Good Friday
He prayed for them.
He prayed for them and then left for a place across the valley where there was a garden.
He was not alone.
He was with his disciples and soon he would be with Judas who had betrayed him and the soldiers that arrived to arrest him.
He knew what was about to happen.
His father gave all to him and by giving him all made all things known.
He stood before the soldiers.
He stood before the police.
He stood there before the Chief Priests.
He stood before the Pharisees.
The light from their lanterns made the soldiers’ steel shine in the night.
He walked toward his arresting party.
“Who are you looking for?”
“Jesus.”
“I am he.”
They fell to the ground.
He told them to let his party go.
He was the one they were looking for and they should not be harmed.
Peter, ever reacting, ever passionate, drew his own sword.
It too shined in the night reflecting the evening stars, stars under which they camped as the twelve traveled from place to place with Jesus.
Peter would protect Jesus.
Their messiah would be freed; this would be the start of everyone’s freedom; no more Rome.
No more empire.
This would be the night Jesus became king.
Peter aimed his sword and struck the chief priest’s slave, Malchus.
Peter raised it again to strike another blow, certainly the others would join him.
No one did but he heard the voice of Jesus telling him to drop his sword.
This was the fate Jesus must endure.
His fate was to be arrested.
His fate was to stand before Annas.
Before Caiaphas.
Before Pilate.
They asked him questions.
He stood before them, his hands clasped and held close to his chest, Jesus remembered standing before his father, his human father as a boy.
Listening and saying, “yes, sir” and “yes, papa.”
Jesus was a boy once and he stood before his father similarly to now.
Only now, the questions were different.
These were priests and governors and they were asking Jesus who he was.
Who was he?
He was he; a teacher of all peoples where all peoples come together.
For this response, he was hit in the face by one of the high priest’s police.
And Pilate asked his accusers who he was; they said he was a criminal.
Jesus told Pilate he held a kingdom not of this world and he spoke of this kingdom and his teachings involved only the truth.
He stood before Pilate, calmly, his hands were clasped together close to his chest, his fingers were intertwined.
His hands were different now, rougher, had more hair upon them, calloused as a carpenter’s would be; as a healer’s hands that healed so many would be.
He was no longer a boy standing before his father, his human father called Joseph, but a man who knew his father, his truest father, our father, was God.
Pilate seemed perplexed yet Jesus remained calm, steady.
Being pulled this way and that way, jostled and prodded, Jesus remained calm.
Pilate questioned what truth should be upheld.
What truth should be adhered to.
What was truth, full stop.
He replied to Jesus’ captors that he found no fault.
Jesus listened, his hands were held close to his chest, the same hands that once held his mother’s as he’d try to keep up with her at the market and through the streets of Nazareth.
He knew Pilate would not free him, instead, Barabbas would be freed.
Bar.
Abbas.
That’s the Aramaic.
Bar, son of.
Abbas, the father.
The crowd would demand this man named Barabbas, Son of the Father, be freed rather than Jesus, the Son of Our Father.
And so it came to pass.
Barabbas was freed and Jesus was taken to be crucified.
They took him.
They gave him his cross, his cross to bear, the cross that would soon bear him, his weight, his pain.
He carried his cross through the streets of Jerusalem.
The streets that wound and twisted and turned into tight spaces packed with those calling for the death of this Son of God.
Son of Man.
Son of Mary.
Son of Joseph.
He carries the cross, dragging it really.
The inner part of the T shape rests on his shoulder, his hands wrap around the wooden crossbeam, his fingers are interlocked, resting upon the wood that will carry the weight of the nations striving to be free through faith in God, faith in Christ, faith in the Holy Spirit that he will leave behind.
The base of the cross scrapes on cobblestones as it is dragged to the place called Golgotha, the back of Jesus, already scraped by the executioner’s whip, is pelted with rocks and detritus.
Jesus struggles to see through the blood that flows from his brow, a crown of thorns was placed upon his head mockingly, the pain left from that crown mocks him even more; he reaches his destination.
He knows what is to occur for the father has given him everything and everything tells him it is the time.
He stands, his hands are folded and close to his chest, his head bowed as if in prayer, the cross is laid before him.
His captors, his executioners, tear from Jesus his clothes.
Nearly naked, he shivers against a breeze; he is exposed to the elements.
They tie him to the cross.
They separate his hands and tie them to the cross.
They place his legs together and e them to the cross.
Then comes the hammer.
And then comes the nail.
The nail is hammered into his flesh, the nail pierces his hands that healed so many, that embraced his parents, that patted his disciples on the back, that slapped his knees when laughing at a joke, his hands and feet are now nailed to the cross.
The cross is lifted.
His mother watches her son begin to fade.
He is thirsty.
He is given sour wine.
He calls out, “It is finished.”
The prophecies prophesied have been fulfilled.
He bows his head.
He is dead.
His mother wails.
He is no longer,
He is now was.
He is gone.
A mourning loss as the sun turned to dusk.
