Sculpture of Jesus with the cross in the Chapel of the Flagellation, on the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem.
“Crucify him! Crucify him!” I shouted with the crowd. People surged forward towards the Roman soldiers holding Jesus, crying “crucify him!” and whipping the crowd into a standing frenzy. We were the crowd in Jerusalem, and we wanted blood.
How easily my teenage self stepped into the part, swept up into the spectacle and into a scene of out of Lord of the Flies!
It was many years ago, but the scene is fresh in my memory. A Passion Play in an open air stone amplitheatre in Florida. Surrounded by palm trees, a warm breeze, dark sky studded with stars, actors dressed in first century costumes and sandals. Jesus whipped and bleeding, crucified in a flash of brilliant bright light that was suddenly extinguished, dropping us into black night with a clap of thunder.
The actors intermingled with the audience, so that we all became the crowd. We shouted, chanted, we wept, we rejoiced. But what I remember most is shouting “crucify him!”
Each time I read the passion I re-live that night. My gut remembers being horrified at what I was shouting, frightened at how easily I was swept along with the crowd demanding blood. I hope, I pray, that I would have the courage to do the right thing and stand up against the mob in real life.
Yet next week, when everyone at work shares their stories of what they did on the weekend, will I tell them that I was walking with Jesus to the cross and celebrating his resurrection? Will I talk about the most important part of my Easter weekend? Will I perhaps say, apologetically, that I ‘just went to church’?
And, in my apologetic silence, am I whispering “crucify him” all over again?
Seeker
