Good Friday 8am

Friday
8am  

The beast within

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole cohort around him.  They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and after twisting some thorns into a crown they put it on his head.  They put a reed in his right hand and knelt before him and mocked him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’  they spat on him and took the reed and struck him on the head.  After mocking him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him.  Then they led him away to crucify him.  (Matthew 27: 37-31)

As the soldiers abuse, mock, torture Jesus we see the beast that is within us unleashed, and we weep for the end of innocence. And ‘the beast’ still roams the earth as other prisoners are abused, mocked, ill-treated, as women are routinely raped in times of war, as people are trafficked, as children are abused.

Jesus wears the crown of thorns and the thorns still dig deep into humanity’s brow.

O sacred head, sore wounded, defiled and put to scorn;……….