Matthew under the arm 132
The sky was clear and the air crisp with cold as we eventually reached the bottom of a range of hills above another of those hidden towns. Columba loves this weather. ‘You can see as if into eternity’. I mocked his sentimentality. We walked by a passage-way and heard a commotion. There was a woman hitting her drunken son with a stick. He was a pathetic sight. He deserved what he got. Was I enjoying his thrashing? I turned as if to leave them. Columba held me by the shoulders and turned me to face the couple. ‘Look into their faces as if you were looking into eternity. Our stillness caught the eye of the woman, who broke down in tears at the tragedy of their poverty.
Matthew 27:11-26
Jesus doesn’t even attempt to defend himself. One can sense Pilate’s and the religious leaders’ frustration. The ‘notorious prisoner, Barrabas, may have been a Robin Hood figure or a psychopathic killer on the other. Some have suggested that he might have been some liberation fighter. The admiration for him in the crowd is not that surprising. We have that strange propensity to admire such personalities. The movie industry thrives on them. Pilate’s wife, like a Lady Macbeth, is desperate to remove Jesus away from the trial and from execution. Somehow, she feels exposed in front of him, just as Herod’s wife felt exposed in the presence of John the Baptist.
THAT YOU MAY TURN MY HEART TO STILLNESS, LIGHT AND TRUTH.
In this exercise, imagine yourself to be there in the crowd….some anonymous figure. You are watching, hardly able to admit that you are enjoying the thrill of someone else’s inevitable suffering. You watch the politicians squirm and the religious leaders sweat at the seeming calm of Jesus. The thrill…such a mess! Gradually, you are startled at your own destructive desires and you long for that ‘skill’ in Jesus to remain still in the face of all those self-obsessed psyches. But try imagining yourself as Pilate’s wife: the anxiety; the alarm at what you see as inevitable from this show-trial. Then be Pilate’s wife: ‘What is it that I long to wash my hands free from...’? Write down in your journal your responses to this exercise and use your writing as a prayer, accompanying it with the sentence.
+Martin
Bishop of Argyll and The Isles
Matthew 27:11-26
Jesus doesn’t even attempt to defend himself. One can sense Pilate’s and the religious leaders’ frustration. The ‘notorious prisoner, Barrabas, may have been a Robin Hood figure or a psychopathic killer on the other. Some have suggested that he might have been some liberation fighter. The admiration for him in the crowd is not that surprising. We have that strange propensity to admire such personalities. The movie industry thrives on them. Pilate’s wife, like a Lady Macbeth, is desperate to remove Jesus away from the trial and from execution. Somehow, she feels exposed in front of him, just as Herod’s wife felt exposed in the presence of John the Baptist.
THAT YOU MAY TURN MY HEART TO STILLNESS, LIGHT AND TRUTH.
In this exercise, imagine yourself to be there in the crowd….some anonymous figure. You are watching, hardly able to admit that you are enjoying the thrill of someone else’s inevitable suffering. You watch the politicians squirm and the religious leaders sweat at the seeming calm of Jesus. The thrill…such a mess! Gradually, you are startled at your own destructive desires and you long for that ‘skill’ in Jesus to remain still in the face of all those self-obsessed psyches. But try imagining yourself as Pilate’s wife: the anxiety; the alarm at what you see as inevitable from this show-trial. Then be Pilate’s wife: ‘What is it that I long to wash my hands free from...’? Write down in your journal your responses to this exercise and use your writing as a prayer, accompanying it with the sentence.
+Martin
Bishop of Argyll and The Isles
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