Friday 4th April
Read Mark 15:12-15
“‘What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?’ Pilate asked them.
13 ‘Crucify him!’ they shouted.
14 ‘Why? What crime has he committed?’ asked Pilate.
But they shouted all the louder, ‘Crucify him!’
15 Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.” (NIVUK)
This fleeting moment, when the crowd is stirred up to murder an innocent man, betrays all that is wrong in our hearts too. A voice of reason asking what Jesus has done wrong, seeking to shame them into changing their minds, has no impact at all. The very shame of it seems to encourage them to double-down on their evil. And Pilate finally folds in the face of such fury. Fleeting moments of weakness on all sides. Moments to which we are all susceptible. Don Carson often presents this poem to make this point clear in the light of the crucifixion.
“Why do we choose what can last but an hour
Before we must leave it behind?
Why do possessions exert brutal power
To render us harsh and unkind?
Why do mere things have the lure of a flower
Whose scent makes us selfish and blind?
The cisterns run dry, and sour is our breath;
We dwell in the valley of death.
Why is betrayal attractive to us
Who often are hurt and betrayed?
Why barter faithful devotion for lust,
Integrity cast far away?
Why do our dreams, then our deeds, beggar trust,
Our guilt far too heavy to pay?
The cisterns run dry, and sour is our breath;
We dwell in the valley of death.
Why do we stubbornly act out a role,
Convincing the world that we’ve won?
Why for mere winning will we sell our soul,
In order to be number one?
Why sear our conscience so we’re in control—
Despairing of what we’ve become?
The cisterns run dry, and sour is our breath;
We dwell in the valley of death.
O Jesus—
Why do you promise to quench all our thirst,
When we have despised all your ways?
Why do you rescue the damned and the cursed,
By dying our death in our place?
Why do you transform our hearts till they burst
With vibrant expressions of praise?
The well flows with life—and we’re satisfied—
The fountain that flows from your side.”
