“After Pilate had Jesus scourged, he handed him over to be crucified. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus.. and gathered the whole cohort around him… and threw a scarlet military cloak about him and… kept striking him on the head… and led him off to crucify him… (at) a place called Golgotha…
“The rulers sneered at Jesus and said, “He saved others, let him save himself if he is a king.” “The soldiers too jeered at Jesus” on the cross. “Now one of the two criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, ‘Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us.’” The earthly kings and their soldiers…
“The soldiers… brought Jesus before Pilate.” “Pilate then summoned the chief priests, the rulers” who “shouted out… Crucify him!” “The soldiers led Jesus away to be executed” on a cross. “When they came to the place called the Skull, the soldiers crucified him.” Jesus lived as a peacemaker, intentionally so. He was not ignorant…
The war waged by rulers against Jesus ends with their murder of him, as detailed in today’s Gospel. Religious rulers request Jesus’ torture and murder, political rulers order it, and soldiers carry it out. “The soldiers led Jesus away inside the palace… weaving a crown of thorns, placed it on him,… kept striking his…
This Sunday’s long Gospel is about the suffering and violence inflicted upon Jesus. It describes his arrest, trial, torture, and murder. Scripture scholars usually sanctify the violence done to Jesus as in keeping with a ‘suffering servant’ character from Isaiah. Of Isaiah’s 1,292 verses, 30 are so titled. One sample ‘suffering servant’ verse is,…
Two of Jesus’ followers, James and John, engage him in a quite calculated conversation: “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” Jesus replied, “What do you wish me to do for you?” They answered, “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the…
Jesus makes a reference to an early snake practice in this Sunday’s Gospel. It refers to people being sick and looking upon a bronze snake to be healed: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him…
Some distortions are so bizarre it is difficult to understand their existence. This Sunday’s feast day of the Exaltation of the Cross is one such bizarre distortion. Would Christians consider celebrating a feast day named The Extolling of the Electric Chair or The Acclaim of the AK 47? Would Christians wear one of those…