The Crowning with Thorns

A meditation

Stand in the crowd. That is the honest place to stand — down in the square with the shouting, not up on the step. Look at the faces around you: mouths open, fingers pointing, a man with a rope in his hands already, soldiers with their halberds up. There is a banner over your head with the word on it, and everyone is saying the word.

Now look up at the doorway. The governor stands there in fur and gold, pointing at his prisoner, holding out a little scroll — *here is the man* — as though that settled anything. He is trying to give him back. He would like this to be over.

And beside him, the man. Crown of thorns. Hands tied. A rope around his neck, held by someone behind him with a stick. He is looking down. He is smaller than everyone on the step and quieter than everyone in the square, and he has not said one word in his own defence.

That is what courage looks like here — not the shouting, and not the governor's pointing finger, but the silence. He could have argued. He could have explained. He stood in a doorway and let the crowd decide, because he had already decided, in a garden, the night before.

Feel the crowd pushing at your back. It is easy to shout with them; it is easy to say nothing at all. Look at him instead. Then say, to yourself, in the square, quietly: *I know who he is.* That is the courage he asks for — not to win the crowd. Only not to join it.