The temple guards and the crowd take Jesus off to the high priest's house. I can picture the crowd - working itself up to a fever pitch. Crowds at night, stirred up - nothing good can come of that.
I see Jesus in front of the priests–standing stoically, as they try to find something, anything, to convict him. They try to get him to convict himself, but he is not about to play their game.
They bring in outsiders, but that doesn't work either. Those whom they can find are either the clueless or the venal. Confused or just blatant liars, they can't tell a straight story.
Everyone else is home in their beds, unaware of the travesty that is occurring under the cover of darkness. Finally, Jesus responds to their accusations, turning their questions back on them. "It is you who say that I am," pointing out that it is their fear, their malice, that is driving them.
Caught out and enraged, they have Jesus dragged off to Pilate, the Roman authority. While that is happening, they send out their minions to gather a crowd to send to Pilate’s house to add to the chaos and keep the pressure on.
Pilate is none too pleased to be awakened to deal with this manufactured crisis. He is aware of Jesus but not too concerned about him. He interrogates Jesus not in search of the truth, but rather out of curiosity. Perhaps he will just lock this rabble-rousing prophet up until after the holidays, and scourge him to teach him a lesson.
Then the evil work of the high priests and their supporters bears fruit. They have managed to gather a large, angry horde outside Pilate's gate. This is the one situation Pilate had hoped to avoid – an angry crowd in a city bursting with pilgrims. He seeks to diffuse the situation, offering to release Jesus. He's not preaching rebellion as far as Pilate can see. But the crowd, incited by the religious authorities, screams "Crucify him! Crucify him!"
Perplexed, Pilate tries again. Don't they want this so called "good man" released? No. They prefer Barabbas, a notorious bandit, screaming again, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Something odd is definitely going on here. Why are they so insistent?
But when it comes down to it, Pilate doesn't really care. He is not concerned with justice, just keeping order.
Washing his hands of the whole situation, Pilate orders Jesus flogged and crucified. He thinks to himself, what is one more dead Jew? He is having scores of them executed each month anyway.
The soldiers take Jesus away, strip and scourge him. They wrap him in a soldier's cloak, place a crown of thorns on his head, and hand him a reed for a scepter. They mock and abuse him.
Jesus, suffering grievously from his beating, tries to retreat to that small, still space within where he has always found God. The blows and the buffets keep making him lose his grip on that sacred space. The physical is overtaking the spiritual, caused by the immediacy of his pain. He sees and feels the sacred presence, but it is faint and flickering. He can't quite keep a hold on it.
Bored with Jesus's lack of response, the soldiers pull him to his feet and make him begin to carry his cross to Golgotha, the place of crucifixion. The pain is staggering, each step an agony as the cross rasps across his lacerated back. He stumbles and falls, faint from pain and loss of blood. The crowd that sought his crucifixion is now traveling with him to his death - jeering, cursing, spitting. What an ugly face humanity is showing today. They are at their very worst. God help them.
In the shelter of one archway, a place of brief respite from the crowd, Jesus spots his mother with Mary Magdalene and John. Crying softly, his mother meets his eyes, hers full of anguish. If she could, she would remove all of this from him.
She has been a steady loving presence throughout his life, doing all that God had asked of her. But now she counts the cost. Is it worth all this? The pain, suffering, her dear son's death?
Jesus reaches inside himself one last time for the one who gave birth to him, the one who loved him even when she didn't understand him. He somehow raises his hand, touches her cheek, and peace and strength flow into them both. Thy will and not mine be done. He gathers himself and continues his walk to Golgotha.
Finally, they arrive at the place of crucifixion. The guards strip him and nail him to the cross. The agony, the pain in his hands and feet, is unbearable. Yet when he tries to support himself and rest a moment, his ribs constrict his lungs, and he gasps for air. That place of peace where he has always felt his Father near has closed down to just a pinprick. He can barely feel it.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He feels cold, abandoned. He looks around desperate for something, anything that will bring him relief. There at the foot of the cross he spots his mother, Mary Magdalene, and John. Their eyes meet. They are there for him, loving him, bearing his pain and sorrow with him.
"It is finished,” he says. The pinprick of light, so dim and flickering a moment ago, explodes into a sunburst, conquering all the surrounding darkness. He falls into the light, into the arms of his Father. All pain and suffering are gone.