“And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.” [Mark 10:18-19].

Two thoughts came to mind reflecting on today’s great significance as Jesus enters his passion.

The first is;

[1] Jesus could have walked away, he didn’t have to kill a bunch of people to escape his military capture and imminent torture and death, he had the power to simply hold up his hand and say, “I’m out of here!”

He didn’t.

Although facing a torture unlike anything imaginable and being able to envision what he was about to endure. He embraced it anyways…for love of us.

[2] The second thought is just how agonizing that passion was, and what a relief His death must finally have been for Him.

I hit my finger with a hammer and become a two year old for the next two or three minutes completely controlled by the pain in the end of one finger.

What we see depicted in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” is not an exaggeration, but actually – regarding the scourging at the pillar at least – is probably tamed down.

That, at least what you get from the secular historical records within the Roman Empire. They made an ‘event’ out of a scourging.

The trick was to bring a person to the point of death without having them actually die, so they would have to endure all that suffering while hanging on a cross.

But that’s not the second thought that dominated my thinking this morning, but HOW LONG that suffering must have been, as they mocked and dragged out the time for their entertainment.

I don’t know how it is that I always told this story in my head as if what happened between his being taken to Pilate, and the time he was escorted to Calvary, was a brief period of time, perhaps an hour or so…that’s all that amount of ‘stuff’ seemed to take for me I guess as my mind moved on with the “more important” part of the story..

In my head the story was that they bound Jesus, brought him to Pilot, where he had a brief conversation with him, then Pilate tried briefly to convince the Jewish mob that Jesus wasn’t deserving of crucifixion, but soon gave in, had Jesus scourged, crowned with thorns and mocked, after which Jesus was sent off to Calvary, nailed to a cross, and hung high until he died.

When this passage came into my mind this morning, what flashed as a vision and stopped me cold, was a clear contrast between my two minutes with my finger, and Jesus in full-body agony for what was probably 6 or 7 hours of enduring torture, then living with the effects of all that torture, between dawn and the time they took him to Calvary, which was apparently around noon.

It’s a LONG time between dawn and high noon!

“WHEN MORNING CAME, all the chief priests and elders of the people plotted against Jesus to put Him to death. And when they had bound Him, they led Him away and delivered Him to Pontius Pilate the governor.”

JESUS: God alone is good”.

THOMAS[to Jesus after His Resurrection] :”My Lord and my GOD!”