In a way, we’ve gotten used to the crucifixion.  Gotten over it.  It’s been nearly 2,000 years.  It’s like a terrible famine in some far-off place in the world.  We get used to seeing the pictures of children with distended stomachs, and before long it loses its impact.

That’s why we have Lent.  To “keep watch” over this nearly incomprehensible act of love.

What did the soldiers think about as they “sat down and kept watch over him there”?  Today’s quiet time with the Lord could be spent sitting next to them and keeping watch for a few minutes.

Carrying the cross wasn’t part of Simon of Cyrene’s plans that day.  He was just a passer-by, on his way to something else.  He was forced to carry the cross of Jesus, who was apparently too weak from the scourging to carry it himself.

We’ve all had to do that more than once: Carry a cross we weren’t planning to carry.

Looking back on this, say five years later, how did Simon feel about carrying the cross?  What would he say about it?  Put yourself in Simon’s shoes.  Maybe this will help me with my crosses.

Between Pilate’s death sentence and the soldiers’ mockery, something else happened that only gets passing reference in all four Gospels:  The scourging.  The evangelists all mention the scourging, but not a one of them describes it.  Too awful for words.

A scourging was much different from a whipping, which was a disciplinary punishment.  Scourging was a barbaric first step in executing a criminal.  It was done with a metal-barbed whip, designed to rip the victim’s flesh and bones, and inflict wounds from which they would never recover.

It was after the scourging that the whole cohort (i.e. 600 soldiers) gathered round Jesus and made fun of him.  No need to tie him up.  There wasn’t a thing he could do.  He was helpless.  And they taunted him, spat on him, hit him.

Our meditation on the Passion of Jesus isn’t meant to be repulsive.   Just realistic.

He loved us that much.  He loves me that much.  He’d do anything for me.

Trying to rationalize guilt away is useless.  We go nowhere, and the guilt still haunts us.

Some of the wrong things we do are not entirely our own fault.  But they are partly our fault.  There’s no point in identifying the guilt of others if we do not flat out acknowledge our own.

Remember the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector?  The tax collector “stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast and prayed: ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’”

There’s not a one of us who can’t say that sentence with utter honesty.  So say.  Then, sit in silence, and listen to the Lord’s response.

As the chosen people were about to enter the promised land, Moses, who was about to die, gave a long farewell address.  He ended by placing before the people a stark choice: “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse.  Choose life… by loving the Lord your God.”

The people in the crowd in today’s passage face the same choice.  Pilate sets Jesus and Barabbas before them and asks: “Which of the two do you want?”  They chose Barabbas.

Each day there are situations large and small when this same choice is placed before me: Shall I do what is life-giving or death-dealing?  Shall I build up or tear down?

In the closing scene of today’s Gospel passage, everyone had departed and Jesus was left standing alone with the adulterous woman.  It is a magnificent scene, described beautifully by St. Augustine with the words: “And two were left… one filled with misery, and one filled with mercy.”

There is a lot of misery out there, and it desperately needs a merciful Church.

As one of this Church, what can I do to ease the misery of one of this world?  What can I do to show mercy?

Natural disasters and terrorist attacks jolt us into a deep and eerie awareness of how fragile this passing stage of human life really is.  Yet we believe that human life – not only “spirit-life” but human life – has a God-given destiny beyond death.  We also believe that creation has a God-given destiny beyond history.

How can we hold on to such hope when we are surrounded by so much violence and death?

Only by faith – not faith in an abstract God, but faith in Jesus Christ, who said so many times in the Gospels, “Do not be afraid,” and whose last words in Matthew’s Gospel were, “I am with you all days, even to the end of the age.”

What is my destiny?  And how can I tell that Jesus is indeed with me?

Which one do you want? Jesus Barabbas, who is famous here in the big city?  Or Jesus the Christ, who is from somewhere up north?  The people will choose Barabbas.

This raises a question.  I am a Christian, a disciple of the Lord.  How seriously have I chosen Jesus?  Is it more or less implicit, sort of an understanding, a not-so-thoroughly examined assumption that I was born into?  Or is it an explicit, determined, resolute decision that anchors my day-to-day life?

Lent is meant to be decision-time – to make one, if I haven’t, and renew one of I have.

How clear is my choice to follow the Lord?  How clear is it to me?  How clear is it to him?

Here begins the haunting trail of innocent blood.

* Judas tried to get rid of his guilt by throwing the “blood money” into the Temple.  But the blood was still on his hands.
* The chief priests and elders try to get rid of it by using it to buy a burial ground for the poor.  But the blood was still on their hands.
* Pilate will try to get rid of it by taking water, washing his hands, and saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood.”  But the blood will still be on his hands.

Trying to get rid of the blood of Jesus is futile.  His blood is on all of us, for we are all sinners.  What we need to do is acknowledge our sinfulness and let this blood do what it is meant to do: Wash away our sins.

It was for all of us that Jesus died.  It was for Judas, for the chief priests and elders, for Pilate, for the people who said, “His blood be upon us and upon our children.”

It was for me that he died.