Daily Devotion for April 2, 2006

To Jerusalem with the ComPassionate Christ
Day 33

 

Flogging

 

Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.  Mark 15: 15

 

Finally, Pilate came to the conclusion that he could not win, or that it was not worth trying. Sadly, perhaps chalking it up to experience, Pilate the politician took over from Pilate the judge. Mark tells us that he was eager to please the people, so he removed his last objections and the Man of Sorrows was one step closer to the Cross.

 

Barabbas was released, and Jesus was handed over to be crucified. Though we do not hear of it, and no judgment was offered, in effect the trial was over. So, Jesus was scourged. This was supposed to be a deterrent, a horrible punishment intended to dissuade others from behaving in a like fashion. Fair enough, when the victim was guilty, but when he was innocent it became just another cruelty heaped upon Jesus’ back. The scourge was a many-tailed whip made of leather. Embedded into it were many pieces of iron, designed to rip the skin and inflict the maximum pain. Some sufferers lost so much blood that they bled to death, for others, less fortunate, it merely prolonged the agony.

 

Acceding to the screams of the assembled throng, Pilate consented that Jesus be crucified. The chief priests and scribes must have been ecstatic. They had gotten their own way. The blasphemous preacher from Galilee would serve as a useful demonstration of their influence, and of their determination not to put up with any nonsense or anyone who talked against their enterprise – the Temple. And yet the symbol of torture has become a token of commitment to the Crucified, worn with pride by millions. In the light of history, the Sanhedrin has become one of the wrecks of time, over which the Cross of Christ towers with an undimmed radiance.

 

Prayer
Dear Lord, it appeared that the angry crowds won that day.  Little did they know it was part of God’s plan and that they would be silenced in the end.  Help me never to see truth as something that is determined by the “crowd” but rather by a person – YOU.  Amen

 

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