gave no further answers, much to Pilate’s surprise. At every Passover festival, Pilate used to free any prisoner the people asked for.
Now there was a man called Barabbas, jailed with the rioters who had committed murder in the uprising. When the crowd went up to ask Pilate the usual favor, he
said to them, “Do you want me to set free the King of the Jews?” for he realized that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him out of envy. But the chief priests
stirred up the crowd to ask instead for the release of Barabbas. Pilate replied, “And what shall I do with the man you call King of the Jews?” The crowd shouted
back, “Crucify him!” Pilate asked, “What evil has he done?” But they shouted the louder, “Crucify him!” As Pilate wanted to please the people, he freed Barabbas;
and having had Jesus flogged, Pilate handed him over to be crucified. (...)The soldiers led him out of the city to crucify him. On the way they met Simon of
Cyrene, father of Alexander and Rufus, who was coming in from the country, and forced him to carry the cross of Jesus. When they had led him to the place called
Golgotha, which means the Skull, they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he would not take it. Then they nailed him to the cross, and divided his clothes
among themselves, casting lots to decide what every man should take. It was about nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. The
statement of his offense was displayed above his head, and it read, “The King of the Jews.” They also crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one
on his left. And the Scripture was fulfilled which says: And with lawless ones he was numbered. (...)
When noon came, darkness fell over the whole land and lasted until three o’clock; and at three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lamma
sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you deserted me?” As soon as they heard these words, some of
the bystanders said, “Listen! He is calling for Elijah.” And one of them went quickly to fill a sponge with bitter wine, and putting it on a
reed, gave it to him to drink, saying, “Now let’s see whether Elijah comes to take him down.” But Jesus uttered a loud cry and gave up
his spirit. And immediately the curtain that enclosed the temple Sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. The captain, who was standing in front of
him, saw how Jesus died and heard the cry he gave; and he said, “Truly, this man was the Son of God.”

Lectio Divina:

READ: We now have an account of Jesus’ Passion and Death. It started with Judas’
growing dissatisfaction of the group’s activity. This lead him to betray the Lord who
was captured because of his treason. A trial was made to condemn the Lord and the
religious powers that be were successful in getting a verdict of death for Him. With
great suffering the Lord gave up His spirit at three o‘clock in the afternoon. Joseph
of Arimathea took His body from the cross before six o‘clock in the evening so as to
preserve it for cleaning after the Sabbath Day.

REFLECT: Treachery hurts twice. The person who was once your friend has turned
his back against you. Not only that, he or she allies with your enemies to bring you
down. Meantime, he or she is trusted and privy to your plans. He or she enjoys your
confidence. And when the treachery is unmasked, you remember the good times
you spent with the traitor. And it hurts deeply because you genuinely enjoyed those
moments with him or her. So why do we betray? Why could our love turn sour? It’s
probably because they have what we don’t have. We desire it as strongly as they
did but we don’t have the necessary competency, connections or luck to get it.
This scarcity of resource that many desires creates sadness and disappointment to
those who cannot get it. And friendship or any form of relationship are areas where
betrayal happens. It would hurt less if the person who does you harm is not a dear
acquaintance. Sometimes, because of familiarity, we take over our friend’s dream.
We direct the actions to be done and when they don’t follow, we destroy them with
betrayal. What Judas has in mind, we will never know. But what happened between
him and Jesus tells us that even the best of relationship is not exempt from betrayal.

RESPOND: How many times have we betrayed, and how many times have we been
betrayed? Perhaps it is a good day to see the anatomy of our betraying others so we
will know what prompts us to do that. And let us see in what area of life have we been
betrayed to know what adjustments we can make in our friendship so as to minimize
if not avoid possibilities of betrayal completely. With knowing comes clarity of action.

© Copyright Bible Diary 2021