Good Friday
Because what he said and did was such a threat to the ways
of the religious authorities, they made sure he was condemned and flogged and taken out and nailed up onto a cross.
The disciples could not cope with the violence, the crowds,
only his mother and the women stayed, and the beloved disciple.
Roman crucifixion was a humiliation, a public mockery.
Jesus became human and went to the very depths of being human,
abandoned by God, tortured, and made a victim.
He did not fight back; he absorbed the violence of the human race.
And from his high place on the cross, outside the walls of the city, forgave us.
Lord, we do not know what we are doing,
help us to forgive and be reconciled,
never again to make victims.
Amen