungry for breath,
Scapegoat,
bearing the sins of the world,
each bruise, each welt merely a token of what they deserve.
Glorified as you walk,
the smell of blood and fear and sweat and death and pain
swirling around you,
our deaths, our pains, our griefs
on your one set of shoulders,
each movement crying out its pain,
only a foretaste of the pains ahead,
until, fulfilled,
you slip away,
glorified indeed by the hands of your loving Father,
and in that new dawning,
hope born in the birthpangs we can only imagine,
you will stand glorified,
our Lord
world without end,
Amen.
5. Jesus Is Crucified and Dies on the Cross
They
came to a place called Golgotha (which means “Place of the Skull”)and
offered Jesus wine mixed with gall to drink. But after tasting it, he
would not drink it. When they had crucified him, they divided his
clothes by throwing dice Then they sat down and kept guard over him
there. (Matt 27:33-36)
Pilate also had a
notice written and
fastened to the cross, which read: “Jesus the Nazarene, the king of the
Jews.” Thus many of the Jewish residents of Jerusalem read this notice,
because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the
notice was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek. Then the chief priests
of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The king of the Jews,’ but
rather, ‘This man said, I am king of the Jews.’” Pilate answered, “What
I have written, I have written.” John 19:20-22
But Jesus said,
“Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing." The
people also stood there watching, but the rulers ridiculed him, saying,
“He saved others. Let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, his
chosen one!” (Luke 23:34a,35)
One of the
criminals who was
hanging there railed at him, saying, “Aren’t you the Christ? Save
yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Don’t you fear
God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we
rightly so, for we are getting what we deserve for what we did, but
this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me
when you come in your kingdom.” And Jesus said to him, “I tell you the
truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”
It was now about
noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the
afternoon, because the sun’s light failed.(Luke 23: 39-44)
Now
standing beside Jesus’ cross were his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary
the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. So when Jesus saw his mother
and the disciple whom he loved standing there, he said to his mother,
“Woman, look, here is your son!” He then said to his disciple, “Look,
here is your mother!” From that very time the disciple took her into
his own home. (John 19:25-27)
At about three
o’clock Jesus
shouted with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46)
After this
Jesus, realizing that by this time everything was completed, said (in
order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty!” A jar full of sour
wine was there, so they put a sponge soaked in sour wine on a branch of
hyssop and lifted it to his mouth. When he had received the sour wine,
Jesus said, “It is completed!” (John 19:28-30a)
Then Jesus,
calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit
my spirit!” And after he said this he breathed his last. Luke 23:46
Just
then the temple curtain was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth
shook and the rocks were split apart. (Matthew 27:51)
Now when
the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the
earthquake and what took place, they were extremely terrified and said,
“Truly this one was God’s Son!” (Matthew 27:54)
Now when the
centurion saw what had happened, he praised God and said, “Certainly
this man was innocent!” And all the crowds that had assembled for this
spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating
their breasts. And all those who knew Jesus stood at a distance, and
the women who had followed him from Galilee saw these things. Luke
23:47-49 (all verses from
the NET Bible Translation)
I kneel here,
pebbles and sand grinding into my knees,
at this place dedicated to death,
and ignore the flies,
the smells of blood
and fear
and dying,
longing to shield my eyes
from the reality of what we have wrought
with our anger
and greed
and pride
and hate,
and yet,
as you call my name
and I look up into those eyes
in spite of myself,
in spite of my guilt,
in spite of my remorse,
"It's really about love, you know," you whisper,
and I collapse
and watch you die,
knowing never
can I deserve this gift
so freely offered
in pain,
in knowlege,
in love.