Humanity and Hope

'Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene' John 19:25

There were, of course, many spectators present for the crucifixion. Public executions have always played to full houses. Among those who watched Jesus die were his avowed enemies, the temple faction, and the gawping crowd of onlookers; the party of Roman soldiers who carried out the grim task, and a little group of friends and disciples. This group included the mother of Jesus, her sister, another Mary, ‘wife of Clopas’, Mary Magdalene and the ‘beloved disciple’, John. Luke tells us that other women disciples were there, too, though most of the male followers of Jesus had fled. The Gospels depict a scene of wailing, darkness and dereliction, ‘the sun’s light failing’.

Yet even in this scene of human despair – and one can only try to imagine how Mary felt watching her son slowly and cruelly put to death – there are wonderful rays of humanity and hope. From the cross, Jesus makes arrangements for his mother’s future care. John was to take her into his household. There are words of forgiveness both for the execution party (‘Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing’) and for the penitent thief. And the centurion in charge of the soldiers, impressed with the way in which Jesus died, says, ‘Truly this was God’s Son!’ Even the crowd, the people who had merely come to watch, went away, Luke tells us, ‘beating their breasts’.

Finally, in act of remarkable courage, Joseph of Arimathea, ‘a member of the council’, went to Pilate and begged for the body of Jesus, which he laid in a new, rock-hewn tomb. ‘The Passion of the Christ’ was over. All that remained was the final victory over death itself.