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Justice and Peace Meditation on the Passion
And the soldiers wove a crown out of thorns and
placed it on his head, and clothed him in a purple cloak,
and they came to him and said, Hail, King of the Jews! And they
struck him repeatedly. Once more Pilate went out and said to them,
Look, I am bringing him out to you so that you may know that I
find no guilt in him. So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of
thorns
and the purple cloak. And he said to them,
Behold, the man.
When the chief priests and the guards saw him
they cried out, "Crucify him, crucify him." Then he handed him
over to them to be crucified.
As they led him away they took hold of a certain
Simon, a Cyrenian, who was coming in from the country
and after laying the cross on him, they made him carry it behind
Jesus. A large crowd of people followed
Jesus, including many women who mourned and lamented him.
Jesus turned to them and said,
Daughters of
Jerusalem, do not weep for me, weep instead for yourselves
and for your children.
So they took Jesus and went out to what
is called the Place of the Skull, in Hebrew, Golgotha.
There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either
side, with Jesus in the middle.
Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross, it
read,
Jesus the Nazorean, the King of the Jews.
When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and
divided them into four shares, a share for each soldier.
They also took his tunic, but the tunic was seamless, woven in one
piece from the top down. So they said to one another,
Let's not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it will be.
This is what the soldiers did.
(It was nine o'clock in the morning when they crucified
him.)
Those passing by reviled him, shaking
their heads and saying, "You who would destroy the temple and
rebuild it in three days, save yourself, if you are the Son of
God, and come down from the cross. Likewise, the chief priests
with the scribes and elders mocked him and said, "He saved others,
he cannot save himself. So he is the king of Israel! Let him come
down from the cross now, and we will believe in him. He trusted in
God, let God deliver him now if he wants him. For he said, I am
the Son of God." Then Jesus said,
Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.
Now one of the criminals hanging there [also]
reviled Jesus, saying, "Are you not the Messiah?
Save yourself and us." The other, however, rebuking him, said in
reply, "Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same
condemnation?
And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we
received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing
criminal."
Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your
kingdom." Jesus replied to him,
Amen, I say to you,
today you will be with me in Paradise.
From noon onward, darkness came over
the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three
o'clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice,
Eli, Eli, lema
sabachthani,
which means,
My God, my God, why
have you forsaken me?
Standing by the cross of Jesus were his
mother and his mother's sister,
Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. (There were also
many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem.) When
Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said
to his mother,
Woman, behold, your
son.
Then he said to the disciple,
Behold,
your mother.
And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.
After this, aware that everything was now
finished, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus
said,
I thirst.
There was a vessel filled with common wine. So they put a sponge
soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop
and put it up to his mouth. When Jesus had taken the wine, he
said,
It is finished.
And bowing his head, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, and gave up
his spirit, [saying],
Father, into your
hands I commend my spirit;
and when he had said this
he
breathed HIS
last.
The centurion who witnessed what had happened
glorified God and said,
"This man was innocent beyond doubt." When all the people who had
gathered for this spectacle saw what had happened,
they returned home beating their breasts.
Then the veil of the temple was torn down the middle.
The earth shook, rocks were split,
tombs were opened,
and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised.
Now since it was preparation day, in order that
the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath,
for the sabbath day of that week was a solemn one, the Jews asked
Pilate that their legs be broken
and they be taken down. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of
the first and then of the other
one who was crucified with Jesus. But when they came to Jesus and
saw that he was already dead,
they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into
his side and immediately
blood and water flowed out.
When it was evening, there came a rich
man from Arimathea named Joseph, who was himself a disciple of
Jesus.
He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate
ordered it to be handed over. Taking the body,
Joseph wrapped it in clean linen, and laid it in his new tomb that
he had hewn in the rock.
Then he rolled a huge stone across the entrance to the tomb and
departed.
The women who had come from Galilee with him followed behind, and when they had seen the tomb and the way in which the body was laid in it, they returned and prepared spices and perfumed oils. Then they rested on the sabbath according to the commandment.