15 So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.

Mark 15:15

 

 

SCOURGING.  In John’s account, Pilate takes the most unusual and irregular step of having Jesus scourged (with the subsequent mocking) before sentence has been passed. This creates the only irreconcilable question in trying to compile a “composite gospel.” In this devotional book I have stayed with the traditional order (as in Matthew and Mark) -so that “scourging and mocking” follow the passing of the sentence. It does, however, mean that I have had to omit the scene in which Pilate presents a “scourged and mocked Jesus,” looking at least pathetic and possibly ridiculous, to try to laugh the charges out of court (John 19:5). Pilate’s announced “Here is the man!” is most significant and ironic for St. John: this man, despised by Jews and ridiculed by Pilate, is the “true man,” man as he is meant to be, “the proper man” as Luther called him.

 

Also in Matthew 27:26; Luke 23:25; John 19:1, 16.

 

Response:

 

 

 

 

That was totally unjust, Lord, and quite unnecessary.

 

Now you suffer

to satisfy another’s guilt and hostility,

 

and I can almost feel the soldier getting the anger out of his system!

 

We all victimize other people for our own frustrations and disappointments.

 

We have fears and resentments we find it hard to bear… and take it out on someone else.

 

Lord, when someone hurts me, I want to hit back.

 

You don’t-How do you take it?

How do you stop it going any further?

How do you stop and stem and transmute and transform the hurt?

 

Now we see what Love does with suffering:

lets it do no more harm.

 

Now we can only “stop, and gaze, and fall, and own. . was never love like thine!

 

Response:

• Saved: Church, Lent