For those who opposed Jesus, all they want is to see him dead. In today’s reading they win. From Pilate, to Herod, back to Pilate Jesus bounces like a ping pong ball. Regardless of Pilate’s saying that Jesus has done nothing to deserve death, the crowd wants death and pushes for it. Pilate relents.
Jesus is crucified. Others show up in the narrative: Simon from Cyrene, women who mourned and wailed for him, the two criminals, those casting lots for his clothes, the people watching, the rulers, the soldiers, the centurion, the women who had followed him from Galilee.
This painting by James Tissot is a rendering of what Jesus might have seen as he looked at the crowd around him from the cross…it is a recent favorite of mine if one can have a ‘favorite’ picture from the crucifixion...I share it with us...
